All right, I’ll admit that Isocrates is not as exciting for me as the Sophists or Plato. I am reluctant to make this admission, because I believe Isocrates is the preeminent seminal figure to Western rhetoric and education. In many ways, he is responsible for defending and promoting rhetoric, which he calls philosophia, in the form that we have now. He is also the founder of Western concepts of education. That said, his writings offer only small gifts, which require a great amount of work to recover.
What I find missing in Isocrates is the fun and pure enjoyment of language (logos). The Sophists and Plato seem to be reveling in agonism as a way to sort out ideas. Gorgias is playful and provocative in his speeches. Protagoras promotes the importance of exchange and debate. Even Plato shows Socrates sparring with others and using irony to slam others. In contrast Isocrates seems so serious and even pedantic.
Two things caught my interest when reading Antidosis this time. First, I realized just how strong Isocrates makes the analogy between physical training and education. Debra Hawhee makes this argument in her most recent book about all Greek education. She shows that the Greeks viewed training in rhetoric as similar to training in athletics. Isocrates uses the analogy that “athletics is to the body as philosophia (rhetoric) is to the soul.” As with athletics, mastering rhetoric is best done through devotion of time and a willingness to practice. Isocrates seems scornful of people who believe that athletics and rhetoric are gained only through natural ability or that they can be learned in a short amount of time. He is also scornful of people who think that rhetoric can be learned through observation or criticism alone.
Second, I realized that Isocrates was suffering attacks on education similar to the ones we are suffering ourselves. He is defending the role of education in Athenian society, pointing out that Greece has achieved its greatness through its mind, not through its physical dominance. The sycophants he is fending off seem to be making many of the same criticisms that are leveled against universities today—specifically that we are corrupting America’s youth. And, Isocrates is making many of the same kinds of arguments that we use to defend ourselves a) why would people pay so much if it wasn’t worth it? b) why would people around the world travel here if we weren’t offering something of worth? c) why have so many important people, including the jurors themselves, emerged from these universities if they are teaching useless information? The education he offers is one oriented toward producing leaders, not sycophants.
It’s regretful that Isocrates did not leave us an Art of Rhetoric or something similar. As I’m reading his works, I see evidence of some fascinating ideas, but the details are missing. It would have been nice to see his exact views of rhetoric committed to paper. Instead, history only gives us the broad outlines of his beloved philosophia.