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Psychagogia: a Study in the Platonic Tradition of Rhetoric from Antiquity Through the Middle Ages

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Psychagogia: a Study in the Platonic Tradition of Rhetoric from Antiquity Through the Middle Ages PSYCHAGOGIA: A STUDY IN THE PLATONIC TRADITION OF RHETORIC FROM ANTIQUITY THROUGH THE MIDDLE AGES by John Joseph Jasso B.A., Kansas State University, 2003 M.A., Kansas State University, 2007 M.A., University of Pittsburgh, 2013 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2014 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH KENNETH P. DIETRICH SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES This dissertation was presented by John Joseph Jasso It was defended on April 25, 2014 and approved by Dr. Rita Copeland, Professor, Departments of Classical Studies and English, University of Pennsylvania Dr. John Lyne, Professor, Department of Communication Dr. Gordon R. Mitchell, Associate Professor, Department of Communication Dissertation Advisor: Dr. John Poulakos, Associate Professor, Department of Communication ii Copyright © by John J. Jasso 2014 iii PSYCHAGOGIA: A STUDY IN THE PLATONIC TRADITION OF RHETORIC FROM ANTIQUITY THROUGH THE MIDDLE AGES John J. Jasso, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2014 This dissertation is a history of an idea that has endured in rhetorical theory from Plato to Weaver – the idea that rhetoric can lead souls to their own betterment; that is, guide them in an ascent along a metaphysical hierarchy through beauty, goodness, and truth to a fuller participation in being. This is a study of what Plato calls psychagogia. Comprising replicating hierarchies, the Platonic tradition saw intricate connections between cosmology, theology, psychology, and language. At the height of this tradition, St. Bonaventure notes that rational philosophy is consummated in rhetoric, indicating that such an inquiry transcends the disciplinary sub-field of “the history of rhetoric” and engages much larger issues concerning the nature of language, language’s relationship with human rationality, and its analogy with the divine. Thus, this study maps the structural framework of the Platonic intellectual tradition from antiquity to the Middle Ages in order to identify the conditions necessary for rhetorical activity under a tripartite metaphysics. By comparing the parallel structures inherent in reality, language, and the mind, I contend that rhetoric plays a definitive role for the Platonist in the process of spiritual formation. Indeed, in some cases it represents the only machinery that humanity has to achieve intellectual, spiritual, and societal amelioration. But reality, knowledge, and language for the Platonist were all living things. So while I do not deny Plato’s rationalism, idealism, or realism in this study, I seek to investigate their interaction with his own skepticism, aestheticism, iv and above all, mysticism. The same is true for Augustine, Bonaventure, and the Platonic tradition as a whole. Such models as the Platonists provide can illustrate how philosophical tensions now thought to be in diametrical opposition can be brought into dialectical synthesis. The result is a truly organic intellectual framework that informs a rhetorical theory of equal vitality – a tripartite rhetoric, at once rational, spiritual, and emotive, culminating in the soul in a rhetoric of ascent. v TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE .............................................................................................................................. XI 1.0 INTRODUCTION: PSYCHAGOGIA AS A RHETORICAL CONCEPT ..............1 1.1 BACKGROUND CONSIDERATIONS ...........................................................5 1.2 ASSUMPTIONS AND DEFINTIONS .............................................................9 1.3 OVERVIEW ................................................................................................... 11 1.4 DISCIPLINARY SIGNIFICANCE ................................................................ 16 1.5 THEORETICAL COMMITMENTS ............................................................. 21 1.6 HISTORICAL LIMITS .................................................................................. 24 1.7 CHAPTER OVERVIEW ................................................................................ 24 2.0 METHODOLOGY CONCERNING PLATO AND RHETORIC ........................ 28 2.1 PLATONIC RHETORIC AND THE TERM RHETORIKE ......................... 29 2.2 RHETORICAL FETISHISM IN PLATO ..................................................... 31 2.3 KEYWORDS AND PATTERNS .................................................................... 49 2.4 A PRIMA FACIE RENDERING OF THE PLATONIC PSYCHE ............... 51 2.4.1 The Rational Element ................................................................................. 