Plato: Rhetoric

A brief overview of Classical Athenian views of persuasion.

This paper focuses on a neglected portion of Plato’s Gorgias from 506c to 513d during Socrates’s discussion with Callicles. I claim that Callicles adopts the view that virtue lies in self-preservation in this part of the dialogue. Such a position allows him to assert the value of rhetoric in civic life by appealing not to the goodness of acting unjustly with impunity, but to the badness of suffering unjustly without remedy. On this view, the benefits of the life of rhetoric (...) depend on the idea that virtue consists in the power to protect oneself from the predations of others. I argue that by challenging this understanding of virtue as self-preservation, Socrates both deprives Callicles of any remaining justification for the rhetorical life in the Gorgias and, at the same time, makes room for his own defense of the life of philosophy. (shrink)

Libro colectivo que aborda desde diferentes perspectivas la original cuestión de los usos del humor presentes en los diálogos platónicos. -/- La seriedad que ha dominado la lectura de la obra de Platón está estrechamente unida al temprano protagonismo que adquirió la interpretación neoplatónica de la obra del filósofo. El olvido de los aspectos dramáticos de su obra condicionó con frecuencia la recta comprensión de los diálogos. Sin embargo, en la obra de Platón, además de la ironía socrática, encontramos bromas, (...) juegos de palabras, imitaciones paródicas, chascarrillos, burlas y comedia de situaciones, es decir, un extenso y variado repertorio de recursos cómicos puestos al servicio de la eficaz transmisión de contenidos serios. Con la intención de comprender mejor el uso de los recursos humorísticos en la obra de Platón, presentamos este volumen en el que veintiséis autores abordan numerosos aspectos de la cuestión. (shrink)

The Sophist, with its ostensible goal of locating and defining the sophist, is among the Platonic dialogues often read by rhetoricians. Plato’s Timaeus, less so. This has been an oversight because the Timaeus provides a metaphysical explanation for Plato’s anxieties about sophistry and rhetoric. When read together, the Sophist and Timaeus warn of the dangers of sophistry, though they do so in contrasting ways. The Sophist directs us to the external world while the Timaeus directs us inward toward an eternal, (...) unchanging reality. We learn from the Timaeus that sophistry causes both corporeal and metaphysical wandering, a type of motion which runs counter to that of the natural order of the universe and which Plato associates with opportunism and instability. He contrasts wandering with the circular motion associated with philosophical steadfastness. Reading these dialogues in tandem reveals a set of overlapping dichotomies which connect the Timaeus to other dialogues in which Plato addresses sophistry and rhetoric. (shrink)

Does a τέχνη, qua τέχνη, need to be good-directed? On the basis of the Gorgias, many scholars have thought the answer is yes; I argue here to the contrary. There are, of course, many beneficial τέχναι, such as medicine and weaving; and there are even unconditionally good τέχναι, like the πολιτικὴ τέχνη; but Plato also happily construes piracy as a τέχνη in the Sophist, and, more normally, all sorts of neutral practices as τέχναι. In order to make this argument, I (...) provide a taxonomy of the different kinds of τέχναι and demonstrate that, across the corpus, there does not seem to be a good-directedness requirement. I then address the evidence of the Gorgias, where most commentators find a connection between τέχνη and good-directedness. I argue that this interpretation is incorrect, and that rhetoric in fact fails to be a τέχνη in the Gorgias solely because it is unable to give a rational account. A close reading of the Gorgias shows that this is a plausible interpretation, and comparison with the Phaedrus reinforces the point: in both dialogues, whether rhetoric will be a τέχνη or not hinges only on the question of rationality, not a good-directedness condition. (shrink)

Plato was the first philosopher in the Western tradition to reflect systematically on rhetoric. In this book, Tushar Irani presents a comprehensive and innovative reading of the Gorgias and the Phaedrus, the only two Platonic dialogues to focus on what an art of argument should look like, treating each of the texts individually, yet ultimately demonstrating how each can best be understood in light of the other. For Plato, the way in which we approach argument typically reveals something about our (...) deeper desires and motivations, particularly with respect to other people, and so the key to understanding his views on the proper practice of argument lies in his understanding of human psychology. According to this reading, rhetoric done well is simply the practice of philosophy, the pursuit of which has far-reaching implications for how we should relate to others and how we ought to live. (shrink)

