Week 2: Gorgias
What does Gorgias emphasize? Why is this significant to both classical rhetoric and contemporary teaching? And finally, what are you thinking about for your 20-page paper/project thus far?
Gorgias emphasizes two sides to every issue. And truth isn't knowable and speakable, but that we can get together and decide on "truth." For Gorgias speech, and he does mean oratory, is extremely powerful. It can control people like witchcraft or a trance. And speech doesn't need to be grounded in "truth" to have this kind of control on people. Interestingly he's more than willing to admit that rhetors can use their abilities for bad ends, as he speculates Paris has done; if rhetors do so, they are morally at fault, not the people entranced by their speech who actually perform the bad acts. In the Encomium of Helen, he claims that if Paris used speech to convince Helen to elope, Paris is at fault, not Helen. Obviously this two side to every issue idea not only puts the dialectic in the middle of classical rhetoric, but Gorgias did so while insisting that we can't define truth with speech. So he's married the dialectic and rhetoric not put them in opposition to one another. Of course, later Plato will subjugate rhetoric to the dialectic in his search for truth. I'm starting to think that Plato was just a poor student. I think it's pretty clear that Gorgias believed in a finite truth, but unlike Plato, he didn't see any point in pursuing it. Rather he believed in creating truth through the dialectic and not worrying if it matched the "real" truth. We've sort of abandoned truth today, but Gorgias ideas about creating knowledge are nicely in line with what most applied rhetoricians, i.e. communicators, believe today.
In contemporary thought, we assume there's always several sides to a story. And we frequently use a dialectic format to arrive at some kind of truth that we agree upon. Law courts are an example of this. Most importantly, I think the idea that what I'm going to call the functional truth--the truth we all operate under--is determined and not discovered is huge! When we think of truth in this manner, rhetoricians, i.e. writers, create the truth in the act of writing.
As for my project in this class, I think comparing and contrasting the sophist ideas of knowledge making as represented in texts like the Dissoi Logio and even the Econmium of Helen with Foucault's ideas in the Archaeology of Knowledge would be a great paper. However, it would require that I read the Archaeology of Knowledge again, and it certainly wasn't a cake walk when I read it 20 years ago, and even then such a paper would require some major mental work on my part, and it's the summer and all. I'm not sure I want to work this hard, so I'm still searching for something easier.
Kendall
5 comments:
Kendall,
I like your idea of "functional truth." I think I am willing to concede to being "deceived" as long as the deception will serve a purpose which I am not opposed to, one that functions within my view of the world.
Yes, there are two sides. So, if there are two sides, then there should be a common ground to talk, and there should be better ways to argue on both sides in order to get to truth. The two-sides idea is crucial. This is different than Plato who felt there is one right Truth and there should be a dialectic to get to it (unless the philosopher can tap into the Truth).
So, rhetoric should be for good, basically, according to Gorgias. Good, is somewhat relative, based on perspective and context. And good is different from different viewpoints. I may die, but that's job security for the funeral director.
I'm curious why you say we've sort of abandoned truth today. In what way? You don't see that as a primary goal of, say, education?
I think looking at the two-sides to every argument and Fouccault would work out very well. Could find something that relates directly to your teaching, too, or administration. Two sides to every argument is something administrators should always remember.
Every issue has at least two sides. And most of the time I believe we are not privy to the "truth" of a matter, rather our own interpretation of the "truth." I think Gorgias' might have been rather keen at both picking that up and using it to his advantage. Perhaps that's why his views are considered in tandum with the Sophists.
First,
When I say we've abandoned truth, I mean Truth, big truth, all encompassing truth. It's very rare that anyone tries to argue that one thing is true all the time. We are trying to find little truths, conditional truths, things that are true within our frame of reference.
As for my project, I want it to go on record that I sort of tried to write a new paper. The presentation I gave at the mini-conference during the May seminar was about how TC departments must propogate the post-modern, articulated view of commuication to be ethical and to make TCers viable in the new economy. I plan on giving this idea as a position paper at CPTSC. What does it have to do with classical rhetoric you ask?
Everything!
The post-modern articulated view of communication wouldn't exist except for the ideas in texts like the Dissoi Logio and the Encomium of Helen. So I could trace those ideas to modern communication theory and how such ideas further the TC cause. What do you think?
Kendall
How's your paper topic coming along now? Excellent presentation last week, btw.
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