The display of skill
In his orations and informal discussions, Gorgias often speaks of the importance of rhetorical skill. In his speech at the Olympic games, he draws an analogy between rhetoric and athletics, asserting that "a contest such as we have requires two kinds of excellence, daring and skill" (sophia) [1]; in Plato's Gorgias, he is portrayed as drawing an analogy between the rhetor and the gymnast who acquires "skill" in wrestling or boxing (Gorgias 456d), and in the Meno he is cited as instructing his students to be skilled (deinous) in speaking (DKA21). But perhaps the most eloquent testimony to Gorgias' attention to rhetorical skill is his invention and use of epideictic, a genre exemplified in his four-major extant works, the Epitaphios or Athenian Funeral Oration, the Encomium Of Helen, the Palamedes, and the treatise On Nature Or Not-Being. [2] For according to many theorists, epideictic rhetoric is a genre in which the rhetor is given the opportunity to exhibit what Aristotle calls dunamis, rhetorical skill or ability. [3]
In this construal, the epideictic rhetor differs from his pragmatic counterpart in that rather than using his art to address an audience engaged in legal or political deliberation, he displays his rhetorical skill before all audience of spectators (theoroi) who observe and judge that skill. [4] Whereas the pragmatic rhetor is constrained by a practical exigence, the epideictic rhetor is thus at liberty to advocate any position whatsoever, regardless how frivolous, as long as it affords him all opportunity to exhibit his rhetorical prowess. (Aristotle, Rhetoric 1366a29) [5] As such, Gorgias' arguments that the Athenian heroes possess the same virtues as the sophistic rhetor, that Helen of Troy is praiseworthy, and, perhaps most notoriously, that "nothing exists," may be seen as defenses of unpopular and even paradoxical positions undertaken in order to display or advertise his rhetorical skill. The idea is that if person is able to make a notably weaker or even preposterous argument appear stronger, he is demonstrably a master of the art of rhetoric.
But despite his extensive use of a genre devised expressly to display rhetorical skill, Gorgias' own epideictic performances appear to engender a curious puzzle. For according to many critics, Gorgias' orations betray his lack of rhetorical ability to advance consistently cogent arguments or to employ a clear, appropriate, and compelling style. Concerning his argumentative skills, Aristotle contends that Gorgias' reasoning tends to be "episodic"; and he suggests that Gorgias relies more on "amplification" rather than valid deduction or induction (Rhetoric 1418a35; 1368a23; 1414al8ff). Aristotle's critique has been iterated, and in respect to Gorgias' individual orations, many critics have found the reasoning frequently unsound and inconsistent. Concerning the Epitaphios, Gorgias' lack of "argument" is so blatant that even a sympathetic reader like Richard Lanham suggests that Gorgias' "outrageous rhetorical chromo" may be an assemblage of artificial tropes designed to divert his audience's attention from the thought of death (Lanham, 14). Concerning Helen, Poulakos admits that "of the four arguments Gorgias employs, only one (Helen is not blameworthy for her actions because she was overcome by physical force) has credibility; the rest are quite weak and unconvincing" (Poulakos, 3). And concerning On Not-Being, Robinson contends that Gorgias' claims are, on the face of it, so bizarre that the question at once arises: are they seriously intended?"; and that his argumentation in the text is largely unsound and often "embarrassing" (Robinson, 55, 58). These critical assaults do not mean that all of Gorgias' arguments are invalid; and in the Palamedes, for example, his reasoning appears systematic and cogent. [6] But overall, Gorgias' reasoning seems uneven at best; and one of the difficulties facing his more recent apologists intent on "rehabilitating" Gorgias as a serious philosopher derives from the perceived frailty and inconsistency many of his arguments.
Yet if critics have chastised Gorgias for his questionable reasoning, they have tended to find even greater fault with his style. Again, Aristotle provides the framework for this critique, suggesting that Gorgias' misguided and often inept attempts to emulate the techniques of poetry in his prose results in obscurity, artificiality, and inappropriatencss (Rhetoric 1406al; 1406b8-11. Aristotle thus remarks that "as the poets, although their utterances were devoid of sense, appeared to have gained their reputation through their style, it was a poetical style that first came into being, as that of Gorgias. Even now the majority of the uneducated think that such persons express themselves most beautifully, whereas this is not the case, for the style of prose is not the same as that of poetry." Later classical critics tend to echo Aristotle's condemnation, Diodoros complaining of Gorgias' "extravagant figures of speech marked by deliberate art . . . [which] seem tiresome and often appear ridiculous and excessively contrived" (DKA4); Dionysius remarking that "the style in many places [is] very labored and bombastic" (DKA4); and Cicero noting that Gorgias "immoderately abuses these 'festive decorations'" (DKA32).
