Rhetoric for philosophers: An examination of the place of rhetoric philosophy Ligia Alexandra Gongalves Teixeira Government Department London School of Economics and Political Science UMI Number: U615887 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMI U615887 Published by ProQuest LLC 2014. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Para os meus queridos pais, Artur e Noemia Libra r Abstract The debate between rhetoricians and philosophers goes back to the origins of the understanding of what philosophy is, which we can trace to Plato and the immediate Platonic tradition. I suggest that this tradition was not a disinterested one. Its concern was to carve out and develop a particular kind of discourse (i.e., what it takes to be the philosophical enterprise) for its own purposes (i.e., to marginalise its competitors). It did this in a particularly successful way, to the extent that it is difficult for us even to consider what the alternatives might have been. However, there are residual problems in the way that it conceives of the philosophical project, and this question is related to the widespread tendency of contemporary thinkers to view rhetoric as pompous vacuousness or mere trickery. Despite the theoretical questions posed, this thesis focuses primarily on concrete works, especially those of Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Renaissance thinkers, Hobbes, and Locke. I analyse the rhetorical discourse in some of rhetoric’s staunchest opponents, and some of its most well-known advocates for a very specific purpose. First, I am trying to show that all these philosophers, whether pro or against the art of rhetoric, recognise the danger of ‘sophistic tricks’, and acknowledge (more or less reluctantly) that rhetoric potentially represents a dangerous threat to the moral basis of political life, but follow different paths. Next, and this is a fundamental part of my argument, that in the works of philosophers who are widely regarded as some of rhetoric’s staunchest opponents, we can find clear evidence, not only of the use of rhetoric to fight rhetoric, but allusions to what they see as a ‘true’ or legitimate rhetoric. In other words, echoing Plato, two forms of persuasion are alluded to in their works: (i) a rhetoric that produces persuasion for belief in the absence of knowledge, and (ii) a genuine or ‘true’ art of rhetoric, the sort of that produces knowledge (episteme) in the privileged sense. So in the Phaedrus, Plato suggests that the philosopher is the true rhetorician; for Hobbes the only ‘true’ rhetorician is, of course, the sovereign; and for Locke, any truly free and rational individual can, at least in theory, be a good rhetorician. At a more general level, and this constitutes the underlying theme of the thesis, I hope to show that philosophy itself, like all discourses, does not exist in a linguistic vacuum. Philosophy, like rhetoric and history, is deeply implicated in the social and political order that produces it. 3 Contents Abstract 3 Acknowledgements 5 Abbreviations used for journals and reference works 6 1 Introduction: The problem in question 8 2 Rhetoric is more than it seems: Plato’s ‘true rhetoric’ and its institutionalisation by Aristotle 26 3 Praise of rhetoric: Cicero’s ideal orator 82 4 Rhetoric is not what it seems: The discourse of rhetoric in the Renaissance 109 5 The rhetoric of reason: Philosophy and rhetoric in Hobbes and Locke 154 6 Epilogue: Living with uncertainty 218 Bibliography 230 4 Acknowledgements It is my pleasant duty to thank those who have in different ways helped along the protracted process of bringing this thesis into the light of day (though to rehearse one’s debts no matter how pleasurably and publicly is not to repay them). To Peter Hayward, I am indebted for encouragement, persistence, and a sustained patience that has long since surpassed my understanding. I owe much to Janet Coleman, who I was fortunate to have as my supervisor. My attempts to answer her many probing questions were a valuable spur to improving the arguments and have improved the clarity of every chapter. This is also the moment to single out a number of friends who have given me especially unstinting support and encouragement in my work over the years. I list them with the deepest gratitude: Maddalena Campioni, James Gaywood, Eddie McManus, Barbara Maycock, Patrick Noack, Gary Scott, Anabela Teixeira, Barbara and Charles Thomas, and Jasmine Souesi. My debt to them can only be described - in the words of the indispensable New Oxford Thesaurus - as immense, monumental, elephantine. I would also like to pay tribute to BBC Radio 3 and Radio4 in helping me to keep going during the laborious process of writing. I also want to acknowledge the important role played in alleviating the loneliness of the writer by