This paper concerns the role of examples (paradeigmata) as propaedeutic to philosophical inquiry, in light of the methodological digression of Plato’s Statesman. Consistent with scholarship on Aristotle’s view of example, scholars of Plato’s work have privileged the logic of example over their rhetorical appeal to the soul of the learner. Following a small but significant trend in recent rhetorical scholarship that emphasizes the affective nature of examples, this essay assesses the psychagogic potential of paradeigmata, following the discussion of example in (...) Plato’s Statesman. I argue that, by creating an expectation for finding similarities, the use of examples in philosophical pedagogy cultivates in the soul of the learner a desire to discern the intelligible principles the ground experiential knowledge. Thus, examples not only serve as practice at the dialectician’s method of abstraction, but also cultivate a dialectical ethos, characterized by the desire to know the logoi of all things. (shrink)

In both the Phaedrus and Statesman dialogues, the dialectician's method of division is likened to the butchery of sacrificial animals. Interpreting the significance of this metaphor by analyzing ancient Greek sacrificial practice, this essay argues that, despite the ubiquity of the method of division in these later dialogues, Plato is there stressing the logical priority of the method of collection, division's dialectical twin. Although Plato prioritizes the method of collection, the author further argues that, through a kind of 'domestication' of (...) natural kinds, collection renders natural kinds knowable only by constructing them as implicitly divisible. As a result, the method of collection reflects not the wholeness of being but a constructed unity, the internal multiplicity of which makes possible each subsequent division. (shrink)

You, who call yourself a rhetorician, what is your art? With what particular thing is your skill concerned? Weaving is concerned with fabricating fabrics, music with making melodies; rhetorician, with what is your know-how concerned? This is the question that Socrates poses to Gorgias in Plato's notorious refutation of rhetoric: "Peri tēs rhētorikēs, peri ti tōn ontōn estin epistēmē?" (1925, 268). Socrates' question frames rhetoric in the genitive case—which, in this case, specifies the source or origin of one thing from (...) another. To ask of rhetoric "peri ti tōn ontōn?" is to ask from whence rhetoric comes, from where rhetoric originates, from what rhetoric is generated. So Socrates' question—"peri ti tōn .. (shrink)

In this essay I trace the terms empeiria and tribē throughout the Platonic corpus in order to expose their central position within Plato’s critique of the sophists and rhetoricians. I find that these two terms—both of which indicate a knack or habitude that has been developed through experiential familiarity with certain causal tendencies—are regularly deployed in order to account for the effectiveness of these speakers even in the absence of a technē; for, what Plato identifies with these terms is the (...) sophists’ and rhetoricians’ near masterful familiarity with and ability to manipulate the doxa and the dogma of the many, hoi poloi. (shrink)

This paper explores in detail Gorgias' defense of rhetoric in Plato 's Gorgias, noting its connections to earlier and later texts such as Aristophanes' Clouds, Gorgias' Helen, Isocrates' Nicocles and Antidosis, and Aristotle's Rhetoric. The defense as Plato presents it is transparently inadequate; it reveals a deep inconsistency in Gorgias' conception of rhetoric and functions as a satirical precursor to his refutation by Socrates. Yet Gorgias' defense is appropriated, in a streamlined form, by later defenders of rhetoric such as Isocrates (...) and Aristotle. They present it as an effective reductio against a critique of rhetoric that depends on the "harm criterion." This is puzzling, since Plato 's own critique of rhetoric does not depend on the harm criterion. On the other hand, Plato does seem to embrace the harm criterion as a more general principle—as if pre-emptively embracing the reductio —in his arguments about the good in the Meno and Euthydemus. Nonetheless, Isocrates and Aristotle seem to be deliberately misreading Plato on rhetoric: where he intends to criticize its intrinsic nature, they respond as if he were merely complaining about its contingent effects. (shrink)