Many modern scholars and critics also concur, among them Jebb remarking that Gorgias' "use of poetical words, and the use of symmetry or assonance between clauses" seems "incredibly tasteless now" (Jebb 126-27); Freeman asserting that "his chief fault was his lack of restraint in the use of all these figures of speech; he had not sense of what was fitting to the occasion" (Freeman 364-65); Dodds noting that "the style seems to us, as it did to later antiquity, affected and boring" (Dodds 9), and Kennedy remarking that "in essence Gorgias simply borrowed a number of the techniques of poetry and developed to an extreme the natural Greek habit of antithesis. . . . [yet] if the highest form of art is to conceal art, as has often been claimed, the devices hardly qualify, for they are extraordinarily conspicuous" (Kennedy 64-66) Even Smith, who suggests that Gorgias' style may seem less artificial and obscure when heard than read, admits that "the periodic pendulum swung too noticeably, the antitheses were often forced, the chimer could be seen at his bell-ropes" (Smith 358).
Thus, if his epideictic orations are assessed by criteria of logical cogency, or by conventional standards of stylistic clarity, appropriateness, and "naturalness," then Gorgias emerges, somewhat paradoxically, as incompetent in a genre designed expressly to advertise those very skills. In this essay, I will defend Gorgias from this charge of rhetorical incompetence, suggesting that the conventional critique of Gorgias' rhetorical abilities misconstrues the nature of the skill he exhibits. In brief, I argue that Gorgias appears to violate conventional criteria used to assess reasoning and style in his epideictic orations because the skill he exhibits is one of prevailing in diverse discourses, each possessing its own protocols of reasoning and style. Rather than adhering to universal criteria, Gorgias suggests that the criteria for assessing reasoning and style are relative to specific, -arbitrarily accepted discourses of the culture.
In elaborating this thesis, I first delineate Gorgias' conception of pragmatic rhetoric as a skill of adapting to and prevailing in diverse discourses, each with its own sanctioned procedures of reasoning and manners of speaking. I next examine Gorgias' principal epideictic works, wherein he displays his ability to adapt to four distinct discourses, those comprising the Athenian funeral oration, the literary debates over Helen, the legal self-defense, and the Eleatic metaphysical tract. I further suggest that whereas Gorgias exhibits his pragmatic skills, he presents his epideictic works overtly as "theater," thereby exposing the deceptive maneuvers of every pragmatic rhetor. In this way, Gorgias uses his epideictic works as instructional and polemic instruments, displaying the nature and universal scope of pragmatic rhetoric as well as his own adaptive skills. For in his orations he draws attention to his own adaptive maneuvers and reveals the deceptiveness of his own articulations. By exposing each of the discourses he uses to be an apparatus of deception, he challenges efforts by his dogmatic adversaries to promote their own discourses as privileged vehicles for arriving at and transmitting the "truth."
Adapting to the discourses
In order to discern the rhetorical skills Gorgias exhibits in his epideictic displays, it is first necessary to delineate his conception of pragmatic rhetoric, one informed by the notions of kairos, logos, in([ the agon. As recent theorists have remarked, Gorgias grounds his conception of rhetoric, as well as his epistemology and ethics, on the notion of kairos. [7] Gorgias frequently speaks of the importance of kairos, a term usually translated as the "opportune," the "fitting," or the "timely," and one closely associated with the idea of "adaptation" to a situation. He remarks in the Epitaphios that the true warrior in word and action, whom he as rhetor desires to emulate, recognized that "the following to be the most godlike and universal law was this: in time of duty dutifully to speak and to leave, unspoken, to act [and to leave undone]." He asserts in Helen that it is a man's duty "to speak the needful rightly" (Helen 1, 2); and he states in the Palamedes that the objective is to discover something to say "out of the present necessity" (Palamedes 2). Significantly, Gorgias derives the term kairos from the arts of weaving and archery, wherein it refers to the momentary "openings" or opportunities to which the skilled artisan must respond accurately and forcefully (Onians 343-48). Specifically, the archer must be able to strike the "opening" or kairos in a target or in an adversary's defenses, and the weaver must be able to insert his thread in the momentary aperture or kairos that emerges in the fabric being woven. Thus kairos denotes what White calls "a passing instant when an opening appears, which must be driven through with force if success is to be achieved" (White 13). The Gorgian rhetor, as a skilled craftsman, must be able to discern and accurately respond to the momentary "openings" or opportunities he encounters as a speaker.
