More on Sophistic Rhetoric

Author(s): TW
Reviewed work(s):
Source: Rhetoric Review, Vol. 11, No. 2 (Spring, 1993), pp. 485-487
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.
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RHETORICREVIEW'S R

R BurkeanParlor

More on SophisticRhetoric

The latest parlorgame--deciding whetherthere was a "sophisticrhetoric"in

Plato'sday, or is one in ours, and whatthatmight be-is actuallya very old game.
It shouldremindus thattherehave been othervoices in otherparlors,usingthe same
termsand displayingsome of the very sophistryand rhetoricunderdiscussion.
The recent roundof discussion began with EdwardSchiappa'sprize essay in
the Fall 1991 issue of RR and continuedwith DB's response in the Spring 1992
issue and ES's reply in the Fall 1992 issue. Schiappabegins by asserting,"The
notion that there was a distinctive 'sophistic rhetoric'seems to have originatedin
the writings of Plato, and it has been reified through a series of accounts that
(mistakenly)take Plato seriously as a historian."He cites the evidence of a new
sophismarisingfrom the ashes of academeand suggests thatthe appealto a single
sophism of old is misleading, indeed anachronistic.DB accepts the evidence of
"variability"among sophists but sees no reason to ignore the "collective tenden-
cies." ES shoots back (audiblyshakenby the "ad hominem"turnof DB's response)
that seeking a "monolithic"construct"promotesa cynicism towardhistory."
The concept of "sophisticrhetoric"is not a new one, in any case; Schiappa
cites a nineteenth-centuryessay on the topic. When the greatE. R. Dodds edited
the Greek text of Plato's Gorgias in the 1950s, he felt compelled to note at the
outset that Plato's Gorgiaswas not a sophist. Gorgiastold Socratesthat he was a
rhetorician,and Socratesthoughtof rhetoricandsophismas two separateactivities
when he drew his famous extended analogy:

sophism:legislation::cosmetology: physical education

rhetoric:justice:: cooking: medicine

Dodds noted that Gorgias is not mentioned in Plato's Sophist, or elsewhere in

Plato's lists of sophists,becauseGorgiasdid not offer an encyclopediaknowledge,
only a speaking technique. He conveniently overlooked Plato's Apology, where
SocratesnamedGorgiasalong with Protagorasand the othersophistsor "wisdom
experts" who taught for hire. But he had an importantpoint: The sophists and
rhetoricianscame from opposite ends of the Greek world-Protagoras from Ab-
dera in Macedonia, Gorgias from Leontini in Sicily. Protagorastaught debate,
specifically the artof verbalself-defensewhich he called antilogicor eristic,which
Plato made light of in the Euthydemus,and which Aristotle mentioned more
RhetoricReview,Vol.11, No. 2, Spring 1993 485
486 RhetoricReview

politely in the SophisticRefutations,the last partof his logical Organon.Gorgias,

