Sophistry in Traditional and Contemporary Society: History of Persuasion

History Of Persuasion: Sophistry in Traditional and Contemporary Society

Athenians in ancient Greek loved public speech. Sophists, people with skills in oratory, were awarded trophies and accorded great respect. They were associated with wisdom and sophistry was taken to mean the ability to use language or rhetoric to persuade people to accept one's point-of-view. Athenians admired the sophists' skill for their ability to influence court rulings and assemblies, but the same was not the case for critiques such as Plato and Aristotle. In his famous title 'Gorgias', for instance, Plato denounced the sophists, arguing that they focused on persuading and moving the masses at the expense of the truth. For Plato and Aristotle, the sophists were not interested in advancing laborious and rational arguments that led to the discovery of the truth; rather, they were only after using their language prowess to win immediate approval. In ancient Greek, therefore, sophistry was more about manipulation and less about truth and justice; it was more about winning arguments for arguments sake. Modern day sophistry is, however, less about winning arguments just for the sake of persuading and winning the masses; rather, it is more about building communities and inducing cooperation. This text examines sophistry in ancient Greece as taught by Aristotle Aristotle's, and compares it with that of modern theorist Kenneth Burke to examine exactly how the two differ in relation to sophistry.

Aristotle's View of Persuasion and Sophistry

Aristotle, unlike his teacher, Plato, viewed the use of communication and persuasion from both a positive and a negative perspective. He argued that to some extent, language or rhetoric could make truth and justice prevail, especially if the orator made use of regular terms and words that could be easily understood by the masses. According to him, the truth could prevail if people were willing to discuss both sides of the coin and evaluate different points-of-views. Rhetoric, therefore, provided a means for persuasive defense. He put forth a persuasive argument that:

if it is a disgrace to a man when he cannot defend himself in a bodily way, it would be odd not to think him disgraced when he cannot defend himself with reason" (Reinard, 1997, n.pag).

Rhetoric was, therefore, supposed to be used as a means of obtaining justice and discovering the truth. However, the sophists were not using it for this purpose. In book III of the Rhetoric, Aristotle expresses that the sophists preferred to use strange, compound words of ambiguous meaning so as to mislead their hearers (Morella, n.d.). In fact they themselves admit that they were not out to teach people how to use the art of persuasion to obtain justice or the truth; rather, their focus was on how language or rhetoric could be used to win arguments. As Perloff (2003) points out, the sophists were out to "rock the foundation of the educational establishment by giving people practical knowledge rather than highfalutin truth" (p. 21). This is why the sophists fell out with philosophers like Plato and Aristotle, who felt that sophism "was a fraud; the probability it handled was not genuine, but spurious, and had a place in no art" (Morella, n.d., n.pag).

According to Aristotle, persuasion was not supposed to be based on rhetoric, but on art -- one's ability to use artistic (legitimate evidence including contracts, laws, and witnesses) and non-artistic (logos, pathos, and ethos) proofs to convince people to accept their point-of-view (Reinard, 1997). As long as sophism was not relying on these, but on their language prowess alone to persuade people, then it was nothing but a fraud.

Aristotle's teachings paint a negative image of sophistry in ancient Greece -- that it was based on arguing, just for the sake of winning arguments and immediate approval, and not with the aim of discovering the truth and obtaining justice so as to resolve the social problems facing society.

Modern Sophistry: Kenneth Burke's View of Persuasion and Sophistry

Like Aristotle, Burke refutes ancient sophists' view of using language for the sake of persuasion alone, arguing that "the social context of language cannot be reduced to pure reason" (Hansen, n.d., pp. 50-51). He developed his theory on the ideology that rhetoric or language ought to serve a greater social function than just persuading and swaying people (Hansen, n.d.). He named this ideology 'the new rhetoric' and distinguished it from the 'old rhetoric' by getting it to emphasize the concept of identification (Hansen, n.d.). Towards this end, whereas ancient sophistry spearheaded by Protagoras, Gorgias and others focused on the aspect of persuasion, modern-day sophistry spearheaded by theorists of the 'new rhetoric' is based on the concept of identification (Hansen, n.d.). According to Burke, persuasion was just one of the potential roles of language, and it (language) had other greater roles to play including addressing social exigencies facing the community.

He refutes the traditional sophists' ideology of viewing the audience (in this case the community) as simple objects of persuasion, and advocates for their being recognized as active participants in the constitution or construction of identity and meaning (Hansen, n.d.). According to him, it is dehumanizing to view people as objects that cannot think on their own, and that can be manipulated through words. Through his focus on identification, Burke agrees with Aristotle that identification can function as a persuasive appeal.

He uses the example of a speaker passing a message across to an audience -- he identifies himself with them (what Aristotle refers to as ethos) through language, and is then able to use communication as a means for establishing social life and inducing cooperation (Hansen, n.d.). Focusing on the aspect of identification as opposed to persuasion alone, therefore, implies that modern sophistry, unlike traditional sophistry, is focused not only on how language/rhetoric can be used to persuade people, but also on how it can be used to solve social problems. In other words, contrary to sophistry in ancient Greece, which was more about winning arguments for arguments sake and immediate approval, contemporary sophistry is focused more on wining arguments with the aim of solving social problems.