L8.Schiappa Gorgias Helen

7/27/2019 L8.Schiappa Gorgias Helen

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Rereading G orgias' Helen

Gorgias' Encomiwm of Helen (hereafterHelen) s a text that has earned acentr al place in the reviva1 of interest in Sop histic and Ne osophi stic rhetoricalstudies in the late twentieth century. Based on its com position style alone, thespeech has been the object of considerable controversy.' Descriptions andassessments of the th eoretica l conten t of th e text are equally diverse. Scholarsh d evidence in the tex t of a psychological theory of logos (S egal 196 2), amagical account of discourse (de Romilly 1975)~ n incipient ccpostmodern"theory of epistemology (Enos 1976; Gronbeck 1972; Untersteiner 1954)~thinly veiled defense of the a rt of R hetoric (Poula kos 1983b; Wardy 19 96),and a nonreprese ntational heory of language and meaning (Mou relatos 1985; 1Kerferd 1984). Despite the great interest the text has generated, there is re-markably little agreem ent even over the most rudimentary interpretive issuesconcerning the text, such as the genre to w hich it belongs, the role it played infifth-centuryB.C.E. rhetorical p ractice, and its th eoretical significance. ResoIu- 1tion of al1 of these issues is unnecessary and perh aps even undesir able. None

Rereading GorgUls' Helen I 15S, 1believe that recent developments n the historiog raphy of the Sophistsa space from which to consider and visit the text anew.S chapter offers a predisciplinary historical description of Gorgias' fa -speech. 1caii the description "predisciplinary" to indicate the belief thatxts of fifth-century Greek writers, especially those by the figures com-referred to as the Older Sophists, ought to be approached with theess tha t certain ccdisciplines"were not yet form alized either in theory orctice. In particular, the dichotomy often used to distinguish betweensophical and Rhetorical discourse s simply not evident in the texts of t hecentury th at describe Sophistic education. As m aintained earlier, fifth-ry tex ts concerning logos- uch as Gorgias' Helen- iffer substantiallyfourth-century texts concerning Rhetoric (rh8torikZ)- uch as Plato'sAlkidamas' On Tbose Writing Written Speecbes, the Rhetoric to

er, and AristotleysRhetoric. Prior to the fourth century, one rarelydistinction between the art or skill of p roducing discourse that seeks' and the art or ski11 of pro ducing discourse th$ tf eks persuasion.

dingly, a predisciplinary descript ion attem pts to a*id the vocabu laryssumptions about discourse theories and rhetorical practice importedthe fou rth century when analyzing fifth-century texts.S my contention tha t certain persistent questions about Gorgias' Helendifferent answers once the speech is repositioned as a predisciplinaryis chapter 1will revisit three questions: What is the speech's purpose?e its contributions to fifth-century disc ous e practices? What are itstions to fif thte ntur y theory? 1 offer five arguments: identifying Gor-len as an "epideictic" speech is a somewhat misleading character-the speech is not a veiled defense of the Art of Rhetoric; Gorgiasve inaugurated the prose genre of the encomion; Gorgias advancedcentury B.C.E. "rationalism" by enacting certain innovations in prosesition; the Helen's m ost signh cant "theoretical" contrib ution is to offerar accou nt of the workings of logos- an aGcount that functioned as anlar for later theorists.

I. Scholars as diverse as Dodds (1959, g), Cole (1991a, 73)'Jebb (1893, cxxiv), andVa n Hook (1945, 122) condemn Gorgias' stylistic "excesses" while scholars such asBarrett (1987),de Romilly (1975)' Crowley (1989)'and myself (see chapter 6 ) raise hisartistry and creativity. 1

' W ha t 1s the Speech's Purposes'' Because the speecb makes no reference to con tempora ry events, there isconfident way to date the text w ith precision; estimates range from beforeto 393 B.C.E. (Blass I 87, I: 72-75). The speech is written in th e Attic

ct, a choice that suggests the text was designed for oral performance in a~f venues (Norlin 1928, z:348-49n; see also Cole 19g1a, 74-7 5).stated goal of the speech is to ex onerate the legendary Helen of the