53 2.4.2 The Spirited Element .................................................................................. 54 2.4.3 The Appetitive Element .............................................................................. 56 2.4.4 Harmony, Justice, and the Whole Soul ...................................................... 58 vi 3.0 PRE-PLATONIC PSYCHAGOGIA ........................................................................ 60 3.1 NASCENT PSYCHAGOGICAL STRUCTURES IN HOMER.................... 60 3.1.1 The Judgment of Paris ................................................................................ 62 3.1.2 The Shield of Achilles ................................................................................. 66 3.1.3 The Embassy to Achilles ............................................................................. 69 3.1.4 Dialogue with Priam ................................................................................... 77 3.2 LOGOS AND PSYCHE IN HERACLITUS.................................................... 83 3.2.1 Logos in Heraclitus ..................................................................................... 85 3.2.2 Psyche in Heraclitus .................................................................................... 89 3.2.3 Hints towards Tripartition ......................................................................... 94 3.2.3.1 Tripartition in Psyche ....................................................................... 94 3.2.3.2 Tripartition in Logos......................................................................... 97 3.3 LOGOS AND PSYCHE IN GORGIAS ........................................................... 99 3.3.1 Logos in On Not Being or, On Nature ....................................................... 100 3.3.2 Logos and Psyche in the Encomium of Helen .......................................... 106 3.4 THE TERM PSYCHAGOGIA ...................................................................... 118 4.0 PSYCHAGOGIC RHETORIC IN THE PLATONIC CORPUS ........................ 125 4.1 PLATO’S GRAMMA OF MOTIVES ........................................................... 130 4.2 THE TRIPARTITE LOGOS IN PLATO ..................................................... 133 4.2.1 The Wise Logos ......................................................................................... 134 4.2.2 The Courageous Logos .............................................................................. 136 4.2.2.1 The Courage to be Wise .................................................................. 137 4.2.2.2 The Mathematics of Morality ......................................................... 141 vii 4.2.2.3 The Spirit of Integrity ..................................................................... 144 4.2.3 The Temperate Logos ............................................................................... 148 4.3 PLATO’S DRAMATISM ............................................................................. 153 4.3.1 The Aristocratic Logos .............................................................................. 154 4.3.2 The Timocratic Logos ............................................................................... 155 4.3.3 The Oligarchic Logos ................................................................................ 157 4.3.4 The Democratic Logos .............................................................................. 160 4.3.5 The Tyrannical Logos ............................................................................... 163 4.4 THE MAP OF THE PSYCHIC JOURNEY ................................................. 165 5.0 THE PERIAGOGIC RHETORIC OF SAINT AUGUSTINE ............................ 172 5.1 METHODOLOGY CONCERNING PLATO AND AUGUSTINE ............ 174 5.1.1 The Incarnation and Philosophy in Etienne Gilson ................................. 179 5.1.2 Rhetoric as Theology in John J. O’Meara ............................................... 180 5.1.3 The Incarnation as Symbolic Communication in Robert J. O’Connell .. 183 5.1.4 Un-Critical Reception ............................................................................... 184 5.2 THE TRANSMISSION OF THE PLATONIC TRADITION ..................... 186 5.2.1 Cicero ........................................................................................................ 186 5.2.1.1 The Tripartite Soul in the Tusculan Disputations .......................... 187 5.2.1.2 The Virtues in De Inventione .......................................................... 189 5.2.2 The Platonists ............................................................................................ 190 5.2.2.1 Ascent and Conversion in Plotinus................................................. 192 5.2.2.2 Porphyry’s Rhetoric ....................................................................... 195 5.2.3 Marius Victorinus ....................................................................................
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