John Poulakos

Nietzsche and the aesthetics of rhetoric

This essay addresses the debate over rhetorics epistemic status in terms of Nietzsches critique of epistemology. Asserting that no discursive effort can escape its own rhetoricity and that all discourse is based on aesthetic impulses, the essay suggests that Nietzsches aestheticism provides an alternative to the aforementioned debate. Taking this alternative seriously, the essay focuses on the differences between two rhetorics: the epistemic and the aesthetic.

Rhetoric, the sophists, and the possible

This essay argues that the rhetoric of the Sophists exhibits a distinct preference for the world of possibility. As such, it is different from Aristotles rhetoric, which privileges the world of actuality. After showing how this is so, the essay compares the sophistical and the Aristotelian versions of rhetoric by discussing their respective implications for language and persuasion. The conclusion reached is that the Aristotelian version, although textually and topically more complete, is not superior to but merely different from the sophistical.

Gorgias’ and Isocrates’ use of the encomium

This essay compares the Encomium of Helen by Gorgias and the Helen of Isocrates in order to show how epideictic rhetoric in general and the encomium in particular were conceived at the beginning of the history of rhetoric. The analysis suggests that during the late fifth and early fourth centuries B.C., genres were not rigid molds to be used mechanically but normative types sufficiently stable to warrant observance and sufficiently elastic to admit of varied treatment.

Hegel's reception of the sophists

Hegels treatment of the Sophists challenged the centuries‐old characterization of them as fraudulent intellectuals. Though he “rehabilitated” Protagoras, Gorgias, and others, however, he also domesticated sophistical rhetoric, divesting it of its capacity to shape the public sphere. The effect of Hegels historical analysis was to characterize Sophistic rhetoric as speculative philosophy. Thus his attempt to “normalize” the Sophists functioned more to render their rhetoric impotent.

Go Tell Alcibiades: Tragedy, Comedy, and Rhetoric in Plato's Symposium

Platos Symposium is a significant but neglected part of his elaborate and complex attitude toward rhetoric. Unlike the intellectual discussion of the Gorgias or the unscripted conversation of the Phaedrus, the Symposium stages a feast celebrating and driven by the forces of Eros. A luxuriously stylish performance rather than a rational critique or a bemused apotheosis of rhetoric, the Symposium asks to be read within a performative tradition that emphasizes the artistic enactment of both argument and story as well as the incarnation of utterances intoxicated by wine and erotic urge. Only by fully embracing the festive complexion of the Symposium can one escape the claims of its words and come close to the spirit that inhabits its tragic vision and comic sophistication. At stake in this approach is our understanding of ourselves as actors in and spectators of the drama of life, a drama punctuated by rhetorical ecstasies that underwrite the wish for immortality.

Testing and Contesting Classical Rhetorics

This essay argues that classical Greek rhetoric was informed by the ethic of competition and the aesthetic of exhibition and performance. It proposes that this rhetoric can be profitably studied in the terms of the Sophistical, Platonic, Isocratean, and Aristotelian perspectives. The essay recalls the authors early experiences with rhetoric and articulates the logic of his Sophistical Rhetoric in Classical Greece. At the same time, it promises a theatrical play (in the spirit of Platos Symposium) that illustrates the four perspectives.

Rereading the Sophists: Classical Rhetoric Refigured

Rereading the Sophists: Classical Rhetoric Refigured by Susan C. Jarratt. Southern Illinois University Press, 1991; pp. xxvi + 154.