Dissoi Logoi Research Articles

Switch-Side Debating Meets Demand-Driven Rhetoric of Science

U.S. government agencies are collaborating with outside scholars to untangle disparate threads of knotty technoscientific issues, in part by integrating structured debating exercises into institutional decision-making processes such as intelligence assessment and public policy planning. These initiatives drive up demand for rhetoricians with skill and experience in what Protagoras called dissoi logoi —the practice of airing multiple sides of vexing questions for the purpose of stimulating critical thinking. In the contemporary milieu, dissoi logoi receives concrete expression in the tradition of intercollegiate switch-side debating, a form of structured argumentation categorized by some as a cultural technology with weighty ideological baggage. What exactly is that baggage, and how does it implicate plans to improve institutional decision making by drawing from rhetorical theory and expertise? Exploration of how switch-side debating meets demand-driven rhetoric of science not only sheds light on this question, but also contributes to the burgeoning scholarly literature on deliberative democracy, inform argumentation studies, and suggest new avenues of inquiry in rhetorical theory and practice.

Faith-Based Worldviews as a Challenge to the Believing Game

Peter Elbow’s believing game is, I think, one of his most original contributions to our intellectual life. It is a disciplined method designed specifically to counteract the weaknesses that Elbow perceives in the preferred academic method of radical skepticism, which he characterizes as the doubting game. Whereas skepticism requires the extirpation of self-interest, the believing game acknowledges that self-interest is ineradicable, and so, as Elbow explains, “you are given constant practice in trying to get the feel of your own self-interest and to adopt the self-interest of as many other people as possible” (172). Whereas skepticism attempts to remove all effects of “projection” of already held beliefs and practices onto newly encountered material, the believing game treats projection not only as inevitable, but as a valuable intellectual tool, whereby one learns to articulate the new with one’s current mental categories, not distorting the one but enlarging the other. Elbow would like to see both intellectual methods employed in the academy, but only the doubting game still prevails, in spite of all post-modern anti-foundationalism can do to dislodge it. Imagine, then, a hypothetical academic. I flipped a coin to determine his gender. The academic is a highly specialized creature, expert at using reason to solve problems. Logical argument is his trade, and he has been trained to be extremely difficult to convince–indeed, the more difficult, the more rigorous and intellectually respectable he is. He is the master of the doubting game. For the skeptical academic, emotions are comparable to grit interfering with the operation of a delicate machine. They are to be kept out of academic argument to the highest degree possible. Ditto, therefore, those aspects of human experience that tend to give rise to emotions, such as one’s gender, sexual orientation, physical condition, family situation, race, ethnicity, and religion as these are socially constructed. The academic can play the believing game up to a point. He can understand the concept of accepting the fundamental premises of a position and then tracing how logical consequences flow from them. For example, he can temporarily inhabit the discourse of a theoretical position with which he disagrees; indeed, he must have the ability to do so in order to argue against it effectively, as rhetoricians have always known since the ancient Greek Sophists promulgated their dissoi logoi. But what if he is asked to inhabit a position that arouses emotion in him? This is disturbing, by the very fact that emotion of any kind is being aroused– emotion is taboo–but even more so if the emotion is repugnance or fear. Yet the

