The next two figures on our stage, Isocrates and Plato, both showed themselves highly sensitive to the ethical issues raised by the power of rhetoric, and both took pains to establish their own practices on morally high ground, differentiating themselves from others more open to censure for the unscrupulous use of oratory to achieve victory at whatever cost to truth or justice. They were roughly contemporaneous - Isocrates’ long life (probably 436-338) spanned that of Plato (c. 429-347) - and both founded educational establishments in Athens; Isocrates opened his Academy in about 390, and Plato followed with his rival Academy probably soon after 387. Both called themselves philosophers, rejecting the title of sophist, which they saw as negative. Indeed, Isocrates’ Against the Sophists (13), published when his Academy was opened, and Plato’s much later Sophist, both share the common aim of showing that their own activity of ‘philosophy’ is distinct from and superior to the practices of the ‘sophists’. Also, even more interestingly, Isocrates, no less than Plato, even though he ran an educational establishment centred on oratory and where his own written speeches were studied as examples, distances himself from the sophists’ claims to make his pupils clever speakers. Isocrates asserts that pupils who follow his teaching will be ‘helped more speedily towards honesty of character than towards facility in oratory’. Not, he quickly adds, that mere teaching alone can make anybody just; but he maintains that his curriculum will be particularly helpful in bringing good character in his pupils to fruition (13.21).
Nevertheless, as will emerge, Isocrates’ conception of philosophy is very different in content from Plato’s. Isocrates is at pains in Against the Sophists to distinguish his way of education from those of two rival types of practitioner: those focusing on disputations (‘eristics’) about ethics (13.3), and those professing to teach political oratory, especially those who produced ‘so-called-arts’ (his phrase) of speaking (13.3, 20). His major complaint about the first group is that they claim that following their teaching will guarantee happiness and prosperity, a transparently absurd claim, he says, since we do not know the future. Against those professing to teach oratory, he objects to the way they do it by formulating rules, on the grounds that no set of rules could determine the possibilities offered by a given occasion. Much later, in 354/3, Isocrates revisited the themes of Against the Sophists in the much fuller defence of his whole career, the Antidosis (15), in which he describes his competitors in mainly similar terms, but expands his account of the professors of disputation to include the whole range of presocratic natural philosophy (15.268). (He graciously allows that such disputations can form quite useful mental gymnastics for those still in training, but denies them the title ‘philosophy’ on the grounds that they have no direct use, and suggests that they should be discontinued in adult life.) His sharpest disapproval in both Against the Sophists and Antidosis is reserved for unscrupulous claimants to teach the art of rhetoric, whose field is uncomfortably close to his own (13.19, 15.197, 215), so that it is from these that he must particularly dissociate himself.
So how does Isocrates mark himself off? What was his positive ‘philosophy’? And what does he say about the ethics of his profession?11 Early in the Antidosis, he claims not only that he has never harmed anyone by his ‘cleverness’ or his writings (15.33) but also that in fact his works have been more beneficial to his fellow-citizens than those of any other author (15.51). He has devoted his life to a particular branch of oratory, namely the writing of public discourses ‘which deal with the world of Hellas, with affairs of state, and appropriate to be delivered at the Pan-Hellenic Assemblies . . . more akin to works composed in rhythm and set to music than to speeches which are made in court... in a style more imaginative and more ornate: ... [employing] thoughts which are more lofty and more original... ’. And, he adds, there are many who desire to take lessons in this skill. This, he says, is ‘my philosophy, my profession, or whatever you care to call it’ (15.47-50).
Isocrates illustrates with quotations of passages from his past speeches how all his writings tend towards virtue and justice (15.60-95), and also cites some of his pupils and associates whose careers he claims redound to his credit (15.95-101). Most crucially for his theoretic position, he also argues for an actual causal link between the practice of oratory and the orator’s personal morality (15.276-278):
For, in the first place, when anyone elects to speak or write discourses which are worthy of praise and honour, it is not conceivable that he will support causes which are unjust or petty or devoted to private quarrels, and not rather those which are great and honourable, devoted to the welfare of man and our common good; for if he fails to find causes of this character, he will accomplish nothing to the purpose. In the second place, he will select from all the actions of men which bear upon his subject those examples which are the most illustrious and the most edifying; and, habituating himself to contemplate and appraise such examples, he will feel their influence not only in the preparation of a given discourse, but in all the actions of his life.
S. Usher comments that ‘this is probably the best that can be made of a difficult thesis. The contemplation of lofty ideas can shape character. But he has already had to admit that a really depraved character cannot be so altered (274)’.12 (And we may add 13.21, already quoted.)
In fact there seem to be two problems with Isocrates’ claim. As a matter of psychology, the link between hearing a speech and endorsing its ideals is far from necessary, but there is another point too, which is that if hearing a speech (or repeated speeches) does actually cause hearers to endorse its ideals, the link hardly seems rational, and we are back to Gorgias’ description of oratory as having its powers to persuade regardless of the truth. Then arises the problem, how can Isocrates be sure that the ideals he promotes are right?
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