Face to Face Battle and a little Irony

Sophists vs. Socrates

Socrates was very straightforward about what points he disagreed on with the Sophists. He mentions that speech was used by Sophists to misguide people. For example making large things seem small and small things seem large. Also using figurative language to embellish speech as establish false credibility. This for the purpose of leading people towards a certain agenda. Socrates saw this as problematic because it only grazed the surface of what rhetoric really was. In Plato's Phaedrus we learn that Socrates believed that it was essential for dialectic to come before rhetoric so as to establish grounds on reality. When a rhetorician overlooked the importance of dialectic or simply avoided it, they were enabled to stretch facts and use shallow tactics to influence people. True rhetoric allows for knowledge to be obtained before persuasion is used. According to Socrates, Rhetoric without Dialectic was just deception and he makes it clear that he disapproves of the style of “rhetoric” that Gorgias and other rhetoricians of the day used.

If the real Georgius were to respond to how he was portrayed, I don't think it would be what would normally be expected from someone who receives criticism. What I think we would expect would be for Georgius to be offended and try to offer some sort of reconciliation for his beliefs and manner of living. Rather, I think that he would simply continue on using his way of rhetoric to persuade people that there is nothing wrong with what he is doing. He may even ironically say something to the effect of “It really is no big deal to make something small out of something large, we get caught up in the details of things anyway.” This obviously demonstrating the fundamental difference between Socrates and Gorgias. Where Socrates would search for reality and dig for deeper understanding, Gorgias would continue superficially persuading others.

Medium and Message

At the present time I am seeking for words to describe what is going on in my head. I am staring at a paragraph of words that define a prompt for me to respond to in written for in order to demonstrate to my instructor that I know the material that has been presented in class. I use a given set of letters combined in such a way that makes a sentence, something that I can see then translate in my head into something that I can cognitively understand. I rearrange these letters in a miraculous manner in order to show in a visual manner what is going on inside my head. This is recorded and set in stone (should I choose to submit it of course) and classified as what was going on in my head as a result of the prompt that was given to me.

Ironically what I am currently doing is a perfect representation of how writing and the creation of an alphabet changed Greek thought. Through oral communication there is no record of what is said. Ideas are cast into thin air only to fall upon deaf ears or ears that are open and listening, ready to internalize that which passes through. This allows for a different thought process to be conducted. One where ideas are developed as they pass through the mouth of the orator. When writing was introduced into greek culture, ideas that at one time were developed questioned were recorded and limited by what the author's intentions. The thought process similar to the one above was developed and, should I dare say it, greeks and generations following to this day became and are now limited in thinking. Although the development of an alphabet and writing has allowed civilizations to grow and flourish, it has lowered the capacity of thought that is contained within a given individual. Isn't it ironic that the very thing that has limited our capacity of thought has become the key medium of exchange of thought in our lives?

Midterm Essays

Prompt 5 - Politics and Rhetoric

In Ancient Greece, politics required rhetoric. The government was run by the people and completely depended on leaders’ and citizens’ ability to persuade one another to rally to one side or another and vote for specific leaders and laws. In a predominantly oral culture, people had to know how to plead their cause in a strategic way especially by taking into account the branches of oratory, the Canons of rhetoric and the different schools of thought that they most identified with.

When we really think about it, politics is just made up of different perceptions of people and the world around us. Governments run a certain way because people believe, or at least once believed, that that way would be most compatible with human nature to form an effective society.

In Ancient Greece, unlike today, there wasn’t extensive research to back up political agendas. People had to take an idea, for instance the Socratic concept of idealism, and then look to the past to see what was done justly or unjustly without idealism (judicial); look to the future to see if idealism would be advantageous or disadvantageous to society (deliberative); and then present it at a kairotic time while raising it up as a virtuous cause and perhaps blaming or praising members of society who had or hadn’t implemented it and either succeeded or failed as a result to solidify its validity (epideictic). In communicating a proposal relating to idealism, one would have to go through all stages of the Canons of rhetoric by inventing a political idea, carefully arranging it, crafting it stylistically, finding ways to make it memorable for themselves and others, and finally delivering it to the people using their rhetorical strategy.

I honestly don’t think that it’s too bold to say that rhetoric was the essential cornerstone of the creation of government and political ideals in Ancient Greece. 

Prompt 4 - Medium and Message

Socrates was a leader in philosophy and thought in the way that he encouraged deep thought processes. As I thought about the way that he discouraged writing for its tendency to decontextualize ideas, I realized that his intentions must have been different than his fellow philosophers, Plato and Aristotle, who wanted to record and spread their ideas in order to implement a certain idealism in society. What Socrates wanted to elicit was the actual act of thinking—digging deeper to reflect on life and to question what and why things happen. His primary medium of communication was oral dialogue, especially one-on-one.

One-on-one oral communication was vital to his philosophy as he worked with mentees by having reflective, logical conversations with them. By abstaining from writing and other methods of recording, he eliminated distractions from the raw thought. He went further than considering what was true and introduced the concept that perhaps there are few things that we can really prove absolutely. So, we have to connect with ourselves and truly ask: what is moral and right? In talking this all out, he used syllogism to put a little bit of a form to thoughts so that they could be considered through a logical process.

Further, structuring ideas in this pattern allowed them to be more memorable. Even though he opposed writing, he encouraged acquiring knowledge by committing it to memory. It seems as though this were a sort of process: have a reflective conversation about an idea, think about it deeply, verbalize it structurally and then commit it to memory. This not only encouraged Socrates’ own beliefs for effective pondering, but set the groundwork for future philosophizing in a more concrete way than ever before.