Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Cicero, the Sophist

Macey R has done a great job introducing the differences between Cicero’s De oratore and Plato’s Gorgias. She pointed out how they approach truth. In short, Cicero uses dialogue to explore all the different facets of rhetoric. Whereas Plato uses dialogue to praise Socrates, and belittle Rhetoric.

As such, it would appear that Cicero uses a moral aspect to his oratory, whereas Plato is not very moral, at least not by our standards. Analyzing the form of his speech (we will set aside the content for a moment) he allows various characters to discuss, question, and elaborate on their points of view. This is something that is very fair to both sides, and that which is fair is moral (do you see the enthymeme there? :)  He is striving to show his audience that he has approached this from a fair perspective.

As for content, he speaks of the need for someone to be very well versed in all the different categories so that he can then make the right choice when orating. Thus what is right in one situation will be different then what is right in another. Each time it is right, but time to time it is different. Thus the sophists would welcome Cicero into their camp.

2 comments:

  1. I found your post to be interesting. I hadn't ever thought of Plato as not being moral and Cicero as being moral since Plato was a socratic and known for basing ideas on morality and Cicero as you stated would be a sophist where moral relativism is prevalent. I think that it was interesting that in Plato's Gorgias the sophist viewpoint argued that a general knowledge of topics wasn't necessary when the orator knew rhetoric and that in Cicero's De oratore he poses both viewpoints and never comes to a conclusion at which is necessarily correct. Interesting post!

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  2. I agree with you when we are talking about Cicero in De Oratore, but in De Inventione I think Cicero was much more of a Socratic in that there was definitive truth. Not to say one philosophy is better than another, but maybe Cicero became more Sophist as he got older and more experienced?

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