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I 6 Gorgiascand he Disciplfni ng of Discourse Rereading Gorgias'Helen 117charge of deserting her husband, Menelaus, an d running away with Paris- rowess, most commen tators believe, was to attract more studen tsthe act prec ipitating the farnous Trojan War. Th e topic was a familiar one, asarguments back and forth abo ut Helen's culpability can be found through out tion of Helen as predisciplinary problematizes, though does notearly Greek l i te rat ~re .~ome have supposed tha t Gorgias' acco unt may have ject, such a conc lusion. To begin with, it is no t at al1 clear thatbeen an w w e r to Euripides' or vice versa, but as D. M. M acDowell argues, nt texts o ught to be limited by the app arently mutually exclusive"There is no resem blance in detais, and no strong reason t o link G orgiasY is- ilosophy or Rhetoric. Certainly in the past the Helen has beencussion of Helen with anyone else's" (1982 ,12; see also Blass 1887,1:5 6-s7 ). in just such a limiting fashion. Tho ugh often cited in histories ofGorgias begins with a clear statemmt of purpose: his task is to remove, Helen is rarely, if ever, men tioned in histo ries of G reek philoso -through reasoning (logismos), he mj ust blame that Helen has received (I-4. ed earlier, categorizing texts from the fifth century B.C.E. exclu-After prov iding a brief acc ount of her birth, p ersonal qualities, and marriage toric or Philosophy often risks anachronism. The question is,(3-S), GoEgias posits a list of four pos ibl e causes behind Helen's d eparture to rgias' speeches supposed to accomplish? Were they "display"Troy: chance and the gods, physical force, persuasion by logos, or passion (6). nded solely to entertain? Were they intended to be, at least inHe then addresses the four causes in u n , rguing that each is such a powerful es, efforts to theorize abo ut issues later labeled "philosophical"?force that Helen should not be blamed for her behavior. The amou nt of space S of the text tha t privilege one feature of the tex t over the otherhe spends o-n each cause is noteworthy: Gods a nd ch ance are dealt with in one e obvious answer that Gorgias' texts- ike anyone else's- o-paragraph (6), as is force (7), whde logos is addressed in seven (8-14) and multiple functions. Locating the tex t a s predisciplinary gives uspassion in five (15-19). He then concludes by sum mariz ing the causes and sitate before describing and assessing it wj$ specific, disciplinarysuggesting that he has acco mplished his purpose (20-2 1).Beyond Gorgias' stated age nda, for wh at purp ose was the discourse com- le, 1believe that it is inap propriate to confineHelen to the Aristo-posed and performed? Most com mentators categorize the Helen as epideictic f epideictic rhetoric. Even though on e can refer to a ~er fo rm an cerhetoric. The verb epideiknarnai is typicaiy translated as "to displaym r "to rgias as an epideixis, and d espite the morphological link be-show)J> nd epideixis denotes a particular exhibirion or d emon stration. Since and epideiktikz, identifying Gorgias' Helen as an "epideictic"ancient wnters refer to Iie1.mas a n epideictic address, it iscomm only assumed ewhat misleading. Assignment of fifth-century exts to a specificthat the purpose of H e l m was primariy to show off G orgias' oratorical abil- urse may presume a greater degree of genre-related composi-ities. Segal calls it a "mythological sho wpiece of rhetoric" a nd a n "epideictic tions than were the case during Gorgias' career. Aristotle's well-encomium" (1962, IOO), John Robinson dubs it a "display piece" (1973,s 31 efold taxonom y of Rhetoric was n ot codified until his lectures,Poulakos says that Gorgias in the Helen "indulges in the delights afforded by es after Gorgias' death (Kennedy 1991,299-305 ). Accordingl~,

epideictic rhetoricn (1986, ~ o I ) ,nd Van Hoo k deem s it an "epideictic . m with characterizing Helen as epideictic is that a d iscrete genre of~ O U I e force" (1945, 54). Jarratt classifies the Helen as "epideictic" and ,rhetoric is not clearly identified as such u ntil well into the f ou rthsays that G orgias "exploits the latitude offered by a rhetorical ,E.Aristotle's concep tual formulation of epideictic rhetoric is al-(1991,591. Sc ott Consigny argues that al1of Gorgias' speeches are categorized inly original. The earliest extant use of the w ord epideiktikd is inproperly as epideictic and that Gorgias"uses he epideictic primarily to adver- hist (224b 5), where it is used to describe "the ar t of display" thattise his own rhetorica l skiiis" (1992,291). The purpose of G orgias' display of e the profession of the Sophists. The Sophist was on e of Plato'ses, however, and the prior absence of the wo rd suggests that it is2.Frank J. Groten's study (1955) f various treatm- of the Helen legend in Greek fourth-century Sophists and has been applied only with hind-literatute makes it clear that Gorgias was no t the firstto argue that Helen w as blarneless. of the previous century. Epideiktik might have been yet ano therFuahermore, the rnany previous sympathetic treatments of Helen cal1 into qu estion theclaim that Gorgias' Helenwas an unprecedenred ef foa to "radically reconstruct" historY of Plato's original construc tion of an -ik word to designate a s~ec ificto "dislodge a mythic source for misogynism" (Jarratt 1991, 74). For a reading that ii (Arnmann 1953; Chan traine I ~ s ~ , ~ ~ - I s I ) .argues Gorgias' Heien "reiterates n oratorical disco- the general trend toward f u d f l nten ds that th e word "epideictic" is part of a later developed stan-subjugation of women" inancient Greece,seeBiesecker (1990'77). inology ha t has its roots in the "preanalytic stage" of the history of


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11 Gorgias ami the D isciplining of D iscourserhetoric. He suggests that what marks a speech as an epideixis is that it iswritten to be presented rather than that it has th e quaiity of "showing off."

Epideictic oratory will then be, in origin, what epideixLs is in Xenophon'saccount of Prodicus: not the show ing off of one's talents, but the displaying orrevealing (orally ) of what was already in existence beforehand-in the formof a prememorized piece. .. And its ultimate use as a designation for cere-monial rather than judicial or political oratory wiIl be a natural result of thefact that ceremonial occasions were the only ones at which recitation of ami tte n ( or prememorized) text would have been considered acceptable by afifth-century audience. ( r g g ~ a ,9)

Cole's clairn may be su pported by the foilowing speculative morphologicaiargument. 1noted earlier that epideiknunui is typically translated as "to dis-play" or "to show." 1 should add t hat the sam e is true of shorter verb deik-nunai. Other meanings include "to bring to light" and "to show forth." Thenoun deikdon candesignate a specific exhibition. The m eaning of the preposi-tion epi- vari a; it lacks the sort of core meaning tha t some prefixes have. itssense depends on contex t and case; possible meanings include: upon, at, to-ward, a nd against. The que stion becomes: Why w as the preposition epi- com-pounded with dekmn ai to create epideknunai? t is difficuk o say. Even inEnglish, one can find prefke s that a t one po ht might have conveyed an activesense of position or motion, but that later becarne a dor man t appendage: Onecan cede or concede a position. O ne can limit or delimit. One can splay ordisplay a banner. We may conjecture plausibly tha t originally epideiknunaidesignated a special sort of "showing." It is possible that, with respect todiscourse, it had to be written in order for it to be some thing hat c od d be "di-splayed" or re-presented. If CoIeYs rgumen t is correct, then what later w ouldbe called epideictic speech originated with the reco unting or recitation of an"exhibit" o r "specimen" of written prose discourse.Wheth er Cole is correct or not abou t the original sense of epideixis beforethe form alization of Rhetoric in the fourth century, the redescription of Gor-gias' Helen as predisciplinary leads to important insights. The m ost obviousimplication is that there sirnply were not the same sort of formal, genericexpectations for prose compo sitions of the fifth century that a re found a cen-tury later. Gorgias would not have felt any tension between writing a theoret-ical "versus" an epideictic speech, because no one had yet felt a particular needto distinguish prose texts on the basis of instruction al versus entertainme ntaspirations. An pideixis- r "demonstration" -c od d strive for both. Whilethere is no d oubt th at he intended his distinctive style to entertain, there is noreason to doubt that he also wanted to instruct- just like o a e r early Greek

RereaBng Gorgias- a e n

-rh et or id goals and forms of corhposition that soon would be sepa-by l a ta prose writers. Isocrates' comment (Helen 14-1 5 ui Van Hook

) argues that epideictic rhetoric played an importantnt Greek culture. The funeral oration (epitaphios),edge for its participants, generating a sao ng se we of community, andbehavior toward accepted norms. Similarly Perelman and Olbrec hts-

the adherence to values held in c o m n by theand speaker" (19 59, 52). There is n o evidence tly&-a~y of these

that would be conducive to perbrming ritualistic functions. Rathercluding that Gorgias is somehow a "failed" epideictic speaker, asto epideictic's formalization by Aristotle-have been ex pected to ncrease adherence to

that presume Rhetoric was a discrete disci-w 1y d em ar ca d body of literature are anachronistic. The clearest

is dubious history o n three counts. First, the avalablethe Greek word for Rhetoric-rh8torikZ- had no t yel

rrs, including "phiiosophers" such as Parmenides, Empedocles, and Hem-s. Gosgias adapted and tran sformed poetic styles and genres of com pmi-and in the process created texts that m w appear to us as rh e td a l~rids."Gorgias' innovation was no t so much suetch ing a given setofp~losees as much as tak i. ce rt ai n poetic forms and creating texts that embody

r, 67) ahou t the competing needs of apolog ia and encomia would ha%

w cu la r, is credited with creating an "exuaordinary," transcendent

b-suggest that the functi& of epideictic rhetoric is not to change beliefs- - - -kve s a re (phsuedby Gorgias through the He&, at leasK& in the sensek v e a re expla ined by Car te r or Pere lman and Olb~dts -Tyteca . ndno evidence 'that Heien was ever given in anytbing approaching a

psugg ests (1887, 1:68), a description of He& as predisciplinary chal-

k&ty values.or perform ritua listic functions.W r onsequence of redescribing &e speech as predisciplinary is that