In this paper I try to solve some problems concerning the interpretation of Socrates' conversation with Gorgias about the nature of rhetoric in Plato's Gorgias (448e6-461b2). I begin by clarifying what, ethically, is at stake in the conversation (section 2). In the main body of the paper (sections 3-6) I address the question of what we are to understand Gorgias as believing about the nature of rhetoric: I criticise accounts given by Charles Kahn and John Cooper, and suggest an alternative (...) account of my own. In the final section I spell out some of the implications of my account for the interpretation of the Gorgias, and of Plato more generally. (shrink)

Review of Christopher Rowe, Plato and the Art of Philosophical Writing, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2007.

In Gorgias, Socrates stands accused of argumentative "foul play" involving manipulation by shame. Polus says that Socrates wins the fight with Gorgias by shaming him into the admission that "a rhetorician knows what is right . . . and would teach this to his pupils" . And later, when Polus himself has been "tied up" and "muzzled" , Callicles says that he was refuted only because he was ashamed to reveal his true convictions. These allegations, if justified, directly undermine Socrates' (...) claim to be improving his interlocutors by argument. For if Socrates' use of shame tends to produce insincere assertion, then elenchus cannot serve as a tool for moral reform. In an important recent paper, Jessica Moss presents a new apologia for Socrates on these old charges. According to Moss, although Socrates adopts a strategy of shaming rather than reasoning his interlocutors into agreement, this is legitimate because his appeals to shame function as appeals to a moral sense, which connect a person to his own "deep" convictions. Moreover, she claims that shame "can be a more effective tool of persuasion than reason," for it is capable, where reason is not, of dislodging a person's "intuitive" moral beliefs. This essay argues that each of these points is mistaken. (shrink)

