About this product

Product Identifiers

PublisherOxford University Press, Incorporated

ISBN-100199358591

ISBN-139780199358595

eBay Product ID (ePID)208712780

Product Key Features

Number of Pages320 Pages

Publication NameExhortations to Philosophy : the Protreptics of Plato, Isocrates, and Aristotle

LanguageEnglish

SubjectHistory & Surveys / Ancient & Classical, Rhetoric

Publication Year2015

TypeTextbook

AuthorJames Henderson Collins

Subject AreaPhilosophy, Language Arts & Disciplines

FormatHardcover

Dimensions

Item Height1.2 in

Item Weight21.2 Oz

Item Length9.3 in

Item Width6.4 in

Additional Product Features

Intended AudienceScholarly & Professional

LCCN2015-430965

Reviews"...[An] inspring book.... Collins' book is an altogether welcome contribution to our understanding of the cultural context in which Plato's philosophy originated." --Bryn Mawr Classical Review, "...[An] inspring book.... Collins' book is an altogether welcome contribution to our understanding of the cultural context in which Plato's philosophy originated." --Bryn Mawr Classical Review "...this book makes a convincing case for the dazzling subtlety of so-called 'philosophical' school-masters' student-luring literary self-representations. Scholars concerned with the 'protreptic' genre should study it carefully, as well as those working on the Euthydemus, Isocrates' speeches about 'philosophy,' and mid-fourth-century Athenian intellectual history." --Classical Journal, "The organization of the work is unbalanced...This imbalance, however, works well in proving the main thesis of the book: that, in the fourth century, there is no protreptic genre, but only progress towards it. Collins has given a modern facelift to this type of study, which broadens the readership of the book to include not only the handful of specialists in generic composition but also scholars of philosophy, rhetoric, education, and intellectual history." --Svetla Slaveva-Griffin, The Classical World"[Collins] succeeds in highlighting the carefulness by which fourth-century philosophers addressed possible students of their new form of education that required an unseen commitment to the art and challenged traditional values of political prestige. The book offers valuable new perspectives and refreshing insights about important texts, especially concerning the interplay of intradiegetic and extradiegetic narrative levels. Less attention is given to the problem of identifying the ideal reader of these texts, the study of which would be a useful supplement to contextualise the results of this welcome addition to the scholarship on the intellectual world of fourth-century Athens." --Thomas G.M. Blank, The Classical Review"...[An] inspring book.... Collins' book is an altogether welcome contribution to our understanding of the cultural context in which Plato's philosophy originated." --Bryn Mawr Classical Review"...this book makes a convincing case for the dazzling subtlety of so-called 'philosophical' school-masters' student-luring literary self-representations. Scholars concerned with the 'protreptic' genre should study it carefully, as well as those working on the Euthydemus, Isocrates' speeches about 'philosophy,' and mid-fourth-century Athenian intellectual history." --Classical Journal, "The organization of the work is unbalanced...This imbalance, however, works well in proving the main thesis of the book: that, in the fourth century, there is no protreptic genre, but only progress towards it. Collins has given a modern facelift to this type of study, which broadens the readership of the book to include not only the handful of specialists in generic composition but also scholars of philosophy, rhetoric, education, and intellectual history."--Svetla Slaveva-Griffin, The Classical World"[Collins] succeeds in highlighting the carefulness by which fourth-century philosophers addressed possible students of their new form of education that required an unseen commitment to the art and challenged traditional values of political prestige. The book offers valuable new perspectives and refreshing insights about important texts, especially concerning the interplay of intradiegetic and extradiegetic narrative levels. Less attention is given to the problem of identifying the ideal reader of these texts, the study of which would be a useful supplement to contextualise the results of this welcome addition to the scholarship on the intellectual world of fourth-century Athens." --Thomas G.M. Blank, The Classical Review"...[An] inspring book.... Collins' book is an altogether welcome contribution to our understanding of the cultural context in which Plato's philosophy originated." --Bryn Mawr Classical Review"...this book makes a convincing case for the dazzling subtlety of so-called 'philosophical' school-masters' student-luring literary self-representations. Scholars concerned with the 'protreptic' genre should study it carefully, as well as those working on the Euthydemus, Isocrates' speeches about 'philosophy,' and mid-fourth-century Athenian intellectual history." --Classical Journal, "The organization of the work is unbalanced...This imbalance, however, works well in proving the main thesis of the book: that, in the fourth century, there is no protreptic genre, but only progress towards it. Collins has given a modern facelift to this type of study, which broadens the readership of the book to include not only the handful of specialists in generic composition but also scholars of philosophy, rhetoric, education, and intellectual history." --Svetla Slaveva-Griffin, The Classical World "[Collins] succeeds in highlighting the carefulness by which fourth-century philosophers addressed possible students of their new form of education that required an unseen commitment to the art and challenged traditional values of political prestige. The book offers valuable new perspectives and refreshing insights about important texts, especially concerning the interplay of intradiegetic and extradiegetic narrative levels. Less attention is given to the problem of identifying the ideal reader of these texts, the study of which would be a useful supplement to contextualise the results of this welcome addition to the scholarship on the intellectual world of fourth-century Athens." --Thomas G.M. Blank, The Classical Review "...[An] inspring book.... Collins' book is an altogether welcome contribution to our understanding of the cultural context in which Plato's philosophy originated." --Bryn Mawr Classical Review "...this book makes a convincing case for the dazzling subtlety of so-called 'philosophical' school-masters' student-luring literary self-representations. Scholars concerned with the 'protreptic' genre should study it carefully, as well as those working on the Euthydemus, Isocrates' speeches about 'philosophy,' and mid-fourth-century Athenian intellectual history." --Classical Journal

