My Precis of Plato’s Apology

Yasmine Kahly

Professor Carrico

Jerilyn Sambrooke

Rhetoric 103A

8 October 2016

My Precis of Plato’s Apology

            The passage of Plato’s “Apology” I will be focusing on in this precis is the first paragraph after the jury condemns Socrates to death. The argument Socrates ultimately makes in the passage is that sentencing him to death does nothing and means nothing for the Athenian government’s cause. In the first sentence, “Not much time will be gained, O Athenians, in return for the evil name which you will get from the detractors of the city, who will say that you killed Socrates, a wise man; for they will call me wise even although I am not wise when they want to reproach you”, Socrates makes an appeal to fear, a guiding motive for the prosecution of Socrates in the first place. In condemning Socrates to death, the Athenians believe they are obliterating his influence and ensuring compliance of the Athenian people. Socrates makes sure to refute this by illustrating the prospect of other free thinkers like himself roaming the city, thinking so freely that, perhaps for that reason or another, they don’t even admire Socrates’ wisdom but will say they do anyway in an act of defiance against the government. This challenges the soundness of condemning Socrates to death; if it can’t even be ensured that the “corrupted” youth the government is so concerned with protecting actually revere Socrates to begin with, what sanctity is being upheld here? The fear is that perhaps it isn’t enough to kill Socrates and that maintaining order is more complex than swatting one gadfly out of an entire swarm, as Socrates appears to imply. Additionally, this sentence demonstrates the rhetorical device of hypobole at play in that Socrates anticipates this particular argument the government would make in support of his death, a possible counterargument, and promptly refutes it. In the second sentence “If you had waited a little while, your desire would have been fulfilled in the course of nature. For I am far advanced in years, as you may perceive, and not far from death”, Socrates feigns ignorance, implying the Athenian government simply wants him dead in the abstract, not as a means of political violence or achieving a politically motivated goal. In this sense, Socrates downplays the severity of the action taken against him, making the Athenian government out to be a joke for putting a seventy-year-old man to death when he won’t be around much longer, theoretically. In noting that it is the government’s “desire” to see him dead, Socrates romanticizes the government’s violence against him as if it were a burning whim, seemingly defusing the bomb that is his condemnation to death. The next sentence, “And I have another thing to say to them: You think that I was convicted through deficiency of words - I mean, that if I had thought fit to leave nothing undone, nothing unsaid, I might have gained an acquittal. Not so; the deficiency which led to my conviction was not of words - certainly not” demonstrates the rhetorical device of procatalepsis in that Socrates zooms in on one of the government’s objections first in order to begin his argument. What’s significant here is the direct contradiction between his feigned ignorance in the preceding sentence and the demonstration of his intelligence in this sentence, where he acknowledges that he knows what he did “wrong” and that he could’ve swayed the jury in his defense and spared his own life. In this, he further trivializes the trial as a game he knows the hack to and implies that even the imminence of death by the hands of the state couldn’t force him to betray his beliefs. In the sentence, “For often in battle there is no doubt that if a man will throw away his arms, and fall on his knees before his pursuers, he may escape death; and in other dangers there are other ways of escaping death, if a man is willing to say and do anything”, Socrates uses the literary device of juxtaposition in his isolation of the human body and extensions of it. The surrendering of arms, which symbolize agency and stoudhardedness, is sharply contrasted with the imagery of knees on the ground, symbolic of futility and defeat. This works to metaphorize his circumstances with that of wartime combat and rationalize his perspective on being sentenced to death. This is explicit in the quote, “But I had not the boldness or impudence or inclination to address you as you would have liked me to address you, weeping and wailing and lamenting, and saying and doing many things which you have been accustomed to hear from others, and which, as I say, are unworthy of me. But I thought that I ought not to do anything common or mean in the hour of danger: nor do I now repent of the manner of my defence, and I would rather die having spoken after my manner, than speak in your manner and live. For neither in war nor yet at law ought any man to use every way of escaping death.” Socrates employs the rhetorical device of polysyndeton, as demonstrated in the sentence, “But I had not the boldness or impudence or inclination...”, to slow the pace down and emphasize what it is that Socrates will stop at in his defense, which would be kneeling and undignifying himself before the court. Additionally, in the quote as a whole, it is further established that Socrates uses the pride a soldier exemplifies in his undying sacrifice for his country and the core values that define it to parallel his own martyrdom. Here, with the evocation of sacrificing one’s life for one’s values, Socrates underscores his central argument yet again. By condemning Socrates to death, the Athenian government is actually lending itself to Socrates because he, much like a proud soldier, would rather die for his values, or die on his feet so to speak, than live on his knees, which would be to “address you as you would have liked me to address you, weeping and wailing and lamenting, and saying and doing many things which you have been accustomed to hear from others” and “speak in your manner and live.” In other words, sentencing Socrates to death doesn’t mean what the Athenian government thinks it means for their governance because, according to Socrates, it will not curtail the scorn and ruckus of future detractors nor will it deprive Socrates of anything he values, as as a life where he cannot question is not a life at all. The argument established is that condemning Socrates to death is a pointless endeavor in and of itself.

