Gorgias, was a Greek sophist, Sicilian philosopher, orator, and rhetorician. He is known as the first and original Nihilist, famously saying, “Nothing exists. If anything did exist it could not be known. If it was known, the knowledge of it would be incommunicable” (Gorgias), for this reason he earned the nickname, “The Nihilist.” He is known as the father of sophistry. According to The Encyclopedia of Philosophy contributor, Francis Higgins, sophistry is, “a movement of philosophy that emphasizes the real-world use of rhetoric concerning civic and political life” (Higgins). The sophists were nomadic paid educators who instructed on oratory and rhetoric. Many people claimed that sophists had the ability to teach the thesis and antithesis of any subject or idea. “Another quality of the sophist’s teaching was their ability to make the weaker argument the stronger” (Higgins). Gorgias is most often recognized as developing rhetoric in Greece. According to A.S. Ferguson in, A Fragment of Gorgia, “The democratic process in Athens supplied the need for instruction in both rhetoric and philosophy” (Ferguson). This made rhetoric one of the most important teachings of the time.
Gorgias (483-375 B.C.E.) came to Greece from Sicily. “Little is known of his life before he arrived in Athens in 427 B.C.E. as a political ambassador seeking military assistance against Syracuse, a city-state in Sicily” (Higgins). His delivery of speeches hypnotized Athenian audiences, winning him their utmost admiration and fame. After receiving the military assistance of which he asked against Syracuse, he began traveling through Greece teaching rhetoric and orating. “He was a student of Empedocles and was the teacher of Isocrates. Plato also identifies Meno ...
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Demosthenes and Isocrates came to prominence in fourth century B.C.E. Athens as public speakers and as politicians. Isocrates was a teacher of rhetoric, or the art of public speaking, while Demosthenes was a professional litigator, writing speeches for clients arguing in the courts of law, and occasionally presenting arguments himself. Both men were highly respected citizens and opinion makers throughout the sphere of influence maintained by Athens, though they held opposing views regarding the proper course for Athenian government, warfare between the Greek city-states, and the prospect of invasion from the Persian Empire to the east. While the Greek city-states engaged in fratricidal warfare, Philip of Macedon began consolidation of his political power by essentially offering up his highly trained professional Macedonian army as mercenary soldiers to the various city-states requesting assistance or protection and demanding control as hegemon or monarch of the city-state in return for military aid. Following a declaration of truce, Philip would impose his rule upon the vanquished as well.
185-196. Dillon, Mathew, and Garland, Lynda. Ancient Greece: Social and Historical Documents from Archaic Times to the Death of Socrates. Routledge International Thompson Publishing Company, 1994, pp. 179-215 Lefkowitz, Mary.
12. In what ways does Gorgias seem to provide a model for Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address? Are there specific connections of theme, diction, image, etc. that allow for a cogent comparison of these two brief eulogies?
In the Encomium of Helen, Gorgias attempts to prove Helen’s innocence since she is blamed to be the cause of the Trojan War. Gorgias uses rhetoric to persuade listeners to believe why there are only four reasons to explain why Helen was driven to Troy. All of which he will argue were not her fault. Fate was the first cause, followed by force. Gorgias then seems to focus the most on the power of Logos, or words. Finally he explains how she could have been compelled by love (82B116).
Alexander the Great, son of Philip of Macedon took the throne at nineteen years of age in 336BCE and with this single event the Hellenic culture abounded. Philip did not want Alexander to be a course and boorish Macedonian so he gave Alexander a tutor, Aristotle. Between Philip and Aristotle, Alexander was raised in the Hellenic culture. The Hellenic culture’s aim was to...
Onians, John. Art and Thought in the Hellenistic Age: The Greek World View 350-50 B.C. London: Thames and Hudson, Ltd., 1979.
Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) was a Greek philosopher, educator, and scientist. He was able to combine the thoughts of Socrates and Plato to create his own ideas and definition of rhetoric. He wrote influential works such as Rhetoric and Organon, which presented these new ideas and theories on rhetoric. Much of what is Western thought today evolved from Aristotle's theories and experiments on rhetoric.
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Socrates was a traveling teacher and talked and challenged everyone he met. Socrates taught the art of persuasive speaking. He did not charge people money like most of the other Sophists did, but he did have similar beliefs as the Sophists. Sophists thought that our minds are cut off from reality and that we are stuck in our own opinions of what the world was like. Socrates believed that reason or nature could not tell us why the world is the way it appears. The Sophists' point of view is best summed up as this: we can never step out of the way things appear.
Plato and Aristotle are two rhetoricians than had a great impact on the history of rhetoric. Although they were similar in many ways, their use and definition of rhetoric were different. Plato had the more classical approach where he used rhetoric as a means of education to pass down his beliefs and practice of rhetoric to his students. He believed that it should be used to educate the masses, provoking thought, and thereby preserving that knowledge. Plato thought that rhetoric should be used to convey truth, truths already known to the audience, revealed through that dialectic critical thought. Plato also operated on absolute truths, things that are right or wrong, black or white. Aristotle was more modern in that he used rhetoric as a tool of persuasion in the polis. He thought that the main purpose of rhetoric was to persuade, provoking emotions for his audience as a tool of persuasion. Aristotle’s rhetoric was more science based, using enthymemes and syllogism to foster logical thinking. He believed that rhetoric was a means of discovering truth. His rhetoric was highly deliberative since he used it mainly for persuasion. I will discuss their differences in more depth in the following essay.
Socrates was a Greek philosopher who lived from 469-399 B.C.E. Socrates believed that Philosophy was primarily a social activity, which in fact he made use of quite often. He would find himself roaming the streets of Athens questioning the youth or just anyone who would give him the chance to talk to them. Furthermore, Socrates questions drove people absolutely insane, until the point of absolute consternation if you will. He tried proving a point which is quoted “Look, here we are, two ignorant men, yet two, men who desire to know. I am willing to pursue the question seriously if you are” (Palmer, 31).Ultimately, this meant that the person Socrates was questioning actually didn’t know anything at all, just as well as Socrates himself, so which for the both of them would remain in search of the truth.
Archibald, Zofia. Discovering the World of the Ancient Greeks. New York: Facts On File, 1991. Print.
Plato defines rhetoric as “the art of ruling the minds of men” (Bloom). The sophists were instructors in the disciplines of rhetoric and overall excellence. Their teachings thrived in the fifth century B.C. Through the work of Protagoras, Gorgias, Antiophon, and other sophists, the people of Athens gained higher education and stopped accepting everything they were taught as absolute fact. This questioning of traditional philosophical schools eventually led to the emergence of other ways of thought such as skepticism.
Socrates was among the first philosophers who wasn't a sophist, meaning that he never felt that he was