Dewey Edition23

Dewey Decimal808/.009/38

Table Of ContentIntroduction1. Protreptic and the "rhetoric of conversion"2. Earlier protreptic configurations3. Genre theory and ?4. The rhetorical situation and objective of ?Part I. Platonic Protreptic1. Levels of discourse in Plato's dialogues2. Narrative between Sokrates and Krito1. Krito and his agenda2. Sokrates the story-teller3. From narrative to drama: inside the intradiegetic level1. Characters on stage: Sophists, Sokrates, Kleinias, Ktesippos2. Dramatic elements: staging, cheering, seating3. Apotreptic in protreptic discourse4. Formal features of the protreptic ?4. Return to the extradiegetic level: metalepsis, protreptic, and apotreptic1. From spectator to judge to interlocutor: Krito's2. Isokratean apotreptic and private program3. Sokrates' apotreptic of the apotreptic5. Creating consumers and consensus in the Protagoras1. Staging a contest among converts2. Preparing consumers for the marketplace of ideas3. Protreptic that builds consensus4. Clitophon and after the protreptic stingPart II. Isokratean ProtrepticIsokratean Philosophy, Pragmatism, and Protreptic6. 'Professional' protreptic: Against the Sophists1. Challenging the instructor's pledge2. Apotreptically revealing a profession7. Parainetic protreptic: ? and exhorting young tyrants1. Protreptic discourse as secondary genre2. Circumscribing the competition3. Making, using, becoming examples8. Judging protreptic: Antidosis, Panathenaicus1. Cultivating critics of protreptic2. Collaborating with competitors: protreptics and Epilogue. Aristotelian Protreptic and a Stabilized GenreEpilogue. Aristotelian Protreptic and a Stabilized Genre

SynopsisThis book is a study of the literary strategies which the first professional philosophers used to market their respective disciplines. Philosophers of fourth-century BCE Athens developed the emerging genre of the "protreptic" (literally, "turning" or "converting"). Simply put, protreptic discourse uses a rhetoric of conversion that urges a young person to adopt a specific philosophy in order to live a good life. The author argues that the fourth-century philosophers used protreptic discourses to market philosophical practices and to define and legitimize a new cultural institution: the school of higher learning (the first in Western history). Specifically, the book investigates how competing educators in the fourth century produced protreptic discourses by borrowing and transforming traditional and contemporary "voices" in the cultural marketplace. They aimed to introduce and promote their new schools and define the new professionalized discipline of "philosophy." While scholars have typically examined the discourses and practices of Plato, Isocrates, and Aristotle in isolation from one another, this study rather combines philosophy, narratology, genre theory, and new historicism to focus on the discursive interaction between the three philosophers: each incorporates the discourse of his competitors into his protreptics. Appropriating and transforming the discourses of their competition, these intellectuals created literary texts that introduced their respective disciplines to potential students., The author argues that the fourth-century philosophers used protreptic discourses to market philosophical practices and to define and legitimize the school of higher learning.

LC Classification NumberPA3265.C57 2015