Yet whereas the Gorgian rhetor must adapt to the "openings" he
encounters, he differs from other artisans in that he finds these
openings entirely within logos, or discourse. Whereas the weaver discerns
and accurately responds to the openings in the fabric, the skilled rhetor
must discern openings in discourse itself, and weave therein his own
verbal "text." Thus Gorgias is cited as stating that rhetoric is
concerned solely with logos, and that the rhetor differs from other
artisans because his entire scope is logos and not manual work
(Plato, Gorgias449d-450c) The
term logos itself is ambiguous, denoting the "outward discourse" being
spoken, "the inward thought" expressed in that discourse, and the
"rational structure" demarcated by the discourse. But Gorgias appears
to stress the primacy of "outward discourse," stating that logos has
"substance" and is apprehended by a "human organ" (
Whereas the rhetor adapts to the norms or protocols of discourse to weave
a text, in doing so he also responds to the openings in his adversary's
defenses; for the discourses he encounters are constituted as agons or
contests. Gorgias' rhetoric is thus what Guthrie calls "agonistic," a
struggle in which the rhetor competes (Guthrie 43). Like the archer who strikes ail
opening in his adversary's defenses, the skilled rhetor must recognize
openings in his adversary's position in the verbal contest. Thus Gorgias
draws an explicit analogy between rhetoric and the athletic contests of
the Olympic games, asserting that the rhetor must be able to "understand
how to trip the opponent" (DKB8). In the Epitaphios, he draws an analogy
between the slain warriors and the sophistic rhetor; in Helen he portrays
the successful rhetor as the warrior Alexander; and in the Gorgias, he is
made to draw an analogy between the rhetor and the student of gymnastics
who acquires skill in wrestling or boxing, as well as the student of
warfare who learns to fight in arnior (Plato, Gorgias 456d).
It is significant in this regard
that Plato begins the Gorgias with the terms "battle" and "fight,"
signifying the essence of Gorgian rhetoric as a struggle for domination
or victory over one's adversary (Plato, Gorgias 47a). Gorgias' portrayal of rhetoric as a
verbal struggle is further underscored by the inscription on his own
statue, wherein he is praised for his ability to train students in verbal
battles: "No one of mortals before discovered a finer art than Gorgias to
arm the soul for contests of excellence" (DKA8). Insofar as he portrays
the pragmatic rhetor as adapting to and potentially prevailing in a
variety of discursive contest, Gorgias delineates what Lanham calls
"rhetorical man," one whose "motivations must be characteristically
ludic, agonistic. He thinks first of winning, of mastering the rules the
current game enforces, "to prevailing in the game at hand" (Lanham, 4).
Thus whereas kairos for Gorgias involves the ability to respond to an
opportune moment, this adaptation is more thorough than what Plato refers
to as putting the "finishing touches" on a speech in order to present it
effectively to a given audience (Phaedrus 272a); and it is more fundamental than what
Aristotle suggests by to prepon, whereby the rhetor articulates his
arguments in words that are "appropriate" for a given subject (Aristotle Rhetoric.
For to
Gorgias, the rhetor does not first compose his speech using a previously
established method of inquiry, such as dialectic, and then subsequently
present the truths resulting from that inquiry using superficial
variations of "style." Nor does he simply embellish the arguments he has
constructed according to "legitimate" rules of deduction or induction
with superficial figurative ornaments. Rather, the Gorgian rhetor must
accede fully to the operative protocols of reasoning and speaking of
specific discourses; for if he does not abide by its etiquette and use
its sanctioned apparatus, he will be unable to prevail in those contests
constituted and informed by that discourse. And because he must conform
to specific constraints of reasoning and speaking, it is not correct to
see the Gorgian rhetor as free to express himself arbitrarily,
spontaneously "innovating" in what White characterizes as "an endlessly
proliferating style deployed according to no overarching principle or
rational design." (White 21) The Gorgian rhetor resorts no more to subjective
intuition than he adheres to universal patterns. He must be an
opportunist in form or structure as well as in subject matter, able to
adapt his manner of reasoning and speaking according to the accepted
procedures of the discourse at hand.
