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A Hybrid Techn of the Soul?: Thoughts on the Relation between Philosophy and Rhetoric inGorgias and PhaedrusAuthor(s): Ramsey Eric RamseySource: Rhetoric Review, Vol. 17, No. 2 (Spring, 1999), pp. 247-262Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/466154.

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RAMSEY ERIC RAMSEYArizonaStateUniversityWest

A Hybrid Techne of the Soul?:Thoughts on the Relation between

Philosophy and Rhetoric in Gorgias and Phaedrus

Introduction and Some CaveatsWhetherPlato coined the wordrhetoric,what is strikingis that he was thefirst to attemptto make it disappear.'My argumentmay well add some strengthto Schiappa's contention that Plato may have coined the word rhetoric bysuggestingthat to makesomething disappear,one would need to be dealing withsomethinglike a well-defined object (though enteringdirectly into the heart ofthese often heated debates is not the focus of this essay) ("Did Plato Coin the

Word Rhetorike?";"Neo-Sophistic RhetoricalCriticism").If Plato desires tomake rhetoricdisappear,as I shall arguehe did at least in the Gorgias, then itbehooves him to have a well-articulated argetof concern.If it is the case thatnaminga set of practices helps to constitutethosepracticesas an objectdomain,then it makes sense to suggest that Plato has cause to name a set of practices"rhetoric"o as to be able to deal withthem.A strainof Western thinkinghas long lamented the presence of rhetoric,from the positionDescartes takesin the Meditations o the rise of positivismandon now to the crass materialismof sociobiology. Yet this legacy, often blamedon Plato,may be if not a false thenat least a not wholly accurateaccusation.Ifthe reading below is persuasive, then we should see that what we arecustomarilyasked to accept as Plato's wholesale disdain for rhetoric, whileperhapsat the heartof the Gorgias, is not so clearlydismissive by the time weget to the Phaedrus. We have contemporaryessons yet to learnfrom Plato andfromrecognizingthat the historyof philosophyand the historyof rhetoricneedalways to be taken together. It is this lesson and not simply the pervasiveaccusations thatI am willing, in part,to attribute o the legacy of Plato by wayof theknowing misreadingof PhaedrusI offer below.

This essay argues that Plato does well in the Gorgias to perform aphilosophical slight-of-hand that renders rhetoric, if not invisible, at leastredundant. The argument suggests that after the series of exchanges in the

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Gorgias withGorgias,Polus, and Callicles, Platofinds (strangelyperhapsgiventhe thesis thathe coined the word) that the set of practicesnamed"rhetoric"byhis interlocutorswas not worthyof a name at all. This is the case when rhetoric,as Kahn suggests, is taken as an art associated with the "noble"endeavortoinfluence the humansoul (psvche).However,the saga does not end with the conclusionsof the Gorgias.WhileI shall arguethatPlato made rhetoricdisappear n the Gorgiasat least from thelist of arts, it does not remain out of sight. Universally held to postdate theGorgias, thePhaedrus hasrhetoricas its centerpieceandrhetoric s there treatednot as the object with which one must do away, ratherPlato treats it assomething with which-perhaps against his wishes-he must deal. When onereads the Phaedrus,one cannothelp but get the feeling that Plato is not pleasedby having to readmitrhetoricto the discussion. Nonetheless, in this dialoguerhetoriccomes to have an inevitable and necessary place alongside(or perhapseven closer) the highestof Platonicarts,viz., philosophy.This hermeneutic orayinto two of Plato's dialoguesbeginswith the belief,held by many,thatwe cantracea change in Plato's thinking n themas concernsthe relation between philosophy and rhetoric. While it is the case that thischange in Plato's position is noted by a number of his readers, t nonethelessremainsthatwhyandwhat comes of this often-recognizedchangehasnotalwaysbeen fully explicated.From what I see as the attemptin the Gorgias to makerhetoricdisappearto the recognition in the Phaedrus that philosophywithoutrhetoric'svoice leaves the truthmute needs further nvestigation.It remainstoask how both serve to further this argumentand also to clarify its power topersuadein an age thathas, by and large, forgottenPlato. As a way to beginthese investigations,I plan to read or more aptly, misread, the myth of thecharioteer rom the heartof the Phaedrus.Perhaps ess thana readingor even amisreading, the following is a creative attempt to retell the story in acontemporarydiom, inspiredall the while by Plato's beginning.It is always difficult to approach philosophy and rhetoric in Plato'sdialogues Gorgias and Phaedrus. On the one hand, the popularphilosophicalconception is thatPlato simply had a passing critiqueof rhetoricbut that thesedialogues arereally aboutethics and love, respectively,andthat the discussionof rhetoric is only whatthe dialogues are "ostensibly"about(Levi). But this isjust a certain philosophic arrogance and misses what twentieth-centurycontinental philosophy takes seriously, that is, the intimate relation betweenphilosophyandrhetoric Johnstone;Schrag).JacquesDerrida, or example, cautions us againsta too-facileacceptanceofa completecollapse of the conceptsrhetoric andphilosophy.Derrida s asked ifits is not the case that "ever since Plato's oppositionto rhetoricas a discipline,

