A Walk into Space-Timeless Philosophy

Abstract This article argues that Plato instrumentalizes the setting of the Phaedrus — conceptualized as a uniquely designed ‘chronotope’—to delineate his understanding of philosophy, and to intensify the dialogue’s intra- and extra-fictional pedagogical impact. The analysis especially of the prologue (227a1-230e5) shall show that (1) the walk out of town ( ἔξω τείχους ) symbolizes Phaedrus’ transgression from Sophistic rhetoric to Platonic philosophy; (2) the interlocutors’ interaction in and with their spatiotemporal environment throughout the prologue negotiates their reciprocal “teacher-student” relationship; (3) more specifically, Socrates’ stylization of the plane setting both establishes a proper epistemic method, and subjugates the investigation of external phenomena ( τὰ ἀλλότρια ) to the philosophical search for self-knowledge; (4) finally, the contextual inappropriateness of this stylization raises the question of where to situate the philosopher in their sociopolitical and cosmic context: they seem in many ways ἄτοπος , neither confined to any particular spatiotemporal environment nor interlocutor, simultaneously most out of place and universally at home.