Plato’s Socrates asks questions that make both Phaedrus and the reader think deeper into who they are and what they are about. Plato allows the student in Phaedrus and the audience to question the soul and what love is to a person. In section 237b the boy’s crafty lover makes him believe that he doesn’t love him, then says “there is only one way, dear boy” (Plato, Phaedrus, section 237b). In this the lover, who loves the boy just as any of the boy’s other lovers do, makes the boy believe the contrary. In this the lover transforms what love is to the boy. In the boy’s perception the lover doesn’t love him, yet in reality the lover does love him very much. The lover’s craftiness comes into play when he “tried to persuade him of this very thing, that favors ought to be granted rather to the non-lover than to the lover”, which makes the boy in turn move his affections toward the crafty lover. If love is this manipulative, is it still love? Plato sets the stage for his audience to question that very thing.
Plato’s Socrates states “every soul is immortal” (Plato, Phaedrus, section 245c). This incorporates the idea that if love is of the soul, then love is immortal as well. In section 237b, Plato is making the reader wonder about the nature of love and whether such a fierce outpouring of self towards another is immortal, and then he brings this wondering question to fulfillment by saying that the soul is immortal (Plato, Phaedrus, section 237b). In this manner Plato plays off of the basic human assumption that love springs from the deep of the soul, and states that both are then considered immortal through their connection. Plato states “to tell what it really is would be a matter for utterly superhuman and long discourse, but it is within human power to describe it briefly in a figure” (Plato, Phaedrus, section 246a). Through this he is stating that describing what the soul is would be impossible but it is easier to make a vague general metaphor as to what it could be. This holds true for love as well. Plato in this way could be arguing that love is an offshoot of the soul, for both are immortal, beyond human comprehension, and are of a divine nature.
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If the soul is immortal and is an essential part of every human being, then the knowledge and wisdom necessary to inquire into the very nature of self and the definition of reality should lie within each of us. By the very act of living we join into communion with others who think as such, which Plato shows through “on the advice of your friend and mine, Acumenus, I am taking my walk on the roads; for he says they are less fatiguing” (Plato, Phaedrus, section 227a). The roads here could be taken as Plato’s teaching of following thoughts that have been though before you in order to obtain your own original ideas, which he represents through the character of Phaedrus in order to learn more about the nature of thought. The power of the immortal soul casts the very nature of questioning into a whole new direction. This is also true for love. Plato deliberates that love is made because of the soul’s perception and how in craftiness humanity can turn love to do its bidding. Does this necessarily make love evil? In this way it would be argued in the contrary.
Since the soul is immortal and “we will liken the soul to the composite nature of a pair of winged horses and a charioteer” (Plato, Phaedrus, section 246a), then the soul should have the same qualities as the winged horses and a charioteer. “Now the horses and charioteers of the gods are all good” (Plato, Phaedrus, section 246a). So in this manner the soul must therefore be good as well.
Continuing in this train of thought, if the soul is therefore good and love is of the soul, than no matter if love is manipulated by humans its essence remains wholly good. But is all emotion of the soul? Desire is an offspring of love and therefore is still of the soul. Is desire good? Desire in itself is the pure flame from which love is cast as iron is in a forge. But when desires cloud judgement and create delusion as to the nature of reality then that is when desire is corrupted by man. It as an offshoot of love does not hold the same crystalline pure nature of love as seen through the soul. Desire is the struggle for love and not-love. The soul remains pure as does love but desire hinges on human behavior.