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philosophy and rhetoricseem to have existed in a state of continual tension.Why does there seem to be tension between these disciplines? Aren't thesedisciplines-rhetoric and philosophy-necessarily boundtogether?Aren't theynecessarilyintricatelyandcompletelytied?"(Olson 16-17). In responseDerridasays:Well, from thatpoint of view I would be on the side of philosophy.The tension comes first from the fact that rhetoric as a separatediscipline,as a techniqueor as an autonomousfield, may become asort of emptyinstrumentwhose usefulnessor effectivenesswould beindependentof logic, or even referenceor truth-an instrument nthe hands of the sophists in the sense that Plato wantedto definethem. So contrary o what some people think I think-for instance,Habermas-I would be on the side of philosophy, logic, truth,reference, etc. When I question philosophy and the philosophicalprojectas such,it's not in the nameof sophistics,of rhetoricas just aplayfultechnique.I'm interested n the rhetorichiddenin philosophyitself becausewithin, let's say, the typicalPlatonicdiscoursethereisa rhetoric-a rhetoricagainstrhetoric,against sophists.(17)

If we know how to listen, then Plato has some moreto teachus on this score aswe questionrhetoric,philosophy,and theirrelations(see also Derrida).On the other hand, rhetoriciansoften attack the two dialogues without arecognitionof the broadphilosophicalissues involved in Plato'smetaphysics,orthey treat his metaphysicsas an indefensible position that is dismissed easilyfrom a postmetaphysicalstandpoint.Sharingresults with a certainphilosophicarrogance, his latterstrategyof bold dismissal (sharedalso by any numberofso-called postmodernpositions) leaves much of importanceuncoveredin thesetwo dialogues.I am interestedin attemptingto reinspirePlato's two dialogues from mymetaphoricalframe of Plato-as-magician(cf. de Romilly) who tries to makerhetoricdisappear n the Gorgias and as the resignedbutpowerful myth-makerin the Phaedrusin which he tells of the dangersof rhetoric,knowingnow that itis something with which we cannot do away (see Curran).Moreover, if I ampersuasive,we shall see, when we get to the Phaedrus,thatwe no longerwouldwish for rhetoricto be gone and thatthe dangersof its disappearance utweighthe dangers of its presence. Indeed, rhetoric becomes in Plato's Phaedrusphilosophy'snecessaryOther.Following Schiappa ("Neo-Sophistic Rhetorical Criticism")I shall onlyclaim for the unique interpretation f Phaedrus I offer at the end of the essay

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that it offers a sense of organic shape that may be outside the analytic of factsproper,but well within whattruths we have left to learn from Plato concerningthe relationbetweenphilosophyand rhetoric.Plato's Sleight of Hand: Philosophy and Rhetoric in Gorgias

My Plato-as-magicianreading of Gorgias relies, no doubt, on what onemight call a ratherstraightforwardeading of the text. Enos (Greek Rhetoricbefore Aristotle) and Benardete, for example, renderdifferent, nuanced, butequally compellingreadsof the text as they pursuetheirparticular nds. Formypart in the matter,I shall settle for the ratherstraightforward eading caste interms of rhetoric'sdisappearance o make room for the unique misreadingIproposeforPhaedrus.Plato opens the Gorgias with Socrates arrivingtoo late to have heardthedemonstrationperformedby the famous rhetor whose name gives the dialogueits title. In concluding that demonstration,Gorgiashad agreed to answer anyquestion put to him. Socrates is invited to join in the festivities by askingGorgias questionsthatget at the heartof Socrates' concerns.As Robinsonpointsout, Socrates often asks questions that take one of two forms. Either he asks"whatis X?"or he asks "is X Y?" In this case we see that he is asking the laterquestionas he is attemptingo ascertainwhetherrhetoric s an art(techne).Socrates uses the analogy of the techne of medicine to show how rhetoricfails to be analogousto this art. What is key in this analogy is that Socratesbelieves that medicine is the most noble techne with concern for the body,whereas in this dialogue the question being investigated is what is in factrhetoric's concern. For Socrates to proceed, he needs a firm answer to thisquestion so that one can know if rhetoric has an analogous knowledge of itsobjectas medicinedoes vis-a-vis the body.Socratesdetermines the object of rhetoric based on the way he draws outthe implicationsof the responses he receives early in the dialogue. Rhetoricisclaimed by its defenders in the Gorgias to be concerned with winning theconviction of one's hearers (Gorgias 454b ff). Now this telos of rhetoric isultimatelyconcernedwith the humanpsvche because any conviction one holdsor can come to hold, forPlato, is held in/by one's soul. Thus he claims thatif theset of practicesnow called "rhetoric"are going to be given the designationtechne, thenthey must show, as medicine does with its knowledge of the body,its knowledgeof the objectof its ultimateconcernviz., the soul. Througha nowfamous series of questionsand interrogations,Socrates reveals that each of theinterlocutor'sclaims concerningthe benefit of rhetoricfail to demonstratesuch

