Classical Greek Rhetorical Theory and the Disciplining of Discourse

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.

David Timmerman is Professor of Rhetoric and Chair of Humanities and Fine Arts at Wabash College. He is co-editor of Rhetoric and Democracy: Pedagogical and Political Practices and has contributed to Philosophy and Rhetoric, Rhetoric Society Quarterly, and Advances in the History of Rhetoric.

Edward Schiappa holds the Paul W. Frenzel Chair of Liberal Arts at the University of Minnesota, where he is Professor and Chair of the Department of Communications Studies. He is the author of several books, including Protagoras and Logos: A Study in Greek Philosophy and Rhetoric and The Beginnings of Greek Rhetorical Theory.