Today’s plan:
- Why Are You Here?
- Syllabus
- Introduction to Plato, Greek Conceptions of Philosophy and Rhetoric
- Writing with Direct Quotations
- Homework
Introduction to Plato
The philosopher Alfred North Whitehead once wrote that all Western intellectual history is merely a footnote to Plato. The ancient Greek thinker, believed to have lived from 428-347 BC is often credited with the “birth of philosophy.” Plato was one of the first philosophers to practice writing (and he was quite prolific). But to understand the impact and importance of Plato’s thought, it is a bit necessary to understand the intellectual context in which he was thinking and writing.
Ancient Athens was an interesting political experiment: it was one of the first democracies (although we should use that word cautiously, since only rich male land owners were allowed to speak and vote), in which decisions were made via oral deliberations in an open (again, sort of) agora. Due to this political and legal structure, teachers taught forms of speech craft and delivery, these teachers were called sophists.
Plato was skepticism of the sophists, since they claimed to teach people righteousness but instead only taught them pretty words. He likened them to pastry bakers, while true philosophers, he believed, were doctors. The one gave you merely what you want (to eat / to hear), the other what you needed to be healthy (and it might not taste good!). We can recognize at least one truth to Whitehead’s quip: to this day we tend to refer to the sophists and their art by the name that Plato gave it: rhetoric. Mere, empty rhetoric (which is always in opposition to truth).
We can get a better sense of what is going on here by examining the complex history of the Greek term logos. The terms originally meant “word” or “speech.” Overtime it came to mean “opinion.” But for Plato, and the philosophers who followed him, the term came to meant “reason” or “truth.” More than that, it served as a name for the system of argument, called dialectic (in which two interlocutors debate back and forth, eliminating probability to arrive at a higher level of certainty). Plato thought that all politics should be based on this version of logos, and that anything–either appeals to character or appeals to emotions–simply got in the way of the truth.
Rhetoricians differ from Plato. They think of rhetoric and persuasion, and believe persuasion is essential to maintaining and healthy democracy. While they recognize the importance of argument and evidence (logos) in rhetoric, they also argued that truth alone is not always sufficient to move human beings into action. Rather, humans have to trust the person speaking to them, acknowledge that they belong to the same community as themselves. They need to have a sense of “us.” We call this–sharing a cultural identity and ideology–ethos. And often humans fail to act on things that they know to be true. Often to move them to action requires creating an emotional response. Also, people are not machines, they are not objective. They approach problems from a particular emotional register, with preconceptions and expectations. We call the use of emotional appeal pathos. Rhetoricians believe you can train yourself to identify these preconceptions and work to subtly shape them (since, if you confront someone directly, they might get defensive, resistant, or aggressive). Also, at a more philosophically rigorous level, rhetoricians believe that truth is kairotic, that is, the production of a group of people at a particular place and time. It is neither absolute or eternal, but temporary and contingent. Every truth is man made, and must be revisited and renewed. We renew our social truths through sharing speech and language.
Not surprisingly, Plato found these ideas not only wrong, but dangerous. Truth for Plato wasn’t easy to discover, it required natural ability, training, and dedication. Hence, incompetent and lazy people invented reasons why Truth was “impossible.” And while Plato was very suspicious of written language (even though he was a voracious writer), he believed any miscommunication was a mistake that could be cleaned up through better words. Much of 20th century philosophy is a battle over this very point–whether words have clear and exact meaning and miscommunication means an error on the speaker/writer or the listener/reader, or whether words work *because* listeners are always in a process of (re)inventing the speaker’s meaning, and miscommunication is a necessary possibility if we are to have communication at all (note: the second position won). Contrary to Plato, we now accept that our access to language is mediated through language and the personal, cultural, social, political, economic, etc. experiences that shape our understanding and inhabiting of language. Or, at the rhetorican Kenneth Burke put it in the 1960’s:
Men seek for vocabularies that are reflections of reality. To this end, they must develop vocabularies that are selections of reality. And any selection of reality must, in certain circumstances, function as a deflection of reality.Today I attempted to stage an experiment to demonstrate how playful language can be: why are you here?
But Plato would dismiss Burke’s insistence and my little joke as meaningless, mere parlor tricks. In your reading tonight, he will open with an allegory that illustrates the dangers of sophistry, rhetoric, etc. Most people, he argues, are trapped in a kind of cave. What is it that keeps them trapped? Well, it might be there own lack of intellectual ability and laziness (Plato was an elitist and thought democracy was a very bad idea–the selection you are reading for homework is from his long work The Republic, in which he argues for reforming government around an intellectual oligarchy). So, what keeps them trapped? Rhetoric, and the power-hungry sophists who use it
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I recognize that this will be a challenging reading. I imagine few of you have experience reading ancient Greek dialogues, and the terminology, syntax, and style will be challenging. But I want you to work through it. Should you pursue a career in Technical Writing, you will be charged with learning to reading and summarize difficult text that speaks a specialized language. Working with the source texts during this first unit will give you an opportunity to practice that skill. Remember too that our goal here is to gain an understanding of how classical perspectives on education still do or do not inform our contemporary schools (both high schools and colleges). To what extent can you see Platonic influence on your own secondary or higher education?
Writing with Direct Quotations
In the syllabus, I mention that I want you to work with direct quotations and respond to specific passages in your blog posts. Here is a link to some instructions on how to do that.
Homework
Essentially three things to do for homework:
- First, print and read Plato’s Republic VII. As you read it, underline sentences that grab your attention. Write notes on the top of the page (a few words to summarize what that page is about). Mark areas where you have a question.
- Second, create a blog with Blogger. For those who have never used a blog before, Google (who runs Blogger) has a really easy guide. Give yourself an anonymous identity and your blog a title that does not suck. NOTE: Difference between new blog and new post.
- Third, write a blog post on Plato’s Republic VII. Follow the instructions on the syllabus page for construction a post and follow the guides for quotes above to write the second paragraph.
