{"id":650,"date":"2025-03-28T16:32:22","date_gmt":"2025-03-28T16:32:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/classicalchristian.org\/classis\/?p=650"},"modified":"2025-08-13T20:56:37","modified_gmt":"2025-08-13T20:56:37","slug":"plato-on-rhetoric-the-gorgias-and-the-phaedrus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/classicalchristian.org\/classis\/plato-on-rhetoric-the-gorgias-and-the-phaedrus\/","title":{"rendered":"Plato On Rhetoric: The Gorgias and The Phaedrus"},"content":{"rendered":"

Originally published in\u00a0Classis
\n<\/em>Volume XX, No. 4<\/p>\n

\u201cThe safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato. I do not mean the systematic scheme of thought which scholars have doubtfully extracted from his writings. I allude to the wealth of general ideas scattered through them. His personal endowments, his wide opportunities for experience at a great period of civilization, his inheritance of an intellectual tradition not yet stiffened by excessive systematization, have made his writing an inexhaustible mine of suggestion.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So said twentieth century philosopher and mathematician Alfred North Whitehead about Plato\u2019s influence upon Western philosophy. The same general characterization of the European rhetorical tradition could be made, with one slight alteration. Instead of a series of footnotes to Plato, the rhetorical tradition has expended much of its effort answering (or incorporating) Plato and his criticisms of the art and practice of rhetoric.<\/span>1<\/sup><\/a><\/span> Every student of rhetoric ought to digest Plato\u2019s thoughts on rhetoric if only to grapple with the problems Plato puts forward for the practitioner and\/or teacher of rhetoric.<\/p>\n

In the Gorgias<\/em>, Plato\u2019s major concern is with the definition of rhetoric as it was popularly practiced among the sophists of his day. Is rhetoric an art in and of itself, or is it the habits of speech that are generally persuasive amongst the non-specialist crowds? The theme of justice arises early in the dialogue as Socrates guides Gorgias to narrow the scope of rhetoric to law. courts and matters of justice. From here the dialogue shifts away from rhetoric as the ability to persuade, to rhetoric as the ability to accomplish justice for those who would benefit from its use. Polus is quickly outmatched, but Callicles maintains his realpolitik<\/em> approach to speech and justice. In the Phaedrus<\/em>, Plato is less concerned with the legal and political realms, and seems more interested in the existential use and methodological basis of rhetoric. What kind of rhetoric is useful to the individual soul in relation to other individuals and on what basis can such rhetoric be mastered? Plato provides an object lesson using Socrates and Phaedrus in the dialogue. Phaedrus\u2019 adoration of Lysias\u2019 praise for the non-lover is critiqued, outdone, and then redirected by Socrates. First, Socrates shows the disorderliness of Lysias\u2019 speech, demonstrating that even rhetoric that is unconcerned with the virtue of the argument itself requires some methodological consideration in order to be beautiful or, perhaps, successful. Socrates first speech shows the superiority of properly defining, dividing, and elaborating on the theme of the non-lover. However, Socrates second speech repents of the false theme (praise for the non-lover) and advances a \u201ctrue\u201d encomium of the lover, whose benefit to the beloved is marked by inspiring philosophical ascent to knowledge. Socrates then elaborates on the dialectical method and the philosophical requirements foundational to the proper use of rhetoric, which might best be understood as myth-making. The use of rhetoric, whether spoken or written, is heuristic\u2014it provides impetus for the philosophical life of dialectical ascent to knowledge through definition, division, and elaboration.<\/p>\n

Plato\u2019s basic position on rhetoric is, therefore, mixed. He excoriates the sophistic pragmatism embodied in figures like Polus and Callicles (though not necessarily Gorgias) and recommends a philosophically grounded approach to rhetoric that, he hopes, is insured against the dangers of demagoguery inherent in democratic government. Rhetoricians are rewarded for paying attention to Plato\u2019s criticisms of rhetoric, for they represent the primary ethical challenges to the fundamental tenets of rhetorical engagement, which are rhetoric\u2019s audience-centeredness and rhetoric\u2019s primary attention upon the immediate and momentary exigencies of assembly, court, and culture.<\/p>\n

In what follows I offer a prolegomena for teaching Plato\u2019s thoughts on rhetoric as expressed in two of his dialogues, Gorgias<\/em> and Phaedrus<\/em>. The first task involves choosing a translation. The second task involves placing Plato in his historical and theoretical context. The third task involves indicating the major themes for Plato\u2019s contribution to rhetoric.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Translation Is Interpretation<\/h3>\n