Brad Barna

GSI: Kuan Hwa

First Socratic Argument in favor of Lysias in “Phaedrus”

In Plato’s first part of the “Phaedrus,” Socrates and Phaedrus follow the argument of Lysias’s Scroll which describes the relationship between the non-lover and the lover and why the first would be better to choose other than the latter. Socrates compiles a list of reasons why Lysias would be accurate (although he mentions later that Lysias actually mentioned the same argument three times over) and simplifies his terms into ‘manageable’ arguments he later refutes due to the reason of Lysias’s scroll and its inherent incompetence.  The lover is a slave to pleasure while the beloved becomes a slave of the lover through deprivation of property and time-based dependency, the showmanship of the relationship causes the beloved to be oblivious to the lover’s drunkenness and only when the lover becomes wise and temperate (out of love for the beloved) does the beloved realize that he is now effeminate and spoiled by the lovers encaging passion. This essentially summarizes the argument embodied by Socrates’s first speech, but he is later conflicted upon searching within himself and sees that he was wrong, complementing Lisyas’s poorly made thesis in order to prove his argument. In Socrates’s interpretation of the lover and the beloved’s relationship, the beloved is seen almost as a prey to the lover to satisfy the powerful hunger of lust and irrational passion.

We follow Socrates’s argument from the beginning where he initially states that the “he who is the victim of his passions and the slave of pleasure will of course desire to make his beloved as agreeable to himself as possible.” This is where the inherent transformation of the beloved begins to happen, later detailed by Socrates as a transformation mirroring effeminate values, which are despised by his patriarchal dogma. He continues to mold the beloved in this manner “will he not choose a beloved who is delicate rather than sturdy and strong? One brought up in the shady bowers and not in the bright sun, a stranger to manly exercises and the sweat of toil…” Here we begin to see the clear dependency that the lover begins to impose on the beloved and why it is detrimental to the being and independence of the beloved. It almost feels like he is withering the wings of his soul, later on detailed in the reading as one of the reasons why the soul must remain ten thousand years in earth being recycled until it can regenerate its wings once more. Here we begin to see the stratification of the lover’s imposition upon his beloved. While the lover is a slave to pleasure, the beloved becomes a slave to the lover and thus to his pleasure. One thing that Socrates also mentions is deprecation of the beloved not only from property and people, but of his ability to attain philosophy, which to Socrates is one of the worst evils one can do.

Socrates begins to mention that a deprivation of property begins as the lover cages in the beloved. “… to deprive his beloved of his dearest and best and holiest possessions, father, mother kindred, friends, of all whom he thinks may be hinderers or reproves of their most sweet converse…” in this way we begin to see not only his effeminate but his inability to converse with the rest of the world, only having the lover as his consolation. Socrates continues to say that the more time he is deprived of his property, the more dependent he becomes on his lover, almost hoarding the beloved for himself. Socrates then mentions the animals who happen to be flatterers (which he mentions in Gorgias) to be dangerous, as they fall into a temptation of spoils and an inability to escape the clutches of its continuous flattery “for the time they are very pleasant.” This flattery does not allow for the beloved to see the lover’s aging affection and physical being, which then Socrates analogizes it to be almost as sexual assault “forces himself upon him.” This extreme flattery conduces a notion of false pleasure among the beloved and he is then unable to escape until the lover falls out of love.

