Abstract

Reviews Scott Consigny, Gorgias: Sophist and Artist (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2001). 296pp. Why the Sophists? Why Gorgias? Why now? W. K. C. Guthrie points to a rupture in the history of sophistic studies that leads to some preliminary answers: "It is true that the powerful impetus of this movement [i.e., the revival of sophistry since the 1930s] was given by the rise of totalitarian gov­ ernments in Europe and the second world war, and it was indeed disturbing to learn that the aim of the German Nazi Party, as described in its official programme, was the production of 'guardians in the highest Platonic sense'" (The Sophists, Cambridge University Press, 1971, p. 10). Among classicists, historians, and philosophers, the interest in sophistic studies that emerged out of this historical rupture was defined by a negative impulse: If Plato's ideas support immoral ideologies, then we must turn instead to the ideas of his most bitter rivals, the Sophists. Yet the revival of sophistry specifically within rhetorical studies took on a different character. Instead of being defined by a negative impulse, studies of sophistic rhetoric were defined by the positive search for affinities between ancient and modern theories of persuasion. Robert Scott and Michael Leff, for example, found precedents for epistemic rhetoric among the sophistic fragments, and John Poulakos invoked sophistic notions of propriety and the opportune moment in his universal definition of rhetoric. Scott Consigny's Gorgias: Sophist and Artist represents a new phase in studies of sophistic rhetoric. In this complex and well-written book, Consigny avoids making problematic generalizations about "the Sophists," who were, in reality, a thoroughly disparate group of traveling teachers; he does not rely excessively on Plato's dialogues as source materials for Gorgias's art of rhetoric; and he resists the neosophistic impulse to appropriate ancient doctrines for modern purposes. In his introduction, Consigny discusses prior scholarship on the Sophists and the method of historiography that informs his analysis. Here Consigny contends that the fragmentary nature of Gorgias's texts, their questionable authenticity, and the ambiguous language in which Gorgias wrote create a "hermeneutic aporia," an interpretive impasse. Some "objectivist" scholars attempt to escape this aporia by suggesting that there is a single, correct interpretation of Gorgianic rhetoric, and it is the function of historical schol­ arship to discover it. Other "rhapsodic" scholars argue that the meaning© The International Society for the History of Rhetoric, Rhetorica, Volume XX, Number 3 (Summer 2002). Send requests for permission to reprint to: Rights and Permissions, University of California Press, Journals Division, 2000 Center St, Ste 303, Berkeley, CA 94704-1223, USA 299 300 RHETORICA Gorgias intended in his writings is now lost forever, and they use subjective interpretations of Gorgianic rhetoric to construct neosophistic theories that have modern relevance. Consigny, on the other hand, draws from Stanley Fish's notion of interpretive communities, arguing that pure truth is inacces­ sible and pure subjectivity is insufficient. Scholarly conventions established in academic discourse communities should guide our interpretations of Gor­ gianic rhetoric. While much prior scholarship identifies Gorgias as either a subjectivist or an empiricist, Consigny favors a newly emerging third school of criticism that identifies Gorgias as an antifoundationalist. Consigny begins his antifoundationalist reading of Gorgianic rhetoric with an interpretation of On Not-Being as an attack against both philosophical truth and empirical realism. In other texts (Epitaphios, Helen, and Palamedes), Gorgias articulates a more positive antifoundationalist theory of language based on the ancient notion of the contest or agon. Here language is defined by context, by the play of interaction among participants in a linguistic game that is governed by communal rules, and words derive meaning from their role in this interaction. Within such a framework, foundational truth is impossible since each context brings with it a different set of constraints, and radical subjectivity is also impossible since these very same constraints prevent chaos. Next Consigny argues that Gorgias articulates a nascent social con­ structionist view of knowledge in which established social conventions (or "tropes") condition individuals to act in communally authorized ways. Yet Gorgias is not in favor of a micro-social theory of conventions that separate communities by focusing on their foundational...