Gorgias, was a Greek sophist, Sicilian philosopher, orator, and rhetorician. He is known as the first and original Nihilist, famously saying, “Nothing exists. If anything did exist it could not be known. If it was known, the knowledge of it would be incommunicable” (Gorgias), for this reason he earned the nickname, “The Nihilist.” He is known as the father of sophistry. According to The Encyclopedia of Philosophy contributor, Francis Higgins, sophistry is, “a movement of philosophy that emphasizes the real-world use of rhetoric concerning civic and political life” (Higgins). The sophists were nomadic paid educators who instructed on oratory and rhetoric. Many people claimed that sophists had the ability to teach the thesis and antithesis of any subject or idea. “Another quality of the sophist’s teaching was their ability to make the weaker argument the stronger” (Higgins). Gorgias is most often recognized as developing rhetoric in Greece. According to A.S. Ferguson in, A Fragment of Gorgia, “The democratic process in Athens supplied the need for instruction in both rhetoric and philosophy” (Ferguson). This made rhetoric one of the most important teachings of the time.
Gorgias (483-375 B.C.E.) came to Greece from Sicily. “Little is known of his life before he arrived in Athens in 427 B.C.E. as a political ambassador seeking military assistance against Syracuse, a city-state in Sicily” (Higgins). His delivery of speeches hypnotized Athenian audiences, winning him their utmost admiration and fame. After receiving the military assistance of which he asked against Syracuse, he began traveling through Greece teaching rhetoric and orating. “He was a student of Empedocles and was the teacher of Isocrates. Plato also identifies Meno ...
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The Gorgias has been often characterized by commentators as a remarkably bitter dialogue. After all, the dialogue presents a war between philosophy and rhetoric. Socrates is involved in three discussions of growing length and complexity with characters who, to various degrees, defend the power of rhetoric and the superiority of political life over philosophical life. It is a "fighting dialogue", as is also suggested by its incipit: "to war and battle."
Aristotle believed that rhetoric is a skill habit of mind that is, in itself, morally neutral and can be used for good or ill. He believed th...
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No one would deny that Pericles was the most prominent Greek statesman and spokesperson during the Golden Age. His contribution was largely felt during the Persian and Peloponnesian Wars having obtained power from his family link to the Alcmaeonid family. He commanded a lot of respect to from the Athenian citizens with Thucydides describing him as "the first citizen of Athens” . He was born at around 495 BC north of Athens in the ...
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Demosthenes and Isocrates came to prominence in fourth century B.C.E. Athens as public speakers and as politicians. Isocrates was a teacher of rhetoric, or the art of public speaking, while Demosthenes was a professional litigator, writing speeches for clients arguing in the courts of law, and occasionally presenting arguments himself. Both men were highly respected citizens and opinion makers throughout the sphere of influence maintained by Athens, though they held opposing views regarding the proper course for Athenian government, warfare between the Greek city-states, and the prospect of invasion from the Persian Empire to the east. While the Greek city-states engaged in fratricidal warfare, Philip of Macedon began consolidation of his political power by essentially offering up his highly trained professional Macedonian army as mercenary soldiers to the various city-states requesting assistance or protection and demanding control as hegemon or monarch of the city-state in return for military aid. Following a declaration of truce, Philip would impose his rule upon the vanquished as well.
In the Encomium of Helen, Gorgias attempts to prove Helen’s innocence since she is blamed to be the cause of the Trojan War. Gorgias uses rhetoric to persuade listeners to believe why there are only four reasons to explain why Helen was driven to Troy. All of which he will argue were not her fault. Fate was the first cause, followed by force. Gorgias then seems to focus the most on the power of Logos, or words. Finally he explains how she could have been compelled by love (82B116).
Socrates was a traveling teacher and talked and challenged everyone he met. Socrates taught the art of persuasive speaking. He did not charge people money like most of the other Sophists did, but he did have similar beliefs as the Sophists. Sophists thought that our minds are cut off from reality and that we are stuck in our own opinions of what the world was like. Socrates believed that reason or nature could not tell us why the world is the way it appears. The Sophists' point of view is best summed up as this: we can never step out of the way things appear.
Plato and Aristotle are two rhetoricians than had a great impact on the history of rhetoric. Although they were similar in many ways, their use and definition of rhetoric were different. Plato had the more classical approach where he used rhetoric as a means of education to pass down his beliefs and practice of rhetoric to his students. He believed that it should be used to educate the masses, provoking thought, and thereby preserving that knowledge. Plato thought that rhetoric should be used to convey truth, truths already known to the audience, revealed through that dialectic critical thought. Plato also operated on absolute truths, things that are right or wrong, black or white. Aristotle was more modern in that he used rhetoric as a tool of persuasion in the polis. He thought that the main purpose of rhetoric was to persuade, provoking emotions for his audience as a tool of persuasion. Aristotle’s rhetoric was more science based, using enthymemes and syllogism to foster logical thinking. He believed that rhetoric was a means of discovering truth. His rhetoric was highly deliberative since he used it mainly for persuasion. I will discuss their differences in more depth in the following essay.
In Plato’s Gorgias, Socrates discusses the nature and uses of rhetoric with Gorgias, while raising moral and philosophical perspective of rhetoric. Socrates believes that rhetoric is a kind of false knowledge whose purpose is to produce conviction, and not to educate people about the true extent of knowledge (Plato 15). On the other hand, Gorgias argues that the study of rhetoric is essential in any other professional fields, in order to provide an effective communication (Plato 19). After their discussion of rhetoric, Socrates seems to understand the true extent of rhetoric better as compared to Gorgias, as he is able to use rhetoric appeals as a device to dominate the conversation. During their discussion, Socrates seems to have use rhetorical appeals, such as ethos appeal and pathos appeal to connect and convince the crowd of audiences, and logos appeal to support his claims. His speeches seems to have shown sarcastic aspects and constantly asking questions in order to keep Gorgias busy, at the same time preparing an ambush. Since rhetoric is the art of effective communication through the form of speaking and writing, with the appropriate knowledge and virtue, it can be used for good purposes. On the other hand, rhetoric also can be used as an act of conviction because rhetorical appeals can be defined as an act of persuasion as well. Learning the true extent of rhetoric can help an individual strengthen their verbal communication skills. Socrates uses rhetorical appeals of ethos, pathos and logos appeal to win his argument against Gorgias, as he is able to get the audiences’ attention through rhetoric and cornered Gorgias into revealing the true extent of rhetoric.
Sophists have been perpetuated in the history of philosophy primarily due to their most fierce critic Plato and his Gorgias, where Socrates brings profound accusations against the practice of sophists and declares notoriously rhetoric to be a part of flattery (κολακεία, 463c). This paper focuses on the responses to sophists’ practices by Plato and Aristotle, analysing on the one hand criticism made on their practice, on the other, however, trying to evaluate in which respect the responses of the two philosophers differ. Thus, taking the polemic of sophists as a starting point, the paper moves forward into discussing the fundamental differences in the treatment of rhetoric as perceived by Plato and Aristotle. For this reason (and in order to present a fuller account of Plato’s theory of rhetoric) not only Plato’s Gorgias, but also his Phaedrus is incorporated to the following analysis.
Plato defines rhetoric as “the art of ruling the minds of men” (Bloom). The sophists were instructors in the disciplines of rhetoric and overall excellence. Their teachings thrived in the fifth century B.C. Through the work of Protagoras, Gorgias, Antiophon, and other sophists, the people of Athens gained higher education and stopped accepting everything they were taught as absolute fact. This questioning of traditional philosophical schools eventually led to the emergence of other ways of thought such as skepticism.