The Birth of Rhetoric: Gorgias, Plato, and Their Successors - Couverture rigide

Wardy, Robert

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 0415146429 ISBN 13 : 9780415146425

Editeur : Routledge, 1996

Synopsis

This study explores the first debates around the concept of rhetoric in ancient Greece and links them to contemporary thought. At the centre of discussion stands the relationship between rhetoric and philosophy. In "On What Is Not" and "Encomium of Helen" Gorgias suggested the terrifying and exhilarating possibility that persuasion is nothing but power, and that no human contact is innocent of its manipulative presence. This understanding of rhetoric is subsequently taken up and attacked by Plato and Socrates in their discussions of Gorgias. The author reads these texts and later ones in a sophisticated and philosophic manner. This book concludes with a description of the relationship between the fight over persuasive power and recent feminist debate - a telling example of the topicality of an ancient discussion.

A propos du livre

Présentation de l'éditeur

What is rhetoric?
Is it the capacity to persuade? Or is it 'mere' rhetoric: the ability to get others to do what the speaker wants, regardless of what they want? This is the rhetoric of ideological manipulation and political seduction. Rhetoric is for some a distinctive mode of communication; for others, whenever someone speaks, rhetoric is present.
This book is devoted to helping readers understand these rival accounts, by showing how it has happened that there are so many conceptions of rhetoric. Any such approach must be rooted in classical antiquity, since our ideas of rhetoric are the product of a complicated historical process starting in ancient Greece. Greek rhetoric was born in bitter controversy. The figure of Gorgias is at the centre of that debate and of this book: he invites us to confront the terrifying, exhilarating possibility that persuasion is just power.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Routledge
• Date d'édition: 1996
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0415146429
• ISBN 13: 9780415146425
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 224
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible