Classical Greek Rhetorical Theory and the Disciplining of Discourse

Examines how key terms helped to conceptualize and organize the study and teaching of oratory.

David M. Timmerman (Author), Edward Schiappa (Author)

9780521195188, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 22 March 2010

202 pages
22.2 x 14.7 x 1.8 cm, 0.36 kg

This book contributes to the history of classical rhetoric by focusing on how key terms helped to conceptualize and organize the study and teaching of oratory. David Timmerman and Edward Schiappa demonstrate that the intellectual and political history of Greek rhetorical theory can be enhanced by a better understanding of the emergence of 'terms of art' in texts about persuasive speaking and argumentation. The authors provide a series of studies to support their argument. They describe Plato's disciplining of dialgesthai into the Art of Dialectic, Socrates' alternative vision of philosophia, and Aristotle's account of demegoria and symboule as terms for political deliberation. The authors also revisit competing receptions of the Rhetoric to Alexander. Additionally, they examine the argument over when the different parts of oration were formalized in rhetorical theory, illustrating how an 'old school' focus on vocabulary can provide fresh perspectives on persistent questions.

1. Introduction: terms of art as a focus in the history of rhetorical theory
2. Dialegesthai as a term of art: Plato and the disciplining of dialectic
3. Philosophia as a term of art: recovering Isocrates
4. Terms of art for political deliberation: demegoria and sumboule
5. Terms of art and the interpretation of texts: the disciplinary status of the Rhetoric to Alexander
6. Terms of art and inferring rhetorical theory: when did the parts of a speech become formalized?
7. Epilogue.

Subject Areas: Classical history / classical civilisation [HBLA1], Literary studies: classical, early & medieval [DSBB]