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a knowledge. Each in his turn fails on Plato's account to give adequatejustificationfor rhetoric'sconcernforthe Good of their hearers'souls.Thisposition andjudgment s, of course,generated n lightof Plato's largermetaphysicalproject (Moline). Clearly,it may be an open questionas to whenexactly we get Plato's metaphysicalsystem in his writtenwork,that is, when inthe difficult-to-determine hronologyof Plato's work do we get his theoryof theForms. One thing, however, seems clear in this respect: Something intimatelyconnectedwithPlato's metaphysics s at work in his critiqueof rhetoric.His attackon rhetoric s in every case buttressedby the distinction betweenopinion, of which he charges rhetoric having as its ultimate concern, andknowledge, which one must have if he or she is going to do justice to the soul.The notions of the Good, the true,and thejust, as well as the relationof these toopinions and knowledge, give coherence to Plato's critiqueof rhetoric in theGorgias. Withoutsome sense of the abiding truthof the Forms, one has littlefoundation from which to make sense of the sustainedcritiqueof rhetoricthatPlatogives us in this dialogue.Dramatically,Socrates is not the only one asking questions here. His firstsustainedcritiqueof rhetoriccomes in answer to a questionput directlyto him,by Polus:Whatdoes he thinks rhetoric s? In essence, Polus is askingSocratesavery Socratic question in the form of the other of the two famous questionsSocratesis fond of asking.Socrateshas an answerreadyfor Polus and it is thatrhetoric is no techne at all; rhetoric is he claims nothing more than a knack(tribe).This knack is, like all such practices,concernedwith pleasureas an enddistinct from the Good. It is here that a returnto the earlier-discussedanalogywith medicine is crucial.Comparing hetoricas a knack to cooking, the analogyfrom medicine again is the basis for his argument against rhetoric. As theinterlocutorshave set things up, by asserting that rhetoric is concerned withproducingconviction in othersand thus in the end concerned with the soul, theargument s suggested by rhetoric'sdefendersthat rhetoricdoes for the healthofthe soul whatmedicine does for the healthof the body. But Socrates thinkshehas shown that rhetoricis not concerned with the Good of the soul but ratherwithpleasure.It remainsimportant hroughout hat none of Socrates' interlocutorsobjectto the analogy.As Platopresents hem,they seem to think thatmedicineis a fineexampleof the art of caringfor the body. The pointof contention s, as we haveseen, whether rhetoric is medicine's counterpartfor the soul. Indeed, canrhetoric occupy the place of medicine in the analogy? Socrates argues thatrhetoric s no art(techne) at all, buta knack,and like cooking is to medicine,sorhetoricis to that techne which is trulyconcernedwith knowledge of the soul.Consequently,Socrates sets up the following set of relations:Cooking is the

