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January 2020 Vol. 57 No. 5

Lier's area of study is political science, and his main thesis in this book is that in Phaedrus Plato attempts to exonerate rhetoric as a kind of science—a claim Plato has Socrates vigorously attack in other dialogues (including particularly the Gorgias). Knowledgeable readers will not be surprised that this thesis is shaped by the very important provisos that such a science of rhetoric would have to be informed by philosophy and would have to be adaptable to the different psychologies of different audiences. The reader will need to strain to find originality and controversy here: Lier's engagements with other scholarly works on the dialogue are found only in the briefest of mentions in the notes—which either the author or the publisher decided to render as end notes, assuring that most readers will not read them. The book includes a brief and not especially substantive introduction, a chapter on the character of Phaedrus, and four chapters on the different parts of the dialogue itself. The bibliography is admirably extensive, but the book would have benefited from better copyediting. 

--N. D. Smith, Lewis & Clark College

Summing Up: Not recommended