Exhortations to Philosophy: The Protreptics of Plato, Isocrates, and Aristotle

321 Pages·2015·1.88 MB·English

by  James Henderson Collins

Exhortations to Philosophy

Exhortations
to Philosophy
The Protreptics of Plato, Isocrates,
and Aristotle
z
JAMES HENDERSON COLLINS II
1
3
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of
Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research,
scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide.
Oxford New York
Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi
Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi
New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto
With offices in
Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece
Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore
South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam
Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press
in the UK and certain other countries.
Published in the United States of America by
Oxford University Press
198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016
© Oxford University Press 2015
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior
permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law,
by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization.
Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the
Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above.
You must not circulate this work in any other form
and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer.
Cataloging-in-Publication data is on file at the Library of Congress
ISBN 978–0–19–935859–5
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
For Mindy and Aurora

Contents
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction 1
1. Protreptic and the “Rhetoric of Conversion” 1
2. Earlier Protreptic Configurations 7
3. Genre Theory and Προτρεπτικὸς Λόγος 16
4. The Rhetorical Situation and Objective of
Προτρεπτικὸς Λόγος 34
PART ONE: Platonic Protreptic
1. Levels of Discourse in Plato’s Dialogues 45
2. Narrative between Socrates and Crito 53
2.1. Crito and his Agenda 54
2.2. Socrates the Storyteller 57
3. From Narrative to Drama: Inside the Intradiegetic Level 63
3.1. Characters on Stage: Sophists, Socrates,
Cleinias, Ctesippus 63
3.2. Dramatic Elements: Staging, Cheering, Seating 70
3.3. Apotreptic in Protreptic Discourse 82
3.4. Formal Features of the Protreptic Παράδειγμα 87
4. Return to the Extradiegetic Level: Metalepsis,
Protreptic, and Apotreptic 124
viii Contents
4.1. From Spectator to Judge to Interlocutor: Crito’s “Turn” in
Scene 4 (Euthyd. 289d–293a) 124
4.2. Isocratean Apotreptic and Private Program (304c–305b) 133
4.3. Socrates’s Apotreptic of the Apotreptic (305b–307c) 140
5. Creating Consumers and Consensus in the Protagoras 145
5.1. Staging a Contest among Converts 146
5.2. Preparing Consumers for the Marketplace of Ideas 156
5.3. Protreptic that Builds Consensus 159
5.4. Clitophon and after the Protreptic Sting 166
PART TWO: Isocratean Protreptic
6. “Professional” Protreptic: Against the Sophists 183
6.1. Challenging the Instructor’s Pledge 183
6.2. Apotreptically Revealing a Profession 187
7. Paraenetic Protreptic: Τὰ ἀρχαῖα and Exhorting Young Tyrants 196
7.1. Protreptic Discourse as Secondary Genre 197
7.2. Circumscribing the Competition 206
7.3. Making, Using, Becoming Examples 219
8. Judging Protreptic: Antidosis, Panathenaicus 229
8.1. Cultivating Critics of Protreptic 229
8.2. Collaborating with Competitors 239
Epilogue: Aristotelian Protreptic and a Stabilized Genre 242
Bibliography 265
Index of Locorum 285
Index of Subjects 295
Preface
PhilosoPhers and sophoi in the late archaic and classical periods
witnessed and performed the process of attracting and converting stu-
dents. They did this not as a purely competitive enterprise, but as a col-
laboration of sorts both with conventional ways of speaking and acting
and with other intellectual innovators. Philosophic advertising—which
the Greeks call protreptic—attempted to turn prospective clients away
from the claims of competitors and toward a given discipline by bringing
those competitors on stage, letting them speak in their own ways, and
allowing them to advertise their wares. In its ultimate goal—which was
to turn people away from competing teachers—this advertising incorpo-
rated alternative ways of speaking and advertising which themselves also
often contained multiple kinds of discourse. But all philosophical protrep-
tic effectively shared the same objective of creating the very broad idea of
higher learning. Philosophical competitors wanted to see this new market
grow, but each of them wanted to lay claim to a greater part of that market.
The emergence of this collaborative philosophical campaign was gen-
erative because it encouraged a way of thinking about philosophy and
advanced private education in dialogic terms. Much of this book explores
the implications of this mode of thinking inside the professional disci-
plines themselves. But we can also see the implications outside of the dis-
ciplines. These implications continue to be explored today, not only in the
narrowly circumscribed arenas of intra- and interdepartmental university
politics, but also on the much more expansive political and ethical terrain
that springs up around global questions about the aims, methods, and
uses of education.
Moreover, this dialogic philosophical campaign encouraged ways of
thinking about choices that lead to a given lifestyle. Prospective clients
suddenly became agents capable of a total commitment to a way of life.
Given a particular moral and cognitive psychology, they could be led to a