"Rhetoric":
Protagoras: the art of logos as argumentation; as "antilogy" (antilogik=EB)-- arguing both sides of any question, making "the weaker argument the stronger" (or "the lesser the greater")
Gorgias: skilled logos as a "great potentate" (megas dynast=EBs), or a"witchcraft" (go=EBteia) or "drug" (pharmakos) that "joins with opinion in
the soul and alters it" (by means of argumentation combined with the sheer emotive & aesthetic force of rhythm & imagery); persuasion as "deception"(apat=EB) of the soul's opinions (doxa), in a world where the soul cannot know truth, but can know only the "slippery and uncertain" doxa that it constructs by means of logos[popular conception?] - "rhetoric" as the "art of the rhetor" taught by sophists, a collection of techniques (a techn=EB) for effective speech in courts & assemblies (see Aristophanes' Strepsiades in Clouds)
Isocrates: "discursive art," log=F6n techn=EB, as philosophia concerned= with political & ethical questions; as a general "art" requiring a broad"discourse eduation," log=F6n paideia, including the study of poetry & all varieties of epideictic & pragmatic logos, as well as exercise & practice(declamation)
Plato (& the Academy): "rhetoric" as a "psychagogic art," techn=EBpsychag=F6gia, guiding the soul by means of logos, in any kind of public or private discourse, spoken or written; as log=F6n techn=EB =3D philosophia = =3D dialectics on ethical, political & metapysical questions
Aristotle (& the Peripatetic school): "rhetoric" as the "counterpart"(antistrophos) of dialectic; as the "faculty of observing the availablemeans of persuasion in any given case"; as a general art of enthymematic argumentation & deliberation on contingent, uncertain matters, esp. those that arise in the realm of practical choice, & more or less situated within the domain of politics & ethics
Theophrastus, Demetrius (Peripatetics): "rhetoric" =3D "oratory," as thepractical application of a more general log=F6n techn=EB that includes the prose-genres of oratory, history & philosophical dialogue, as well aspoetry (or a stylistics derived from poetry); the general techn=EB includes a theory of argumentation (enthymemes, etc.), style (the theory of "3 styles"), and delivery
Anaximenes of Lampsakos (the Rhetoric to Alexander): log=F6n philosophia = as"the mother-city itself of good deliberation"; but "the methods of political discourse" as the specific object of attention .....style-section focused on essentially Gorgianic figures [early "Asiatic"text?]
Stoics (cf. Strabo): "rhetoric" as "wisdom/intelligence concerning words/discourses" (phron=EBsis peri logous); "rhetoric"=3D eloquence as a general art (of style?) comprising both prose (pezos logos) and poetry (emmetros logos; poi=EBtik=EB), which is the "fount and origin" of all eloquence
Epicureans (cf. Philodemus of Gadara): "rhetoric" =3D "sophistic" =3D an art= of written & spoken epideixis effecting psychag=F6 gia in audiences;= "rhetoric"is not an art of political discourse, but, when combined with political experience/knowledge, it can produce an eloquent & effective statesman-orator
Hermagoras of Temnos: "rhetoric" as an art of "settling the proposed political question as persuasively as possible"; as an art of arguing both"theses" (general, philosophical questions) and "hypotheses" (specific cases), which students practice via declamation exercises; as a techn=EB that includes principles of invention (stasis-systems), arrangement (the parts of an oration, & rules for handling each), style, memory, & delivery
Rhetorica Ad Herrenium: "rhetoric" as the method (ratio) of copia dicendi; Hermagorean argument-methods joined with Stoic & Peripatetic stylistics, & focused chiefly on the methods of juridic (courtroom) argument; early Roman appropriation of Greek theory (see also Cicero's youthful De Inventione)
Cicero (De Oratore & other "mature" treatises): "rhetoric" as a general, Isocratean/Hermagorean/Peripatetic/Stoic/Academic art of eloquentia and sapientia (& a school-subject?) closely linked to both poetry & philosophy(also school-subjects?), chiefly located within the general domain of "civil science" & finding its greatest/noblest application in the civic oratory of the broadly-educated & experienced "perfect orator"; the orator's "duties" are to teach/inform/explain, delight/conciliate, and move(i.e., via logos/plain-style clarity, ethos/middle-style elegance, and pathos/grand-style forcefulness)
Dionysius of Halicarnassus: "good" rhetoric as "philosophical" (in an Isocratean/sophistic sense); "bad" rhetoric as a narrowly educated, "mindless" skill in practical oratory, & as the dominant mode of the Hellenistic age
Quintilian: "rhetoric" as the art of "speaking well", & Q's neo-Ciceronian "perfect orator" as "the good man speaking well" (but Q's chief teacher-mentor is a delatore, a professional informer/accuser in imperial treason-trials under Nero); the "perfect orator's" education is grounded in "literary" study (grammatik=EB) including all forms of prose & poetry,leading to writing-exercises and "rhetorical" study (eclectic,mostly-Hermagorean theory) and declamation-practice
Aelius Aristides (in his "Defense of Rhetoric, Against Plato"): "rh=EBtorik==EB"as (Isocratean) "philosophia," an art of reasoning & speaking well onpublic as well as private matters; as an "amulet for justice" that keepsthe tyrannical potential of autocracy in check; as an art that can bepracticed even by the person who never speaks in public*****************
Jeffrey Walker Associate Professor & Director of Composition Program English, Penn State, University Park PA 16802 phone: (814) 863-3066, 863-9585 / fax: (814) 863-7285 email: jsw1@psu.edu (office)