Translations of Plato\u2019s works are numerous, and because Plato\u2019s philosophy is of interest to so many different kinds of scholars, choosing a translation that is well suited to the teacher of rhetoric is no simple task. In addition, the necessities of a budget influence which translation is best if one desires a class set of texts for students to use. For the teacher\u2019s copy of a text, finding a good translation may be overshadowed by concern for an adequate scholarly introduction to the text. If the teacher has some facility with Greek, the Loeb Classical Library editions<\/span>2<\/sup><\/a><\/span> provide the Greek text side-by-side with an English translation. Generally speaking, the Loeb introductions are comprehensive, though they do not always focus upon the topics of interest to the rhetoric instructor. I have also found helpful introductions in Joe Sachs\u2019 introduction to the Focus Philosophical Library edition, Plato\u2019s Gorgias and Aristotle\u2019s Rhetoric<\/em>,<\/span>3<\/sup><\/a><\/span> and James H. Nichols\u2019 introduction to the Agora editions of Gorgias<\/em> and Phaedrus<\/em>.<\/span>4<\/sup><\/a><\/span> Focus also has a translation of Phaedrus<\/em> by Stephen Scully,<\/span>5<\/sup><\/a><\/span> which has an interesting interpretive essay as well as an adequate introduction. Some schools may already use the standard anthology of rhetoric, The Rhetorical Tradition<\/em>, by Bizzell and Herzberg,<\/span>6<\/sup><\/a><\/span> which contains a short but helpful introduction to Gorgias<\/em> and Phaedrus<\/em> from a rhetorical standpoint.<\/span>7<\/sup><\/a><\/span> On a tight budget, recourse to public domain editions is ideal for class use. For example, Benjamin Jowett\u2019s translations of Gorgias and Phaedrus are available online.<\/span>8<\/sup><\/a><\/span> At Trinitas, we\u2019ve elected to use public domain texts for students, which I\u2019ve found to be adequate, though I do recommend a teacher text for each dialogue (preferably the Focus Philosophical Library editions) that contains helpful footnotes, which the teacher can provide to the students where necessary.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Context, Context, Context<\/h3>\n

The further removed from a time, place, and people we are, the more necessary the task of delineating the historical context of a text becomes. Plato\u2019s thoughts, Socrates\u2019 thoughts, are not experiments in the same way that proving Boyle\u2019s Law is an experiment\u2014thought experiments aren\u2019t evaluated in a vacuum under ideal conditions. Rather, Plato is at once responding to his contemporaries\u2019 thought and practice as well as carving out his own vision for the future, philosophically (as a proponent of a particular epistemic and moral viewpoint), pedagogically (for those students he would receive into his Academy), and politically (as part of his larger aims for the polis, more fully expressed in Republic<\/em> and Laws<\/em>). In order to grasp what Plato pitches in terms of rhetoric, one must prepare by understanding the sophists of Plato\u2019s time (who are his primary targets) as well as other alternative schools of thought (who also attacked sophistry, yet from a different presupposition from Plato).<\/p>\n

There are a number of ways to improve one\u2019s understanding of Plato\u2019s context. First, one can consult one of the several excellent histories of classical rhetoric. Included in the endotes are several major histories of classical rhetoric, including Kennedy, Herrick, Conley, Murphy, and Pernot.<\/span>9<\/sup><\/a><\/span> Kennedy is the leading American classics scholar on the subject, while Herrick (communication), Conley (English), and Murphy (English) are well-recognized scholars from within their disciplines. Pernot is the leading European classics scholar, and of the group I find his work to be the most balanced, helpful, and interesting.<\/p>\n

Second, one may read the original sources themselves in edited editions, which provide helpful introductions to the individuals in their times. The edition of The Older Sophists<\/em>, edited by Rosamond Kent Sprague,<\/span>10<\/sup><\/a><\/span> has translations and brief introductions to the fragments we still possess of the Sophists, and serves as a handy handbook on the Sophists. The Sophists\u2019 efforts can be summarized in terms of two basic tenets: 1) man\u2019s measurements shape reality, 2) language possesses ultimate power. The first tenet implies the second, since whatever may be known by human measurement will be promulgated through language. The limitations upon human perception entail an ongoing contest for persuasion, or the power to shape reality toward some advantage. The Sophists were masters of linguistic strategy for the momentary victory over human perception, as Gorgias\u2019 Encomium of Helen<\/em> demonstrates in its captivating exculpation of Helen and her blame for the Trojan War.<\/span>11<\/sup><\/a><\/span> Xenophon, Aristophanes, and Plato all give accounts of Socrates,<\/span>12<\/sup><\/a><\/span> which agree and differ in certain important respects.<\/span>13<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

Platonic Rhetoric<\/h3>\n

In the classroom, I regularly use Plato between readings of the Sophists (Gorgias\u2019 Encomium of Helen<\/em> and the anonymous Dissoi Logo<\/em>i, sometimes attributed to Protagoras) and of Aristotle (On Rhetoric<\/em>). In the historical development of the theories of rhetoric, Plato serves as a bridge between the skeptical pragmatism of sophistry and the natural law approach of Aristotle. Plato\u2019s idealist rhetoric posed difficult problems of knowledge (epistemology<\/em>) and morality (ethics<\/em>) for the popular sophistic rhetoric, and in doing so influenced Aristotle to combine the pragmatic approach of the sophists with the philosophical grounding he gained as a student of Plato. The students, therefore, need to have some idea of what sophistic rhetoric attempts (independently of Plato\u2019s depictions) in order to contrast it to the version Plato presents as well as understand Aristotle\u2019s (and later, Cicero\u2019s) synthesis.<\/p>\n