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knack and medicinethe artconcerned with the body,just as rhetoric s the knackand some as yet unstatedX is the techne of the soul.It is at this point thatwe must addressthe major questionsthat arise in thislight but have as yet been unanswered.Perhapsit might put like this: If notrhetoric, hen what?or moredirectly:What is the artof the humansoul?Beforewe address these critical and fundamentalquestions, we must first rememberthatmanyphilosophersread these concerns with rhetoricas somethingof a ruse.It is suggestedor ratheroften asserted thatthese dramaticmoves simplyexist toallow Plato to get at the real issues of arguing against hedonism (contraCallicles) and against tyrannyand dictatorship contraPolus and as he does inthe Republic).However,this misses whatI take to be at least one of the majorpoints of the focus here, and that is the relation between rhetoric and the soul.Plato cannot help but deal with questions of the soul when he deals withquestionsof rhetoric.Furthermore,f this is the case, then he must when dealingwith the soul also deal with the Good, the true, and the just. This, of course,demandsreference to his largerphilosophic commitments. Thus discussions ofrhetoric ead necessarilyandultimatelyto discussions of morality,which in turnaregrounded n Plato's otherphilosophicalclaims. Plato relies on philosophicalclaims that he develops elsewhere in his corpusto build a case againstrhetoric.In theGorgiasthesepositions,even if unstated,are not unutilized.On this reading,the issues of justice, tyranny,and hedonismarise becauseof claims on behalf of rhetoricto be concernedwith the humansoul. Rhetoricand the claims madein its namearenot ancillaryto the dialogue, but form a partof its center. As McComiskey argues generally and Enos argues specificallywith referenceto Callicles, the practicesthatPlato may have just namedin thisdialogue for the first time are at that historicalmoment making great and, toPlato's mind detrimental,"democratic"and "pragmatic" hanges in Athenianculture. Rhetoricis no passing interestor ruse on Plato's part;no, he is indeedfrightenedof rhetoricand it political as well as ethical consequences-so muchso that he tries in this dialogueto make rhetoricdisappear, eeling perhaps hatifhe could put it out of sight he could be at peace. How, then, does Plato attemptthis sleight-of-hand?By establishing, to his own satisfaction at least, thatrhetoric s not an artbut rathera knack and thus concerned with pleasureas anend in itself; therefore the question of what is the techne of the good of thehumansoul still stands.Whatis the propertechne to deal with the human soul? Again we can put itthis way: Based on the analogy that Socrateshas utilized throughout,medicineis the techne of the body and cooking is the knack,rhetoricis the knackof thesoul and somethingX is the techne. What Plato believes himself to haveprovenin the Gorgias is that one andonly one techne merits such a name vis-a-vis the

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soul and that is, of course, philosophy. Only philosophy(here we are forced tothink of Book VII of the Republic, 537a-41e) can fulfill the knowledgerequirements o deal with the soul. Plato makes it clear in this dialogue thatrhetoric s redundantbecause he shows that it seeks to renamephilosophy.Yetthe name change is dangerousbecause the justice deservingof the soul that isdetermined or Plato by philosophycannot afford the influences of rhetoric,aninfluence that rhetoricclaims for itself. Rhetoric's influence is unjustbecause,Plato argues, it appealsonly to "flattery"and thus places pleasureand successbeforetruthandjustice.On Plato's account,therealreadyexists a techne for dealingwith the affairsof convincing others in the polis. Furthermore, t alreadyhas a name. Even ifPlato coined the word rhetorike, it turns out to be only for the purpose ofshowing that the practicesthis word names have no place in the life of a polisseeking to be moral andjust. Rhetoric (rhetorike)may appearin this dialoguefor the first time, butonly to disappearbecausePlato shows that on his accountit renames a practice that is truly concerned with the soul. According to theargumentsPlato makes in the Gorgias, rhetoricought to disappearbecause it isredundantwith respectto thejust dealings with the soul. It is important o keepin mind that the charge is not that rhetoricdoes not affect the soul: In fact, itdoes on Plato's account,and this is indeed why it is so frightening o him. Wereit not the case that rhetorichas an effect on the soul, then it could be safelyignoredand left alone. However,the claim is not that rhetoricdoes not affect thesoul; ratherthe problemis that it does not do this well. Rhetoric does have aneffect on the soul, but it is base and at odds with Plato's desire that such soul-effects be noble.Plato ends Gorgias with Socrates recounting a myth of the afterlife-recountingwhat Socrateshas heardhappens to the soul after the demise of thebody. Heremy frameof Plato-as-magicianwho seeks to makerhetoricdisappearallows us to see the myth not only as the basis for Plato's argumentsaboutthemoralmannerof living in the becoming of this world (not unlike argumentsatthe end of Republic).Beyondthis we can see the mythas also a directassault onrhetoric.The mythmakesmuchof the soul's nakedness,thatis, strippedof anyof its worldly embellishments. On Plato's account, it seems, when alldistractionsprovidedby rhetoricare removed (honors, clothes that symbolizestatus,etc.), then one cannothide, divert, or pull any slights-of-hand o protectone's soul. The myth recounts the story of what happens after rhetoric hasdisappearedfor (the) good. If Plato fears he has not made rhetoricdisappearfrom this world, then he seems to hold out a hope that rhetoric will surelydisappear n the other world. However, it is only a hope-because his hope isbased on a storyPlato cannotconfirm;it is a storyhe has only heard.

