The Rhetoric of Plato's Republic: Democracy and the Philosophical Problem of Persuasion
Language: English
Pages: 280
ISBN: 022627862X
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
As Kastely shows, the Republic begins with two interrelated crises: one rhetorical, one philosophical. In the first, democracy is defended by a discourse of justice, but no one can take this discourse seriously because no one can see—in a world where the powerful dominate the weak—how justice is a value in itself. That value must be found philosophically, but philosophy, as Plato and Socrates understand it, can reach only the very few. In order to reach its larger political audience, it must become rhetoric; it must become a persuasive part of the larger culture—which, at that time, meant epic poetry. Tracing how Plato and Socrates formulate this transformation in the Republic, Kastely isolates a crucial theory of persuasion that is central to how we talk together about justice and organize ourselves according to democratic principles.
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Participant in the rough and tumble politics of his city, but he can be a founder or a legislator, a nocturnal councilor, or a judge— or, more realistically, he can be an advisor to such figures, whispering in the ear of power. Shaped by the very nature of the philosophical project, he has little taste for bargaining and mutual accommodation” (381). That is, the philosopher, as philosopher, cannot avail himself or herself of the normal rhetorical practices in a city. The kind of speech the.
Operations of rhetoric. What makes this unreflective holding of conventional values particularly troubling is that it is oblivious to its own containment. It is not so much that Polemarchus’s views are incoherent or indefensible, for they could conceivably be defended by someone who held them more reflectively; rather, Polemarchus reveals the fundamental weakness of the conventional defense of justice— it sees itself as embodying a natural and unproblematic understanding. For those who believe.
Knowledge to offer those in business and that other arts with knowledge of the nature of particular objects or activities govern the making of money. So justice has no apparent utility. Socrates goes on to make what at first must appear to be a very odd or frivolous argument— namely, that one who knows how to benefit someone also knows how to injure that person (334a– b). Since justice involves knowing how to safeguard money, it must also entail knowing how to steal it. So justice is potentially.
And the others raise the issue of what Socrates means by saying that women and children will be the limits of persuasion: 99 held in common, they are not necessarily objecting to his characterization of the city, but they want to understand more fully what it means and to what they are agreeing. Given the major restructuring of human relationships necessary for the Kallipolis, it is reasonable to explore in greater detail the implications of such a restructuring if Socrates’s argument, with.
Refusing to participate in their activities, Socrates again emphasizes the violence and threats that are brought against philosophy (496d). Retreat and self-protection seem to be the only reasonable responses to this intractable and violent situation. But even as he mentions this obvious solution, Socrates remarks that it is a deeply unsatisfactory response. Such a retreat is a lesser version of what the philosophic life should be; it is one in which philosophy has not realized its purpose: “And.