Rereading Plato's rhetoric

Anthony P. Petruzzi

doi:10.1080/07350199609359202

Rhetoric Review Sep 1996

Rereading Plato's rhetoric

Anthony P. Petruzzi

Abstract

Most interpretations of rhetoric use a version of what is called This standard interpretation, also called Platonic Idealism, imposes a systematic order upon philosophy out of a distinctly unsystematic group of texts. Platonism has become an interpretative construct, or a terministic screen that dominates our understanding of thinking on rhetoric. In order to get a more accurate understanding of the two dialogues that are canonical in rhetorical studies, I will reread rhetoric by exploring the ways in which presents a disclosive view of truth. The disclosive view of exists in a creative tension with the correspondence of that is articulated in Socrates' hypothesis of Ideas. I will argue that rhetoric is an inquiry into the disclosive nature of discourse. Many scholars have argued for the necessary distinction between and Platonism. Platonism is a systematic philosophy that has been constructed by others, out of texts but by himself. In the words of Jirgen Mittelstrass: Plato is no 'Platonist' (134). Emerson also argues that thinking is not a system. [And his] dearest defenders and disciples are at fault for creating the system of Platonism (491). Eric A. Havelock argues that the phrase Plato's Theory of Forms is a scholarly construct that suggests a doctrinal position in which wished to vest his philosophical prestige. But the actual tone of his writing does support (254).2 The correspondence of truth, as the discussion of Heidegger will indicate, is derived from Platonism and relies upon what Hans-Georg Gadamer calls the two-world theory. For Gadamer, the two-world theory does accurately describe thought: Plato was a Platonist who taught two worlds (1988, 260). Platonism teaches that reality is bifurcated: There is one world of phenomena, while separate and apart from this there is another more real world of forms or ideas, a world of absolute and static being. Along with Gadamer, I will argue we must reject this argument.3 Martin Heidegger's Plato's Doctrine of Truth argues that the correspondence of originates in Platonism. Although Heidegger's thesis is that the correspondence of presupposes the disclosive nature of truth, he does develop the ways in which notion of is disclosive. His critique of doctrine of truth is based upon a critique of the correspondence theory, which the character Socrates proposes as a

Journal: Rhetoric Review
Published: 1996-09-01
DOI: 10.1080/07350199609359202
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Open Access: Closed
Topics: modern rhetorical theory rhetorical criticism discourse analysis
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Cited by in this index (1)

Arthos (2008)

Gadamer's Rhetorical Imaginary

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Rereading Plato's rhetoric

Abstract

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (1)

References (33) · 4 in this index

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