I think the implication is that in the absence of relief or relation nothing is, but by being someone who (for others) defines things in relation to other things you can control the mind of that perso...
That's insightful because those are the kinds of power games we are swimming in. And it makes sense because Plato and company hated sophistry, which is what you call that game.
But I looked it up and what Plato actually wrote in Phaedrus was this, which he put into the mouth of Socrates.
"I am myself a lover of these divisions and collections, so that I may be able both to speak and to think; and if I find anyone else who I think has the natural capacity to look to one and to many, I pursue him ‘in his footsteps, behind him, as if he were a god’."
Which seem more like straightforward reverence for the skillful intelect, with implicit anti-sophistry. Later he says:
"First, you must perceive the nature of the thing you're discussing... Then, having grasped the single idea that unifies the many particulars (collection), you must next divide it... trying not to mangle any part, as a bad butcher might do."
But I looked it up and what Plato actually wrote in Phaedrus was this, which he put into the mouth of Socrates.
"I am myself a lover of these divisions and collections, so that I may be able both to speak and to think; and if I find anyone else who I think has the natural capacity to look to one and to many, I pursue him ‘in his footsteps, behind him, as if he were a god’."
Which seem more like straightforward reverence for the skillful intelect, with implicit anti-sophistry. Later he says:
"First, you must perceive the nature of the thing you're discussing... Then, having grasped the single idea that unifies the many particulars (collection), you must next divide it... trying not to mangle any part, as a bad butcher might do."
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