Plato and Rhetoric 427-346 BC (81yrs.)

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Plato and Rhetoric427-346 BC (81yrs.)

• Life
• son of wealthy influential Athenian parents
• began his philosophical career as a student of
  Socrates
• when Socrates died, Plato traveled to Egypt and
  Italy, studied with students of Pythagoras, and
  spent several years advising the ruling family of
  Syracuse.
• Eventually, returned to Athens established his
  own school of philosophy at the Academy.

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Plato

• For students, Plato tried to pass on the heritage
  of a Socratic style of thinking
• The written dialogues on which his enduring
  reputation rests also serve both of these aims.
• Primary Focus Attack Sophists

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Plato on Rhetoric

• Three works on Rhetoric
• The Apology (were not reading)
• The Gorgias--attack on Sophistic practice of
  rhetoric
• The Phaedrus--development of a true rhetoric

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The Gorgias (385 BC)

• An early work
• Major ideas implied or stated
• Dialectic nature of truth remembered in
  dialogue among experts
• Rhetoric is pre-selected communication in order
  to defend opinions

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The GorgiasAttacking Rhetoric

• Three rounds of speeches
• First round Gorgias and Socrates
• Rhetorics nature and uses
• Definition--is rhetoric a true art?
• Second round Polus and Socrates
• Rhetoric is just a knack for creating persuasive
  speeches that lack foundation in justice/truth
• Third round Challicles and Socrates
• Pursuit of power without knowledge of justice
  perpetuates injustice

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The GorgiasContinued

• Topics
• What is the nature of rhetoric?
• Does rhetoric by its very nature tend to mislead?
• What happens to a society when persuasion is a
  basis for law and justice?
• Theme
• The basis of justice
• Doxa (mere public opinion) vs Episteme (true
  knowledge)

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Socrates/Plato GorgiasRound One

• Socrates/Plato What is the art or techne
  (knowledge) rhetoric offers? (a question)
• Gorgias Rhetoric is concerned with words,
  persuasive words.
• Socrates/Plato Not a definition, because all
  disciplines use persuasion.
• Episteme (true knowledge) vs pistis (mere
  opinion).

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Socrates/Plato GorgiasRound One Continued

• Justice involves episteme. Justice is a lofty,
  time consuming topic. Public is ignorant.
• The rhetorician, then, is not a teacher of law
  courts and other public gatherings as to what is
  right or wrong, but merely a creator of beliefs
  for evidently he could never instruct so large a
  gathering in so short a time.

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Socrates/Plato PolusRound Two

• Socrates vs Polus (the colt)
• Polus Rhetoric is the greatest power in the
  country.
• Plato Comparisons
• The arts vs sham arts

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Socrates/Plato PolusRound Two True and Sham
Arts

• The Arts of Health
• Body
  Soul
• Maintain gymnastics legislation
• Restore medicine justice
• The Sham Arts of Health
• Body
  Soul
• Maintain make-up sophistic
• Restore cookery rhetoric

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Socrates/Plato CalliclesRound Three

• Callicles Natural Justice or the rule of the
  intelligent over the baser.
• Machiavellian approach to power--gained without
  pursuit of or attention to justice.

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Major Claims in Gorgias

• Sophistic rhetoric is misleading--designed to
  convince audience theyre dealing with truth when
  theyre really perpetuating opinion
• Rejection of transient notion of truth (time,
  justice and juries)
• rhetoric seeks persuasion while philosophy seeks
  truth

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The Phaedrus (367 BC)

• Twenty years after the Gorgias
• deals with the "nature (phusis)" of the soul
• Three Major Parts separated by interludes

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The Phaedrus Continued

• Content Socrates in conversation with a young
  sophist student
• Intellectually and physically attractive
• Love divine madness a trance entered by
  poets
• The Soul has three parts

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The Phaedrus Continued

• A techne of rhetoric
• A true or just rhetoric

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Phaedrus Con

• Part One
• The soulless speeches Lysias' speech and
  Socrates' 1st speech
• The definition of love
• Its effects on the beloved

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Phaedrus Con

• Part Two
• Socrates' Second Speech The speech on the soul
• nature of the soul and behavior "in heaven
• 1.1. The soul as principle and the image of the
  winged chariot
• 1.2. Divine souls and their journey toward "what
  really is
• 1.3. Human souls and their wandering within bodies

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Part Two con

• Socrates' Second Speech The speech on the soul
• idea of beauty and its effects on embodied human
  souls
• 2.1. Role of "ideas" in human life and privilege
  of beauty
• 2.2. Effects of beauty on man's soul
• 2.3. Consequences depending on which god the soul
  followed

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Part Two con

• Socrates' Second Speech The speech on the soul
• behavior of loving and loved souls here on earth
• 3.1. Behavior of the lover
• 3.2. Behavior of the loved one
• 3.3. Styles of life that may result and
  conclusion regarding Lysias

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The Phaedrus the Soul

• The three parts (Charioteer)
• Loves wisdom
• Loves nobility and honor
• Loves appetite or lusts

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Phaedrus Part Three

• Socrates' Third Speech Dialogue on Rhetoric
• From false rhetoric to true dialectic
• The dialectician and the rhetorician
• From false dialectic to true rhetoric

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The Phaedrus Rhetoric

• Rhetoric therefore is the art of influencing
  souls
• Psychagogia leading souls
• Know the truth first
• Adapting to audiences soul is the art of
  rhetoric--soul of love, soul of honor, soul of
  lust
• Justice is realized when the lower submits to
  lover of wisdom.

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The Phaedrus (Comments/Criticisms)

• The relationship of rhetoric to truth
• discover? or propagate? (mere advocacy)
• Create the truth?
• Rhetoric and Dialectic both can produce evil
• Listen for soul--Remembering?
• Is this tradition or God?

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The Phaedrus (Comments/Criticisms)

• Kennedy p. 58 Platos is an impractical
  rhetoric, . . . How can we know everyone's soul?
• Yet, we can know our soul that which is most
  personal is also most general
• Plato starts with ontology or being, thus soul
  talk is remembering or recalling (reincarnation)