my feline companion, Gipsy. Finally, and most especially, I am grateful to Adrian, a patient and constructive friend and partner, who patiently guided me through. If he had not been around it is anybody’s guess whether there would be a thesis at all. 5 Abbreviations used for journals and reference works AJP American Journal of Philology AHR American Historical Review AP Ancient Philosophy APSR American Political Science Review BJHP British Journal for the History of Philosophy CCRH Cambridge Companion to Renaissance Humanism CHRP Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy CJ Classical Journal CP Classical Philology CQ Classical Quarterly CR Classical Review EC Eighteen Century ECS Eighteenth-Century Studies ELR English Literary Renaissance ESM Early Science and Medicine GR Greece and Rome GRBS Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies HSCP Harvard Studies in Classical Philology HJ The Historical Journal HR/RH Historical Reflections/Reflexions Historiques HEI History of European Ideas HM Historia Mathematica HPQ History of Philosophy Quarterly HPT History of Political Thought H. Sci. History of Science HS Hobbes Studies IHAN International Hobbes Association Newsletter IMU Italia Medievale et Umanistica JWCI Journal of the Warburg and Courtland Institute JHI Journal of the History of Ideas JHP Journal of the History of Philosophy JMH Journal of Medieval History J.Mo.H. Journal of Modem History J. Phil. Journal o f Philosophy 6 JP Journal of Politics JPP Journal of Political Philosophy JPT Journal of Political Thought LN Locke Newsletter MP M odem Philology NRRSL Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London NLH New Literary History OSAP Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy OSAPS Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, Supplementary Volume PP Past and Present PF The Philosophical Forum PT Political Theory PAPA Proceedings of the American Philosophical Association PAS Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society PASS Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volume PCPS Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society PQ The Philosophical Quarterly PT Philosophical Transactions Phil. Lit. Philosophy and Literature PPA Philosophy and Public Affairs PR Philosophical Review Phil. Rh. Philosophy and Rhetoric PS Political Studies QJS Quarterly Journal of Speech RM Review of Metaphysics RN Renaissance News RP The Review o f Politics RQ Renaissance Quarterly RS Renaissance Studies RSQ Rhetoric Society Quarterly SM Speech Monographs SSI Social Science Information TAPA Transactions of the American Philological Association TCBS Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society TCAAS Transactions of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences VH Vivens Homo. Rivista Theologica Fiorentina WMQ The William & Mary Quarterly YCS Yale Classical Studies 7 1 Introduction: The problem in question ‘Human souls also possess reason, and with it they circle in discourse around the truth of things’. Pseudo-Dionysius1 The most basic concern of this thesis is with the single question of the relationship between rhetoric and philosophy. The examination of other questions is conducted, so to speak, through the prism provided by the discussion of rhetoric and philosophy in ancient as well as modem thought. ‘Talking well’ (eu legein) has always had two meanings. It is not merely a rhetorical ideal, the art of speaking, of saying whatsoever well. It also means saying the right thing, i.e., the truth. In the ancient world, the ideal was proclaimed just as much by teachers of philosophy as by those of rhetoric. Rhetoric was always in conflict with philosophy and, as against the idle speculation of the sophists, claimed to teach tme wisdom. Western subdivisions and criteria of formal language and thought, of educated thinking and discourse, have recurrently linked rhetorical discourse with deception and fiction. Associations that linger in today’s critical lexica (e.g., rhetoric is an art of lying, most readily found in the politician; rhetoric encourages deceptiveness; a flawless eloquence is not to be trusted), were already old when Cicero wrote. In fact, it is widely acknowledged that the quarrel between rhetoricians and philosophers goes back to the origins of the understanding of what philosophy is, which we can trace to Plato (c. 427-347) and the immediate Platonic tradition.2 Less appreciated is that this tradition 1 Pseudo-Dionysius, De divinis nominibus; in Complete Works, tr. C. Luibheid (N.Y., 1987), VII, 2, p. 106. 2 The modem idea that the origins of philosophy can be traced to Thales (as opposed to, e.g., Pythagoras, or Adam, or the Egyptians), is a mid-eighteenth century notion; see, C. Blackwell, Thales Philosophus’, in History and the Disciplines, ed.