In order to prevail in any verbal contest, the Gorgian rhetor must
persuade his auditors that his articulations are accurate replications of
"things as they are." And according to Gorgias, this project necessarily
involves deception, or apate, for any claim to replicate the nature of
reality is deceptive insofar as it suggests that the rhetor speaks from
"outside" all discourse, and that he somehow has a privileged access to a
pre-existent "reality." Gorgias denies the possibility of such access, in
that one cannot say that what is real "in itself," apart from the
ultimately arbitrary vocabulary and rules of specific discourses. What
counts as "truth" in one discourse may not be so accepted in another; and
a determination of the truth of any statement can be made only according
to the protocols of a specific discourse. There is no "privileged"
viewpoint, located somewhere outside all discourse, from which one may
observe a domain that transcends and gives meaning to particular
perspectives. Hence, Gorgias asserts "that by which we reveal is logos,
but logos is not substances and existing things. Therefore we do not
reveal existing things to our neighbors, but logos, which is something
other than substances" (Not-Being 85), In this respect, Gorgias seeks to
abolish what Sextus calls the "criterion," a putative standard existing
outside all discourse by which the meaning and truth of statements may be
determined (Not-Being 65). For rather than replicating reality, discourse
merely communicates those "truths" fabricated with its own arbitrary
apparatus. Gorgias' theory of rhetoric is thus "relativistic" in
Brummett's sense, one wherein what is accepted as "real and true is
determined only by the social, symbolic, and historical context from
which the knowing human arises" (Brummett 82).
Gorgias' model of rhetoric thus differs from a "mimetic" model such as
Aristotle's, wherein a grounding in the "facts" is essential to valid
argument, and wherein "the first question to receive attention [is]
naturally the one that comes first naturally-how can persuasion be
produced from the facts themselves" (Rhetoric 1403b14-18).
Gorgias differs further from
Aristotle, for whom the rhetor must reason logically from the facts at
hand and attempt to communicate such facts lucidly and without
distortion. If there is no external standard by which assertions may be
measured, then the validity of arguments and the lucidity and
appropriateness of style is a function of the arbitrary protocols of each
discourse. Each discourse in effect fabricates what is accepted as
"real," and its means of establishing and articulating this putative
reality are conventions internal to the discourse rather than a valid
means of arriving at and communicating eternal "truths." Since a
plurality of such discourses may exist, there is no one procedure of
thinking that is "valid" in and of itself; for what is accepted as
"reasonable" is in effect a matter of persuasion in each case, rather
than what conforms to a universal pattern. Thus Gorgias suggests that the
consistency and validity of one's arguments are relative to specific
speeches, and criticizes only the rhetor who "in a single speech says to
the same man the most inconsistent things about the same Subjects"
(Palamedes 25). Because he recognizes that a plurality of
discourses may exist, Gorgias opposes all dogmatists who promote their
own discourse as providing the sole valid means for determining and
clearly articulating any putative "truth." Gorgias' relativism in method
and style does not mean that he eschews cogency or clarity, however;
rather it means that he construes what is accepted as "rational" and
"clear" to be subordinate to persuasion; and as such he portrays the
meaning of these "virtues" to be relative to those discourses people have
been persuaded to accept and use.
Given his conception of pragmatic rhetoric, we may now discern the nature
of the skills that Gorgias displays in his epideictic orations. For in
each presentation, he stages an example of pragmatic skill as he
construes it, adapting to and using the mode of reasoning and style of an
existing discourse. In the Epitaphios, first, Gorgias exhibits his
ability to "adapt" to the traditional topoi, elevated argumentation, and
highly formal style of the somber and dignified Athenian state funeral.
Gorgias' text is often cited as an egregious example of the "Gorgian"
style, one emphasizing balanced clauses and pompous phrases at the
expense of argumentative cogency and stylistic clarity. But whereas
Gorgias' text seems excessively antithetical and ornamental when seen in
isolation, it emerges as paradigmatic rather than anomalous in respect to
argumentation and style when placed among other works of the genre.
Indeed, the status of Gorgias' text as a typical funeral oration is
illustrated by Plato's choice to mimic several of Gorgias' own phrases
in his parody of the entire genre, the Menexenus. The Athenian funeral
oration, as a distinct historical institution, was an officially
sanctioned military and political ceremony, one serving in part to
reinforce "traditional" values. To prevail in the implicit "contest"
between himself and other state orators, the rhetor had to successfully
deploy these commonplaces and accentuate their importance. In his
reliance on such commonplaces as the difficulty of speaking adequately of
the warriors, his desire to emulate their virtue, and the warriors'
"immortality," for example, Gorgias adheres to the sanctioned topoi of
the genre. And in his repeated antitheses and balanced clauses he
typifies the style of other epitaphios; for such antitheses accentuate
the prominence of these topoi. Thus, Gorgias' oration is not
distinctive for its banal topoi, absence of "argument," and excessively
antithetical style; rather, as Loraux concludes, Gorgias' oration is "one
in which all new thought may be reduced to a received or already
formulated idea, in which all formal invention follows an already
established model: thus what is generally regarded as the purest
statement of the Sophist's thought still sounds strangely like the
declarations of some other epitaphios" (Loraux 224).