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It is clearly the case that Plato accepts the challenge of the rhetoric,whatNietzsche calls the contest. No doubt,too, this contest is not, as Enospointsout,one in which the rhetorsspeakfor themselves(GreekRhetoricbeforeAristotle).That is to say, Gorgias is Plato's artfulcreation,his magic show in which therhetors are merely props or characters/caricatures.However much this factconcerningthe dialogue calls certainaspectsof Plato's text into question-andindeed it does raise suspicions-Nietzsche's insight seems to save otheraspectsof the text when he argues:What, for example, is of special artistic significance in Plato'sdialogues is for the most partthe result of a contest with the artofthe orators,the sophists, and the dramatistsof his time, inventedforthe purposeof enabling him to say in the end: "Look, I too can dowhatmy greatrivals can do; indeed,I can do it better thanthey. NoProtagorashas invented myths as beautiful as mine; no dramatistsuch a vivid and captivatingwhole as my Symposion;no oratorhaswritten orations like those in my Gorgias-and now I repudiateallthis entirelyand condemnall imitate art.Only the contestmademe apoet, a sophist,and an orator."What a problemopens up before uswhen we inquire into the relationship of the contest to theconceptionof the work of art (37-38)

With this readingof Plato-as-magician n hand, we are now readyto move toPhaedrus becausethe contest,even if not the magic, continues there.Why Did Rhetoric Not Stay Away?: Philosophy and Rhetoric in Phaedrus

Plato attempts o make rhetoricdisappear n the Gorgias by arguingthat itis an unnecessary and unworthy synonym for philosophy. While perhapsconvincingin the artful context of thatdialogue,Plato is not a powerfulenoughmagicianit would seem to keep rhetoric romreappearing.But the Phaedrus is of interest because of other qualities. Indeed, asSchiappa(Protagorasand Logos; "Isocrates'Philosophia") argueswith respectto Gorgias andHowlandwithrespectto the Phaedrus,Plato has a specific targetin mind in his attacks on rhetoric. Both authors suggest that this target isIsocrates,one of the main reasonsbeing that this teacherand contemporaryofPlato was using the wordphilosophyto describehis teachingsand practice.AsSchiappaargues,this use of philosophywill not do for Plato. As a consequence,Schiappaargues,"[i]f Plato could identify the 'product'of his rival Isocrates'

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trainingas somethingunnecessaryor undesirable, o muchthe betterfor Plato'sschool"(Protagorasand Logos 45).My readingis also supportedby Howland'sessay "The Attack on Isocratesin Phaedrus."Howlandarguesthat we understand he critique n the Phaedrus,such as it is, as an attacknot only on rhetoric n generalbutas also on Isocratesin particular.With Howland-as with Schiappa above-if we follow thisreading,thenphilosophyis at stake in these debatesaboutrhetoricand who andwhatpracticeswill have the properclaim to the name "philosophy"s a centralanddrivingforceof these dialogues.Plato seems to have failed to make rhetoricdisappear or good and to havewon for himself the sole right to the name "philosophy"n the Gorgias. I shallarguethathe attempts o capturethis conceptin the mythof the charioteer n thePhaedrus andagain attemptsto ease his fear of rhetoricandto claim possessionof the name"philosophy."Interestingly,here in the Phaedrus, Plato treats his object of fear muchdifferently.He does not, we may begin by saying, attemptany more magic ofthe sort practicedin the Gorgias. However,he is up to something.Given whatwe havejust seen in the Gorgias, we may well be surprisedby whathe is up toin this work.We cannothelp but wonder:Whathappenedto Plato between theGorgias and the Phaedrus? While we may never know exactly what answer togive to thatquestion,we feel quitecertainaftergoing through he Phaedrus thatwe could with greatconfidence answer:"somethingprofound." t is the case, nodoubt,that Plato speaksof rhetoric in otherdialoguesthatmay well have beenwrittenin the time between the two works in questionhere. Nonetheless, theseinstancesdo not exhibit what we would call an epiphany-they do not mark anannouncedandconspicuouschangeof hearton Plato's account.Phaedrusbegins with Socratesagain confrontingrhetoric,and, initially, hedoes not seem to be any more pleased with the practicesthathave come to bearthatname;as we know, however, this will changein the courseof the dialogue.If, as we did with the Gorgias, we see this dialogueas havingrhetoricas a partof its center,then we get a readingof Plato thathighlightshis articulationof therelationbetweenphilosophyandrhetoric.Of course this dialogue is about love and the soul, or it is said to be at itsbest when it is about love andthe soul;but this does not prohibit ts being aboutrhetoric as well. Furthermore,t may be about love because it is about rhetoricsuggestingthe same causal relationto which I appealed n my Plato-as-magicianreading of the Gorgias. Love, of course, becomes the theme of the dialoguebetweenPhaedrusand Socratesdramaticallybecause it is the themeof Lysias'sspeech that the young Phaedrushas in his possession (with which, it has alwaysbeen my suspicion,he is on his way to use at the gym). The questionwhy love is

