A shift that might be worth noticing in Phaedrus is that from persistent talk of what is likely in the first part, to an emphasis on what we can say for certain in the second. It perhaps suggests an (attempted?) ascent of the divided line, away from mere impressions and probabilities and toward knowledge with Parmenidean traits (changeless, eternal), and it mirrors the shift from persuasive speeches and myth-making to the more systematic discourse on rhetoric.
Straightforward as that may seem on the surface, it generates some ironic questions if Plato's character Socrates maintains his traditional aporetic stance -- can he possibly exemplify the true rhetorician, who knows whereof he speaks?
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Plato's Socrates, throughout the Phaedrus, invokes religious and mystical sources/inspirations for some of the ideas/content in the dialetical speeches. Plato's theory of recollection is suggested in several instances, as in (St. 235d) where he speaks of knowledge poured into him as a vessel; yet this claim may be ironic, or potentially ambiguous, as he does not disclose a distinct definition, or identification of an "external source", suggesting perhaps that it may or may not exist, or the origins may be less mysterious than intimated-and possibly arise from a more immediate source. At (St.236b, is Socrates luring, drawing out, Phaedrus into a rhetorical game of wits designed to determine what precise value Phaedrus places on Socrates 'wisdom'? Is Plato suggesting (St. 245 d,c)that things, in this case souls, cannot become opposites: as when an immortal soul causes life and therefore cannot cause its oposite, death. If the "self-mover" ceases motion, becomes static, does it "cease to live" or change form?
At 245D, I take Plato to mean that the soul cannot cease to exist (move) because it is self-moving, and ever-moving, and partakes of the nature of the source from which all existence begins/moves. If it were to not exist, nothing would exist. And it would follow, for the soul to be/or become the opposite, not only would it cease to exist, but again, so would everything else. To even conceive of such a thing is to say the soul (or the source) never existed/moved at all (because the opposite is contrary to its nature).
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