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The Rhetoric of Plato's "Republic": Democracy and the Philosophical Problem of Persuasion by James L. Kastely (review)

The Rhetoric of Plato's "Republic": Democracy and the Philosophical Problem of Persuasion by... The Rhetoric of Plato's "Republic": Democracy and the Philosophical Problem of Persuasion by James L. Kastely. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015. 280pp. Cloth $35.00, e-book $10.00­$35.00. In chapters on the Gorgias and the Meno in his 1997 From Plato to Postmodernism, James Kasterly argues that an important point made in the Gorgias is that Socrates fails to persuade Callicles. Its lesson is that philosophers will never succeed in persuading nonphilosophers if they rely on dialectic, with its premises grounded in epistemology (32, 34), and in the Meno, he finds a type of dialectic that functions rhetorically (67). In this new book, The Rhetoric of Plato's "Republic": Democracy and the Philosophical Problem of Persuasion, Kastely builds on his earlier work. He reads the Republic as Plato's effort to address the implicit challenge posed by Socrates' defeat in the Gorgias. Plato's purpose in the Republic, he claims, is to set forth and enact an alternative to dialectic, an alternative that he identifies as a philosophical rhetoric (that is, a rhetoric for philosophers), that would enable philosophers to persuade nonphilosophers to value justice and morality above all else. The Republic, on his reading, not only (if obliquely) argues for a http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Philosophy and Rhetoric Penn State University Press

The Rhetoric of Plato's "Republic": Democracy and the Philosophical Problem of Persuasion by James L. Kastely (review)

Walzer, Arthur E.
Philosophy and Rhetoric , Volume 50 (2) – May 2, 2017
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Publisher
Penn State University Press
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Copyright © The Pennsylvania State University.
ISSN
1527-2079
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Abstract

The Rhetoric of Plato's "Republic": Democracy and the Philosophical Problem of Persuasion by James L. Kastely. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015. 280pp. Cloth $35.00, e-book $10.00­$35.00. In chapters on the Gorgias and the Meno in his 1997 From Plato to Postmodernism, James Kasterly argues that an important point made in the Gorgias is that Socrates fails to persuade Callicles. Its lesson is that philosophers will never succeed in persuading nonphilosophers if they rely on dialectic, with its premises grounded in epistemology (32, 34), and in the Meno, he finds a type of dialectic that functions rhetorically (67). In this new book, The Rhetoric of Plato's "Republic": Democracy and the Philosophical Problem of Persuasion, Kastely builds on his earlier work. He reads the Republic as Plato's effort to address the implicit challenge posed by Socrates' defeat in the Gorgias. Plato's purpose in the Republic, he claims, is to set forth and enact an alternative to dialectic, an alternative that he identifies as a philosophical rhetoric (that is, a rhetoric for philosophers), that would enable philosophers to persuade nonphilosophers to value justice and morality above all else. The Republic, on his reading, not only (if obliquely) argues for a

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Philosophy and Rhetoric – Penn State University Press

Published: May 2, 2017

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