This article undertakes to examine the reception of Platonic theories of falsification in the contemporary philosophy of Leo Strauss and his adherents. The aim of the article is to consider the Straussian response to, and interaction with, Platonic ideas concerning deception and persuasion with an emphasis on the arguments found in the Laws. The theme of central interest in this analysis is Plato's development of paramyth in the Laws. Paramyth entails the use of rhetorical language in order to persuade the (...) many that it is to their advantage to obey certain laws. It does so without explaining in detail why a given law is ethically correct and its use assumes that the audience, on the whole, is not capable of understanding the finer philosophical underpinnings of the law. The so-called 'noble lie' of the Republic is also considered in this context. The crucial issue, for Plato if not for Strauss, is whether or not an instance of falsification, however minor, for the purposes of persuasion contains 'truth-value', that is, whether it is morally justifiable in terms of ends and means. In terms of Strauss's reception of Plato, such issues as ancient Hebrew mysticism, Medieval Jewish and Islamic scholarship and Heideggerian Phenomenology figure in the argument. Ultimately, the article finds that Strauss and his followers have constructed a particular view of Platonic ideas that, while unique, is not compatible with their original signification. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Plato on the Rhetoric of Philosophers and SophistsMichael SvobodaPlato on the Rhetoric of Philosophers and Sophists by Marina McCoy New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008. vii + 212 pp. $74.00, hardcover.With her new book, Marina McCoy, an assistant professor of philosophy at Boston College, succeeds in opening up new lines of inquiry into Plato’s formative engagement(s) with rhetoric: first, by involving other Platonic dialogues in the ongoing interrogations (...) of the Gorgias and Phaedrus and, second, by patiently considering the implications of the different accounts of sophists and philosophers that result. These new investigations are aided by the diverse disciplinary voices with which Marina McCoy herself converses—works by classicists, critics, philosophers, political theorists, and rhetoricians, works taken from a wide range of journals. In her interpretation of the Gorgias, for example, one encounters the names one would expect from a thorough and up-to-date review of these different literatures: Arieti, Dodds, Fussi, Gordon, McComiskey, Nightingale, Saxonhouse, and Yunis. Thus, Plato scholars from both rhetoric and philosophy will find much of interest in this book.McCoy provides a clear overview of her project in her introduction (1–22). In separate readings of the Apology, Protagoras, Gorgias, Republic, Sophist and Theaetetus, and Phaedrus, three interrelated claims are presented and developed: first, consistently distinguishing the philosopher from the sophist was a difficult challenge for Plato—and for the ancient Athenians; second, Plato’s conception of philosophy includes “important rhetorical dimensions,” and third, Plato ultimately differentiates the philosopher [End Page 191] from the sophist on the basis of character (3). To substantiate these claims, the dramatic and historical elements of Plato’s dialogues are interpreted in tandem with their explicit arguments. McCoy notes that the experience of reading the dialogues often reproduces the psychological tensions captured by them. In other words, Plato uses rhetorical techniques to cause his readers both to question philosophy and to engage in it as they do so (7). At the same time, McCoy recognizes that the terms of these discussions were hotly contested: “The Greek mindset at the time of Plato is one of passionate interest in the nature, power, and danger of logos : terms such as philosophia, rhetorike, sophist, and rhetor become part of the weaponry in the battle” (11). By attending to these elements in the seven dialogues examined in the following six chapters, McCoy seeks to show that philosophy is better defined as an interaction of souls than as a collection of analytical techniques, that the approach of Plato’s Socrates “relies more on phronesis and kairos than techne ” (15).These broad claims are immediately tested in the second chapter of the book, “Elements of Gorgianic Rhetoric and the Forensic Genre in Plato’s Apology ” (23–55). Here McCoy further develops two observations about the Apology. First, Socrates’ claims to the contrary, the Apology actually incorporates a number of elements common in forensic speeches at the time of his trial: a standard speech structure, arguments from probability ( eike ), and portrayal of character ( ethopoioa ) (26, 40). But perhaps more provocatively, second, in the Apology Plato seems to allude to Gorgias’ In Defense of Palamedes ; both speeches portray their speakers as public benefactors who cannot have committed the crimes of which they are accused but who nonetheless cannot defend themselves effectively under the conditions of their trial (32–39). When McCoy then calls our attention to the historical elements in the Apology —the life and death of Chaerophon, the role played in Athenian culture and politics by the oracle at Delphi, and the rules governing testimony—we must consider the possibility that Socrates may successfully be using rhetorical techniques, not to win his juror’s favor but to confuse and challenge them. Thrown off their moral balance, McCoy argues, his jurors might be led to question themselves. “Socrates’ risky choice to appeal to the oracle story forces each juror to make a choice: he must decide whether Socrates’ philosophical activity is a moral and even religious virtue” (51). In and through the Apology, Plato may be doing something very similar for his readers: “If Gorgias’ Encomium of Helen is a forensic piece disguised as [an] encomium, perhaps Plato’s Apology... (shrink)

Marina McCoy defends three interrelated claims about the topic mentioned in her title. First, the distinction between philosophy and rhetoric in the dialogues is not as clear as some commentators seem to think. Second, since philosophy as practiced by Socrates includes important rhetorical dimensions, there is no important methodological distinction between philosophy and rhetoric. Third, it is his virtues—and not any particular method—that differentiate Socrates the philosopher from sophists and rhetoricians. McCoy pursues different aspects of her theses through the Apology, (...) Protagoras, Gorgias, Republic, Sophist , and Phaedrus.Her approach coheres with that of a contemporary school of interpretation according to which a proper appreciation of the dramatic setting of each dialogue will show that the content of Socratic conversation is not meant to be a body of substantive philosophical doctrine. Rather, Socrates’ quarry is the souls of his interlocutors. McCoy’s contribution to this line of. (shrink)