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related to the rhetoricaltheme of the dialogue may not be quite so easy torecognize.Love (eros) is notunrelated o the new view Plato has on rhetoricthathe develops in this dialogue. Love is concernedwith the soul and thus is nowlinked to rhetoricin ways that seem to have been forbidden n the Gorgias. Tokeep from getting ahead of ourselves, let us move to very near the end of thedialogue.From a certainhermeneuticposition,the whole of the Phaedrus can be readas Plato's dealing with the ramificationsof the relationbetween philosophyandrhetoric. This is in stark contrast o the nonrelationand ultimateincompatibilitybetweenthe two for which Plato arguedin the Gorgias. Without a doubt,Platodoes not have any morerespectherefor rhetoricper se nor does his fear subsidein toto. The dangersof rhetoricwhenpracticedas a knackstill haunthim. Yet inthis work,Plato leaves open the positive possibilitiesof rhetoric. Can it be that,afterall, rhetoriccan be a teche^?Yes and,of course,no.A new relation, Plato's coming to terms with the necessity of rhetoric,manifests itself in the Phaedrus. As we know, rhetoricgets a betterhearing inthis work. The voice of rhetoric his time is not representedby others(or was italways misrepresentedbefore?Certainlythese are real suspicions (Enos, GreekRhetoricbeforeAristotle),but speaks(almost) for itself. At 260d she speaks, ina sense at least. Socratessays thatperhapsshe has been treatedtoo roughly(wecannot help but wonder if this refers not only to the passages immediatelyprecedingthis one but in the whole of the Gorgias as well) and imagines thatshe might indeed say: "Whatnonsense is this, my good sirs? I do not insist onignoranceof truth as an essential qualificationfor the would-be speaker;forwhatmy advice is worthI suggest thathe shouldacquirethatknowledge beforeembarkingon me. I do emphaticallyassert, however, thatwithoutmy assistancethe man who knows the truthwill make no progress n the art of persuasion."Here rhetoric makes the case that without her the truth would in fact bemute. Plato-and I sense he is reluctant-comes to see in this work thatrhetoricwill not accept being ignored and that it certainly will not again disappear(indeed it never had). Plato has to find a way to deal with the ubiquity andconstantpresenceof rhetoric, he objectof his fear thatnow is face to face withhis metaphysical positions, brought there by we still wonder what. TheconsequencesaregreaterthanI have madethem seem because the mute truth sno truthat all for Plato.Platosuggests thatphilosophyis a worthless techne withoutrhetoric,andheputs these words into the mouthof rhetoricherself and she is left to be the firstto say this-as if Plato is unableto bring himself to say this directly.We mustwonderwhatit even means to have a worthless techneand if it is even possiblewe get the feeling that a worthlesstechne is equivalentto not havinga techne^ t

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all. Why would Plato makesuch concessions to his enemy?I am submitting hatsuchconcessions are made so thatphilosophycan say something.The voice thatphilosophylacks, it gets from rhetoric.Plato is forcedto makea place for-evenif not a peace with-rhetoric. Moreover, this place is next to philosophy, thevery techne that once was purified from any infection by rhetoric. Next torhetoric-is this even too faraway?Betterto say entwinedwithrhetoric,not onewithout the other. Read this way, Plato comes to hold what looks to be aprecursoro contemporary ositionon the relationof rhetoricandphilosophy.In Phaedrus Plato comes to recognize this fact of the interdependenceofrhetoricand philosophy.Unmistakably,Plato will not have this relationforgetits obligations to philosophy. The change marked in his thinking does notchangethe fact that this is still his majorconcern.That is to say, if philosophyismute withoutrhetoric, it is still the case that, and here akin to the argumentsfrom the Gorgias, rhetoricwithoutphilosophy is a real dangerto justice. ForPlato, this point is not to be lost on the young Phaedrus.If Plato is going tomakeconcessions to rhetoric,he is not willing, therefore, o give up everything.Socratescalls on the phantomargumentsassociatedwiththe voice of rhetoric opersuade Phaedrus of the necessity of this relation: "Come forward, noblecreatures,and persuadePhaedrus,who begets such lovely children,that unlesshe becomes an adequatephilosopherhe will never be an adequatespeakereitheron any subject" 261a).Socratesends an argumentat 269b saying thatpractitionersof rhetoric are"unable o define the natureof rhetoric,and have believed in consequencethatthey have discovered the art itself, when all that they have got hold of is theknowledge which is a necessarypreliminary o it. They think thatby impartingthis knowledge they have perfectlydischargedthe task of a teacherof rhetoric,and that the use of each of these devices so as to produce conviction and thecompositionof a consistent whole is a simple matter which their pupils mustwork out for themselves when they come to make speeches."The chargethatrhetoricby itself is only half a techneseems on firstsightto be only anothersluragainstrhetoric.Undoubtedly hough,the other side must also hold, namelythatphilosophyas a mute enterprise s only half a techne at best without rhetoric.Admitting to the former to damn rhetoric also casts its aspersions on aphilosophythat has no voice. Platorecognizesthathe cannot do withoutrhetoricanymore thanrhetoriccan do withoutphilosophy.To this point this seems to be the case: Plato recognized that hismetaphysicsand his concerns for justice mean little in the silence of a worldwithoutdiscourse, regardlessof how many dangersrhetoricmight raise in itswake. The silence that would be self-imposed by continuing his assault onrhetoricwould be the certain failure of metaphysics,of justice, and the Good.