Socrates then continues to argue that the lover in all his ‘drunkenness’ of love is compelled to exhibit his unfaltering love and pushes the comparison to 'enhibriation' when he says “besides being intolerable, are published all over the world in all their indelicacy and wearisomeness when he is drunk.” He then transforms the lover into a wise and temperate being, after falling out of the love he feels for his lover, and the beloved without the acknowledgment of this falling out is left without the artillery to continue on a fight in which he cannot win. The lover becomes a coward under pleasure and the beloved “believes himself to be speaking to the same person and the other, not having the courage to confess the truth, and not knowing how to fulfill the oaths and promises which he made when under the dominion of folly […] does not want to do as he did or to be as he was before.” The lover is transformed as much as the beloved and we see that the domestication of both sides ills both.

Thus we learn, through this argument, that it is better not to fall into the clutches of the lover for love is a madness, and this madness later on refuted, is agreed to be intoxicating and invigorating for the ill of both persons. Socrates has made his point clear and we begin to see the nature of what love is in the eyes of Lysias.

Encomium of Helen: The Power of Discourse

Victoria Bian

Rhetoric 103A

10/08/2016

GSI: Jerilyn Sambrooke

Encomium of Helen: The Power of Discourse

For this precis assignment, I will be focusing on the Encomium of Helen by Gorgias. In Encomium of Helen, Gorgias attempts to absolve Helen of her guilt for leaving her husband and throne which started the Trojan War. Through a series discussions of the influential power of persuasive discourse, Gorgias reasons how powerful speech can deceive one’s soul and affect one’s thoughts, emotions and actions and thus Helen is not the one to be blamed. Before diving into the discussion of persuasive discourse Gorgias first claims that Helen could have been persuaded in one of the four ways: by the gods, by physical force, by love or by speech. If Helen was violently abducted and unlawfully constrained, then she was the victim to be pitied and whoever committed the injustice upon her deserves to be punished. Gorgias then argues that if Helen is persuaded by speech, then she is relinquished of any guilt because speech can “accomplish the most divine works” with the smallest and least evident body. The passages I will be focusing on are 13 to 14. 

In passage 13 Gorgias begins to explain the persuasive power of speech, the various forms it takes and effects it does to one’s soul. Gorgias argues that persuasion by discourse shapes the soul “at will.” Soul does not possess the power to resist the influence of discourse. To further back up this argument, Gorgias begins to lay out three kinds of ways of how discourse is used and how it’s able to shape the soul as it pleases. Astronomers use discourse by setting aside one opinion and building up another. Discourse is described as an enlightenment and clarification of obscurity and ambiguity which makes the incredible things understandable and obvious to the viewers regardless of whether they are truth or not. Discourse that meticulously and artfully manipulates words and sentences in debates can win the crowd with persuasive argument and a sense of delight even though the artful words are not necessarily honest and true. Here, Gorgias attributes the power of persuasion in discourse to the beauty and delightfulness of speech. Lastly, philosophers rely on reaction speed to make their argument loud. Gorgias emphasizes on the fact that the speed of discourse is what makes an argument stand out and convince the listeners instead of the “credibility of an opinion.” The demonstration of all three examples shows how discourse can succeed in shaping one’s soul “at will” through clarification, beautification, and speed.

Gorgias continues the discussion of the persuasive power of discourse by analogizing discourse to drugs. He argues that discourse shapes one’s soul in the same way that drugs do to the bodies. The analogy of discourse here compares the physical effects of drugs on bodies and the effects of discourse on soul. Same as drugs that can either heal or kill a life, discourse has both of the spectrums that can either bring things to life or completely destroy them just as Gorgias mentions, “some give pain, others delight, others terrify, others rouse the hearers to courage, and yet others by a certain vile persuasion drug and trick the soul.” By comparing the effects of drugs and discourse, Gorgias demonstrate, in a more tangible way, the versatility and tremendous power that discourse has on not only the opinions but emotions, feelings and soul.

