Thursday, March 24, 2011
Responding to classical philosophies of rhetoric
Before class starts on Tuesday, I’d like you to identify a key passage from either Gorgias’s Ecomium of Helen or Plato’s dialogue Gorgias that you think is the most significant passage from the day’s reading. Write a paragraph in which you share this passage with the rest of class, giving context for it (in relation to the rest of the reading) and justifying why you think it is significant. Ultimately, what does this passage say about rhetoric (or oratory), language, and/or power?
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Power can easily be achieved through the ability to control language. Gorgias states in "Ecomium of Helen" that, “The effect of speech upon the condition of the soul is comparable to the power of drugs over the nature of bodies. For just as different drugs dispel different secretions from the body, and some bring an end to disease and others to life, so also in the case of speeches, some distress, others delight, some cause fear, others make the hearers bold, and some drug and bewitch the soul with a kind of evil persuasion.” Gorgias says this to persuade the reader that Helen is not responsible for her actions if she was persuaded through speech. Language has the same control to change the way people behave as drugs do; therefore, she did not have full control over her actions. I think this passage is significant because it depicts the link between rhetoric and emotion. Emotion is an extremely powerful tool in persuasion. Language can “stop fear, and banish grief and create joy and nurture pity.” With a mastery of speech, a writer can manipulate how his or her reader feels and reacts to an idea, whether this is in a moral or corrupt way. Speech is an effective tool for convincing the masses of a belief and influencing their response.
ReplyDeleteIn Encomium of Helen, the writer attempts to transfer the blame put on Helen of Troy to another party—he argues that she was under the influence of a very powerful tool: rhetoric. “There have been discovered two arts of witchcraft and magic: one consists of errors of soul and the other of deceptions of opinion. All who have and do persuade people of things do so by molding a false argument.” The writer discusses here the reasons why the art of oratory can be viewed as a form of witchcraft. Those, then, who use rhetoric to persuade and manipulate may be employing witchcraft (an unsavory method) for some personal gain. This quote explores the issue of whether using rhetoric in order to change an audience’s mind is inherently immoral. Generally, witches were seen as wicked beings, and they were hunted and killed. Any form of witchcraft, therefore, was evil and illegal. By comparing the use of rhetoric to witchcraft, the writer asserts that utilizing any form of verbal persuasion is wrong. However, this begs the question, “can we speak and write in such a truthful manner that we are not influencing our audience in some way?” Are we all, to some extent, practicing witchcraft? This quote is incredibly important in our discussion of rhetoric because it raises questions about ethics and objectivity.
ReplyDeleteIn Encomium of Helen, Socrates states:
ReplyDelete"And if we are asked what sort of conviction and conviction about what, we shall say conviction of the kind created by teaching bout odd and even and their magnitude. And similarly with all the other arts we mentioned; we shall be able to show, shan't we, not only that they produce conviction but also the nature and subject of that conviction?" (Plato 30).
To me, this passage highlights the importance and direction that oratory embodies. By this, I mean that oratory isn't only, as Socrates puts it, the art of convicting, but also the art of convicting with a direction. This direction is the same as speech having the power to move or sway an audience towards a certain viewpoint. In other words, speech has the power of action. Oratory is not just mundane speech where a speaker lays out the facts for the audience. Instead, if done well, the speaker shows all the facts to the audience (in order to gain credibility) but then expresses his or her view on the situation. Oratory is backed by an opinion of the speaker. In this way, oratory, if successful, is able to convince an audience of a certain viewpoint or opinion.
In Plato’s Gorgias, Polus states “There are a number of arts, Chaerephon, which men have discovered empirically as a result of experience; for it is experience that enables us or organize our lives sytematically, whereas lack of experience leaves us at the mercy of chance. Different men practise different arts in different ways, but the best men practise the best arts. Gorgias is one of these, and the art which he practises is the finest of them all.”
