Plato and Rhetoric 427-346 BC (81yrs.) Life
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Transcript Plato and Rhetoric 427-346 BC (81yrs.) Life
Plato and Rhetoric
427-346 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.
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
Plato on Rhetoric
Three works on Rhetoric:
The Apology (we’re not reading)
The Gorgias--attack on Sophistic
practice of rhetoric
The Phaedrus--development of a true
rhetoric
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
The Gorgias
Attacking Rhetoric
Three rounds of speeches
First round: Gorgias and Socrates
Rhetoric’s 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
The Gorgias
Continued
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)
Socrates/Plato & Gorgias
Round 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).
Socrates/Plato & Gorgias
Round 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.
Socrates/Plato & Polus
Round Two
Socrates vs Polus (the colt)
Polus: “Rhetoric is the greatest
power in the country.”
Plato: Comparisons
The arts vs sham arts
Socrates/Plato & Polus
Round Two: True and Sham Arts
The Arts of Health
Body
Maintain:
gymnastics
Restore:
medicine
The Sham Arts of Health
Maintain:
Restore:
Soul
legislation
justice
Body
Soul
make-up
cookery
sophistic
rhetoric
Socrates/Plato & Callicles
Round 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.
Major Claims in Gorgias
Sophistic rhetoric is misleading-designed to convince audience they’re
dealing with truth when they’re really
perpetuating opinion
Rejection of transient notion of truth
(time, justice and juries)
rhetoric seeks persuasion while
philosophy seeks truth
The Phaedrus (367 BC)
Twenty years after the Gorgias
deals with the "nature (phusis)" of
the soul”
Three Major Parts separated by
interludes
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
The Phaedrus
Continued
A techne of rhetoric
A true or just rhetoric
Phaedrus
Con
Part One:
The soulless speeches: Lysias'
speech and Socrates' 1st speech
The definition of love
Its effects on the beloved
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
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
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
The Phaedrus & the Soul
The three parts (Charioteer)
Loves wisdom
Loves nobility and honor
Loves appetite or lusts
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
The Phaedrus & Rhetoric
Rhetoric therefore is the art of
influencing souls
Psychagogia “leading souls”
Know “the truth” first
Adapting to audience’s 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.
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?
The Phaedrus
(Comments/Criticisms)
Kennedy p. 58 “Plato’s 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)