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Dialogue

Dialogue

The term dialogue (or dialog) expresses a reciprocal conversation between two or more persons. The etymological origins of the word (in Greek concepts like flowing-through meaning) do not necessarily convey the way in which people have come to use the word.

Literature

When reported or imitated in writing, "dialogue" labels a form of literature invented by the Greeks for purposes of rhetorical entertainment and instruction, and scarcely modified since the days of its invention. A literary dialogue comprises a little drama without a theatre, and with scarcely any change of scene. It can exhibit those qualities which La Fontaine applauded in the dialogue of Plato, namely vivacity, fidelity of tone, and accuracy in the opposition of opinions. It has long served writers who have something to censure or to impart, but who love to stand outside the pulpit, and to encourage others to pursue a train of thought which the author does not seem to do more than indicate. The dialogue expresses and notes down the undulations of human thought so spontaneously that it almost escapes analysis. All that any literature records of the alleged actual words spoken by living or imaginary people appears dialogic. One branch of letters, the drama, depends upon dialogue almost exclusively. But in its technical sense the word describes what the Greek philosophers invented, and what the noblest of them lifted to the extreme refinement of an art. Literary historians commonly suppose that Plato (c. 427 BC - c. 347 BC) introduced the systematic use of dialogue as an independent literary form: they point to his earliest experiment in the genre in the Ladies. The Platonic dialogue, however, had its foundations in the mime, which the Sicilian poets, Sophron and Epicharmus had cultivated half a century earlier. The works of these writers, which Plato admired and imitated, have not survived, but scholars imagine them as little plays, usually with only two performers. The Mimes of Herodas give us some idea of their scope. Plato further simplified the form, and reduced it to pure argumentative conversation, while leaving intact the amusing element of character-drawing. He must have begun this about the year 405 BC, and by 399 he had brought the dialogue to its highest perfection, especially in the cycle directly inspired by the death of Socrates. All his philosophical writings, except the Apology, use this form. As the greatest of all masters of Greek prose style, Plato lifted his favourite instrument, the dialogue, to its highest splendour, and to this day he remains by far its most distinguished proficient. In the 2nd century AD Lucian of Samosata achieved a brilliant success with his ironic dialogues Of the Gods, Of the Dead, Of Love and Of the Courtesans. In some of them he attacks superstition and philosophical error with the sharpness of his wit; in others he merely paints scenes of modern life. Two French writers of eminence borrowed the title of Lucian’s most famous collection: both Fontenelle (1683) and Fénelon (1712) prepared Dialogues des morts ("Dialogues of the Dead"). In English non-dramatic literature the dialogue did not see extensive use until Berkeley employed it, in 1713, for his Platonic treatise, Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous. Landor’s Imaginary Conversations (1821 - 1828) formed the most famous English example of dialogue in the 19th century, although the dialogues of Sir Arthur Helps also claim attention. In Germany, Wieland adopted this form for several important satirical works published between 1780 and 1799. In Spanish literature, the Dialogues of Valdés (1528) and those on Painting (1633) by Vincenzo Carducci are celebrated. Italian writers of collections of dialogues, on the model of Plato, include Torquato Tasso (1586), Galileo (1632), Galiani (1770), Leopardi (1825), and a host of others. More recently, the French returned to the original application of dialogue, and the inventions of "Gyp", of Henri Lavedan and of others, which tell a mundane anecdote wittily and maliciously in conversation, would probably present a close analogy to the lost mimes of the early Sicilian poets, if we could meet with them. This kind of dialogue appeared in English, written with conspicuous cleverness by Mr Anstey Guthrie, but it does not seem so easily appreciated by English as by French readers. Compare: Closet drama

Philosophy/Theology

Martin Buber places dialogue in a central position in his philosophy: he sees dialogue as an effective means of on-going communication rather than as a purposive attempt to reach some conclusion or to express some viewpoint(s). David Bohm originated a related form of Dialogue where a group of people talk together in order to explore their assumptions of thinking, meaning, communication and social effects. This group consists of ten to thirty people who meet for a few hours regularly or a few continuous days. Dialoguers agree to leave behind debate tactics that attempt to convince and instead, talk from their own experience on subjects that are improvised on the spot. People form their own Dialogue groups that usually are offered free. There exists an international online Dialogue list server group, moderated by Don Factor, co-author of a paper called "On Dialogue," with David Bohm and Peter Garrett.