If Gorgias imitates the figures of thought and speech of the funeral
oration in his Epitaphios, he adapts to the very different conventions of
argument and style in his Encomium of Helen. Indeed, the reasoning and
figuration of Helen differs from that of the Epitaphios to such an extent
that some scholars have contended that the two texts are by different
authors, Jebb asserting that Helen does not "bear any distinctive marks
of the style of Gorgias. Spengel would ascribe it to Polykrates" (Jebb 39). This
difference in the two texts is obvious even in translation; for in the
Epitaphios, Gorgias deploys antitheses throughout, accentuating, the
commonplace oppositions with parisosis and homoioteleuta. In Helen,
however, he uses these figures of contrast and balance far less, and
instead deploys the more conventional "poetic" figures of metaphor,
simile, and allegory, and personification. This choice of poetic
diction is understandable, for the "discourse on Helen" is a diverse and
imaginative literary discourse, a loosely structured genre spanning
several hundred years of the epic, lyric, and dramatic writing. Yet
whereas the discourse on Helen is far less rigidly structured than that
of the Epitaphios, it nevertheless comprises a clearly identifiable
family of arguments and sanctions a family of recognizable though
evolving "poetic" figures. Gorgias' treatment of the motivation for
Helen's betrayal, as well as several of his predominant tropes, echo
statements in Homer, Stesichorus, Aeschylus, and, perhaps most overtly,
Euripides. As in the case of his Epitaphios, Gorgias' oration displays
his pragmatic skill of adapting to the accepted forms of proof and
sanctioned figures of speech of a distinct discourse; and it exhibits his
use of that apparatus to compete in a contest constituted and regulated
by that discourse.
In the Palamedes, Gorgias adapts to the conventions of yet another
established discourse, that of the legal self-defense. As in the dispute
over Gorgias' authorship of works as diverse as the Epitaphios and Helen,
so, in turn, critics have disputed the authorship of the Palamedes given
the striking differences between it and Helen. This is understandable in
light of the discourse Gorgias imitates in the Palamedes, one
constituting the institution of legal self-defense. In his fictional
defense, Gorgias accedes to the strictures imposed upon such pleadings by
the legal system and its practices, employing essentially the same
argumentative structure, legal commonplaces, and forensic style as found
in typical fifth century Athenian legal apologies. As Segal attests,
Gorgias' text exhibits none of the "emotional" devices of Helen, and
"restricts itself to purely rational argumentation" (Segal, 117). Coulter concurs,
maintaining that the Palamedes is "straightforward and perspicuous" in
its argumentation and adherence to Athenian legal procedures (Coulter 32, note 2). And, as
in the case of the Epitaphios, the degree to which Gorgias succeeds in
adapting his style to the genre of legal defense is attested to most
eloquently by Plato's overt imitation of the Palamedes in his own defense
of Socrates, the Apology. Moreover, Coulter points out that from the
textual evidence itself, one cannot determine whether Gorgias is
parodying Plato or vice versa, the phrases and modes of argument being so
similar.
In his treatise On Not-Being, finally, Gorgias adapts to the discourse of
the traditional Eleatic metaphysical exercise. As Rosenmeyer remarks,
Gorgias' pamphlet is "an epicheireme in the Eleatic tradition. His
technique of argumentation places him in the company of Zeno and
Melissus" (Rosenmeyer 213). Gorgias' argumentation in the text differs from that which fie
uses in the Epitaphios, wherein "proof" is achieved in part by adhering
to traditional beliefs; and it differs from his argumentation in Helen,
wherein the novelty of the defense appears to be rewarded. In the
metaphysical treatise, Gorgias appears to adapt his reasoning to specific
accepted protocols of the Eleatic school; and whereas these may no longer
be convincing today, as Robinson contends, this is no way indicates that
they are "poor arguments"; indeed, their failure to convince modern
readers may suggest that what is accepted as a philosophic , ally sound
argument is relative to the culturally grounded discourse in which it is
made. In respect to the style of Gorgias' work, we have only paraphrases
of the text, and for that reason it is difficult to draw definitive
conclusions about the manner in which Gorgias imitates the writing of the
Eleatics. But in critical commentary on the work, there is no mention
that Gorgias violates the stylistic practices of the genre; and indeed,
as Rosenmeyer points out, philological study may indicate a "stylistic
kinship between Gorgias and Heraclitus. "15 Thus, Gorgias exhibits this
ability to accommodate his speech to the abstract argumentation and
technical terminology acceptable in the academic tracts of Eleatic
metaphysics, much as fie adapts to the elevated and formal official state
funeral oration, the playful and poetic discourse on Helen of Troy, and
the strictly delineated modes of argumentation and legal diction of the
Athenian self-defense.
