dialogues, dialectic, & the

nature of "truth" & "knowledge"

prepared by dr. bonnie lenore kyburz

source: Rhetoric: Concepts, Definitions,
Boundaries.  William A. Covino (U ILL, Chicago) 
David A. Jolliffe (DePaul U)
Plato (c. 429 - 347 BCE) & "truth" in Phaedrus
• screens P's philosophical rhetoric (pref to
"rhetoric" as taught by the Sophists)
• method: dialogue. represents give-and-take of •
convo btwn 2 characters
• convo offers multiple viewpoints w/out
privileging any one, authorial perspective
• this interplay creates a productive kind of
ambiguity (like good literature)
• the convo is referred to as "dialectic," "a
method of inquiry" guided by ?'s and answers,
definitions and distinctions that =
"philosophical truth"
• supposedly, (ideally) participants in dialectic
do not begin w/ predetermined positions, but in
Phaedrus, Socrates has a perspective in mind, •
and he leads Phaedrus to it.
• Socrates' moves to persuade Phaedrus are
similar to the distasteful moves made by
rhetors Socrates does not admire
(ornamental, flowery ... mere flattery)
• alternatively, the Socratic method -- reveals by
doing, via inquiry-driven dialectic
P was a "follower" or student of
Socrates (469-399 BCE).
• P saw Socratic dialectic as more
valuable than the "mere cookery"
or the "false art" of rhetoric that
was being taught -- it offers a
"pleasant taste rather than good
health" and in this way "offers a
crowd what they enjoy hearing
rather than what is good for
them."
P saw this taught rhetoric as a
"knack" rather than a talent (Covino
& Jolliffe 74).
•  The Sophists were the teachers
... 
 the sophists. sophos = knowledge, wisdom

"The first sophists were teachers who

traveled in classical Greece teaching a
number of different subjects" (in Plato's
Gorgias, prior to Phaedrus, we see P's Socrates
suggest that "the practice of rhetoric does not
require any paritcular body of knowledge and
does not aim at the good, [thus] it is a false art or
"knack" rather than a true art") [...] They are
especially famous -- or infamous -- for
relativistic views ["radically contingent" (Kent)] of
truth and demonstrations of oratorical
dexterity; such demonstrations were
especially popular as entertainments and as
indications of the skills required of citizens in
newly emerging democracies" (Covino & Jolliffe
84).
second sophistic movement

• developed in 1st C. CE 

• "highly stylized ceremonial" speeches
• rhetoric as "epistemic," or generative
rather than merely representative of
knowledge (it creates knowledge). P
worried how this concept troubled a
specific view of "stable philosophical
truth," and he criticized them for this
challenge 
• P called this epistemic rhetoric a kind of
"image-making art, ... not divine, but
human ... the juggling part of productive
activity"
• P sees sophists as jugglers of truth,
manipulative (the early car salesperson)
• P CLEARLY worried the ways in which
the sophists could enchant "the youth of
today" with their tricks
• language as "Protean" (emergence!)
(Covino & Jolliffe 84)
P's philosophical rhetoric       Sophistic "protean" rhetoric
• natural talent
• divinity
• inspired
• privileged
• ethical -- toward a stable
notion of "the good"
• kairotic
• essentials determined by
God-like philosophical
wanderings, soarings ...
(concerns for essentialisms
carried thru the centuries ... 20th
C. rhetorical theory & postmodern
thought moved ...)
• teachable (dissoi logoi)
• phronesis (practical wisdom)
• emergent (like learning)
• kairotic
• contingent
• "potentially mesmerizing"
• understood limitations of human
knowledge (Protagoras (c. 481-411
BCE) "Of all things the measure is man
...") (Covino & Jolliffe 84); thus, given our
flawed human nature, knowledge was
relative, "radically contingent")
prevailing concepts & binaries
• privileged, stable
philosophical truth
• knowledge as stable,
essential
• the good
• dialectic
• knowledge as earned
through philosophical
divinity, arrived at by the
man who knows good
• radically contingent, skills
driven performances "in
the moment"
• knowledge and generated
by human observation,
experience, and art
• the probable
• poetics (also dialectic; for
the sophists, the split was
not so very neat)
• knowledge as always
already emerging, from a
variety of circumstances