$lik of such an interpretathn is that by J& Podakos, who argues that@4en portrayed in Gorgias' speech is actually "the personification o1B& (1983b, 4). Recalling that Gorgias is said to have alluded to anbetween Penelope and philosophiu, and noting that both rhtorikzphilompbia are feminine nouns, Poulakos suggests that Gorgias, "al.t a h g bout Helen, is really referring to rhetoric" (1983 b, 10). d-an analogical reading of Helen as Rheto ric based on "historical andldgrounds," he notes that "both are attractive, both are unfaithful, anda v e bad re putation" (1983 b, 4-5).


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racn G ~ r g bdAih&i@I%ng ofDknmrse Rereadi~gGorgias' Helen [email protected] cainedw h kx@s1 o t eHdm asdiscwedinehapm 1).Or, even if actical Con tributions of Gorgias' Helenrb&mkw;as iaiuse*ntw ~ d davek n o n o d t bce & e a t om&e pretext tce the disciplinary expectationsand nomenclature of classical rhetor-unnecessary and theda&onmswcwful. Seco4 Psulrrkos' "ihistorical ex- are set aside, Gorgias' role as an innovator in prose composition isplaa1atiom" of &e n s d forpretezctanb&K o$;orgla$kweak,


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chological effects. The speech ends with a brief conclusion echoing the stpte-mmts of the introduction.In four and a half pages Gorgias has given a vivid,even UaforgettabIe, example of &e same logical method which he employdhhis famous dscussion of being.He refers to the lidework as a logismos o,"reasoning" in section two, and this seems entirelp appropriate. . . It isplayful in mood, but it also has a seriaus purposeindernonstrating a methodof lo gi d pm f. (1963,167-68)

It is easy to fixateon Gorgias' exotic style and his "magical" se of languageand, as a r d t , neglect his niore "rationalistic" side. Such negiect is a mistake,Thereii a cl eir paralle1iR anc&nt Greek discourse berween the transition frompoetic m prase st!yl$s and &e gradual proliferation of modes of reasoningBecause many texts 01 his era tend to combine elements of "rationalistic"proseand " m y t h i ~ ~oetry, there is a tendency t'osee such a "mixed" style as afadtof the rather than e v i d k of rapid diangesinmodes of cornposi-t i a . For exam$+"~armenides trieil to put &e meter of Hoder ic poetry (epiche xam er ) o the kmice of philosophical analysls. Thougl some commenta-tots praisb Parmenides' abilities to express himselfih verse, others argue thatthevocabuIaq&iyntax of poetry were very m d h n tension with his goalsand that Parmenides had to skg gl e to adapt his' ideas to an unsuitable me-Gorgias w k similarly situated in and i"RnuenCea by an oral-poeticculture. Gorgias' unique prose was transforming &e uses o which prose dis-course was being p u ~hereby contributng to what is &en called the transi-tion frommythmto iogos (NestieI966).

Gorgias says in his introduction that "1wish to offer reasoning by particularargurnents to frd&e aaused of blame, to reveal'tliat her cntics are lying,andto show the truth and to halt the ignorante" (2)? h s significant that Gorgiasi d d e s reasoning" (logismos)as his methd. togismos is not a very com-mon word in W-cen tury texts. A typical early use is Democritus' advice to"Drive out by reasoning &e unmastered paih of a numbed soul" (in Barnes1987, 283").Aristophanes uses&e word ody once-to make fu n of rationala r g u t a t i o nintheplays of Euripides ( h g s 73 .h Rogers 1924). The word

6. Barnes (1982,155) cornplains that "It ishard to excuse Parmenides' choice of verseas a medium for his philosophy. The exigencia of metre and poetical style regulad^produce an almost impenetrable obscurity." The most thorough discussions ofparmeni-des' composition style is in Mourelatos (1970, 1-46, 264-68). See also David gallo^(1984,4-5)' Coxon (1986'7-S), and Havelock (1982,220-60; 1983).7.&y&66 fkhhopa~0yiop.b~ wa zoi Uy ai &ASv &v K ~ K & dr~oouoav ai3oa~5al~ ug , 6E p&p