References

- Dialog can also refer to a particular online database. See Dialog (online database). Dialogue can also refer to a rock band from Chicago, IL. See Dialogue(Band). Dialog can also refer to a computer graphical user interface element. See Dialog box. A computer system intended to engage in dialogue is referred to as a dialog system.

Conversation

For the movie from Francis Ford Coppola, see The Conversation. A conversation is civil communication by two or more people, often on a particular topic. William F. Buckley's Firing Line, the Dick Cavett Show, and many other television programs described as "talk shows" are exercises in conversation. Conversations are the ideal form of communication from at least one point of view, since they allow people with different views of a topic to learn from each other. A speech, on the other hand, is an oral presentation by one person directed at a group. Conversers naturally relate the other speaker's statements to themselves, and insert themselves (or some degree of relation to themselves, ranging from the replier's opinions or points to actual stories about themselves) into their replies. For a successful conversation, the partners must achieve a workable balance of contributions. A successful conversation includes mutually interesting connections between the speakers or things that the speakers know. For this to happen, conversers must find a topic on which they can relate in some sense.

Conversational Phenomena

Conversers will often find that the conversation suddenly dies when everyone simultaneously runs out of things to say. A remedy for this phenomenon is to have another topic readily at hand. Another oddity about conversations is how broadly the subject can change over the length of the conversation, even in as little as a few minutes. For example, people can start the conversation with something as highly-technical as SQL joins, and end up all the way at discussing the history of English dictionaries. Ho'oponopono is a Hawaiian word for a traditional form of conversation that two or more parties use to settle a particularly egregious dispute. In it the parties to the disagreement agree to stay in a single room with a moderator and negotiate until the argument is settled. Taboos Faux Pas

Types of Conversation

Modes of conversation include small talk, gossip, ribaldry, pillow talk, repartee, negotiation, interview, argument, and fully-fledged debate.

Topics of Conversation

Topics of conversation that are often contentious include religion, politics, and philosophy. Topics that are good for producing fruitful discussion include films, books, television or other arts, current events, projects, hobbies, one's work or school life, one's family, and mutual friends.

Famous Conversations

- Fictional conversations among Greek philosophers such as Socrates were recorded by Plato in the Dialogues of Plato, available [http://graduate.gradsch.uga.edu/archive/Plato1.html here]. It is believed that the early dialogues were largely based on the views of the historical Socrates, whereas the latter dialogues reflected Plato's own views.
- The Yalta Conference
- A 1941 conversation between physicists Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg that apparently destroyed their friendship is dramatized in the play Copenhagen by Michael Frayn.
- An interview between Dan Rather and Saddam Hussein on Feb 27th 2003, right before the American invasion of Iraq that year.

Literature on Conversation

Authors who have written extensively on conversation and attempted to analyze its nature include:
- Neil Postman - Amusing Ourselves to Death (Conversation is not the book's specific focus, but discourse in general gets good treatment here)
- Deborah Tannen - The Argument Culture: Stopping America's War of Words, Conversational Style: Analyzing Talk Among Friends, Gender and Discourse, I Only Say This Because I Love You, Talking from 9 to 5: Women and Men at Work, That's Not What I Meant!, You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation,

External links

- [http://www.turningtooneanother.net/howtostart.html Advice] on initiating conversations and links to [http://www.turningtooneanother.net/world.html conversational organizations.]
- [http://add.about.com/cs/addthebasics/a/communication2.htm Article on developing basic communication skills]
- [http://www.conversationcafe.org/ Conversation Cafè], devoted to creating a "culture of conversation." Category:Oral communication