In his epideictic orations, Gorgias displays the pragmatic rhetorical
skills of adapting to specific discourses and deploying their sanctioned
instruments in the contests that instantiate those discourses. As such,
he uses the epideictic primarily to advertise his own rhetorical skills.
But given the nature of his performances, it appears that Gorgias also
uses his epideictic works as educational and polemic instruments. For
Gorgias appears to deliberately draw attention to his own techniques of
adaptation and deception; and in this way he displays his pragmatic
skills in the sense of "exposing" them, "tipping his hand" as deceiver
rather than concealing his adaptive and deceptive strategies. He in
effect places himself "on stage" for his audiences of theoroi to observe,
adorning himself in the purple robes of the performing rhapsode (DKA9),
and in effect showing his audiences how they are being deceived by his
own arguments. Gorgias' cpideictic orations are in this sense parodic
"imitations" of pragmatic rhetoric, wherein he playfully depicts the
strategies of adaptation and deception. In the Epitaphios, he delivers a
viable funeral address; but his status as non-citizen of Athens insures
that his speech is perceived as "fictional," an overt imitation of a
"real" Athenian funeral address (Loraux 224). In Helen, he explicitly announces to
his audience that his oration is an "amusement" or playful paignion, in
effect telling his listeners that, in Poulakos's terms, they have "been
had" insofar as they were deceived by his speech" (Poulakos 3). In Palamedes, he
adopts the role of the condemned trickster himself, and speaks from
within a fictional courtroom; and in Not-Being, he playfully titles his
work and structures his entire three-part argument in an obvious
rhetorical figure of amplification, thereby underscoring its parodic and
imitative nature.
[8]
In each work, he thus "shows" or displays himself as
a performer adapting to diverse discourses, simultaneously using and
exposing his own pragmatic skills.
Insofar as he draws attention to his own deceptive maneuvers, Gorgias in
his epideictic "theater" undertakes an educational project similar to
that which he ascribes to the tragedian. Gorgias applauds the tragedian
who "creates a deception in which the deceiver is more honest than the
non-deceiver, and the deceived is wiser than the non-deceived" (DKB23).
As Plutarch explains this passage, the deceiver is more honest "because
he has openly announced that he will try to deceive."19 Gorgias implies
that the tragedian, as cpideictic rhetor, is more honest in his deception
than such "dishonest" pragmatic rhetors as the meteorologist, the
dogmatic philosopher, or the popular orator who present their speeches as
replications of "reality" rather than as deceptive fabrications designed
to win a discursive contest. Like the pragmatic rhetor, the tragedian
attempts to deceive his audience, convincing them that he is portraying
something "true"; yet because the tragedian deceives overtly, by writing
a play, he in effect "undeceives" his audience of the illusory
truthfulness of his presentation. Like the epideictic rhetor, he presents
his arguments in an openly "theatrical" manner, thereby drawing attention
to the fact that his own arguments are deceptive maneuvers rather than a
replication of "how things are." Gorgias asserts that this deception and
disillusionment may be instructive, for if an audience is unwilling to
let itself be deceived, its members will remain trapped in the erroneous
belief that their own view is "true" and that the dramatist's
presentation is "false." If they allow themselves to be deceived, and see
the world in a new way, they may recognize that their earlier beliefs,
and indeed every belief, is a fabrication, deceptive insofar as it is
accepted as a reflection of "how things are" in themselves.
Because he exposes the adaptive and deceptive nature of pragmatic
rhetoric, Gorgias' epideictic orations are potentially instructive; and
it is not surprising that he would use them as a foundation of his
rhetorical education. This instructional method is ridiculed by
Aristotle, who contends that Gorgias presents "not art, but the results
of art, just as if someone claimed to present a science to prevent feet
from hurting and then did not teach shoemaking, nor where it was possible
to get such things, but offered many kinds of shoes of all sorts" (DKB14).