ReplyDeleteThis quote from Polus was in answer to a question posed by Chaerephon that if oratory was an art, as he and Gorgias chose to believe, than what would those would perform that art then be called? Polus’ answer to the question uses this ‘art’ of oratory well, in that he attempts to convey to the others how this art is used. Yet although he employs great eloquence in his answer, he uses his art to completely avoid answering the actual question, something which makes his determination of oratory as a admired art seem rather shaky.I found this passage interesting, in that it involved the young orator Polus attempting to defend the act of oratory to those much older than himself, Chaerephon and Socrates, yet he chooses to talk of experience. This was interesting in that the younger Polus speaks of experience as though he has much knowledge about it, but his knowledge is most likely basic and book-learned. Espcially when compared to those he address’s knowledge of experience. Their knowledge would be gained first hand from throughout their lives. His use of oratory in an attempt to disguise this fact is seen through quite easily by Socrates, showing to me that while powerful in many respects, rhetoric is not infalliable.
"I mean the ability to convince by means of speech a jury in a court of justice, members of the Council in their Chamber, voters at a meeting of the Assembly, and any other gathering of citizens whatever it may be. By the exercise of this ability you will have the doctor and the trainer as your slaves, and your man of business will turn out to be making money not for himself but for another; for you, in fact, who have the ability to speak and to convince the masses."
ReplyDeleteThe passage above, taken from Plato’s dialogue Gorgias, claims that the effective use of rhetoric to persuade the masses is more powerful than the actual acquisition of knowledge. In other words, a rhetorician is more convincing than an expert because a rhetorician has access to the tools of persuasion. I believe this passage to be particularly significant because it hints at the absolute power of rhetoric. It seems to suggest that, as long as a person has a way with words, he or she can convince any audience of anything-with or without facts to back it up. The rhetorician, then, is especially powerful.
In Plato's "Gorgias," the sophist Socrates makes the following chain of statements: "Now I call [rhetoric] pandering...because it makes pleasure its aim instead of good...Cookery is to medicine as beauty-culture is to physical training, or rather popular lecturing is to legislation as beauty-culture is to training, and oratory to justice as cookery to medicine."
ReplyDeleteHere Socrates paints rhetoric as an art (or, more accurately, non-art) that is empty of real substance. Rhetoric is characterized by "pandering" on the part of the orator, appealing to what is palatable to the (uneducated) masses as opposed to what is good, just, and true. Socrates has already implied, earlier in the dialogue, that public speech-making is essentially an art of deception. The rhetorician lacks the knowledge of the true experts (artists), but comes out ahead because he is a persuasive orator. He can pretend to know answers to even the ultimate questions, and the audience will accept his arguments if they're nicely packaged. Thus, rhetoric is easily used to promote vested interests. Unlike those who seek after truth, the rhetorician by trade promotes popular and appealing ideas by "pandering" to the public, but does not promote real knowledge. Just as "cookery" produces foods that taste good but are not necessarily good for the body, rhetoric produces discourse that sounds nice but does not necessarily benefit the soul. For all its persuasive power, it does not in itself move the public in the direction of "justice."
"All who have and do persuade people of things do so by molding a false argument"
ReplyDeleteThis sentence from Helen is key for the understanding of how Gorgias defends Helen's actions because it is the central argument of one of his four defenses that he proposes for her. Basically, he argues that if Helen left with Paris because he convinced her to, then it was his fault, not hers because he must, by Gorgias' logic have molded a false argument. As such, we should accuse Paris, not Helen, because she too was deceived. He goes on to defend her with an argument that her love of Paris can be written off as being an 'affliction'.
I do not agree with this passage. As a means of communicating and persuading with people, I believe that persuasion can be achieved by avoiding areas of speech or writing entirely while staying certainly in the realm of communication. Actions and deeds can say so much more than words can ever achieve, persuading people without the worries of truthfulness. A picture of a man standing in front of a Chinese tank says more than words ever can, as does the image of Vietnamese children running down a road from a cloud of Napalm. Nothing can persuade people better than experience, and since we cannot drag the entire voting population of the United States into Vietnam (or the Middle East for that matter) the direct visual experience of photography can persuade people without having to enter the mind and thoughts of the rhetor. Persuasion can occur without having to lie or falsify information, actions can persuade as well, if not better, than words.
