Plato's Use Of Rhetoric

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Rhetoric has potential for harm and good and participation in such as an act calls for a sense of moral responsibility. Plato saw much morality as an essential, universal good that must be discovered by languages. This is one of the reasons Plato disliked rhetoric as it often went against his carefully crafted system of metaphysics, particularly Sophistic.
Much of modern philosophy, and ironically, rhetoric, is based on the ideas of Plato’s focus. Metaphysically his main belief was the existence of the two worlds, the noumenal and the real world. Also known as the world of forms, the noumenal world is where spirit, absolute truth, and perfect form can be found. On the other hand, the real world, the realm of senses and man, is one of the imitations …show more content…

It was in the real world that he observed in disgust men using rhetoric “pleading in defense of injustice” (Plato, p. 108) Such a practice made the master scholar resent its perpetuation of false truths in what he felt was an already convoluted world. A discussion between Plato’s mentor Socrates and the student Polus help clarify these feelings. While in the midst of a heated discussion Socrates states that “rhetoric is of no use to man”, a sentiment also held by Plato (Gorgias, p. 108). Expanding on this idea of two worlds, we learn that this world of material is in perpetual movement, staying in flux and hence never staying the same This world is a reflection or imitation of a stable, ideal word in which there resides unchanging ideal forms or eternal essences of all physical objects. Also within this realm reside perfect concepts grasped by reason and …show more content…

Such binding to the superficial is unimportant and useless in discovering the absolute truth. “Plato faults the Sophists for not using rhetoric to discover absolute truth,” ignoring that they “do not believe absolute truth is accessible to humans (p. 28). For example, take the exchange between Socrates and Gorgias. Gorgias, declaring himself as a rhetor, opens himself to Socrates’ attack. Socrates expresses that rhetoric is “the artificer of a persuasion that attempts to create belief about a topic, “but gives no instructions about” said topic (Gorgias, p. 87-88). Unlike the Sophists, Plato (reflected as well in Socrates) believed that “transcendent truth exists and is accessible to human beings” (Plato, p. 81). Not willing to let “true and false rhetoric” to go undistinguished, Plato began to devote a large part of his career to the study of rhetoric. Even so, this does not reflect the entirety of Plato’s view on rhetoric, as it was not all

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