Greek language

Greek (Greek Ελληνικά, IPA – "Hellenic") is an Indo-European language with a documented history of 3,500 years. Today, it is spoken by 15 million people in Greece, Cyprus, the former Yugoslavia, particularly The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Bulgaria, Albania and Turkey. There are also many Greek emigrant communities around the world, such as those in Melbourne, Australia which is the third-largest Greek-populated city in the world, after Athens and Thessaloniki. Greek has been written in the Greek alphabet, the first true alphabet, since the 9th century B.C. and before that, in Linear B and the Cypriot syllabaries. Greek literature has a long and rich tradition.

History

This article does not cover the reconstructed history of Greek prior to the use of writing. For more information, see main article on Proto-Greek language. Greek has been spoken in the Balkan Peninsula since the 2nd millennium BC. The earliest evidence of this is found in the Linear B tablets dating from 1500 BC. The later Greek alphabet (q.v.) is unrelated to Linear B, and was derived from the Phoenician alphabet (abjad); with minor modifications, it is still used today. Greek is conventionally divided into the following periods:
- Mycenean Greek: the language of the Mycenean civilisation. It is recorded in the Linear B script on tablets dating from the 16th century BC onwards.
- Classical Greek (also known as Ancient Greek): In its various dialects was the language of the Archaic and Classical periods of Greek civilisation. It was widely known throughout the Roman empire. Classical Greek fell into disuse in western Europe in the Middle Ages, but remained known in the Byzantine world, and was reintroduced to the rest of Europe with the Fall of Constantinople and Greek migration to Italy.
- Hellenistic Greek (also known as Koine Greek): The fusion of various ancient Greek dialects with Attic (the dialect of Athens) resulted in the creation of the first common Greek dialect, which gradually turned into one of the world's first international languages. Koine Greek can be initially traced within the armies and conquered territories of Alexander the Great, but after the Hellenistic colonisation of the known world, it was spoken from Egypt to the fringes of India. After the Roman conquest of Greece, an unofficial diglossy of Greek and Latin was established in the city of Rome and Koine Greek became a first or second language in the Roman Empire. Through Koine Greek it is also traced the origin of Christianity, as the Apostles used it to preach in Greece and the Greek-speaking world. It is also known as the Alexandrian dialect, Post-Classical Greek or even New Testament Greek (after its most famous work of literature).
- Medieval Greek: The continuation of Hellenistic Greek during medieval Greek history as the official and vernacular (if not the literary nor the ecclesiastic) language of the Byzantine Empire, and continued to be used until, and after the fall of that Empire in the 15th century. Also known as Byzantine Greek.
- Modern Greek: Stemming independently from Koine Greek, Modern Greek usages can be traced in the late Byzantine period (as early as 11th century). Two main forms of the language have been in use since the end of the medieval Greek period: Dhimotikí (Δημοτική), the Demotic (vernacular) language, and Katharévousa (Καθαρεύουσα), an imitation of classical Greek, which was used for literary, juridic, and scientific purposes during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Demotic Greek is now the official language of the modern Greek state, and the most widely spoken by Greeks today. It has been claimed that an "educated" speaker of the modern language can understand an ancient text, but this is surely as much a function of education as of the similarity of the languages. Still, Koinē , the version of Greek used to write the New Testament and the Septuagint, is relatively easy to understand for modern speakers. Greek words have been widely borrowed into the European languages: astronomy, democracy, philosophy, thespian, etc. Moreover, Greek words and word elements continue to be productive as a basis for coinages: anthropology, photography, isomer, biomechanics etc. and form, with Latin words, the foundation of international scientific and technical vocabulary. See English words of Greek origin, and List of Greek words with English derivatives.

Classification

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European language family. The ancient languages which were probably most closely related to it, Ancient Macedonian language (which may be regarded as a dialect of Greek) and Phrygian, are not well enough documented to permit detailed comparison. Among living languages, Armenian seems to be the most closely related to it.