In Plato’s work, Gorgias, he elaborates upon theories of rhetoric and ethics by using the voice of Socrates (of whom Plato was a student) in a dialogue with Gorgias, an acclaimed orator, and two of his students. Primarily communicating through an extensive series of questions and answers, Socrates ultimately argues that oratory, which in this case is equivalent to rhetoric, is dishonorable and a branch of “pandering” because orators have the ability to convince the public of ideas that are not “righteous” or “virtuous.” Before he begins to define the inherently fluid concepts of right and wrong, however, Socrates asks Gorgias, “Is [the orator]. . . quite ignorant of the actual nature of good and bad or honour and dishonour or right and wrong, but possessed of a power of persuasion which enables him, in spite of his ignorance, to appear to the ignorant wiser than those who know? Or must he have knowledge and understanding of all these matters before he comes to you to be taught oratory?” (38). This passage is applicable to the modern study of rhetoric because it mentions some crucial elements of the rhetorical situation including the potential constraints by the audience, the medium, and the rhetor’s own knowledge, as well as the persuasive strategies that are used by the rhetor to convey an argument. More importantly, however, this passage expertly indicates the many responsibilities that a rhetor takes on when producing a text, because the extent to which biased or uneducated words can affect an audience is potentially massive.
ReplyDeleteThe most important passage of the day’s readings appears on page 28 of Plato’s Gorgias. This passage appears early in the discussion between Gorgias and Socrates and represents Gorgias’s first real attempt to define what oratory truly is.
ReplyDeleteGorgias: “I mean, Socrates, what is in actual truth the greatest blessing, which confers on every one who possesses it not only freedom for himself but also the power of ruling his fellow-countrymen.”
“I mean to ability to convince by means of speech a jury in a court of justice, members of the Council in their Chamber, voters at a meeting of the Assembly, and any other gathering of citizens whatever it may be.”
Gorgias also argues that oratory is “the ability to speak and to convince the masses.”
This passage is the most important reading of the day because I think it captures the definition of rhetoric that rhetoricians feel is accurate. Obviously this is a brief definition with many subtleties that Socrates addresses, but as the first attempt this definition represents Gorgias’s true belief about his craft. Rhetoric/Oratory is a tool used to persuade people. Socrates goes on to criticize the lack of morality in the definition, but (personally) I see no need for morality within the definition of rhetoric. So long as a person uses the tools of rhetoric well, they have the power to convince the masses; this definition given by Gorgias leaves out morality which I think is crucial to the true definition of rhetoric.
Gorgias’ “Ecomium of Helen” identifies the power of speech and persuasion in trying to prove Helen’s innocence. At one point, Gorgias states, "Speech is a powerful lord, which by means of the finest and most invisible body effects the divinest works: it can stop fear and banish grief and create joy and nurture pity." This passage is one of the ways in which Helen was easily persuaded. I find it significant because I too find the power of speech to be very moving and can be heavily affected by it. The usage of certain speech has the ability to make or break my opinion people. In this reading, Gorgias makes use of rhetoric in pointing out how rhetoric, itself, affected Helen. The passage I chose in particular describes the effect of the utilization of pathos on an audience. Not only is Gorgias trying to appeal to the readers sympathies but is also pointing out how Helen’s emotions were manipulated through speech. Ultimately this passage aims at making speech and rhetoric manipulative instruments in persuading the audience.
ReplyDeleteIn Gorgias’ Encomium of Helen—a text that Gorgias himself declares to have been crafted as an amusing rhetorical exercise and “diversion”—the most significant thread of the piece is comprised of several passages of self-referential commentary on the practice and power or rhetoric.
ReplyDelete“Speech is a powerful lord, which by means of the finest and most invisible body effects the divinest works: it can stop fear and banish grief and create joy and nurture pity.”
Gorgias’ description of the power of speech, and, therefore, rhetoric, in such clearly rhetorical terms within a text that would have been delivered, presumably, as a speech quickly develops a tone of irony that lends itself well to the Gorgias’ rather tongue-in-cheek appraisal of rhetoric. “All men who have and do persuade people of things,” he continues, “do so by molding a false argument.” In this case, Gorgias is directly calling in to question not only the powers of speech in relation to Helen but, also, his own speech. Particularly, he calls the attention of his audience to the molding of false arguments, something which (1) one might infer, given the ironic tone, Gorgias has indulged in himself and (2) calls in to question the nature of truth in rhetoric.
