What’s the value of a good argument? That question is not merely rhetorical. For the sake of argument, we will reassess the classical opposition of rhetoric and philosophy that was first established by Plato. Ironically, it was not Socrates’s student but a student of the Sophists who founded the humanities upon a skepticism about received truths. In our first class we will explore the sophistic art of deliberating upon the uncertainties of civic life, and in our second we will read Plato’s highly rhetorical attacks on rhetoric. Then we will turn to the Aristotelian works that first formalized the interrelated arts of rhetoric, politics, and ethics. We will conclude by reviewing the Ciceronian and Christian legacies of classical rhetoric. Throughout the course, we will explore the values of argument and the arts for putting them into action.