Geographic distribution

Modern Greek is spoken by about 15 million people mainly in Greece and Cyprus. There are also Greek-speaking populations in Georgia, Ukraine, Egypt, Turkey, Albania, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Southern Italy. The language is spoken also in many other countries where Greeks have settled, including Armenia, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Netherlands, Sweden, United Kingdom, and the United States.

Official status

Greek is the official language of Greece where it is spoken by about 99.5% of the population. It is also, alongside Turkish, the official language of Cyprus. Due to the membership of Greece and Cyprus, Greek is one of the 20 official languages of the European Union.

Phonology

This section generally describes the post-Classic phonology of the Greek language. :All phonetic transcriptions in this section use the International Phonetic Alphabet

Vowel sounds

Greek has 5 vowel sounds, all phonemic:

Rhetoric

Rhetoric (from Greek ρήτωρ, rhêtôr, "orator") is one of the three original liberal arts or trivium (the other members are dialectic and grammar) in Western culture. In ancient and medieval times, both rhetoric and dialectic were understood to aim at being persuasive. The concept of rhetoric has shifted from time to time during its 2500-year history. Today rhetoric is generally described as the art of persuasion through language. Rhetoric can be described as a persuasive way in which one relates a theme or idea in an effort to convince. However, both the terms "rhetoric" and "sophistry" can be used today in a pejorative or dismissive sense, when someone wants to denigrate certain verbal reasoning as spurious.

History

Introduction

The scholarly literature on the 2500-year history and theory of rhetoric in Western culture is far too voluminous to be listed at the end of this entry. Useful reference works include Thomas O. Sloane, ed., Encyclopedia of Rhetoric (Oxford University Press, 2001); Heinrich Lausberg, Handbook of Literary Rhetoric: A Foundation for Literary Study (1960; 2nd ed. 1973; English trans, Brill, 1998); Richard A. Lanham, A Handlist of Rhetorical Terms (University of California Press, 1968; 2nd ed. 1991). For overview surveys of the scholarly literature, see Winifred Bryan Horner, ed., The Present State of Scholarship in Historical and Contemporary Rhetoric (University of Missouri Press, 1983; rev. ed. 1990); and Theresa Enos and Stuart C. Brown, eds., Defining the New Rhetorics (Sage, 1993).

Ancient Greece

Western thinking about rhetoric grew out of the public and political life of Ancient Greece, much of which revolved around the use of oratory as the medium through which philosophical ideas were developed and disseminated. For modern students today, it can be difficult to remember that the wide use and availability of written texts is a phenomenon that was just coming into vogue in Classical Greece. In Classical times, many of the great thinkers spoke their words; in fact, many of them are known only through the texts that their students and followers wrote down. As has already been noted, rhetor was the Greek term for orator. See Jeffrey Walker, Rhetoric and Poetic in Antiquity (Oxford University Press, 2000). Rhetoric thus evolved as an important art, one that provided the orator with the forms, means, and strategies of persuading an audience of the correctness of the orator's arguments. Today the term rhetoric can be used at times to refer only to the form of argumentation, often with the pejorative connotation that rhetoric is a means of obscuring the truth. Classical philosophers believed quite the contrary: the skilled use of rhetoric was essential to the discovery of truths, because it provided the means of ordering and clarifying arguments.

The Sophists

Organized thought about rhetoric began in ancient Greece. The first written manual is attributed to Corax and his pupil Tisias. Their work, as well as that of many of the early rhetoricians, grew out of the courts of law; Tisias, for example, is believed to have written judicial speeches that others delivered in the courts. Rhetoric was popularized in the 5th century BC by itinerant teachers known as sophists, the best known of whom were Protagoras (c.481-420 BC), Gorgias (c.483-376 BC), and Isocrates (436-338 BC). See Jacqueline de Romilly, The Great Sophists in Periclean Athens (French orig. 1988; English trans. Clarendon Press/Oxford University Press, 1992).