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124 Gorgiasand the Disciplining of Discourse RereadingGorgius'Helen 125excitement. Thus in Helen, Gorgias stmctured an 'adversary' relationshipamong ideas in testing arguments. ...Through form, Gorgias built in agita-tion and competition of reasons; form contributed to substance" (1987~17). ally, 1 address severa1 hermeneutic practices that have obscuredFinaily, it should be noted that Gorgias identifies himself as a writer- self- the ways Gorgias' Helen affected the content and practice of lateridentification Siat is very rare and unusual for a fifth-century author. Gorgias g. 1 want to identify those features of classical-era theoretical textsends his speech with the words: Y wished to write a speech as Helen's en-comium and my own recreation" (21). One is far more likely to encounterverbs of saying and hearing when sixth- and W-century texts describe the aical, concrete "problem solutions"- he methods or procedures ofrole of the authorlspaker. It is exclusively in the texts and fragments of asmal number of "philosophexs" such as Diogenes of Apollonia that one fin&statements like "as wdl have been shown ciearly in this written composition(suggraph6)" (DK 64B4). Gorgias' self-conscious identiiication of hirnselfas the author of &e text s rernarkable for its time. Furthermore, his combina- century B.C.E. it enacted a novel means of thinking. In short, intion of an epic theme, a highly poetic sryle, systematic reasoning, and self- to asking the question "What did Gorgias say?," we need to askconscious writing provides reason to doubt "great divide" theories that pit d his speech do?" Advancing new ways of thinking about the world isoral/mythological "versus" literatefrationalistic styles and mindsets as whollydistinct. Such schemata simply do not work when one examines the texts ofvarious Sophists (Jarratt 1991~3 -61).The practica1 conaibutions of Gorgias' Helm can be summarized best bydescribing them as advancing the art of written prose4in eneral, and argumen-tative composition in particular. Though the subject ma mr is ostensibly myth-ical, the modus operandi of the discourse suppJements the qualities of madi- misleading. There is a tendency to read even a few sentences abouttional, oral-poetic composition with suchhumanistic-rationalistic practices asthe apagogic method of argiunent. Flnaily, it is possible that Gorgias helped to So, for example, Duncan titles his article "Gorgias' Theories ofArt"inaugurate the practice of composing encomium in prose.

Theoretical Contributions: Explicit and lm glicit says that Gorgias held a "theory of knowledge" (1981, 11 6) ~ndMy intent in this section is not to provide a detailed commentary on the Gronbeck (1972) believes Gorgias defended a specific "theory oftext, which already has been done admirably by MacDowell(1982), ThomaS ' onsistent with contemporary existential phenomenology.Buchheim (1989), and others. Nor will 1 attempt the s oa of extended arguments are potentially misleading in two ways. First, they overesti-ment that outlines and defends a specific Gorgianic theory of this or that based maturity of theory development by implying more coherence andon Gorgias' extant texts. Instead, in this s eaion 1 focus on the portion of the ess than can be demonstrated with the available evidence. The termtext that is of most interest to historians of rhetorical theory- the discussio*of logos in paragraphs 8 through 14. Logos is a notoriously polysemous term ry" is made up of a constellation of beliefs that attempts to solvein ancient Greek. Throughout this section1 eave logos untranslated SO as toavoid overly modernistic or reductionistic renderings. In most M-ten ra ta the degree of development of a person's thought to impute toSophistic texts the term is meant quite broadly, as with the current term ' a full-blown "theory ofX" on the basis of one or two sentences hatcourse." Because the term is often set in opposition to mythos, "reaso certain qualities about a givenX.Accordingly, it is more appropriate


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126 Gorgh and theDisciplining of Discourseat times simply to identify a statement as a belief or even hypothesis ratherthan as a theory.

Second and more important, tthe attribution of a number of theories toancient writers on the basis of isolated or few statements mischaracterizes theprocess of intellectual nvestigation n ancient Greece during he sixth and fifthcenturies. By the late fourth cennirg, the scientific and philosophical vocabu-lary, syntax, and available models of studies had developed to the point thatone can identify wmpeting "schools of thought" about various "theories" inmore or less distinct "discipiines." Aristotle's accounts of earlier philosophygive us the impression hat such was the case fully two centuries earlier. How-ever, as the important work of Cherniss (1935) and Havelock (1983) hasdemonstrated, Aristotle's "history" is both inconsistent and rnisleading. A&-totle presumes that the conceptual categories and patterns of explanationavailable o him and his students were also available to his predecessors. In thesearch to find historical anticipations of his theories, Aristotle often radicallyretranslates earlier thinkers' notions into his own vocabulary. As Havelockargues, something mportant is lost in the translation: "Such vocabulary subtlydistom the story of early Greek thought by presenting it as an intellectualgame dealing with problems already given and present to the mind, ratherthan as a groping after a new language n which theexistenteof such problemswiii slowly emerge" (1983, 57). One of the major tasks of earlier thinkerswas to develop the analytical tools necessary for "phiosophical" or "scien-tific" investigation o take place. As Somsen sugges&in his study of the fifth-century Greek "Enlightenment," the most important advancements may not"necessariiy take the form of doctrines" or "programs of reform" but ratherwere experiments in ways of thinking about things (1975, 4). In articular,what we call in hindsight the birth of Western philosophical thinking is theeffort to describe the world with generalizations hat privilege secular expla-nations of causes (Guthrie 1962,26-3 8) .