But for Gorgias, instruction in any "art" that prescribed
rules of logic and style would be unduly restrictive, for it would
sanction the protocols of a single discourse, and would thereby
circumscribe the scope of "legitimate" rhetoric to those discourses
adhering to the sanctioned procedures. Such a circumscription could be
deleterious to the student, who might thereby unduly restrict his scope
as rhetor. In contrast, Gorgias' epideictic orations, by exposing all
discourse as deceptive and suggesting that the rhetor's scope is
unlimited, demonstrate that the rhetor may compete in any discourse
whatsoever, if he is able to adapt to and master its apparatus. As such,
the epideictic oration is an effective means of reaching the educational
goals Gorgias is portrayed as articulating in the Gorgias, those of
fostering the "liberation" (eleutheria) and power (archein) of his
students. (Gorgias 452d) By showing that every articulation is a
deception fabricated
in accordance with those procedures, Gorgias potentially liberates his
students from the illusory attachments to "truth" and "validity." For he
encourages his students not only to doubt all received "truths," but to
reject the illusory notion that any discourse may provide access to such
putative truths. Correlatively, he potentially empowers his students by
illustrating how the cunning rhetor may adapt to and prevail in any
discussion whatsoever, providing he is able to manipulate its arbitrary
protocols.
By drawing attention to his own process of rhetorical adaptation and
manipulation, Gorgias reveals the discourse he uses in each performance
to be a repertoire of deceptive instruments rather than a transparent
medium for revealing and transmitting truths. In Poulakos's terms,
Gorgias thereby uses the epideictic to "put the resources of logos in the
service of challenging the naive notion that language [is] merely a
vehicle for transmitting fixed Values" (Poulakos 1986, 307).
In this way, Gorgias is able to
use his epidictic performances for it polemic as well as educational end,
for he is able to challenge his "dogmatic" adversaries, whether they are
state funeral orators, poets, judicial officials, or Eleatic
metaphysicians, exposing as illusory the notion that their discourse
provides a privileged access to "things as they are," By exposing each of
their discourses as an apparatus for fabricating deceptive portrayals of
"how things are," Gorgias in effect encompasses their own discourse
within the scope of pragmatic rhetoric; and he challenges their deceptive
claim that their own privileged discourse enables them to articulate the
"truth." Further, Gorgias suggests in his displays that the scope of the
skilled rhetor is potentially unlimited, in that he potentially is able
to "speak best on all subjects" (DKA26). But this ability does not derive
from proclaiming that a single method of reasoning or style of speaking
is universally applicable; rather, the rhetor's universality depends oil
his ability to adapt to the methods of reasoning and styles of figuration
as they are practiced in existing discourses. Unlike the dogmatist, who
attempts to displace existing discourses with his own "correct"
discourse, Gorgias affirms the viability of a plurality of discourses,
each of which provides instruments for fabricating illusory pictures of
the world. To some extent, the hostility shown toward Gorgias by dogmatic
philosophers, literary stylists, and forensic orators may derive from
Gorgias' threat to the privileged status of their own discourse.
In his diverse displays, Gorgias suggests that every use of language is
deceptive insofar as it purports to articulate the nature of things "as
they are." Yet since Gorgias himself appears to describe "how things are"
in respect to the nature of language and rhetoric, he appears open to the
charge that he is contradicting his own rhetorical theory. In Brummett's
terms, Gorgias encounters the charge that may be raised against every
relativist, namely that he seems to require a non-relativistic position
from which advocate his Own theory (Brummett 82). But in his epideictic theater,
Gorgias possesses a means of circumventing this charge; for he is able to
display the validity of his conception of rhetoric without presuming to
speak from within the "non-relativistic position" of a privileged
discourse. Indeed, were he to present his view of rhetoric in a way that
implied that the discourse he employed was itself "privileged" in
enabling him to articulate the "truth," then he would contradict his own
model of rhetoric. Yet rather than advancing his model of rhetoric in
such an ostensibly "direct" or "pragmatic" manner, Gorgias exhibits his
theory in a variety Of discourses, each of which he explicitly exposes as
deceptive and arbitrary. He thereby shows that his own theory is itself
relative to specific discourses; and rather than contradicting himself,
he displays its "relativistic" foundation. Ultimately, Gorgias presents
his own conception of rhetoric in a manner that overtly effaces itself,
disclosing that it too, as a verbal artifice, is merely a contrivance of
the arbitrary discourse in which it is uttered.
1.
