Week 2 (MT 2026), 22 October

Alex Long (University of St Andrews): 'Platonic protreptic and the unity of the Phaedrus' 

Chair: Ibrahim Safri

Abstract: Plato’s Phaedrus is widely regarded as the first expression in the Greek and Roman traditions of the view that literary compositions should possess organic unity. But it is an apparently disjointed work, and the question of its own unity is a long-standing puzzle. The paper argues that there is a function shared by each part of the dialogue: illustrating and defending an indirect approach to protreptic, where the protreptic is left unannounced and exploits the other person’s pre-existing interests. The dialogue thus defends the distinctive approach to protreptic taken in Plato’s dialogues more generally.