Aristotle

Plato (427-347 BC) has famously outlined the differences between true and false rhetoric. His student Aristotle (384-322 BC) has even more famously set forth an extended treatise on rhetoric that still repays careful study today. In the first sentence of The Art of Rhetoric, Aristotle says that "rhetoric is the counterpart [literally, the antistrophe] of dialectic." By this, he means that while dialectical methods are necessary to find truth in theoretical matters, rhetorical methods are required in practical matters such as adjudicating somebody's guilt or innocence when charged in a court of law, or adjudicating a prudent course of action to be taken in a deliberative assembly. For Plato and Aristotle, dialectic involves persuasion, so when Aristotle says that rhetoric is the antistrophe of dialectic, he means that rhetoric as he uses the term has a domain or scope of application that is different from the domain or scope of application of dialectic. In Nietzsche Humanist (1998: 129), Claude Pavur explains that "[t]he Greek prefix 'anti' does not merely designate opposition, but it can also mean 'in place of.'" When Aristotle characterizes rhetoric as the antistrophe of dialectic, he no doubt means that rhetoric is used in place of dialectic when we are discussing civic issues in a court of law or in a legislative assembly. The domain of rhetoric is civic affairs and practical decision making in civic affairs, not theoretical considerations of operational definitions of terms and clarification of thought -- these, for him, are in the domain of dialectic. Aristotle's treatise on rhetoric is an attempt to systematically describe civic rhetoric as a human art or skill (techne). He identifies three different types of rhetorical proof:
- ethos: how the character and credibility of a speaker influence an audience to consider him to be believable. This could be any position in which the speaker knows about the topic, from being college professor to being an acquaintance of person who experienced the matter in question.
- pathos: the use of emotional appeals. This can be done through metaphor, storytelling, or presenting the topic in a way that evokes strong emotions in the audience.
- logos: the use of facts, numbers, and figures to construct an argument. The term logic evolved from logos. He also identifies three different types of civic rhetoric: forensic (concerned with determining truth or falsity of events that took place in the past), deliberative (concerned with determining whether or not particular actions should or should not be taken in the future), and epideictic (concerned with praise and blame, demonstrating beauty and skill in the present). See Eugene Garver, Aristotle's Rhetoric: An Art of Character (University of Chicago Press,1994).

Roman rhetoricians

The Romans, for whom oration was also an important part of public life, saw much value in Aristotle's rhetoric. Cicero (106-43 BC) and Quintilian (35-100 AD) were chief among Roman rhetoricians, and their work is an extension of Aristotle's. Latin rhetoric was developed out of the Rhodian schools of rhetoric. In the second century BC, Rhodes became an important educational center, particularly of rhetoric, and the sons of noble Roman families studied there. Although not widely read in Roman times, the Rhetorica ad Herennium (sometimes attributed to Cicero, but probably not his work) is a notable early work on Latin rhetoric. Its author was probably a Latin rhetorician in Rhodes, and for the first time we see a systematic treatment of Latin elocutio. Although the Ad Herennium was not known in its time, it provides a glimpse into the early development of Latin rhetoric, and in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, it achieved wide publication as one of the basic school texts on rhetoric. Whether or not he wrote the Rhetorica ad Herennium, Cicero contributed several other works on rhetoric: De Oratore, the Brutus, and the Orator are major works; De Optimo Genere Oratorum, Topica, and De Partitione Oratia are additional minor works. Cicero, of course, was also a renowned orator, and his orations and epistles are themselves exemplars of rhetoric, and were much imitated. See James M. May, ed., Brill's Companion to Cicero: Oratory and Rhetoric (Brill, 2002). Along with Cicero, the most influential Roman rhetorician was Quintilian. His career began as a pleader in the courts of law; his reputation grew so great that Vespasian created a chair of rhetoric for him in Rome. The culmination of his life's work was the Institutio oratoria (or Institutes of Oratory), a lengthy treatise on the training of the orator. In it, Quintilian codified rhetorical studies under five canons that would persist for centuries in academic circles:
- Inventio (invention) is the process that leads to the development and refinement of an argument.
- Once arguments are developed, dispositio (disposition, or arrangement) is used to determine how it should be organized for greatest effect, usually beginning with the exordium.
- Once the speech content is known and the structure is determined, the next steps involve elocutio (style) and pronuntiatio (presentation).
- Memoria (memory) comes to play as the speaker recalls each of these elements during the speech.
- Actio (delivery) is the final step as the speech is presented in a gracious and pleasing to the audience way - the Grand Style. This work was available only in fragments in medieval times, but the discovery of a complete copy at Abbey of St. Gall in 1416 led to its emergence as one of the most influential works on rhetoric during the Renaissance. Quintilian was reacting in part to the growing tendency in Rome to value ornamentation over substance in rhetoric. However, his masterful work was not enough to curb this movement, and the second century CE saw rhetoric fall into decadence. One other figure worth mention, although he is not commonly regarded as a rhetorician, is St. Augustine (354-430). However, he was at one time a teacher of Latin rhetoric and after his conversion to Christianity, became interested in using these "pagan" arts for spreading his religion. This new use of rhetoric is explored in the Fourth Book of his De Doctrina Christiana, and laid the foundation of what would become homiletics, the rhetoric of the sermon. A valuable collection of studies can be found in Stanley E. Porter, ed., Handbook of Classical Rhetoric in the Hellenistic Period 330 B.C. - A.D. 400 (Brill, 1997).

