Socrates, a philosopher of Athens, is considered to be one of the wisest men of all time. Today most of his teachings come from the dialogues of his most famous pupil, Plato. The Phaedrus, written by Plato, is a dialogue between the main protagonist, Socrates, and Phaedrus. One day Lysius, a renowned orator, gave a speech about love as he was walking through Athens. Phaedrus heard this speech and shared it with Socrates who critiqued and rejected it. They began to converse about love but immediately went off tangent to discuss the art of rhetoric and how it should be practiced.
Socrates, the philosopher, was constantly questioning things and knew very well how to persuade others with his wisdom. As he spoke to Phaedrus about rhetoric he persuaded him to think just as he did. Phaedrus at first admired Lysius’ speech about love but once Socrates pointed out the defects it contained he had changed his mind. Socrates made it very clear that one should always speak of the truth especially when persuading others. Unfortunately, the true nature consists of evil and lies. The art of rhetoric should always be truthful. Lythsias’ speech had many rhetorical errors such as not distinguishing between classes. He should have started his speech with defining love but instead stated it in the end. Socrates thought it was important for speeches to answer questions clearly and believed that oratory was a gift from nature which comes from philosophy. He referred to rhetoric as medicine because medicine defines the nature of body and rhetoric of the soul which should give an exact description of the nature of the soul.
“The art of enchanting the soul, and therefore the orator must learn the differences of human souls by reflection and experience—they are so many and of such a nature, and from them come the differences between man and man. Having proceeded thus far in his analysis, he will next divide speeches into their different classes: “Such and such persons,” he will say, “are affected by this or that kind of speech in this or that way,” and he will tell you why. The pupil must have a good theoretical notion of them first, and then he must have experience of them in actual life, and be able to follow them with all his senses about him, or he will never get beyond the precepts of his masters.” https://dl.dropbox.com/u/25004836/Phaedrus.pdf
Another article which focused on the art of rhetoric is Aristotle’s Rhetoric, also known as a Greek treatise on the art of persuasion. Aristotle, a Greek philosopher, defines rhetoric as the counterpart of dialect and mentions that all men attempt to discuss statements but in order to maintain them they must defend themselves and attack others. In order to persuade others one must be able to demonstrate why they are correct. Even if one is not 100% sure of their answer they must always go with their natural instinct and be able prove to others that they are correct. This differs from Socrates’ point of view that poets, orators, and legislators compositions must always be based on the truth. Aristotle states that the things that are true and things that are better are, by their nature, practically always easier to prove and easier to believe in. He introduces the term enthymeme, an informally stated syllogism with an unstated assumption that must be true for the premises to lead to the conclusion. Here the argument is missing because it is assumed.
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