Drei neue studien zur rhetorik der antike

Summary The interest in ancient rhetoric has increased noticeably over the past few decades and manifests itself in an ever growing number of publications. Three works published in the U.S.A. in 2005 approach the topic in quite different ways. Habinek’s relatively slim book is neither meant to be a comprehensive account of nor a condensed introduction to ancient rhetoric. Rather, it is made up of five chapters (“Rhetoric and the State”; “The Figure of the Orator”; “The Craft of Rhetoric”; “Rhetoric as Acculturation”; “The Afterlife of Rhetoric”) that shed light on selected aspects of ancient rhetoric from a sociological perspective; Habinek focuses on the function and role of rhetoric in the societies and states of the Greek and Roman world. On the whole, this is a useful and profitable book, despite of some weaknesses. It will, however, not replace con­ventional handbooks on ancient rhetoric, and it was not meant to, as is stressed by the author himself in the introduction: “Instead, the inspiration for this book is the ancient genre of protreptic […], which aimed to give the reader just enough information about a subject to whet the appetite for more” (p. vii). Without a doubt, Habinek has achieved this aim. In contrast to this, the book by Laurent Pernot, translated into English “with a certain number of changes to the French text” (p. xii), offers a comprehensive, historically organized introduction to the theory and practice of ancient rhetoric. Its development is outlined in six chapters, ranging from archaic times to the third century A.D. Throughout his work, Pernot has managed not to concern himself with too many minor details in order to treat the main aspects with exemplary clarity, keeping the text brief or detailed in accordance with the exigencies of the respective topics, always making transparent to his readers why ancient rhetoric came into being, developed and transformed in both theory and practice. For this reason, Pernot’s book is an excellent introduction for beginners, yet it has also much to offer to more advanced readers. One would wish that the author had chosen to include the fourth century A.D., a prolific period in the development of ancient rhetoric. It is impossible, however, to welcome the third book under review with similar enthusiasm. Under the title of “Classical Rhetorics and Rhetoricians”, Michelle Ballif and Michael G. Moran present the public with a bulky volume containing in alphabetical order 61 articles, written by 45 collaborators and Moran himself. Most often these articles deal with persons, sometimes with works (e.g., ‘Dissoi Logoi’, ‘Rhetorica ad Herennium’) or groups of authors (e.g., ‘Attic Orators’). Considering the title of the book, one finds a number of unexpected lemmata in the table of contents, like Aspasia, Augustine, Boethius, Cornelia, Diogenes of Sinope, Diotima, Pythagorean Women, Sappho, etc. The supposed relevance of these personalities for the topic of ‘rhetoric’ is, however, not substantiated anywhere in the book. Moreover, the length of various articles appears disproportionate when one considers such factors as the state of our sources, thematic relevance, or later influence (e.g., 3.5 pages for Aspasia, 4.5 pages for the Attic Orators, 10 pages for Cicero, 12 for Augustine). This creates a totally distorted picture of what we know from the sources about the representatives of ancient rhetoric and their respective importance. Numerous mistakes, sometimes even of an elementary nature, seriously impair the overall reliability of this volume. For sound information, potential users should rather turn elsewhere.

Dissoi Logoi, Civic Friendship, and the Politics of Education

This essay examines the recent debate over the politics of American education, particularly the accusation of liberal bias by members of the Right such as David Horowitz and Students for Academic Freedom. It draws parallels between the contemporary movement for an “Academic Bill of Rights” and the historical context of the “Powell Memo” of 1971. In response to conservative and progressive antagonism, this essay returns to the Sophistic notion of dissoi logoi, the requirement of students to argue many sides of contentious public issues. After reviewing the pedagogy of a contemporary emphasis on dissoi logoi, it contends that such practice within education might promote a civic friendship capable of addressing and ameliorating increasingly hostile public discourse.

“A Capital and Novel Argument”: Charles Darwin's Notebooks and the Productivity of Rhetorical Consciousness

With the rise of poststructuralist critiques of the autonomous subject, attention has shifted from the nature of “intentional persuasion” to the constitutive nature of discourse. Although this turn has led to valuable new insights into the nature of rhetoric, it also threatens to discount one of the most vital contributions of the rhetorical tradition—the nature of rhetorical invention. This essay seeks to recover the notion of invention by drawing from John Dewey's naturalistic interpretation of experience. In Dewey's framework, “consciousness” is neither the private contents of thought nor a point of articulation for social discourse, but a practice of manipulating public meanings as a means of responding to problematic situations. I then use Dewey's notion to advance the concept of a “rhetorical consciousness,” which I define in terms of the sophistical principles of imitatio and dissoi logoi. To demonstrate the pragmatic significance of this concept, I then show, through an analysis of Charles Darwin's notebooks, how Darwin employed his own rhetorical consciousness within his struggle to invent the revolutionary arguments that led up to his publication of On the Origin of Species. My hope is that this naturalistic interpretation of rhetorical invention will contribute to the ongoing project of cultivating a more intelligent, critical, and creative citizenry through the application of classical rhetorical principles to contemporary democratic forms of education in both the arts and sciences.