meanwhile, taughtdeclamationand verbal eloquence. He stunnedthe Athenians,
who had never heard anything like his style of speaking, if we can accept the
accountof DiodorusSiculus more thanfourcenturieslater.To speakof a sophistic
rhetorician,then, is to confuse two regions of the world and the soul, as we would
do if we spoke of a Wall Streetmovie mogul or a Hollywood banker.
In the past, rhetoricteachershave tended to make and preservesuch distinc-
tions. (Nietzsche did, for example.)Now the distinctionsaregettingblurry.In their
recent anthology, Patricia Bizzell and Bruce Herzberg assure us that Gorgias
"wouldhave identifiedhimself not as a rhetoricianbut as a Sophist."Meanwhile,
in his historicalsurvey,ThomasM. Conley says, "Thetruebirthplaceof rhetorical
instructionwas Athens [not Sicily], and the first instructorswere those itinerant
teacherswho flocked there in the mid-fifthcentury,the so-called sophists."These
teachersknow whatthey aredoing, but I thinkthatwe mightdo well to separatethe
activitiesof debateand declamation,argumentationand eloquence,and to see how
they have become intertwined.Even in postclassicaltimes, Diogenes Laertiusdrew
a sharp distinction between rhetoric, which concerned extended handling of a
proposition,and dialectic, which involved the give-and-takeof debate.
In a conceding footnote, Schiappaacknowledgesthat "laterantiquityclearly
recognizeda specific professionof 'sophist."'In additionto Diogenes Laertius,he
cites Flavius Philostratus, who, interestingly enough, began his Lives of the
Sophists by saying, "The ancient sophistic rhetoricshould be considered philo-
sophic,"andaddeda few lines later,"Gorgiasof Leontiniinventedthe old sophistic
in Thessaly." Philostratuswas writing about the teaching of rhetoric and the
delivery of speeches, which had become the work of the public rhetorin cities
throughoutthe GreekandRomanworld.He was tryingto place the "old sophistic"
in a direct line with the "the next sophistic, which is not a new sophistic, for it's
old, but a second."Philostratusdid much more thanPlato to sanctionthe concept
of a sophistic rhetoric and to tell its story. Philostratus,and not Plato, helps to
explain why Gorgias follows on the heels of Protagorasin the section on the
sophists in Philip Wheelwright'sinvaluableanthology,The Presocratics. Philos-
tratus (who makes delightful reading) was a New Ager, and saw the revival of
"sophistic"as partof a largerrevival of paganism."Sophistryis like fortune-tell-
ing," he said, and about as ambiguousas the oracles. The Gorgiasof Philostratus
was the theatricalspellbinderof the Helen encomium,not the subtlethinkerabout
being and nonbeing that Aristotle and Sextus Empiricus tried to refute or the
professorof "ethicalpluralism"thatWheelwrightheld up for study.
Ourparlordiscussionbringsus to the "nextsophistic"which so manyof us are
caught up in today. There have been other sophistics in the interim:Nietzsche
thought that the Renaissance humanistswere ratherlike the second sophists of
Philostratus'sday; and of course he showed sophistic tendencies himself, as did
Foucaultand the otherswho proclaimeda "new Nietzsche"in the 1970s. Sophistic
BurkeanParlor 487

seems to flower in the gaps between strong intellectualconstructs.It follows the

breakupof civic humanism in the ancient world, of scholastic learning in the
Middle Ages, and, naturallyenough, of modernism in the twentieth century.It
seems only fitting that we should embrace sophistic anew, and pedagogically
useful to embrace the anachronism.But I think we should help our studentsto
recognize the anachronism,just as a high school teachermust explainthat,despite
the helpful analogies, Shakespearewas not really talkingabout interracialdating
in Romeoand Juliet or aboutFacism in Coriolanus.(PerhapsI shouldexplain that
Philostratusdid not writeaboutharmonicconvergence,despitehis fascinationwith
magic.)
The oldest Chinese text on writingbegins by makingthe apt observationthat
a personhewing an axe handlefrom a piece of wood has a good model at hand.In
talking about sophistryand rhetoric,I'm using a fair deal of each with a load of
pedantryto spare. Such is our parlorgame, and so I prepareto press "controlZ"
and add e-mail to a discussion alreadyin page proof.

TW

BM on ALon Gorgias

AL would have me, "TheBrute,"readGorgiaswithoutimposingan episteme

on his pre-modem,pre-postmodem,pre-Enlightenmentfragments.No one, how-
ever, can read texts "pre-"their own epistemological biases. While it is true that
Gorgias wrote before the concept "epistemology"was articulated,it is also true
that as late twentieth-century(postmodem, post-Enlightenment)readersof Gor-
gias we are unable to escape our own epistemologies-we can never, in other
words, discover the True Gorgias. Everyone who reads classical rhetoricreads
post-one-way-or-another,and to thinkthat we don't (or don't have to) seems a bit
naive to me.
AL says maybe the "Helen"and the "Palamedes"have no epistemic intent.I
agree. But that does not mean that an episteme isn't (post-)presentin or at the
bordersof these texts.
When the situationdemands(as in his defense of Palamedes),does Gorgias
submit to Truth?No. Although he uses the Greek word for "truth"(aletheia), he
does not do so in any foundationalsense. AL seems to thinkthat"Truth"has one
meaning(perhapsbased on some Formof Truthness);and if skepticsor relativists
use the word "truth,"they must in fact be nascent foundationalists.So much, I
guess, for communaland personal"truths."