Old Greek Guys and Their Rhetoric

The Sophists, Socrates & Plato, and Aristotle's divergent epistemologies understandably led to differing views of rhetoric. For the Sophists and their probable truth based epistemology, rhetoric (and rhetoricians) could shape reality as they thought best. This makes rhetoric king because truth could found in pitting multiple possibilities against one another and then arguing for the best possible truth.

 

The uncertainty and potential for abuse in this system struck a nerve with Socrates & Plato. In the dialogue Gorgias (Plato's take-down of Sophism and rhetoric) Socrates calls rhetoric a "knack" and a form of "flattery" while expressing deep concerns about the morality behind something as powerful as mass persuasion. Clearly they both see its potential power, but the Sophists focus the power of rhetoric to do good and Socrates & Plato see its power only through the lens of its potential for harm.

 

Aristotle (again) falls between these extremes. He considers rhetoric perfectly useful for sharing truths, but not generating them. While the Sophists thought rhetoric could create truth and spread it, Aristotle believes that the creation/interpretation of truth was best left to other avenues. 

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While Socrates & Plato's thoroughly distrusted rhetoric, Aristotle didn't devote much time or thought to the moral aspect of rhetoric - he thought it was simply too predisposed to emotionality to be effective. The Sophists' stylized poetic speeches probably would have made him gag as he believed that communication should strive for clarity above all else. 

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Aristotle's lukewarm embrace of rhetoric bent Plato's late-life view of rhetoric closer to that of the Sophists than Plato would likely have been comfortable acknowledging. Plato's concept of "noble rhetoric" sounds distinctly like a smaller scale, self-oriented version of the Sophists' social constructionism.

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