In short, we underestimate the si gdcance of the earlier writers' efforts tocome to grips with the process d heorizing itseld by overestimating the so-phistication of such early "theories." If predisciplinary theoretical efforts aretreated as if the authors were ed ucatd in methods and language developedmuch later, then their role in transforming imellectual practices is missed.In he case of Gorgias, one of the most important theoretical contributions

of the Helen is that it engaged in relatively systematic, secular, physical ex~la-nation and description. Gorgias provides a serious account of the workingc oflogos and the psyche. With respect to logos, Gorgias enumerates its qualities,describes its effects, and explains how it works. The HeIen is the earliestsurviving extended discussion of logos and certainly the most sophisticated of

RereadingGorgh' Heien 127Prior to Gorgias, al1 we have are a few fragmentary aphorisms bysuch as Heraclitus and Protagoras that simply posit declarationss. Gorgias begins the relevant section of Helen by making a similarlaration: "Logos is a powerful lord that with the smallest and most

body accomplishes most godlike works. It can banish fear and re-ief and instill pleasure and enhance pity. 1 shall show how this is so"&en Gorgias goes on to do what no one prior to him (that we knowlain how logos works.

in the power of logos, Gorgias compares its effect with that of1poetry 1 regard and name as logos having meter. On those who

me fearful shuddering and tearful pity and grievous longing as theugh logos, experiences some experience of its own a t others' goodill fortune" (9). Aside from providing what we might now call a

al account of the effects of oral discourse (Segal1962), he passagele for containing a potentially unprecedented propositional form:

on. While the practice of defining terms has its recorded st an in thef Plato (Schiappa 1993,406), the statement "al1 poe regard and

Ts having meter" clearly ought to count as a stipulat e definition.len may be our earliest example of the practice of explicatingt a pamcular word means in one's own discourse. That Gorgias

word is, itself, a significant advance in the practice of theorizing.eding sentences have been the basis for various commentators'

S of Gorgias as a defender of an "irrational" or "nomational"language: "Divine sweetness transmitted through speech is induc-sure, reductive of pain. Thus by entering into the opinion of theforce of incantation is wont to beguile and persuade and alter it byand the two arts of witchcraft and magic are errors of the psycheers of opinion" (10).Enos, among others, describes Gorgias asg a "nomational epistemology" and says that Gorgias "did not

al methods for attaining krisis but, rather, used nonrational, stylis-ures for gaining the assent of listeners" (1993, 85, 88). However,

earlier, such characterizations underestimate the "rational" aspectsS' texts. Furthermore, as Solmsen argues, accounts such as Gorgias'understood as attempts to rationalize language and thought "on aular basis, with no need for divine causation" (1975, S) . UnlikeS who depend on the Muses for mystical inspiration, Gorgias' ac-les that speakers have a "self-conscious relation" to their speech

991, 57). As de Romilly points out, Gorgias "was deliberately shift-c into something rational" (1975,zo). In Helen, Gorgias proceeds to

rational explanation of why such "magic" works: "If everyone, on


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128 Gorgias and theDisciplining of Discourse Rereading Gorgias' Helen Ievery subject, had memory of the past and knowledge of the present and hotomy is a more important step in developing new modes of inquiry thanforesight of the future, logos would not do what it does, but as things are it is y particular claim Gorgias makes about logos, peitb6, or bia.easy neirher to remember the past nor consider the present nor predict the 1, In the process of describing he persuasive/forceful workings of logos, Gor-future; so that on most subjects most people take opinion as counselor to the as develops an analogy that proved to be influential: "The power of logos hasgsyche. But opinion, being slippery and insecure, casts those relying on it into same effect on the condition of the psyche as the power of drugs to theslippery and insecure fortune" (1 ). ture of the body; for just as different drugs dispel different secretions from