Gorgias also compares speech not only to “incantations” but also draws parallels between the “effect of speech upon the condition of the soul” and the “power of drugs over the nature of our bodies.” Again, Gorgias casts a critical eye upon the nature of rhetoric which, to borrow a pun, has the power to “bewitch the soul with a kind of evil persuasion” (emphasis added). In closing Gorgias essentially reveals this text to be, in fact, exactly the type of no-holds-barred rhetorical exercise to which he was likely referring in this running commentary.
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ReplyDeleteSocrates: Stop there; that is an excellent answer. If you are to make a man an orator, he must either know right and wrong before he comes to you or learn them from you after becoming your pupil.
ReplyDeleteGorgias: Certainly
Socrates: Well now, a man who has learnt carpentry is a carpenter, isn’t he?
Gorgias: Yes
Socrates: And a man who has learnt medicine a doctor, and so on. In fact, a man who has learnt any subject possesses the character of knowledge of that subject confers.
Gorgias: Of course
Socrates: Then by the same reckoning a man who has learnt about right will be righteous?
Gorgias: Unquestionably
Socrates: And a righteous man performs right actions, I presume.
Gorgias: Yes.
Socrates: He will in fact of necessity always will to perform right actions.
Gorgias: Apparently
Socrates: Then the righteous man will never will to do wrong.
Gorgias: Never
Socrates: And according to the argument the orator must be righteous.
Gorgias: Yes
Socrates: Then the orator will never will to do wrong.
Gorgias: Apparently not.
This passage is a primary illustration of how the work, Gorgias, serves to discredit of the character of Socrates’, even though Socrates wins all the minor verbal spars against the other characters in the text. In Gorgias, it is tempting to assume that all the ideas expressed by Socrates are similarly those of the author, Plato. However, after examining parts of Gorgias at a closer level, the opposite in fact seems to be true. Throughout the work Plato not only discredits Socrates by showing him to be extremely hypocritical (by engaging in the same form of rhetoric that he verbally condemns), but also by showing Socrates’ main contention—that persuasive rhetoric is dishonorable—to be based upon an overarching, implicit assumption which invests and nullifies all of the other aspects of his argument.
This assumption, as seen in the above passage, is that an absolute, universal “right” exists. The phrase that most illuminates this belief is, “A righteous man performs right actions.” From this we see that Socrates does not recognize that “right” can differ based upon circumstances. In Socrates’ mind, in a given situation there is only one right (meaning moral) action and anyone who argues differently is being dishonorable. Although this particular understanding by Socrates may seem trivial to the overarching debate about rhetoric, it lays at the heart of the argument. When looking at the world using Socrates’ version of truth, then, of course, it would be immoral for rhetors to try to persuade toward any other course of action than the morally “right” one. However, if “right” can be situationally subjective, than Socrates’ argument has no validity. In this case, rhetoric has a positive purpose and to purvey one’s own view (such as when performing rhetoric) is an action in which a rhetor is trying to convince other’s of his own idea on the appropriate action to take. While discussing the building of a middle wall around Athens, Gorgias comes close to articulating this ultimate purpose of rhetoric, but he never can win the argument because he never fully realizes that Socrates’ entire argument is dependent upon a base fallacy.
In connection with the study of rhetoric as a whole, this passage of Gorgias plays an infinitely important role, for it shows a major lapse of argumentative logic in Socrates’ attacks on rhetoric. The view in which Socrates champions was a common perspective on rhetoric in ancient Athens—and Plato ultimately wrote Gorgias to show that this perspective is flawed. However, by allowing Socrates to win each argument, Plato also makes a statement about language—that it can be deceivingly powerful and mask an argument steeped in fallacy, such as Socrates’. For rhetoric to function as it should in a society, the audience must be comprised of discerning listeners—those who consider the applicable rhetoric from both a practical and philosophical angle.
In the Encomium of Helen it is stated, “…For the things we see do not have the nature which we wish them to have, but the nature which each actually has. Through sight the soul receives an impression even in its inner features.”
ReplyDeleteWhile this passage doesn’t refer to the inherent power of rhetoric, it does make apparent it’s one giant flaw. The most skilled rhetorician can manipulate an audience so long as the audience remains blind to the truth. A man can tell great stories of a three-legged dog until the audience sees the dog and sees all four legs intact. Despite rhetoric’s amazing power, sight still trumps all as the ultimate truth.