Through the discussion in passage 13 and 14, Gorgias established his argument on the persuasive power of discourse. The success of discourse in shaping one’s soul also leads to one’s action. Just as what Gorgias argues, Helen was simply unfortunate for being a victim of persuasive speech among all four ways of persuasion. 

Precis: Hecuba, Agon 1

Shannon Zheng

RHET 103A

8 October 2016

GSI: Kuan / DIS 101

Precis: Hecuba, Agon 1

            In Hecuba’s exchange with Odysseus in the first agon of Hecuba by Euripedes, Hecuba engages in compelling rhetoric to retain her dignity despite accumulating tragedies; most recently, the loss of her status as queen, as a result of Troy’s loss of the Trojan War. Although ultimately unsuccessful in persuading Odysseus against taking Polyxena, Hecuba is able to powerfully renegotiate her disadvantaged position, class and gender, by leveraging her command of rhetoric to effectively challenge Odysseus. As a whole, Hecuba comes to terms with themes of power, sacrifice, and sympathy.

            With the death of Achilles, Odysseus is employed with the task of escorting Polyxena, Hecuba’s daughter and last surviving child, to be sacrificed at Achilles’ grave, invoking the theme of power. Upon entering Hecuba’s residence, Odysseus remarks, “Be not forcibly torn from [Polyxena], nor match they might ‘gainst mine; recognize the limits of they strength, and the presence of thy trouble. Even in adversity ‘tis wise to yield to reason’s dictates”. With the task and social location Odysseus commands, Odysseus arrives at Hecuba’s residence asserting his agenda and expectation of Hecuba to surrender to his agenda. Through ethos, Odysseus threatens Hecuba with the power he possesses as a man, his physical power, as well as power through the class privilege he retains, as a warrior and king. In contrast to the downward mobility of Hecuba’s career, as a queen to now slave, in addition to her being a woman, inhabiting perceived limited physical capabilities, Odysseus confidently and forcefully stresses his individual power. In responding to Odysseus’ claims to power, Hecuba asks Odysseus to contend with questions she has, to which in Odysseus agreeing to participate in her questioning, Hecuba is able to employ her power in rhetoric. Despite the vast grievances and disadvantages she carries, in the tragedies she has endured and is presently enduring, Hecuba presents a logical, convincing case against sacrificing Polyxena; Hecuba wages four points in her argument against Odysseus. Hecuba’s first and second points are exemplary of the theme of reciprocity while her last third and fourth points emphasizes the theme of sympathy.

            Hecuba cites the time she saved Odysseus from death, as reason as to why he should reciprocate the favor and save Polyxena from death. “I in my turn now do the same to thee, and claim the favor then bestowed”. Hecuba saves Odysseus’ life, when she chooses not to expose Odysseus’ covert identity when she witnesses Odysseus spying; Hecuba makes the point that Odysseus now has the opportunity to save Polyxena’s life in the service of Hecuba having saved his life in the past. Being entrusted with the responsibility of escorting Polyxena, Odysseus has the power to decide to refuse to escort Polyxena and subsequently help Polyxena escape death. Further, Hecuba cites the fact Polyxena is wholly innocent in the proposed transaction. “No! [Polyxena] at least ne’er injured him. [Achilles] should have demanded Helen as a victim at his tomb, for [Helen] it was proved his ruin, bringing him to Troy”. Hecuba’s second charge against Odysseus taking Polyxena, is that it is Helen, not Polyxena, that inspired the waging of the Trojan War; should there be any justified sacrifice for Achilles’ life, it should be the sacrifice of Helen because it is from Helen being kidnapped, that the Trojan War ensued, and it is in Achilles’ participation in the Trojan War, that Achilles is killed.

            Through the theme of sympathy, Hecuba makes her third and fourth points as sympathetic, pathos appeals to Odysseus because of their shared culture and experience as parents. Hecuba explains, “[f]or amongst you the self-same law holds good for bond and free alike respecting bloodshed; such influences as thine will persuade them even though thy words are weak”. Hecuba references the difference in freedom, Oydsseus’ status as a citizen while she is a slave, evoking emotive appeals towards their shared values. Regardless of their differences, their shared experiences from their culture should inspire Odysseus to be sympathetic because as Hecuba illuminates, their commitment towards law, justice, and respect for life, should outweigh the present, rash decision to sacrifice an innocent life. What’s more than their reverence for innocent life however, is what should be the reverence for the innocent life of their own kin. Hecuba thus makes the plea, “tear not my child from my arms, nor slay her” and further, “he to hath children, so that he can feel for thy sad fate”. Their shared cultural values powerfully shape Hecuba’s plea, but even more compelling, is their shared, intimate experience as parents who love their children. Having lost nearly all of her children, Hecuba urges Odysseus to have sympathy amidst her suffering, by empathizing with her because he is also a parent.