This citation is derived from Hermann Diels and
Walther Kranz, eds.,
Die Fragmente Der Vorsokratiker (Berlin: August Raabe, 1959), section
138. Unless specified, I use the translations by George Kennedy, in
Rosamund Kent Sprague, ed., The Older Sophists (Columbia SC: University
of South Carolina Press, 1972). I incorporate further references to
Diels's text parenthetically in my essay, prefaced by "DK," using his
numbering system for the citations.
back
2
. Concerning Gorgias' role in inventing the epidictic, Burgess writes
that "epideictic literature as a distinctive division of oratory may
for all practical purposes be said to begin with Gorgias." See Theodore
Burgess, Epideictic Literature; Studies in Classical Philology 3
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1902; reprinted, New York:
Garland, 1987), 102, note. Similarly, Dobson writes that Gorgias
"originated the style of oratory known as epidictic." See I F. Dobson,
The Greek Orators (Chicago: Ares, 1974), 15. For treatment of Gorgias'
four orations as epideictic works, see Burgess, 147; Mario Untersteiner,
The Sophists, trans. Kathleen Freeman (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1954),
96f; and W. K. C. Guthrie, The Sophists (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1971), 41-42; 192-94; 270.
3
. Wm. Henry Freese translates dunamis as "ability" in Aristotle, The
"Art" Of Rhetoric (London: Wm. Heinemann Ltd., 1967) 1358b5. Rhys Roberts
translates dunamis as "skill" in Aristotle, Rhetoric (Oxford: Clarendon,
1924). Unless specified, I henceforth use Freese's translation. Most
scholars accept this construal of the epideictic as a display of skill,
Burgess noting that "an epideictic speech in its more technical sense
was regarded among earlier rhetoricians as one whose sole or chief
purpose was display, thus agreeing with the derivation of the word
'epideictic' " (93-94). Smith writes that in the epideictic "the orator
was expected to show off" his rhetorical skills. See Bromley Smith,
"Gorgias: A Study of Oratorical Style," Quarterly Journal of Speech
Education 7 (1921): 356. And Chase asserts that "it is the orator's
virtuosity that is displayed. . . . because the speaking occasion and
subject matter peculiar to praising and blaming allow for a greater
attention to all the facets of rhetorical art." See Richard Chase, "The
Classical Conception of the Epideictic," Quarterly Journal Of Speech 47
(Oct. 1961): 296-97.
4
. Concerning the audience's role in judging the epideictic rhetor's
skills, Hinks writes that the epideictic audience members "are not arbiters of any
question, but critics, even though unconsciously, of (lie art that he
exercises." See D, A. G. Hinks, "Tria Genera Causarum," Classical
Quarterly 30 (1936): 174. Oravec concurs, noting that "the theoroi
'decides' [sic] on the orator's skill." See Christine Oravec, "
'Observation' in Aristotle's Theory of the Epideictic," Philosophy and
Rhetoric 9 (1976): 164.
5
. Concerning the epideictic rhetor's defense of
frivolous or paradoxical assertions, Burgess remarks that the paradoxical
encomium is a mere display of ingenuity, a jeu de langage." A chief
motive is "to win admiration and applause by a mere exhibition of
smartness" (157-58). Pease notes that "what better training, from the
sophistic standpoint, than this exercise of defending the indefensible or
salvaging the universally rejected? The opportunity thus afforded for
self-display on the part of the clever sophist himself, ever engaged in
the trade of self-exploitation, is evident, for the more violent the tour
de force the greater, in case of success, the resultant éclat." See
Arthur Stanley Pease, "Things Without Honor," Classical Journal 21
(1926): 31.
6.
Gronbeck contends that Gorgias is a "subtle analyst, a skilled
dialectician, a perceptive linguist, and a knower of souls." See Bruce
Gronbeck, "Gorgias On Rhetoric and Poetic: A Rehabilitation," The
Southern Speech Communication Journal 38 (Fall, 1972): 38. Enos asserts
that Gorgias possesses a "clear-cut epistemology and a genuine philosophy
of rhetoric." See Richard Leo Enos, "The Epistemology of Gorgias'
Rhetoric: A Re-Examination," The Southern Speech Communication Journal 42
(Fall, 1976): 51. Further, Hays states specifically that he disagrees
with Robinson's conclusion that Gorgias' "argumentation is unworthy of
serious philosophical treatment." See Steve Hays, "On The Skeptical
Influence of Gorgias' On Not-Being, " Journal Of The History Of
Philosophy 28, 3 (July, 1990): 329, note. But none of these theorists
attempts to refute Robinson's critique of Gorgias' argumentation.
7
. For a discussion of Gorgias' concept of kairos, see Untersteiner,
197ff, and Eric Charles White, Kaironomia (Ithaca NY: Cornell University
Press, 1987), 13-42.
8
. For a discussion of Gorgias' use of parody in Not-Being, see
Untersteiner, 163-65; Guthrie, 193-94.
The exhibitions of adaptation
The theater of exposure
Notes