Isocrates

1
Isocrates

• Lived in between Gorgias and Aristotle
• Studied under Socrates (so did Plato)
• Founded a school in Athens
• Became very influential taught many aspiring
  politicians
• Made a lot of drachmas!

2
Isocrates cont

• He was not an outsider he was a native Athenian
• He believed in the superiority of Greek culture
• He favored the expansion of Greek influence
• He was very critical of the earlier sophists
• Others considered him to be an intellectual with
  a special interest in words and arguments

3
Isocrates cont

• Defined rhetoric as the power to persuade each
  other
• Believed that human beings have had the power
  implanted in them
• Transcended the life of wild beasts
• Rhetoric was/is ultimately responsible for
  building civilization as he knew it
• like laws, arts, etc.

4
Isocrates cont

• He focused on teaching future Greek leaders how
  to make wise and effective political judgments
• He taught the thematic and pragmatic approaches
  to problem-solving

5
Thematic

• Rhetoric should be used to concentrate on
  significant matters
• So what counts as being significant?
• Then or today?

6
Pragmatic

• What is argued for as a solution should make a
  positive contribution to the life of the audience
• How would this affect or limit arguments
  surrounding todays issues?

7
Isocrates cont

• Basic principles of rhetoric
• Three factors
• Natural talent
• Extensive practice
• Education in rhetoric

8
Natural talent

• If it wasnt there, little could be done to help
  student
• If talent was there, Isocrates believed it had to
  be tempered with a high moral character
• Or Ethos
• This attribute sets Isocrates apart from the
  other sophists

9
Ethos

• He believed morality and a sense of right and
  wrong are born into a person
• They cannot be learned
• And nothing can be done for a person who is
  depraved

10
Three Influential Sophists

• Gorgias
• Isocrates
• Aspasia

11
Gorgias

• A skeptical philosopher
• His 3 part formulation for a skeptical
  philosophy
• 1- Nothing exists
• If it did, we could not know it
• If we could know something existed, we could not
  communicate it to anyone else

12
Gorgias

• He suggested the only reality we can know
• .. Is one of lies in the human psyche
• susceptible to linguistic manipulation
• So persuasion IS the art of deception to massage
  the psyche (Gronbeck)
• Rhetoric worked as magic on the listeners
  (Kennedy)

13
Gorgias

• He was drawn to the power of the sound of certain
  words
• He believed words did much more than represent
  reality
• He believed a skilled rhetorician can prove any
  proposition

14
Gorgias

• He employed
• The allegoria to say one thing and mean another
• Apostrophe address a deity or person
• Antithesis the opposing of ideas in a sentence
  or paragraph
• He extended this idea two opposing arguments
  clashing create truth