Risk, Controversy, and Rhetoric: Response to Goodnight

It makes sense to use controversy as a way for argumentation and rhetorical studies to contribute to study of science and technology, for controversy is central to both. Controversy provides occasions and strategies for rhetoric. Contrarianism is of essence in rhetoric, according to Thomas Sloane (3), and he draws out its presence throughout rhetorical tradition--in disputation, Ciceronian controversia, pro and con thinking, dissoi logoi, Erasmian via diversa, argument in utramque partem, and so forth. Burke puts idea a little differently, emphasizing divisions that make rhetoric necessary: the Scramble, Wrangle of MarketPlace, flurries and flare-ups of Human Barnyard, Give and Take, ... Logomachy (23). Although traditional views of science held that scientific method obviates controversy, more recent views put controversy at center of scientific progress. (1) Karl Popper, for example, characterized science as conjectures and refutations, reasoning that because we cannot verify a proposition by any number of observations, we instead conjecture, or jump to conclusions from a limited number of observations and then subject conclusion to subsequent observations in an attempt to falsify or refute it. Thomas Kuhn described science as a sequence of activities, from normal puzzle-solving and accumulation of anomalies to crisis and revolution, with controversy characterizing last two of these. As Professor Goodnight notes, other STS scholars have emphasized policy issues and public controversies that science and technology can instigate. Controversy thus can be seen both as an engine internal to science and as an external consequence of its epistemic innovations (and artifactual innovations of technology) as they diffuse beyond forums and enclaves of scientific community and skunk-works of technological RD lawsuits and public hearings open files; disagreements between experts disturb seamless surface of unquestioned facts; competition between proprietors or between products challenges culturally embedded technical systems. But Professor Goodnight means to point out more than these possibly commonplace notions about how controversy makes rhetorical study of science and technology possible. Controversy, he emphasizes, also is persistent condition that makes such studies useful and important, both in understanding continuing operations of modernity and in addressing critical public problems. In what follows, I offer some observations based on two recent studies of my own that substantiate some of Professor Goodnight's contentions and suggest some additions to his agenda. I've looked in some detail at nuclear power controversy of 1970s and at more recent controversy about biological effects of non-ionizing electromagnetic fields (EMFs) (Presumptions; Novelty). The early controversy over nuclear power is represented in 1975 Reactor Safety Study, also known as Rasmussen report, prepared for Atomic Energy Commission. Now understood as first real risk analysis, it was begun in anticipation of Congressional controversy over renewal of Price-Anderson Act, which protected electric utilities from liability in case of a nuclear reactor accident. The report, however, did little to quell controversy, but rather became a subject of controversy itself, both inside and outside expert community. In one sense, this controversy was lost by experts to public opinion and economic conditions: although Price-Anderson Act was renewed in late 1975, nuclear power became a moribund technology, with no new plants ordered after 1978 and all 41 orders placed after 1973 canceled or rejected by state regulators. (3) In another sense, however, experts prevailed in making risk analysis methods of Rasmussen report basis for decision making in a large number of other areas of science-based controversy. …

Prodicus and the Agon of the "Logoi" in Aristophanes' "Clouds"