            Despite Hecuba’s cohesive and forceful arguments, Odysseus rejects Hecuba’s points, from her employing of the themes of reciprocity and sympathy, committing himself to his agenda, escorting Polyxena to Achilles’ grave for sacrifice. To Hecuba’s pleas for reciprocity, Odysseus responds, “Thy life I am prepared to save for the service I received”, and in concluding, says that Hecuba should “[e]ndure these sorrows; for us [all of Hellas], if we are wrong in resolving to honor the brave, we shall bring upon ourselves a charge of ignorance” or “Hellas may prosper and ye may reap the fruits of such policy”. Odysseus dismisses Hecuba’s points, her claims to reciprocity, instead reducing the favor and gratitude towards Hecuba only, a gratitude that is invalid as a reason for saving the life of Hecuba’s daughter. Odysseus concludes his argument in opposition to Hecuba, as a harsh reality Hecuba must endure for the sake of a type of justice for their shared culture, collective respect for and responsibility to Hellas, dismissing the smaller injustice of the sacrifice of innocent Polyxena.

David Wong
GSI: Kuan Hwa
Precis
  The Melian Dialogue is a dramatized dialogue by Thucydides that takes place during the Peloponnesian War between the Spartans and the Athenians and its effect on the lone island of Melos. Specifically how Athens is threatening Melos to become their allies while Melos wishes to remain neutral. The passages chosen are specifically the second half of the dialogue while referencing some parts of the dialogue. The arguments that are provided from both sides supports either Athens’s political realism or Melos’s political idealism.
       The main argument between the two states are on the issue of power. Earlier in the dialogue, the Athenians argued that the Melians should surrender because at this point they are “counseling whether or not (they) shall resist an overwhelming force”. The Melians, to refute the Athenians, to say that they are not blind to choose to oppose is due to their belief that they are in the favor of the Gods, because they are on the righteous and the just side of the argument. The Melians argue that the Athenians are the unrighteous using their power to essentially bully the weak and abusing their power to have them submit under them, even when both the Athenians and the Melians know that the Melians are weaker than the Athenians and do not pose a threat at all. Regardless, the Melians argue that they will not be left alone by the Gods, as well they will also not be left alone by the Lacedaemonians, due to Lacedaemonians upholding their kinship and their honor. This is political idealism, which is the belief that humans are inherently good or altruistic and that morality should be the main focus of states, which support how the Melians think in the beginning “Will you not receive us as friends if we are neutral and remain at peace with you?” As well as their belief that the Lacedaemonians will come to their aid when they hear that the Melians are in trouble.
  To refute against the Melians, the Athenians argue that they also have the favor of the Gods. Their main argument, which also involves power is that power is respected. Which follows to what the Athenians say in the beginning of the dialogue “the powerful exact what they can, and the weak grant what they must”. The Athenians state that this has been a law since the beginning and has been exacted by the Gods, the powerful men before them, and the laws of nature. So the Gods will respect them since they are not so different from them, they have power and doing what they can with that power to acquire more power. While for the Melians, the Gods will intervene for them, the Gods here will remain silent as this is some law that is above all, respected even be the Gods. The Athenians also state at the end that if the Melians were to also have the same power as them, the Melians would do exactly as the Athenians are doing, which is further stating in their belief of the law that governs man and Gods. This is political realism, which is based on power and acquiring more power making this the primary focus of states, following that the strong survive while the weak are submitted to the strong.
  Though in the end, even between two different political views, military might and power is what governs whose view is correct. Melians believed that the Gods and the Lacedaemonians would aid them in their war, but in the end they did not while the Athenians already having an overwhelming power easily crushed the island of Melos.