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What is rhetoric?Is it the capacity to persuade? Or is it 'mere' rhetoric: the ability to get others to do what the speaker wants, regardless of what they want? This is the rhetoric of ideological manipulation and political seduction. Rhetoric is for some a distinctive mode of communication; for others, whenever someone speaks, rhetoric is present.This book is devoted to helping readers understand these rival accounts, by showing how it has happened that there are so many conceptions of rhetoric. Any such approach must be rooted in classical antiquity, since our ideas of rhetoric are the product of a complicated historical process starting in ancient Greece. Greek rhetoric was born in bitter controversy. The figure of Gorgias is at the centre of that debate and of this book: he invites us to confront the terrifying, exhilarating possibility that persuasion is just power.
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THE BIRTH OF RHETORIC ISSUES IN ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY General editor: Malcolm Schofield GOD IN GREEK PHILOSOPHY Studies in the early history of natural theology L.P.Gerson ANCIENT CONCEPTS OF PHILOSOPHY William Jordan LANGUAGE, THOUGHT AND FALSEHOOD IN ANCIENT GREEK PHILOSOPHY Nicholas Denyer MENTAL CONFLICT Anthony Price THE BIRTH OF RHETORIC Gorgias, Plato and their successors Robert Wardy London and New York First published 1996 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 First published in paperback 1998 © 1996 Robert Wardy All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data Wardy, Robert. The birth of rhetoric: Gorgias, Plato, and their successors/ Robert Wardy. p. cm.—(Issues in ancient philsophy) Includes bibliographical rerferences (p. ) and index. 1. Plato. Gorgias. 2. Rhetoric, Ancient. 3. Gorgias, of Leontini. I. Title. II. Series. PA4279.G7W37 1996 170–dc20 95–48938 ISBN 0-203-98196-0 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-415-14643-7 (pbk) Uxori carissimae eloquentissimaeque maritus loquax uxoriusque CONTENTS 1 2 INTRODUCTION 1 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING: GORGIAS’ ON WHAT IS NOT 6 Who was Gorgias? 6 The challenge of Parmenides 9 The impossibility of communication 14 Could this be philosophy? 21 IN PRAISE OF FALLEN WOMEN: GORGIAS’ ENCOMIUM OF HELEN 25 Who was Helen? 25 Cosmetic truth 29 In praise of Helen 31 Pleasure 32 Causes and excuses 33 In praise of logos 35 Poetical effects 39 Magic 40 Slippery opinions 41 Force and persuasion 42 Logos is logos is logos… 44 Psychotropic drugs 45 Erotic visions 46 vii 3 4 5 IN DEFENCE OF REASON: PLATO’S GORGIAS 51 Rhetorical feasting, philosophical plain fare? 51 Power revisited 57 For the sake of the logos 62 Crowds