Rhetoric from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment

After the Roman Empire the study of rhetoric continued to be central to the study of the verbal arts; but the study of the verbal arts went into decline for several centuries, followed eventually by a gradual rise in formal education, culminating in the rise of medieval universities. But rhetoric transmuted during this period in the arts of letter writing (ars dictaminis) and writing sermons (ars praedicandi). As part of the trivium, rhetoric was secondary to the study of logic, and its study was highly scholastic: students were given repetitive exercises in the creation of discourses on historical subjects (suasoriae) or on classic legal questions (controversiae). In his 1943 Cambridge University doctoral dissertation in English, Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980) surveys the verbal arts from approximately the time of Cicero down to the time of Thomas Nashe (1567-1600?). McLuhan's dissertation is scheduled to be published in a critical edition by Gingko Press in the fall of 2005 with the title The Classical Trivium: The Place of Thomas Nashe in the Learning of His Time. His dissertation is still noteworthy for undertaking to study the history of the verbal arts together as the trivium, even though the developments that he surveys have been studied in greater detail since he undertook his study. As noted below, McLuhan became one of the most widely publicized thinkers in the 20th century, so it is important to note his scholarly roots in the study of the history of rhetoric and dialectic.

Sixteenth century

Walter J. Ong's encyclopedia article "Humanism" in the 1967 New Catholic Encyclopedia provides a well-informed survey of Renaissance humanism, which defined itself broadly as disfavoring medieval scholastic logic and dialectic and as favoring instead the study of classical Latin style and grammar and philology and rhetoric. (Reprinted in Ong's Faith and Contexts (Scholars Press, 1999; 4: 69-91.) One influential figure in the rebirth of interest in classical rhetoric was Erasmus (c.1466-1536). His work, De Duplici Copia Verborum et Rerum (1512), was widely published (it went through more than 150 editions throughout Europe) and became one of the basic school texts on the subject. Its treatment of rhetoric is less comprehensive than the classic works of antiquity, but provides a traditional treatment of res-verba (matter and form): its first book treats the subject of elocutio, showing the student how to use schemes and tropes; the second book covers inventio. Much of the emphasis is on abundance of variation (copia means "plenty" or "abundance", as in copious or cornucopia), so both books focus on ways to introduce the maximum amount of variety into discourse. For instance, in one section of the De Copia, Erasmus presents two hundred variations of the sentence "Semper, dum vivam, tui meminero". Juan Luis Vives (1492 - 1540) also helped shape the study of rhetoric in England. A Spaniard, he was appointed in 1523 to the Lectureship of Rhetoric at Oxford by Cardinal Wolsey, and was entrusted by Henry VIII to be one of the tutors of Mary. Vives fell into disfavor when Henry VIII divorced Catherine of Aragon and left England in 1528. His best-known work was a book on education, De Disciplinis, published in 1531, and his writings on rhetoric included Rhetoricae, sive De Ratione Dicendi, Libri Tres (1533), De Consultatione (1533), and a rhetoric on letter writing, De Conscribendis Epistolas (1536). It is likely that many well-known English writers would have been exposed to the works of Erasmus and Vives (as well as those of the