Gorgias then spends the equivalent of two paragraphs arguing that Helen is body, and some bring an end to disease and others to life, so also in the caseblameless because logos is so powerful that its use amounts to the use of force logos- ome bring pain, others pleasure, some bring fear, others instill(in Greek, bia). First, he identiies logos as the powerful vehicle of peitho, age in the hearers, and some drug and bewitch the psyche with a kind ofpersuasion: "What is there to prevent the conclusion that Helen too, when still 1persuasion" (14). De Romilly contends that "Gorgias' magic is technical.young, was carried off by logos just as if constrained by force? Her mind was wants to emulate the power of the magician by a scientific analysis ofswept away by persuasion, and persuasion has the same power as necessity nd its inflnence. He is the theoretician of the magic spell of words"(anagks), although it may bring shame. For logos, by persuading the psyche .Gorgias theorizes in this case by drawing the analogy to the in-that it persuaded, constrained her both to obey what was said and to approve ingly secular, "rational," and "scientific" art of medicine (1975 ,~o). hewhat was done. The persuader, as user of force, did wrong; the persuaded, alogy functioned paradigmatically in the sense that both Plato's Gorgiasforced by iogos, is unreasonably blamed" (12). Second, he proves just how d Aristotle's Rh eto ~cater sought to explain the art of persuasion by com-powerful logos can be by providing a series of examples of how easily humans ing it to the developing art of medicine. Gorgias' effort(,# analogy mayare persuaded by competing logoi: m sirnplistic by contrast to the relatively sophisticated vocabulary and theo-

Aristotle or the late dialogues of Plato, but the analysis provided byTo understand that persuasion, joining with logos, is wont to stamp th e ater theorists would not have been possible without the efforts of intel-psyche as it wishes one must study, first, the arguments of the astronomers als such as Gorgias.who, substituting opinion for opinion, removing one and instilling another, ased on the passages in Helen that discuss ogos and passages in other Gor-make what is incredible and unclear things appear.true to the eyes of opinion;second, the forceful contests of argumentation, where one side of the argu- ic texts, theorists have likened claims in Gorgias' texts to contemporaryment, written with ski11 but not spokenwith truth, pleases a large audience etic, psychological, and speech-act theories of language. Such readiand persuades; third, the debates of rival philosophers, in which swiftnessof roduced conflicting accounts of Gorgias' description of logos amo^thought is also exhibited, making belief in an opinion easily changed. (13)

w1will not try to arbitrate. There are at least five distinct categories ofgsr psychological (Segal), magical (de Romilly 1975), epistemological

The key contribution made here is the act of raising a provocative theoret- 1976; Gronbeck 1972; Untersteiner 1 954 )~ ramatistic (Verdeniusical question: When does persuasion amount to force? The question is both ; Rosenmeyer 195S), and sematological (Mourelatos 19 8 5; Kerferdunusual and interesting because Greek literature prior to Gorgias usually ). Each reading tends to tease out of selected phrases a distinct theory oftreated persuasion and force, peith6 and bia, as antithetical. As John T. Kirby language, rhetoric, and so on. As inte;sting and helpful as these treat-puts it, "Iwill try to persuade you, but, faiiing that, 1will force you. Such a , are,1 hink the "content" of Gorgias' account is remarkably straightfor-disjunction is rooted in our most fundamental concepts of civilization. The and stands on its own. Though it is useful to interpret and repositionwild beasts settle their disputes by bia; it is a mark of our hurnaniry, we feel, S a m u n t into contemporary terminology, Helen also deserves to bethat we can use persuasion to effect change, that we are not limited to the use stood, insofar as t is possible, in its original context, and appreciated forof coercion" (1990, 215). Kirby suggests that "the peitho/bia axis is at the it contributed to its own generation of intellectuals. Once so positioned,basis of some of our most ancient literary and rhetorical formulations" (1990, find its most profound influence is not a "idea," per se, but a216; see also Buxton 1982, 58-63). From the standpoint of intellectual his- icked up by a later author, o ra problem he poses. In terms of thetory, it is arguably the case that Gorgias' questioning of a taken-for-granted tory of rhetorical theory, we must remember that the writing of systematic


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130 Gorgias and the Disciplining of Discourseor theoretical treatises was exceedingly rare prior to the rnid-fourth century.The scope and complexity of Gorgias' analysis is impressive when comparedto his contemporaries and predecessors, even if it seems crudely metaphoricalcompared to some of his successors.