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Plato must give up the betterpartof whatDerrida calls above Plato's "rhetoricagainstrhetoric." t has come to this:Plato realizes thathe mustriskthedangersof rhetoricfor the sakeofphilosophy.In the Gorgias there was one technte-philosophy-that caredfor the souland a knack that was unjust in its attempts to usurp philosophy's rightfulplace-rhetoric. I contend that in the Phaedrus there is again one techne, butnow it is a hybrid;bothrhetoricand philosophy togetherare needed for the careof the soul. So were we wrong to characterizePlato as a magicianwho madethings disappear?Does it turnout thatPlato is more akin to the famous magicacts that saw things in half and in the finale put them back togetheragain? Itseems this image mightbettercapture he relation of philosophyandrhetoricasit is treated in the two dialogues and thatthe grandfinale of the Phaedrus hasreunited he two necessarypartsthatmakeupthe hybridtechne of the soul.Beyond Magic: Why the Relation of Rhetoric and Philosophy DemandThat the Noble and Base Horses Remained Forever Hitched

At the end of Book VI of the Republic, Plato has Socrates notice thebedazzled interlocutorswho have just struggled to understandthe intricatedetailsof the divided line. Book VII beginswith Socratesattempting o care forthese looks thatsuggestconfusionby tellingthe allegoryof the cave to explicatein anothermannerthe dense argumentssurrounding he Divided Line. Perhapsthis ratherunconventionalreadingof the Gorgias and the Phaedrus leaves somein a similar condition to those at the close of Republic Book VI. Against thebackdropof this readingthat has pushedthe relation of philosophyand rhetoricconstantlyto the fore, I shall arguefor a strong,but I hope creative,misreadingor retellingof anotherof Plato's famousmyths.Rhetoric as a concernof Plato'shas always been motivatedby his moral concern for the soul and that thesediscussions could not but help deal with Plato's metaphysicalpositions on thesoul. And this, of course,includes the roleof eros and its relationto the soul: "Itis towards the soul then thatall the rhetorician'senergies will be directed"andagain"Thefunctionof speechis to influence the soul"(Phaedrus27 la andd).We have established hat the relationbetweenphilosophyandrhetoric s theconcern of Plato in the Gorgias and the Phaedrus. Further,we have from thisposition arguedthatwhatothers see as rhetoric'spassing place is reallycentralto these two works. The appearance n these works of detailed and elaboratediscussions of moralityand justice are thus attributed o concernsfor rhetoricand the necessity of philosophyhaving a voice. Said differently,rhetoric s notseen as an addendum o these discussionsof moralityandjustice. Plato's fear ofrhetoric s inextricably inkedto his metaphysicalconcerns forjustice.

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A HybridTechneof theSoul?