the Logoi exploits specific sources and invites the reader to make comparisons. The purpose here is to locate the Agon at the confluence of various different influences. The discussion will show that Aristophanes plays, in a sophisticated and informed way, with a number of sources: Prodicus, Protagoras, the Dissoi Logoi, Antiphon, Socrates and Epichar mus. As part of this play with sources Aristophanes takes the well-known parable of Virtue and Vice told by Prodicus and inverts it. In this way the playwright achieves two effects: (i) in a manner typical of fifth-century co medy he lampoons a famous - and topical - text and (ii) Aristophanes uses the intertextual play as part of his condemnation of contemporary rheto ric. One must begin with the sources. The first source to discuss is Protagoras. The creation of a debate bet ween two Logoi, its outcome and the name of one of the Logoi (893-894, cf. 112-118), clearly allude to Protagoras' notorious claim x?v r?rroo Xoyov XQ8LTT00 JTOL8?V (Arist. Rhet. 1402a 24, cf. Plat. Apol. 18b ff.) and can be ap plied to any given case. There are two ideas combined in this phrase: (i) to make the weaker case seem the stronger and (ii) to argue the same issue from two sides (cf. Diog. Laert. 9, 51; 80 A 1 D.-K.). As an explicit affront to traditional values, Hetton logos's case is morally weaker. However, in the end his case is victorious and his opponent is vanquished. The whole di scussion of the two Logoi can be seen as an explicit example of making the weaker case appear the stronger. Since Protagoras had probably visited Athens at least twice, Aristophanes could probably rely on familiarity with the specifics of his ideas among the better educated in the audience and, probably, the majority would at least have some awareness of the broad outlines of his approach to teaching.1 Protagoras is also present in the Kolakes of Eupolis (frr. 157-158 K.-A.), and this suggests that his name

Foreword: A Long and Proud Tradition

This introduction to following collection of essays about AFA's fifty-year history is merely to remind us of a few points: Forensics has a long history which predates AFA; forensic activities and terminology have changed as cultures, philosophies, and educational practices have changed; future changes are inevitable; and despite changes, we have a proud tradition. These points are so obvious that they are easily overlooked, especially since studies in rhetorical history tend to focus on theory rather than on speaking exercises. In this sketch of our pre-AFA tradition, theory will receive only incidental mention and forensic activities will be emphasized. EARLY EUROPEAN TRADITIONS The precise origins of our forensic traditions are lost in mists of history, not only because historical data are in short supply, but also because of changing definitions. The word forensic originally had restricted meaning of legal oratory rather than broad range of speech exercises with which today's AFA members are familiar. However, we know that what we call forensic activities date back at least to fifth century BCE, when sophists (a word that originally meant but later was used pejoratively) devised speaking exercises for their students. One of earliest exercises was called dialegesthai. Although word was sometimes used to label informal speech (like our word conversation), it was also used to designate a definable, rule governed event in which participants (as in modern group discussion) would discuss aspects of a topic or issue for purpose of coming to a mutual agreement or (Timmerman, 1993, p. 120). The types of questions varied. Some were philosophically abstract while others were practical political issues. As time went by, teachers initiated various spin-offs of dialegesthai. Formats, educational goals, and theoretical underpinnings differed, but despite differences, these exercises were what today we call forensic activities. Protagoras (c. 485-4 15 BCE), often called the father of debate, believed that absolute truth is unknowable. He developed theoretical concept of dissoi logoi: two opposing views have equal validity, one being that which is most persuasive. In keeping with his skepticism, he invented some debate exercises, exact formats of which are unknown. However, we know that students argued a thesis pro and con. Some theses were abstract philosophical ones, but his primary educational goal was not to train philosophers. It was to train students to deliver argumentative speeches in law courts and political assemblies--a skill that would later be called rhetoric (for details on origin of word rhetoric, see Schiappa, 1990). Socrates (469?-399 BCE), who converted dialegesthai into dialectic, had a passion for argumentation, but he stood in marked contrast to both Protagoras and earlier practitioners of dialegesthai. He had little use for popular opinion, whether it was opinions of juries or group discussants or political assemblies. Although he left no writings, he apparently taught that truth was absolute and knowable and that a clear distinction should be made between dialectic, question and answer method of obtaining one correct answer, and rhetoric, which does not seem interested in universal validity of answer but only in persuasiveness for moment (Kennedy, 1963, p. 14). His student, Plato (428-348 BCE), also believed that Absolute Truth could be discovered via dialectic. He composed his Dialogues in a question-answer format and used dialectic as a method of instruction in his school (the Academy). Question-answer formats were set up, not only between teacher and student, but also between students. The purpose was to bring students around to understanding Truth about some philosophical question and to develop skills necessary to defend Truth. …