OnPaignion:GorgiasHelen 21The closing words of Gorgias's Helenare: Eboul&t% graphai ton logonHelWsmen enkihion emon depaignfon. The final word, paignion, is typi-cally translated as "trifle," "recreation," or "diversionn; the most literal trans-iation would be "plaything." Vanous commentators have seized upon theword as proof that one should not read the speech too seriously or as a keyheuristic for interpreting the text (Dmcan 1938,404; Verdenius 1981, 125).D. M. MacD~weu onders if eallinghis speech a paignion implies that Gor-gias does not realiy believe what he has said: "one tnay imagine the twinkle inGorgias's eye as he reveals in the very last word that he regards the wholeparadoxical compositionas a game" (1982,16,43). Poulakos argues that the

speech was not intended as "model" speech for students because no one wouldend such a speech "with a comment that mightbe interpreted by one's listenersas tellingthem You've beenhad"' (1983,3). Kennedy suggests that with thisword "Gorgias plays at undercutting a serious purpose in the speechn (1991,288n).J.M. Robiison condudes that the word means that we do not evenknow how "we are to take thework" (1973,52). ehic h Gomperz even uses&e appearance of the word pai&n in H e h o interpret other works byGorgias as examples of joke-speech (Scberzrede)most notably the treatiseO n Not Being: "Die Schriftber die &tur war ein paignion" (19 I2,3 3 3 5 ).Such readings use the appearance of the word paignion to codrm thecharacterization of Gorgias as not "realiy" serious thinker and not a "m enphiiosopher. The case has already been made h t we ought to set aside thissort of assessment as anachronistic and ill-fomded (Casertano 1986; Segal1962). The work Gorgias does in the H e h s serions in the sense that it isan important composition that contributed to the development of prose dis-course and intell-1 inquiry. It is not a plaything in the sense an innocuousditty might be-such as an encomium for Mickey Mouse. Accordingly, weshould be wary of readings that overemphasize &e significance of this oneword as a heuristic key tozthe entire speech.How, then, do we explain the choice of the word paignion by someoneobviously quite careful in his writing? 1think the question needs to be "un-asked" or at least downplayed. Unlike many ancient texts, the speech appearsto be complete. There is plenty of textual material with which to work without

Rereading Gorgias' Helen 13 Ifter all, one might specu-r 0f acoustical prefer-

elodious phrase menwhich to end the performance -one can alrnost imagine Gorgias aking a

rgias' Helen, Plato provided the first definitioncess of describing a whole class of art: "So thisrly to al1 the members of this class; for none of

is practiced for any serious purpose, but al1 of them purely for play."9 Weno reason to believe that Gorgias would have agreed with such a one-ork. Or, if he had, he would have insisted thatand inappropriate to place disproportionatethe purposes of interyreting the speech. If the

, t some point in time, lost this last Gord, the speech's impor-

as wrote and spoke a generationRhetoric was recognized as a distinct "discipline" upon the coining andssion of logos is more preciselyin general than as a "theory ofonetheless, it is obvious that

as significantly influenced the early theoretical articulation of the disci-of Rhetoric by theorizing about the workings of persuasive discourse.discipline is best understoodevolution of compositional techniques" (1993 ~42).f SO' then the Helenrole in that origin. Though,

eaking, Gorgias' Helen should not be labeled an "epideictic" speechdvanced ifth-century B.C.E.n prose composition;s the writer of the speech,


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13 2 Gorgiasand the Disciplining of Discourseprobably ina ugurating the prose genre of encomia, and by offering a secularaccount of the w orkings of logos. There are m any ways of m aking Gorgias'Helen meaningful by reading it as a h istorical text and as source of inspirationfor contemporary Neosophistic theorists. As an addition to such readings,describing the Helen as predisciplinary underscores the text's historical signifi-cance, 1hope, by situating it in the co ntext of ifth-century Greek composi-tional and theoretical practica and by avoiding the imposition of fourth-century categories and expectations.

Rhetoric and Philosophy in OnN ot Being

Denying Be-ing, he says [it is] nothing; and i f [it] s, it is unknowable;and if it is and[id nowable, it cannot be made evident to others.O ~ Kl v a n7otv odSv. E I SYoziv, 6Eyvmzov ~Fvai. iSE ~ a imr miyvmv,&U d sii;IwtOv a(& 1s(O nMelissus, Xenophanes, and Gorgias979a12-I 3 )utline the different schools of interpreta tion of Gor-

' ost text known as On Not Being or O nNature (Peri tau mi!ontos Z eriword esti as a prolegomenon to a detailedcs. In diis chapte2 1 simply want tomake thepoint that it is impss ible t o translate, iet alone describe, Gorgias'without im posing a particu lar interpretatio n. The syntax is ambig-

d one cannot transla te the ever-present estiwithoutnporting a p x k r -for one teading or apother. Accordingly, it seems reasonable to alertto a rangeofpos ibl e interpretations before providing an exegesis hat

into five parts. 1 irst disc us &e exta nt versions of Onme of &e preliminary difficultes facing thedescribe the disciplinary assumptions made

an d rfretoAwl~diipe~1~~onsf On Not Being that have) 1

Documents

L8.Schiappa Gorgias Helen