Eros, Wisdom and Silence : Plato's Erotic Dialogues

A close reading of Plato's Seventh Letter and his dialogues ""Symposium"" and ""Phaedrus"", this work was conceived as a conversation and is intended to be read side by side Plato's works and those of his interlocutors. It invites readers to take part in the author's dialogues with Plato. Rhodes addresses two closely related questions: what does Plato mean when he says in the Seventh Letter that he never has written and never will write anything concerning that about which he is serious?; and what does Socrates mean when he claims to have an art of eros and that this techne is the only thing he knows? Through careful analysis, Rhodes establishes answers to these questions. He determines that Plato cannot write anything concerning that about which he is serious because his most profound knowledge consists of his soul's silent vision of ultimate, transcendent reality, which is ineffable. Rhodes asserts that Leo Strauss and his students are wrong to say that Plato is an esoteric writer who keeps secrets from and deliberately dupes the many. For Socrates, Rhodes shows, eros is a symbol for the soul's experience of divine reality, which pulls every element of human nature toward its proper end, but which also leads people to evil and tyranny when human resistance causes it to become diseased.