The mythof the charioteer ells the storyof the hybridstructure f the soul.The storyrecounts the image of a charioteerwho must guide two horses whosepull is in very different directions. The two horses are said to represent he twopartsof the soul, the noble and the base. The charioteermust bring these twosteeds into line such that they together draw the chariot straight. In theconfrontationwith an object of beauty, the two struggle, at odds with oneanother,for the form the relationto the beautifulobject will take. (Rememberthat the sight of beautytaken in by the senses is the firstclue to the sightof theeye of the mindthatdraws the soul toward the Forms.) I have suggestedabovethatany storyaboutthe careof another'ssoul mightalso be read as a storyaboutthe relation betweenphilosophyandrhetoricbecauseto invokethe technefittingof the soul (philosophy),one only has recourseto touch the soul by means ofdiscursivepractice(rhetoric).Accordingly,then, let me consider what this story tells us if we read it asthe storyof philosophyandrhetoricon Plato's account. The noble horse andthebase horse are bridled together, and Plato never suggests that the attemptbemadeto separate hem.They represent or him the given conditions n which wefind ourselves, so it is with this team and with this constitutionthat we mustdeal. Whatthenfollows for the relation between these two horses? Let me statethe obvious as I see it on this misreadingaccountof which horse has the taskofrepresentingwhich of the constitutive partsin the relationbetweenphilosophyand rhetoric.The noble horse, it will surpriseno one, is philosophyand the base horserhetoric. Nevertheless, the absence of our surprise is not the simultaneousabsence for a set of reasons as to why these distinctionsare made. Plato wasclear even in his concessions to rhetoricthat it cannot have everythingor that itdid not still harbordangers. The base horse representsrhetoric because it isstrong enough to run wild and to drag the noble horse behind it. Withoutphilosophy as the stride of the noble horse, the base horse can have its way andlead the charioteer nto the irrationalitiesof flatteryas expoundedboth in theGorgiasandthePhaedrus.The task Plato demands from the charioteer s that she bringher studyandskill to the reins and restrainthe base horse while simultaneouslybringingthenoble horse into its stride. It is, and this is corroboratedby the rest of theargumentsin the Phaedrus, only when both philosophy and rhetoric are insynchronizationand in harmonycan one be said to be on the just path. Wecannot simply unhitch the base horse (rhetoric) because of the dangers itportends.If Plato thought this was possible in the Gorgias, he has come torealize the impossibilityof this attempt n the Phaedrus.

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RhetoricReview

The base horse running unrestrained represents the worst examples of theabuse of discourse. Yet the noble horse cannot run alone at all. Each noble horseneeds its grounding in this world. The noble horse, even if it is able to run alonesomewhere, cannot do so in this world. For this world it needs the desire for theother and access to the other that is made possible by the base horse (rhetoric)(see White). It needs the strength of the base horse's contact with the world toadvance the chariot to the other, to the polis, and to the chance atcommunication. Plato may have wanted an all noble team of horses, but theexistential reality of the necessity of discourse forced him to keep the base horserhetoric hitched to the enterprise of caring for the soul.For our contemporary situation, it is Plato's efforts to teach the importanceof bringing the two steeds into unison that one must ultimately respect even ifone rejects the specifics of his metaphysics and the details of his equestrianadvice. We gain something perhaps by seeing this conflict near its beginnings.In What Is Called Thinking, Heidegger uncondemningly gives Kant an "F" forhis reading of Plato, suggesting that by betraying the history of traditionalreadings from the history of philosophy, Kant succeeds in giving us somethingnew. Perhaps we need to make readings of Plato that merit failure so that we canmake readings of him that make a pass at being relevant to twentieth-centuryconcerns. In this respect I wish to read Plato two ways: on the one hand, with adeep respect for the letter of the his texts and on the other, with an equal respectfor the spirit that lives within them.

By misreading perhaps we can put these horses in a different pasture, tograze a different terrain so that today we might beckon them still with the line:Come forward, noble creatures, and persuade.

Note'The author has accrued many debts in the writing of this essay and is hopeful thatacknowledgmentwill signal a recognitionof them withoutbelieving such recognitioncould by itselfrepay. The germ of this idea first occurred n a seminarsome years ago with ProfessorDon Burkswhose patiencewith the thesis allowed it to maturerather han to die a quick-even if brightlylit-death. The work has been encouraged or some time by Professor JohnT. Kirby,whose insistencethat the details should be workedout was the only thing that kept the project going. The author sgrateful to all those studentswho sharedthe classroom and with keen eyes read Plato. Lastly,Rhetoric Reivew peer reviewers professors Richard Enos and Edward Schiappa gave this essayreadingsthatled to so manyfine suggestions-the author'sunderstanding f which are reflectedonnearlyevery page-that theessay now seems to have been impossible withoutthem.Works CitedBenardete,Seth. The Rhetoricof Moralityand Philosophy:Plato's Gorgias and Phaedrus. Chicago:U of ChicagoP, 1991.Curran,Jane V. "The RhetoricalTechniqueof Plato's Phaedrus." Philosophy and Rhetoric 19.1(1986): 66-72.

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RhetoricReview

Ramsey Eric Ramsey is a philosopherand communicationscholarcurrently eachingcourses in thephilosophyof communication,ethics, andrhetoricat ArizonaState UniversityWest in Phoenix. Heis the author of The Long Path to Nearness, a philosophic study of ethics, communication,andcorporeality.

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