Chapter 3: Sophistic Rhetoric

• Intro
  • famous sophists: Protagoras, Gorgias, Prodicus, and Hippias
  • Plato wrote: Protagoras, Gorgias, Hippias Major and Minor, The Sophist
  • sophists were taught by teachers’ demonstrations (epideixis)
    • what’s included:
      • antithesis between physis (nature) and nomos (law, nurture)
• The Tetralogies Attributed to Antiphon
  • Mainly about that rhetoric does not specify the rules in classical time.
  • Tetralogies
    • models of techniques in judicial oratory
    • including 3 sets of 4 speeches (2 for prosecution and 2 for defense)
    • order: proemium, proof from probabilities, evidence, and epilogue
  • Aristotle: On Sophistical Refutations
  • Isocrates: Against the Sophists
  • Aristophanes: Cloud (a satire on sophists)
  • composition was a creative process, not with definite rules. But since Middle Ages, handbooks start to have formulas and rules.
  • Greek schools at the time
    • the main activities were memorization and recitation
  • In contrast, sophists encourage their students to do original composition
• Gorgias
  • with his own styles: in rhyme and length of phrases
    • stylistic, but with the risk of divert attention
      • from the content
      • to the pattern or form
    • more a rhetorician than a philosopher
  • arrangement and order: in Gorgia’s Encomium of Helen
    • proemium, narration, proof, and epilogue
  • for Gorgias, there is no truth, or static and ultimate truth
    • because truth cannot be known rationally,
    • orator should do emotional presentation, not logical presentation
  • what’s important:
    • the power in orator to accomplish whatever he wishes
    • without no relation to truth
• Sophistry as Play
  • speech as a game
  • feature of sophistic: love of paradox and playing with words
  • sophists’ playfulness, relativism, and skepticism
    • resonate to postmodernism and deconstruction
    • rejecting logocentrism, absolute truth
  • But in value, sophists are always conservative
    • they defend the value of the past
• Isocrates
  • helped make rhetoric a central subject in education
  • major works: Panegyricus, Antidosis, Philippus, Panathenaicus, Against the Sophists
  • knew Socrates and Plato
  • opened school
    • with consistent curriculum
  • Against the Sophists
    • Isocrates uses different pedagogies
    • others: taught tricks through models and commonplaces
    • Isocrates: 3 elements in successful oratory (classical rhetorical theory)
      • nature, training, practice
      • teacher: explain principles and set up examples
      • moral consciousness can be developed via the study of speech.
  • Antidosis
    • division of art
      • the art of the mind: philosophy
      • the art of the body: gymnastic
    • questions the moral and intellectual dangers in dialectic and abstruse philosophy
    • morality and rhetorician
      • good orator will:
      • (1) choose great themes as subjects
      • (2) select noble actions as examples
  • Isocrates indirectly responds to Plato’s distrust in rhetoric
  • Responding to the moral accusation
    • Isocrates calls for more attention on the speaker
    • techniques are amoral
    • only individuals are good or bad
    • This view is a feature in classical rhetoric
      • followed by Cicero and Quintilian: only a good man can be a good orator
  • Plato argues that rhetoric does not have knowledge
    • In response, Isocrates offers knowledge of ethics, politics, and history
  • Curriculum: includes invention, arrangement, and style
  • Style:
    • smooth and clear prose, avoid unusual and poetic words
    • long sentences
    • easy to read
  • 7 years primary or grammar school (boys and girls) + 7 years rhetoric (only boys) + advanced rhetoric and philosophy
    • from that, in the Middle Ages, a trivium system: grammar, rhetoric, dialectic
  • Panegyricus
    • propose pan-Hellenism
  • writing: Isocrates was the first orator who wrote the most
    • major figure in literate revolution
    • speech –> literature (letteraturizzazione)
  • Isocrates vs Aristotle’s tradition
    • Cicero in On Invention distinguishes 2 schools of teachers
      • Aristotle: more attention to philosophy, while with some attention rhetoric
      • Isocrates: entirely to rhetoric
        • emphasis:
          • written > spoken
          • epideictic > deliberative or judicial
          • style > argument
          • amplification > forcefulness
          • less emphasis on theory, abstract rules
• Declamation
  • primary method to teach speech: teacher gives a speech, students write, memorize, and deliver a similar one
    • This speech is called declamatio or declamation
  • In Roman schools (1st century BC), divided into
    • suasoriae: deliberative speeches
    • controversiae: juridical
  • declamation in Greek to be found in rhetorical handbook of Apsines
    • Greek teachers prefer historical themes
    • an version of it was practiced in 19the century US colleges
• The Second Sophistic
  • from Philostratus’s book on the history of sophistry
    • 2 kinds of sophists:
      • (1) pure sophist
        • focus on declamation
      • (2) philosophical sophist (Second Sophistic)
        • used oratory to deliver views on politics, morality, and aesthetics
        • some became famous orators, as preachers
  • development of Greek language
    • Koine Greek: simplified Greek grammar and syntax, in Greek New Testament
    • Asianism: at the same time, more stylistic, similar to Gorgias
    • Atticism: followed Attic (a region around Athens) orators in history
      • became a model for academic address
      • known as the Atticism movement
  • genre names for the Second Sophistic speeches
    • each with its structure
      • panegyric: for festival
      • gamelion: for marriage
      • genethliac: for birthday
      • prosphonetic: when address to a ruler
      • epitaphios: for funeral
  • morality again
    • most sophists believe an orator should be morally good
    • theme: good things too
• Sophists and Politics
  • Sophists serve to Roman Empire’s political purpose: unity