Isocrates and Civic Education

10. Isocrates, Tradition, and the Rhetorical Version of Civic Education

UNTIL quite recently, judgment about Isocrates has remained comfortably fixed and solidly negative. The consensus view has regarded him as an island of mediocrity within a sea of Attic genius, since, when measured against the achievement of his fourth-century contemporaries, Isocrates’ work has seemed deficient—deficient in literary merit if compared to Plato, deficient in political acuity if compared to Demosthenes, and deficient in clarity and rigor of thought if compared to Aristotle. His one claim to distinction has come in the field of pedagogy, since, whatever his flaws as philosopher or politician, or literary artist, Isocrates achieved indisputable success and influence as a teacher. G. M. A. Grube (1965) has summarized this traditional attitude in a single sentence: Isocrates “was not a great thinker, a great orator, or a great writer, but he must have been a very great teacher” (44). Consistent with this assessment, Grube treated Isocrates as a figure who made little direct contribution to “literary theory and criticism,” but whose “indirect influence” could “hardly be exaggerated because it was his kind of education which triumphed over all others and dominated the Greco-Roman world” (38).1 The essays collected in this volume clearly indicate that this attitude has now changed. All of the essays, even those that express reservations about the quality of Isocrates’ thought, treat his texts directly and seriously, and none shunt Isocrates’ pedagogy to the side without regard for its philosophical , literary, and political content. We find instead a concerted effort to understand Isocratean paideia as an important part of the culture of his time and as a lively and enduring contribution to our conception of liberal education. The most notable sign of this revisionist attitude is a realignment of the 235 10 michael le ff Isocrates, Tradition, and the Rhetorical Version of Civic Education relationship between Plato and Isocrates. In the older paradigm, the two are placed at polar extremes within the universe of Western education. Isocrates , set at one end of the spectrum, represents a thoroughly practical system of education, while Plato, at the other end, represents the idealized alternative . The more recent perspective, represented throughout the essays collected here, does not deny a major difference between the two, but it also detects an idealistic strand that runs through Isocrates’ texts and places him in closer intellectual proximity to Plato than the older view would acknowledge . Thus, David Konstan begins his paper with doubts about a pervasive and sweeping dichotomy between Isocrates and Plato and announces his intention to offer an alternative that emphasizes commonalities in their thought about society and politics. Likewise, Kathryn Morgan warns against “trapping ourselves into binary oppositions” and argues for a “more nuanced approach wherein Isocrates occupies a middle ground between Athenian populist education and the rigors and exclusions of Plato.” Takis Poulakos develops a somewhat similar theme when he differentiates Isocrates from the Sophists. The Sophists, on his account, treat persuasion as an amoral instrument, whereas Isocrates connects persuasion with the deliberative processes that form and sustain ethical values, and this ethical valence suggests something less than an absolute contrast with Plato. Robert Hariman also highlights the Isocratean connection between effective persuasion and the cultivation of good character, and he notes that this configuration has a distinctly idealistic tincture. In fact, the essays in this collection express a set of overlapping, complementary arguments that combine to redefine our understanding of Isocratean paideia. And while it is impossible to appreciate these arguments without attention to the detailed analysis of Isocrates’ speeches upon which they are based, the main tendency of this development can be condensed into seven key points: (1) Isocrates thoroughly rejects Plato’s conception of abstract, objective truth, but he is equally opposed to the extreme relativism associated with Gorgias and other Sophists. He tries to position himself between these extremes and to construct a practical standard of knowledge that responds to ordinary experience, that develops within the medium of political discourse, and that generally enables us to make appropriate judgments in particular cases. (2) Good rhetoric both generates and reflects such knowledge, and it is not simply discourse that pleases or persuades an audience . (3) Good rhetoric is not produced or heeded by all people, and by adopting this view, Isocrates marks himself as an elitist. Some individuals, michael le ff 236 it follows, are capable of deliberative excellence; others are...