Persuasion and Rhetoric (original) (raw)
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Lecture 3: Plato and Persuasion
Scholarly and Research Communication, 2021
Socrates conversed and Plato recorded, bringing together an entwined version of their notion of rhetoric. How do we balance absolute truth with opinion, belief, and conjecture? This lecture centres on the dialogue Gorgias plays to Socrates/Plato’s notion of rhetoric as a fully formed social practice; it illustrates the practice and study of persuasion. Socrate parla et Platon enregistra, réalisant ainsi une version combinée de leur notion de rhétorique. Comment équilibrer la vérité absolue avec l’opinion, la croyance, et l’hypothèse? Ce cours se focalise sur le dialogue de Gorgias relatif à la notion socratique/platonicienne de la rhétorique comme étant une pratique sociale complètement formée; le cours fournit une illustration de la pratique et de l’étude de la persuasion.
The Concept of Persuasion in Plato's Early and Middle Dialogues
South African Journal of Philosophy, 2009
Plato's early dialogues represent the failure of Socrates' philosophical programme. They depict Socrates as someone whose mission requires that he make an intellectual and moral impact on those with whom he converses; and they portray him as almost never bringing about this result. One central problem, dramatised throughout the early dialogues, is that perceptual moral intuitions undermine the possibility of reason's making significant changes to a person's moral belief system. I argue that Republic presents a theory of education which aims to circumvent this problem by training people so that they become like Socrates. Socrates' status as ideal reasoner is tied to his love of argument (philologia) and his ignorance. The Republic offers an account of how these characteristics may be (non-argumentatively) instilled, which creates the psychological space for the possibility of abandoning one's basic moral beliefs, thus securing the possibility of moral improvement by argument.
The Three Faces of Greek and Aristotelian Rhetoric
European Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, 2017
The need for the persuasion is often informed by a dire or grave situation which one needs to wriggle out from. Persuasion may also be necessitated by a person’s disposition to a subject, development, or topic in view. The art of persuasion through speech is what scholars, ancient and modern, call rhetoric or oratory. The Greek traditional theorists, who invented rhetoric, divided the art into three types: the judicial (dicanic or forensic), the deliberative (symbouleutic) and the demonstrative (epideictic). Broadly, Greek rhetoric also has a tripartite part: invention, arrangement and style. Similarly, by Aristotelian theory, rhetoric is the art of persuasion which functions by three means: by appeal to people’s reason (logos); by the appeal to their emotions (pathos) and by the appeal of the speaker’s personality or character (ethos). What exactly did the Greeks and, indeed, Aristotle mean by these terms and their functions? This paper, while highlighting the general conception of the Greek rhetoric and its three-way nature, surveys the Aristotelian tripartite division and functionality of rhetoric through a simple method of content analysis of selected ancient and modern texts. It submits that a rhetor (rhetorician/orator) is not firm in his trade if he does not artfully possess and execute the Aristotelian three modes of persuasion in contexts of necessity or grave situations. Keywords: Greek rhetoric, oratory, Aristotle, ethos, pathos, logs.
The Consistency of Plato’s Treatment of Rhetoric
dospontos, 2024
Commentators of Plato tend to assume that the philosopher changed his perception of rhetoric over time. Generally, such commentators focus on the critiques against rhetoric in the Gorgias and the claim of a philosophical rhetoric in the Phaedrus to display a fundamental discontinuity in Plato’s treatment of rhetoric. In contrast, I aim to demonstrate a fundamental continuity of Plato’s considerations on rhetoric, supplanting the textual evidence commonly analyzed in this debate with some passages from the Apology, Symposium, and Laws. Both in an early dialogue, such as the Apology, and in a much later one, such as the Laws, the same procedure is at work: a careful distinction between genuine rhetoric and its counterfeits. If rhetoric allies itself with philosophy, turns into a ôÝ÷íç, and is guided by the truth and the good, Plato embraces it. On the other hand, if rhetoric rejects this alignment, foundation, and orientation, it is condemned. Keywords: Plato, Rhetoric, Philosophy, Truth, Persuasion, Dialectic. A consistencia do tratamento de Platao a retorica Resumo: Comentadores de Platao tendem a assumir que o filosofo alterou sua percepcao sobre a retorica no decurso do tempo. Geralmente, tais comentadores se concentram nas criticas a retorica no Gorgias e na reivindicacao de uma retorica filosofica no Fedro para constatar uma descontinuidade fundamental no tratamento platonico a retorica. De maneira oposta, o meu objetivo e demonstrar uma continuidade fundamental nas consideracoes platonicas sobre a retorica, suplantando as evidencias textuais comumente analisadas neste debate com algumas passagens da Apologia, Banquete e Leis. Tanto num dialogo inicial, como a Apologia, quanto num muito posterior, como as Leis, esta em operacao o mesmo procedimento: uma distincao cuidadosa entre retorica genuina e suas contrafaccoes. Se a retorica se aliar a filosofia, constituir-se enquanto techn. e orientar-se pela verdade e pelo bem, entao e acolhida por Platao. Em contrapartida, se a retorica rejeitar tal alinhamento, fundamentacao e orientacao, entao e condenada. Palavras-chave: Platao, Retorica, Filosofia, Verdade, Persuasao, Dialetica.
Reviewing Rhetoric in the Classical Period--Plato and Aristotle
2015
Plato and Aristotle are key figures in the study of rhetoric. Classical period had been known as the era where rhetoric emerged as the influential language existence. Experts on rhetoric had discussed deeply about the history of rhetoric from the classical period up to the renaissance. In this writing, the focus of the discussion is in the classical period. The reviews being discussed in this writing are mainly derived from ongoing discussion on rhetoric.
Rivals in Persuasion: Gorgianic Sophistic Versus Socratic Rhetoric
Polis: The Journal for Greek Political Thought, Vol. 23/1 (2006)
According to Plato and Aristotle, the confusion of sophistry and philosophy in the opinion of Socrates' fellow citizens in Athens ultimately led to his trial and execution. This essay seeks to highlight and clarify the resemblance and the fundamental distinction between sophistry and philosophy, especially with respect to the art of rhetoric articulated by Gorgias in his Encomium of Helen and interrogated by Socrates in Plato's Gorgias. Rivals in their use of persuasive speeches, Gorgias and Socrates embody the quarrel between two competing modes of discourse and the ways of life that ineluctably result from their practice. Their public dispute centres on the aim or purpose of an art of rhetoric. This essay argues that Gorgias, though moved to silence by his conversation with Socrates in Plato's dialogue, disclosed to his inquisitor the true power of rhetoric, and thus the necessity to constrain rather than reject its use.
Redescriptions, 2014
In contrast to some recent articles, which try to bridge the gap between Aristotle's Rhetoric and contemporary concepts of deliberative democracy, it is argued that Aristotle in this work does not plead for a rational and unemotional way of political decision making. On the contrary, his Rhetoric should be read as a manual for strategically oriented actors if not for demagogues. Th e well-known tension between the more ethical and the political parts of Rhetoric can be resolved if a distinction is made between a form of rhetoric, which has its place in an ideal polis, and the kind of rhetoric that is necessary in a corrupt regime. For Aristotle the democratic regime of Athens is such a corrupt regime. In the last part of this paper, it is demonstrated that Aristotle in his Rhetoric highlights the non-cognitive and emotional features of deliberative procedures and thereby corrects one of the most serious shortcomings of the theory of deliberative democracy.