Paideia/ Jaeger: Vol 3 Ch 3

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Jaeger defines rhetoric:

"RHETORIC is, to begin with, an instrument of practical politics. But as soon as it is able to formulate ideals of statesmanship, it becomes the representative of a political form of culture."

Useful to have a collection of definitions of rhetoric. Interesting that it is inherently linked to politics.

"Again and again, Isocrates stresses the point that for the speaker or writer everything depends on the greatness of the subject with which he has to deal."

Note the above; put into a collection of writing tips/notes.
This could also be used in an FYC course. It is a good way to focus on the topic and the interesting, or not, nature of the materials.


For Isocrates, the subject of rhetoric had to always be political, i.e. centered on the polis, the community, and that which helped or hurt the community.

"The new partnership between culture and awakening national sentiment is immortalized in the Panegyrics of Isocrates."

"It is his [Isocrates'] faith in the unique mission of Athenian culture that is triumphant in his philosophy of history, and above all in his interpretation of hte legendary past. Isocrates' nationalistic ideology (in which Athens is the founder of all civilization), along with all the other ideas implicit in his paideia, was later taken over by humanism as part of its general view of history."

In short, it appears that humanists swallowed Isocrates vision/view of Athens as the source of civilization. Given the current acceptance and roots of this in western culture, he appears to have been quite successful.

"It is deeply interesting to see how Isocrates again and again conceives the essence of culture as a purposeless intellectual and spiritual activity--an ideal parallel to that of the gymnastic contests. Rhetoric does not define; it represents, through contrast and comparison. And so, although rhetoricians constantly extol its pracical usefulness for the community, its real meaning continues to be epideixis--the speaker's display of his own intellectual powers: an activity of which no barbarian ever feels himself in need."

Another definition of rhetoric.
The role of culture. It is interesting that it is the process of culture, not the end result, which has the emphasis. Similarly, it is interesting that the emphasis excludes the physical.


"Every useful attempt to raise the condition of mankind, whatever be its content, must take its form from language; and so the logos, in its double sense of 'speech' and 'reason', becomes for Isocrates the symbolon, the 'token' of culture. That was a happy conception: it assured rhetoric of its place, and made the rhetorician the truest representative of culture."

Western emphasis on importance of rhetor/language?

Quote from Isocrates:

"'The man who shares our paideia is a Greek in a higher sense than he who only shares our blood."

"But he [Isocrates] believes that intellectual nationalism is nobler than racial nationalism."

"In fact, that ideal contains a higher justification for the new national imperialism, in that it identifies what is specifically Greek with what is universally human. This is not actually said by Isocrates; and some may object to our interpretation. But the only meaning that can possibly be given to the universal exaltation of Greek paideia which fills Isocrates' thought is this: the Greeks, through the logos, over which they naturally have command, have revealed to other nations a principle which they too must recognize and adopt because its value is independent of race--the idea of paideia, of culture."