This paper draws attention to the Symposium's concern with epideictic rhetoric. It argues that in the Symposium, as in the Gorgias and the Phaedrus, a contrast is drawn between true and false rhetoric. The paper also discusses the dialogue's relationship to drama. Whereas both epideictic rhetoric and drama were directed to a mass audience, the speeches in the Symposium are delivered to a small, select group. The discussion focuses on the style of the speeches delivered by Aristophanes, Agathon, Socrates and (...) Alcibiades. Aristophanes speaks in the simple style of comedy, fable and folktale, also used by Protagoras in Plato's Protagoras. Agathon speaks in the high-flown style of Gorgias. Socrates' speech is a miniature Platonic dialogue, and both Alcibiades' speech and Socrates' speech may be compared to satyr play. The paper concludes with a suggestion that the claim at 223D, that the same person should be able to write both comedy and tragedy, refers to style as well as subject-matter. (shrink)

The main objective of the paper is the analysis of the views of Plato’s Socrates on poetry and rhetoric in Ion and Gorgias. Its first part aims at an examination of the subjects of poetry and rhetoric. In the second part the author gives the definition of Plato’s methodical criteria of recognizing of a discipline as ... . In its the last part the paper tries to decide, whether poetry and rhetoric, according to the founder of the Academy, meet the (...) criteria for their acknowledgement as ... (shrink)

This paper revisits the scholarly controversy about the nature of persuasion in Plato's Laws. So far scholars have identified the nature of this persuasion in often conflicting ways, e.g. from 'lying propaganda' and 'enchantment' to 'sermon preaching' , or even as 'rational persuasion' . Rather than proposing yet another identification, this paper shows that the nature of the persuasion envisioned by the Athenian lawgiver becomes evident once the divergent scholarly views are brought together into one idea. The seed to this (...) reconciliation was contained in the debate all along but has not been sufficiently fore-grounded. A close examination makes evident why such persuasion appears to different readers to be of a vastly different nature. It employs, indeed, a variety of linguistic means geared towards a variety of different people at different times in their lives. (shrink)

Marina McCoy explores Plato's treatment of the rhetoric of philosophers and sophists through a thematic treatment of six different Platonic dialogues, including Apology, Protagoras, Gorgias, Republic, Sophist, and Phaedras. She argues that Plato presents the philosopher and the sophist as difficult to distinguish, insofar as both use rhetoric as part of their arguments. Plato does not present philosophy as rhetoric-free, but rather shows that rhetoric is an integral part of philosophy. However, the philosopher and the sophist are distinguished by the (...) philosopher's love of the forms as the ultimate objects of desire. It is this love of the forms that informs the philosopher's rhetoric, which he uses to lead his partner to better understand his deepest desires. McCoy's work is of interest to philosophers, classicists, and communications specialists alike in its careful yet comprehensive treatment of philosophy, sophistry, and rhetoric as portrayed through the drama of the dialogues. (shrink)