Two Thought Experiments in the Dissoi Logoi

Recent scholarship has stressed that it is not useful to speak of Greek scientific experimentation in sweeping fashion. The Greeks did perform scientific experiments, but the quantity, quality, and areas explored varied over different periods. Thus, while at certain times such testing procedures flourished, at other times very few actual experi? ments were performed. So, too, certain fields were more fruitful or feasible for experimentation than others.1 Those who tend to play down the quantity and quality of Greek scientific experimentation usually point to the Greeks' preference for speculation and theory over obser? vation and performance of manual tasks.2 Thought experiments allow the mind to range freely without leaving one's armchair or getting one's hands dirty, and that may be why such mental tests were favored by Greek thinkers, from Xenophanes onward. My purpose here is to study two thought experiments found in the Dissoi Logoi in conjunction with several related trials found in Herodotus, Xenophon, Plato, and Xe? nophanes. All these thought experiments make use of hypothetical hu? man beings and deal with educational and ethical matters. Generally speaking, these hypothetical tests contrast two types of people, either individuals or larger groups, in an attempt to determine the roles played by heredity and environment in the acquisition of knowledge and moral values.

Eurípides y la retórica: <i>éthos</i> e <i>inventio</i> en el discurso de Helena (<i>Troyanas</i>, 914-96)

From the standpoint of the elements that link fifth-century tragedy with rhetoric and sophistic, it is possible to analyse the Euripides drama. In this sense, Troades , written around 415 b.C, offer the possibility to frame their agones inside the structure of dissoi logoi , through which the tragic characters argues their causes. The aim of this paper is to examine the Helens’ speech and the strategy of defense she performed in face of her accusers Hecuba and Menelaus, modelled through the ethos and inuentio .

Teaching Virtue: The Contrasting Arguments (Dissoi Logoi) of Antiquity

The question of whether and how virtue should be taught has been discussed by thinkers in the West for at least 2,500 years. Chapter VI of the Dissoi Logoi, “Concerning Wisdom and Virtue, Whether They Are Teachable,” concludes that, yes, of course virtue can be taught. It is not, however, a standard or typical subject. Even if it is teachable, it is, as a project for educators, “strange.” The basic issue animating the chapter remains very much alive today, and what we learn from the ancient author's treatment of it carries important lessons for contemporary educators.

Dating the So-called Dissoi Logoi

Dating the So-called Dissoi Logoi

The Philosophical Position of the Author of the Dissoi Logoi

The Philosophical Position of the Author of the Dissoi Logoi

The Value of the Classics in Rhetoric

While classical rhetoric expands its influence in departments of English, in some Speech departments classical rhetoric is being eliminated. If the study of rhetoric is stimulating, presumably it would not be endangered in those departments that had known it best since the 1920s, but in those very Speech departments, rhetoric is sometimes called a dead hand. Yet those of us who have studied classical rhetoric carefully insist on its value, although we may not agree on the source of its value. After teaching classical rhetoric for thirty years, I am convinced that one source of its value is neglected; the value of studying rhetoric may lie not entirely in the knowledge, wisdom, or, more accurately, in the answers it provides, but even more in the questions rhetoricians have answered. If we can change our emphasis from one that searches only for answers to one that is keenly aware also of the questions rhetoricians have answered, we may make the study of rhetoric more stimulating in the following ways. 1. We can detect the varieties of rhetorics. Classical rhetoric is not the energizing force it might have been because we tend to teach all rhetorics as if they were answers to only one kind of question: What are the means of persuasion? or, much like it: How may we communicate more effectively? That this kind of question is the great question of rhetoric is merely the conventional wisdom of twentieth-century commentators on rhetoric. Many rhetorics are more concerned with other questions. Protagoras, for example, seems to have answered, in addition to questions such as those he asked about causation and other matters, the question How may speaking push understanding as far as understanding can go?' He believed that when understanding had gone to its limits, it would discover dissoi logoi, or ideas in opposition, each of which contradicted the others, yet each of which was true. Although he probably meant nothing quite so simple, we can see that a kind of dissoi logoi exist: we find night and day, both of which are opposites, yet each of which is true in the sense that each exists, neither of which can

