Transcript Peithō on Trial: Aeschylus’ Oresteia

Democracy: Plausible
Paradox?
Modern Readings in Theory 1
Agenda
• Peithō on Trial
• Does Persuasion in the Oresteia get a Pass?
• discussion cont’d…
• Three “Lenses”
• Dahl, Ober, Scholtz
• “Lenses” on Persuasion
• A Critical Approach. . .
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Peithō on Trial
Does Persuasion in the Oresteia get a
Pass?
Three “Lenses”
Dahl, Ober, Scholtz
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Dahl’s “Processual” Model
• Strong equality
• Democratic process
1.
2.
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Agenda setting.
Decisive stage.
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“Criteria for a democratic process”
1. Effective participation
2. Voting equality at the decisive stage
3. Enlightened understanding
4. Control of agenda
Problems?. . .
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Ober’s “Dialectical” Model. . .
Operative antitheses
Ideological negotiations
•
•
•
•
• Rhetorical mediation
Mass/elite
Equality/inequality
Freedom/consensus
Popular
sovereignty/rule of
law
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– Topoi
• Elitism
• Ideology
– Popular hegemony
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Scholtz’s “Dialogical” Model
Speech acts
• Constatives v. performatives
• Social constraints
Dialogical democracy
• Response to response
• Social…
– evaluation
– performance
• Discursive…
CLYTEMNESTRA
“O give way (pithou, “obey”)! The
power is yours if you surrender, /
all of your own free will, to me”
– normativity
– pluralism
• Erotic…
– self-assertion
– communalism
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“Lenses” on Persuasion
A Critical Approach. . .
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“Lenses” on Persuasion
• Plato’s Phaedrus?
– [comment]
• Agamemnon?
– [comment]
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• Libation Bearers?
– [comment]
• Eumenides?
– [comment]
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