Once the sophists are in hand, one can proceed through the Gorgias<\/em> and Phaedrus<\/em>, attending to several key themes. First, there is the theme of knowledge, or epistemology, and morality, or ethics. Can one truly teach or be rationally trained in an \u201cart\u201d when the \u201cart\u201d cannot provide a rational justification for accomplishing what it proposes to accomplish? When Plato has Gorgias claim that rhetoric concerns matters of justice in law courts and assemblies, and that the one who is ignorant of justice can learn it from the teacher of oratory, the upshot is either that rhetoric attempts far more than what is achieves, or it is something other than what it claims to be. For Plato, unless a rational method leading to determinate conclusions can be given, the teacher of oratory cannot ensure that justice is what the student will know or speak on behalf of. The key question to pose for the students here is, \u201cTo what extent is philosophical knowledge necessary for speaking well?\u201d This question will be revisited in Aristotle and Cicero. A corollary of justice is virtue, or what might be considered the individual\u2019s and corporate body\u2019s relation to justice. In the Gorgias<\/em>, virtue is primarily about the negative cultivation of justice in the soul\u2014to suffer punishment unjustly is less devastating to the soul\u2019s virtue than to avoid just punishment. In the Phaedrus<\/em>, virtue is positively construed as speech that leads away from sensual indulgence and toward intellectual advancement\u2014the philosopher\u2019s paradoxical eroticascetic ideal, which combines rigorous self-control with the ineffable ecstasy of divine illumination. The relationship between individual and corporate virtue, self-control, and knowledge is a central question students should continually consider and revisit during their readings of Plato: \u201cHow does one cultivate virtue, to what extent does language play a part, and what sort of language will lead to the proper cultivation of virtue?\u201d<\/p>\n

Second, there is the theme of pedagogy, or proper method. Since, for Plato, sophistic rhetoric is disorderly, Plato offers his own alternative in dialectic, which is both on display in Gorgias and Phaedrus, as well as giving some methodological description. In class I spend some time allowing the students to familiarize themselves with the philosophical method of dialectic in contrast to the sophistic method of double-arguments (dissoi logoi).<\/span>14<\/sup><\/a><\/span> The Phaedrus<\/em> presents both a fabulous (in the literal sense of the word) account of dialectical assent, as well as a description of how the method operates. The complicated nature of both recommending dialectical speech while also employing rhetorical speech is on display, and students should attempt to reconcile the apparent contradiction of at once abusing rhetoric while employing rhetoric.<\/span>15<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Third, there is the theme of politics,<\/span>16<\/sup><\/a><\/span> which requires the students to acknowledge and examine the possibilities of rhetoric in different forms of government. For democratic Athens, the ever-shifting desires and opinions make sophistic pragmatism especially tempting, where Plato\u2019s aristocratic oligarchy (or philosophical meritocracy) is more restrictive. In conjunction with the political theme, one can also bring in the personal theme, which is Plato\u2019s connection to Socrates and the impact of Socrates\u2019 death upon Plato\u2019s criticisms of rhetoric.<\/span>17<\/sup><\/a><\/span> Students should be asked to consider the extent to which a political ideal constrains (or ought to constrain) an oratorical ideal: Should one shape one\u2019s speech to fit a political model, or should one shape one\u2019s political model to fit an oratorical ideal, or something of both?<\/p>\n

Fourth, there is the theme of teleology, or the ends of rhetoric. This theme is really intertwined with the others, but serves as a good opportunity to summarize Plato\u2019s contributions in preparation for those who follow him, and will be interacting directly or indirectly with the problems Plato raises. Is the purpose of rhetoric to serve justice in the sense of making one just, or is the purpose of rhetoric more procedural, that is, does it only enable one to possess the skills of speech that could be used to accomplish justice, but also injustice? Is rhetoric integrally tied to the philosophical ideal, or is it a tool available to any who would seek it out?<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

Conclusion<\/h3>\n

Despite the complex nature of Plato\u2019s writings, and the students\u2019 unfamiliarity with reading dialogues, the teacher and student of rhetoric will find much to stimulate conversation and contemplation of the nature and task of speech-making and writing. The Gorgias<\/em> and the Phaedrus<\/em> are two of Plato\u2019s dialogues that provide a sound introduction to Plato\u2019s thoughts on rhetoric, and, if taught well, will aim the classical student toward more thoughtful and careful rhetorical engagement.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Originally published in\u00a0Classis Volume XX, No. 4 \u201cThe safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato. I do not mean the systematic scheme of thought which scholars have doubtfully extracted from his writings. I allude to the wealth of general ideas scattered through them. 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