Synopses & Reviews
Plato isn’t exactly thought of as a champion of democracy, and perhaps even less as an important rhetorical theorist. In this book, James L. Kastely recasts Plato in just these lights, offering a vivid new reading of one of Plato’s most important works: the
Republic. At heart, Kastely demonstrates, the
Republic is a democratic epic poem and pioneering work in rhetorical theory. Examining issues of justice, communication, persuasion, and audience, he uncovers a seedbed of theoretical ideas that resonate all the way up to our contemporary democratic practices.
As Kastely shows, the Republic begins with two interrelated crises: one rhetorical, one philosophical. In the first, democracy is defended by a discourse of justice, but no one can take this discourse seriously because no one can see—in a world where the powerful dominate the weak—how justice is a value in itself. That value must be found philosophically, but philosophy, as Plato and Socrates understand it, can reach only the very few. In order to reach its larger political audience, it must become rhetoric; it must become a persuasive part of the larger culture—which, at that time, meant epic poetry. Tracing how Plato and Socrates formulate this transformation in the Republic, Kastely isolates a crucial theory of persuasion that is central to how we talk together about justice and organize ourselves according to democratic principles.
Review
“A startling reinterpretation of Plato, one that stands the standard narrative of the history of rhetoric on its head. Kastely persuasively takes the supposed archenemy of rhetoric and makes of him instead a theorist deeply concerned with rhetoric’s possibilities, and he does so with impeccable scholarship in a tour de force extended rereading of Plato’s most-read work.”
Review
“Plato’s Republic presents a faraway, made-up world, a world too distant from the rough-and-tumble world of rhetoric and so many of its chief concerns: persuasion, democracy, and deliberation. As a result, the Republic is not typically high on the list of Plato’s works consulted in rhetorical studies. With The Rhetoric of Plato’s ‘Republic,’ Kastely will change that. Patient, open-minded, and careful, Kastely finds in the Republic an account of justice as a renewable resource for democracy and of rhetoric as justice’s all too rare and precarious means of replenishment.”
Review
“Kastely’s subtle and illuminating reading of the Republic as a work of both political and rhetorical theory explains Plato’s democratic philosophy and its embodiment in the rhetorical practices he depicts. Unlike many studies past and present, this portrait of Plato’s defense of democracy meticulously distinguishes between Plato’s ideas and those advanced by Socrates. From this perspective, Kastely proposes, some of Socrates’s rhetorical failures may be seen as crafted by Plato to exemplify the limitations of elite political and philosophical cultures and their discourses.”
Synopsis
By demonstrating the importance of the Rhetoric for understanding current philosophical problems of practical reason, virtue, and character, Garver has written the first work to treat the Rhetoric as philosophy and to connect its themes with parallel problems in Aristotle's Ethics and Politics.
Synopsis
In this major contribution to philosophy and rhetoric, Eugene Garver shows how Aristotle integrates logic and virtue in his great treatise, the Rhetoric. He raises and answers a central question: can there be a civic art of rhetoric, an art that forms the character of citizens? By demonstrating the importance of the Rhetoric for understanding current philosophical problems of practical reason, virtue, and character, Garver has written the first work to treat the Rhetoric as philosophy and to connect its themes with parallel problems in Aristotle's Ethics and Politics. Garver's study will help put rhetoric at the center of investigations of practice and practical reason.
Synopsis
J. Kastely makes the case for Platos Republic as a self-consciously rhetorical work exploring a fundamental problem for philosophy. He argues that the Republic is a mimetic poem responding to a discursive crisis within democracy, namely, the absence of a genuinely persuasive defense of justice. Understanding the Republic as a work that raises persuasion as a key problem for philosophy requires us to rethink Platos understanding of the relationship between philosophy and rhetoric. This is a major and provocative reconsideration of the relationship of philosophy and rhetoric and raises issues central to a wide range of scholarly fields, from political theory to psychology to aesthetics.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. 297-311) and index.
About the Author
Eugene Garver is the Regents Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Saint Johns University and adjunct professor of philosophy at the University of Minnesota. Among his earlier books are Aristotles Rhetoric: An Art of Character and Confronting Aristotles Ethics: Ancient and Modern Morality, both published by the University of Chicago Press. In 2008, he bicycled from Cairo to Cape Town.
Table of Contents
AcknowledgmentsIntrodcution: Aristotle's Rhetoric and the Professionalization of Virtue
I. Aristotle's Rhetoric: Between Craft and Practical Wisdom
Aristotle's Project: A civic, Practical Art of Rhetoric
Guiding vs. Given Ends
From Internal/External Ends to Energeia/Kinesis
Rhetoric and Phronesis
Civic vs. Professional Arts
II. The Kinds of Rhetoric
The Plurality of Practical Discourse and the Diversity of Goods
Plurality, Function, and the Three Kinfs of Rhetoric
Plurality, Diversity, and the Incommensurablility
From Guiding Ends to Species
III. Rhetorical Topics and Practical Reason
Topics and the Marriage of Politics and Dialectic
Deliberative Rhetoric: Rhetoric
Epideictic Rhetoric: Rhetoric
Topics and Practical Reason
IV. Deliberative Rationality and the Emotions
Corrupting and Enabling Emotions
The Place of the Emotions in Rhetorical Arugment
Love and Anger, Eunia and Thymos
Aristotle's Definition of Emotion: How Emotions Modify Judgment
Pleasure, Pain, and Good Practical Decisions
The Political Function of Emotion
The Emotions, Good Action, and the Good Life
V. Why Reasoning Persuades
Arguing and Persuading
Arguing and Persuading: Ethos and Trust
Logical Forma and Rhetorical Forms
How Examples Persuade
How Enthymemes Persuade
Rhetorical Persuasion and Practical Reason
VI. Making Discourse Ethical: Can I Be Too Rational?
The Problem and the Evidence
Character and Rhetorical Invention
Why Rhetorical Needs Ethos
Ethos and Trust: SPeaker and Audience
Artful Ethos and Real Ethos
How Maxims Make Discourse Ethical
Rhetoric, Cleverness, and Phronesis
VII. How to Tell the Rhetorician from the Sophist, and Which One to Bet On
Energeia and Praxis
The Internal Ends of Art and Virtue
The Art and Virtue of Truth-telling
The Moral Point of View and the Rhetorical Point of View
The Moral Ambiguity of Rhetoric, and the Moral Ambiguity of Morality
VIII. Aristotle's Rhetoric and the History of Prudence
Notes
Bibliography
Index to Passages from Aristotle
General Index