This absorbing study of Plato's criticism of poetry offers a new interpretation based upon central features of both the pre-Platonic conception of poetry and previously neglected features of Plato's various discussions of poetry and the poets. Professor Mitscherling's analysis is unique in that he concentrates on the philosophical significance of Plato's distinction between dramatic and nondramatic sorts of poetry. Mitscherling shows that this distinction proves in fact to be central to the conception of poetry that Plato consistently elaborates throughout his (...) dialogues. Mitscherling also makes a unique contribution by outlining a possible Platonic aesthetics, which draws on current work in phenomenology and hermeneutics in such a way as to promise an entirely new direction for current work in continental aesthetics. The author employs Gadamer's analyses of the ontology of the work of art, in conjunction with a phenomenological analysis of the aesthetic experience, in the construction of a foundation for aesthetics that is consistently Platonic. Mitscherling concludes with the hypothesis that Plato's criticism of poetry did not apply to poetry itself, nor was it directed to art in general or the educational system, or the Sophists. Rather, Plato was specifically against the techn? of mim'sis, that is, the technique of persuading by appearing to be what one is not, or by merely appearing to speak the truth. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Rhetoricians Identified:A Call to Interdisciplinary Action and How it Resonated in the Field of RhetoricChristine Isager and Sine Nørholm Just"I actually like this book a lot, but I am not sure how comfortable I am with liking it," wrote William Keith (1995, 488) in a review of the original 1993 edition of Steve Fuller's Philosophy, Rhetoric, and the End of Knowledge (PREK), in which rhetoric is invited to participate (...) in the interdisciplinary reconfiguration of Science and Technology Studies (STS). This hesitant enthusiasm aptly exemplifies how an interdisciplinary invitation is likely to make its addressees squirm as they watch their professional aims being defined and then redefined by a disciplinary outsider who points out a place for them in a novel disciplinary constellation. Moreover, and more specifically, Keith's comment exemplifies how PREK was received by rhetoricians. On the surface, the reviews were glowing. In Philosophy and Rhetoric as well as in Philosophy of the Social Sciences, Keith expressed certain doubts about Fuller's work, but still he described it as "important," "exceptional," "superb" (1996; 1995). In the Quarterly Journal of Speech, Kenneth S. Zagacki called PREK both "excellent" and "exciting" (1995), and he was backed by John Angus Campbell and Keith R. Benson a year later when the same journal included PREK in an omnibus review entitled "The Rhetorical Turn in Science Studies" (Campbell and Benson 1996). Like Alan Gross, who reviewed the book in College English together with a number of works on workplace writing (1994), Campbell and Benson placed PREK at the cutting edge of rhetorical theory.The initial excitement over PREK forms a sharp contrast to the quite negligible impact that the book has had on the field of rhetoric in the decade that has passed since it was first published. In this essay we will undertake a close reading of the book along with the five above-mentioned reviews, looking for an explanation of the peculiar fate that met Steve [End Page 248] Fuller's proposal in the rhetorical disciplinary context. Our conclusion is that on reading the book, rhetoricians felt so flattered by Fuller's confident handling of rhetoric that the task of introducing and applying rhetorical theory in STS seemed, on the whole, to have been done for them. Furthermore, Fuller's attempts to construct a rhetorical agency are subverted by his idiosyncratic, i.e., inimitable, professional approach, which is also reflected in his style of writing. At once presumptuous and colloquial, his rhetoric serves to impress and entertain, but it fails to engage his audience substantially and to enact the interpenetrative stance that was intended to be the hallmark of PREK and that continues to be the commendable chief concern of Steve Fuller and his fellow social epistemologists.Text-Intertext and IdentificationInterdisciplinary invitations or, rather, interdisciplinary inspirational works of science were originally described as a noteworthy rhetorical genre by Leah Ceccarelli (2001). Ceccarelli explores how claims to scientific unity have handled a primary constraint: their multiple audiences. Fuller explicitly positions PREK within the genre of interdisciplinary inspiration by asserting that "the success of this book... should be measured in terms of its ability to persuade philosophers, theoretical humanists and social scientists, STS practitioners, and rhetoricians of science to see each other as engaged in a common enterprise" (1993, xii-xiii). We will not, however, be examining PREK's ability to be strategically opaque (as Fuller puts it), polysemous(Ceccarelli's term), or otherwise adapted to address its multiple audiences. Instead, we focus solely on Fuller's address to rhetoricians and study how he identifies with this particular audience. Ceccarelli recognizes the importance of ethical appeal in interdisciplinary invitations by positing the establishment of both an authoritative and personal authorial persona as a generic criterion. We follow this lead and add a Burkean emphasis on identification.According to Kenneth Burke, identification is a prior condition for persuasion "precisely because there is division" (Burke 1969, 22). The speaker's success depends on his ability to imitate the ways of his audience and to create a common ground or perspective that makes collective action possible. Burke's work allows us to distinguish three rhetorical strategies of identification. The first strategy... (shrink)

In Plato’s Gorgias, Socrates argues that philosophy is superior to rhetoric in part because the former is a techne while the latter is not. I argue that the Socratic practice of philosophy within this dialogue fails to qualify as a techne for exactly the same reasons that rhetoric fails to qualify as a techne. In doing so, I introduce a new kind of Socratic ignorance: methodological ignorance. I reject both Charles Kahn’s account of the relationship between the dialogue’s dramatic and (...) philosophical contents, and Thomas Brickhouse and Nicholas Smith’s claim that Socrates never regarded his practice as a techne. (shrink)