An Introduction to Rhetoric
The Classic Greek Trilogy
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The famous philosopher Plato grew up during the Peloponnesian War.
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He was a student of Socrates for twenty years before Socrates' death at age seventy; together these two philosophers attacked and tried to renounce the teachings of Sophism (48).
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Plato was famous for his dialogues, especially those featuring Socrates. He would often pose questions in speeches, many of them rhetorical or unanswerable.
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His views on knowledge defied the Sophists' ideas that truth is relative. Instead, he believed in transcendant, other-wordly truth.
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According to Plato, human souls are reincarnated from the noumenal world, a place where everything is in its most perfect form; our plane of existence is a less than perfect shadow of the noumenal world. When our souls are reborn here, they come carrying absolute knowledge, but the chaos of living makes us forget (49).
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To recall the truths our noumenal souls possess, Plato utilizes Socrates' notion of dialectic - the exchange of logical arguments to uncover and/or discuss truth in opinions. Rhetoric, on the other hand, creates false truths.
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Plato also used the concept of the noumenal world to support another of Socrates' ideas; noble rhetoric teaches that "it is better to suffer pain than to inflict it, and better to be a reflective philosopher... than to be a 'man in the city" (50).
The Platonic School of Thought
Socrates (469-399 BC) & Plato (427-347 BC)
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Plato also used the concept of the noumenal world to support another of Socrates' ideas; noble rhetoric teaches that "it is better to suffer pain than to inflict it, and better to be a reflective philosopher... than to be a 'man in the city" (50). Clearly he did not share the Sophists' passion for civic virtue.
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As a believer in absolute truth, Plato's idea of bad rhetoric was speech that aims to persuade based on belief - i.e. the Sophists. Good or noble rhetoric was dialectical, based on absolute truths - i.e. Socrates.
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Plato established many dichotomies, including a separation of rhetoric and philosophy: philosophy is a means to find truth, and rhetoric is a means to communicate that truth to others and persuade them to believe it.
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In Athens, Plato founded his famous Academy, a school that would continue running for almost 900 years. Aristotle was educated here, among many others (49).
Notable Texts by Plato
A famous selection from Plato's The Republic is his Allegory of the Cave.
Another popular dialogue by Plato was Gorgias, a fictional argument composed to condemn Sophist rhetoric.
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In this text, Gorgias calls himself a rhetoritian, claiming rhetoric as his art.
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Plato condemns rhetoric for being concerned with persuasion and speech - he debates whether there is an ethical component.
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Socrates sees rhetoric as flattery, as deceitful language that makes bad ideas sound good and "allows the guilty to go free" (53).
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Plato's ideas of good vs bad rhetoric manifest here, as he contends that the appropriate use of rhetoric is when it concerns absolute truth, justice, morality, and other non-persuasive topics. He argues that a teacher should not be punished if his student fails to use speech skills in an ethical manner.