Isocrates & Sophism
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Isocrates (436-338 B.C.), like Plato, was a student of the philosopher Socrates; unlike Plato, he was also a student of the rhetorician Gorgias (Bizzell and Herzberg 43). As a consequence, Isocrates considered rhetoric of equal, if not greater, value than philosophy. This put him in regular conflict with Plato's school of thought. Both were educators as well, founders of their own academies for the purpose of training the future leaders of democratic Athens. In this Isocrates was the more successful, for his students became important leaders, his ideals of teaching strongly influencing Western education up to the modern day (Bizzell and Herzberg 43). But Plato repeatedly attacked the "Sophist" approach to rhetoric of which Isocrates was the leading proponent. Plato's attacks upon the theoretical underpinnings of Isocrates' lifework threatened both the integrity of his endeavor and his peace of mind. In rhetorical essays such as "Against the Sophists" and "Antidosis," Isocrates sought to justify what he stood for - and clarify what he stood against. There has been a longstanding controversy in education: should the teacher be judged by his ideals he teaches - or by the results of his teaching. To Plato, of course, the absolute is always the final arbiter of Truth; hence the ideals are most important. Given that approach, Isocrates could easily have felt confident, since his personal ideals were never questioned by Plato. Indeed, in Isocrates' definition of rhetor
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the techniques of political debate. Like his teacher Gorgias, Isocrates believed that oratory, the then-most-common form of rhetoric, had a nobler purpose than mere glorification of words: it should build patriotism (Matsen, Rollinson, and Sousa 43). One in full command of the rhetorical skills should be able to fashion a persuasive, logical argument - and logic, in Isocrates' view, leads to knowledgeable dialectic. Agreeing with Plato (albeit without acknowledging the source), he finds that the Sophists:
...have no interest whatever in the truth... but undertake to transmit the science of discourse as simply as they would teach the letters of the alphabet, not having taken trouble to examine into the nature of each kind of knowledge... ("Against" 48).
It is obvious that charges such as this levelled against teachers of rhetoric worried Isocrates throughout his career: he wrote "Antidosis" thirty-five years after "Against the Sophists" - yet a large part of that work is taken up in defending the policies and practices of his school of rhetoric (Matsen, Rollinson, and Sousa 44). Moreover, the shadow of Socrates' unjust condemnation by the Athenian public court still hovers over Isocrates' thoughts. In "Antidosis" he imag
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1758
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)
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