Socratic Ignorance (review)

Book Reviews Socratic Humanism. By Laszlo Versenyi. Foreword by Robert S. Brumbaugh. (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1963. Pp. 184. $5) Even a cursory glance at Socratic historiography supports the contention that every generation produces a Socratic legend. Although the creation of legends is peculiar to many classical philosophers--witness Heidegger's Parmenides and Ryle's Plato--it is more so in the case of Socrates, for the Socratikoi logoi from Aristophanes to Aristotle already belong to the domain of interpretation. No matter how historically rigorous Burner, Zeller, and Taylor have been, they too, no less than the ancient philosophers, are bound to recognize that their solutions to the Socratic problem are theoretically plausible hypotheses whose chances of verification are rather slim. Eventually this situation led Gigon to commit the whole Socratic problem to the flames of scepticism. In the essay under review Versenyi, a student of Existentialism as well as of the Classics, accepts the problem's historical character with Socratic irony. The aim of his study is to recapture Socrates' doctrine in its purity and to establish what Socrates must have been so that "the Socratics for all their divergence could each claim to be authentically Socratic or at least to continue Socrates' work, elaborating the implications of his theories" (p. 117). He qualifies his goal by adding the restriction that any reconstruction of Socrates must conform to Aristotle's comments and must render the charges made against Socrates at least superficially credible. The sources chosen to accomplish this goal are Plato's early dialogues and parts of the Meno, Symposium, and Republic. He offers his findings as one man's view, makes no claim for its authenticity or historical finality, and leaves his readers to decide whether the hypothesis proposed is tenable. The result is a refreshing portrayal of the traditional view of a Socrates who is neither the founder of the theory of ideas nor a legendary figure but rather a practical moral teacher mainly concerned with the cultivation of man, his self-development, and self-unfolding into full humanity. Socrates asking questions on man's nature and trying to answer them without an appeal to transcendent forms is what Versenyi believes most authentically Socratic and what he has chosen to call Socratic humanism. As the author himself recognizes there is nothing revolutionary about this view. But the novelty of this treatment lies in Versenyi's masterful ability to show how existentialistic themes--such as love, death, ecstasy, unveiling--can be meaningfully applied to Socrates while discovering his identity. Hence Versenyi turns Socrates into a contemporary figure who can answer questions on human existence posed by scholars like himselL Justifiably enough, the resultant ambiguity of aim has provoked the criticism of historians (see Classical Philology, LXI (1966), pp. 200-201) who accuse Versenyi of reducing the certainty of history to the fancy of philosophical imagination. Yet if one grants (and who would not?) that Socrates is the "advocate and master of unveiling" (see Brumbaugh's foreward , p. viii), then there is no confusion in the goal of Versenyi's study and in its result. A Socrates with an existential commitment seems just as tenable an hypothesis as the Analysts' Socrates playing linguistic games. Unfortunately for the historian, Socrates presents an exception to Robinson's fifth criterion of historical rigor (Plato's Earlier Dialectic [Oxford, 1962], p. 3), and the certainty of historical truth is to give way to the endless search for philosophical truth. In the footsteps of F. C. S. Shiller, Versenyi considers the natural setting of Socrates' activity the sophistic movement centered around Protagoras, Gorgias, and Prodicus which was fundamentally similar in goal and purpose but different in method to Socrates' humanism. Drawing not only from Plato's dialogues but also from the dissoi logoi and the treatise on "Ancient Medicine" Versenyi interprets Protagoras' ~.~po~ ~vOp~=or as the slogan of a prag- [791 80 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY matic-utilitarian movement. He analyzes the ~dwtov gp~-}~tov of the fragments neither as ~otdx~-.~r (perceived qualifies, hot, cold, bitter, and sweet) nor as Jv~ct (things in themselves) but as things one uses and needs, objects that concern us, affairs and events...