Midterm Essays

Sophists vs. Socratics
What did Socrates find wrong with rhetoric and rhetoricians? How would the real Gorgias respond to how Gorgias was portrayed in the dialogue by Plato/Socrates?

     The Sophists and the Socratics were two major groups of thinkers at the beginning of the age of rationality. Despite emerging in the same culture, they had conflicting viewpoints on knowledge, rhetoric, and even the meaning of truth itself, and they did not often see eye to eye.
     Socrates and his followers were proponents of an absolute Truth, one that was perhaps higher and purer than the truth that we encounter and observe on a daily basis, and one which the soul of a noble man is constantly engaged in pursuing. They contended that all things, whether it be a person, a house, or a sword, are simply our mortal approximations of the ideal version, which exists independent in a different realm. The Socratics would subscribe to the idea promoted in our own Doctrine and Covenants 93:30. which states that "all truth is independent in [its] sphere." The striving to come closer to that truth, and perhaps venture to imitate it more fully, was considered the most noble pursuit of life, and the end goal of all philosophy.
     This can be clearly contrasted with the views of the Sophists, Socrates' main rivals. These thinkers subscribed to the idea that perhaps there was absolute truth, perhaps there wasn't, but it was our task to make the best use of what we have, either way. As opposed to Socrates' more moral take on the world, the Sophists were a pragmatic group, and would be accused of by Socrates as not attempting to represent truth, but as attempting to sway the opinions of men through dishonest means. Socrates saw them as self-promoting, pretending that to give a good speech and convince a crowd was the goal of philosophy.
     Regarding Gorgias' opinion of his own portrayal in Socratic works, I cannot help but imagine that he would be offended. Here was an accomplished speaker, I'm sure very proud of his own prowess, as can be seen in his Encomium of Helen, and he was portrayed as a knavish learner at the feet of a man whose thinking he probably considered seriously flawed. I believe that Gorgias would have had something to say about it, and it probably wouldn't have been an encomium.

Politics and Rhetoric
What is the relationship between politics and rhetoric in ancient Greece?

Rhetoric was an important part of Greek politics, as it has been in every political system, especially democratic ones, since the world began. As Isocrates would point out, rhetoric is an important building block of human civilization, as if we cannot communicate and convince each other to act in certain beneficial ways, it would be impossible to create the systems of laws, culture, and infrastructure that make up our modern human civilization. This is true today, and it was no different in the cradle of democracy.
I think that an excellent example we have covered in class about the importance of rhetoric in Greek government was Pericles' funeral speech. One of the most important factors in the victory of a democracy at war is the ability of its people to keep heart and continue the fight, despite setbacks. While in a monarchy, the power of the king will keep his subject fighting until long after they would otherwise have given up, war weariness has historically been a classic ailment of a democracy at war (for better or for worse.) At the time of Pericles' oration, this was a serious danger. The Athenian forces had just suffered a major setback, and it would have been easy for them to lose heart and surrender. This speech caused their defeat to have the opposite effect. Rather than be ready to surrender, they were ready to fight on, for Athens, for the culture and land that they loved! This was a critical function of rhetoric.
There are many other examples, such as Agamemnon's ploy in the Iliad, or the events of Electra (I'm sure that the rhetoric that got the queen killed was fairly influential in that government!) but it is clear that in any civilization, and especially a democratic Athens, rhetoric is key to politics. The Greek roots of the word "politics" mean "relating to the citizens", and nothing could relate to them more than swaying them to believe and do your wishes through words and speech.