Classical rhetoricians) in their schooling, which was conducted in Latin (not English) and often included some study of Greek and placed considerable emphasis on rhetoric. See, for example, T.W. Baldwin's William Shakspere's Small Latine and Lesse Greeke, 2 vols. (University of Illinois Press, 1944). The mid-1500s saw the rise of vernacular rhetorics — those written in English rather than in the Classical languages; adoption of works in English was slow, however, due to the strong orientation toward Latin and Greek. A successful early text was Thomas Wilson's The Arte of Rhetorique (1553), which presents a traditional treatment of rhetoric. For instance, Wilson presents the five parts of rhetoric (Inuention, Disposition, Elocution, Memorie, and Utterance). Other notable works included Angel Day's The English Secretorie (1586, 1592), George Puttenham's The Arte of English Poesie (1589), and Richard Rainholde's Foundacion of Rhetorike (1563). During this same period, a movement began that would change the organization of the school curriculum in Protestant and especially Puritan circles and lead to rhetoric losing its central place. A French scholar, Petrus Ramus (1515-1572), dissatisfied with what he saw as the overly broad and redundant organization of the trivium, proposed a new curriculum. In his scheme of things, the five components of rhetoric no longer lived under the common heading of rhetoric. Instead, invention and disposition were determined to fall exclusively under the heading of dialectic, while language, delivery, and memory were all that remained for rhetoric. See Walter J. Ong, Ramus, Method, and the Decay of Dialogue: From the Art of Discourse to the Art of Reason (Harvard University Press, 1958; reissued by the University of Chicago Press, 2004, with a new foreword by Adrian Johns). One of Ramus' followers, Audomarus Talaeus (Omer Talon) published his rhetoric, Institutiones Oratoriae, in 1544. This work provided a simple presentation of rhetoric that emphasized the treatment of style, and became so popular that it was mentioned in John Brinsley's (1612) Ludus literarius; or The Grammar Schoole as being the "most used in the best schooles." Many other Ramist rhetorics followed in the next half-century, and by the 1600s, their approach became the primary method of teaching rhetoric in Protestant and especially Puritan circles. See Walter J. Ong, Ramus and Talon Inventory (Harvard University Press, 1958); Joseph S. Freedman, Philosophy and the Arts in Central Europe, 1500-1700: Teaching and Texts at Schools and Universities (Ashgate, 1999). John Milton (1608-1674) wrote a textbook in logic or dialectic in Latin based on Ramus' work, which has now been been translated into English by Walter J. Ong and Charles J. Ermatinger in The Complete Prose Works of John Milton (Yale University Press, 1982; 8: 206-407), with a lengthy introduction by Ong (144-205). The introduction is reprinted in Ong's Faith and Contexts (Scholars Press, 1999; 4: 111-41). But Ramism did not strongly influence the established Catholic schools and universities or the new Catholic schools and universities founded by members of the religious order known as the Society of Jesus, as can be seen in the Jesuit document known as the Ratio Studiorum that Claude Pavur, S.J., has recently translated into English, with the Latin text in the parallel column on each page (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 2005). The influence of Cicero and Quintilian permeates the Ratio Studiorum.

Seventeenth century

In New England and at Harvard College (founded 1636), Ramus and his followers dominated, as Perry Miller shows in The New England Mind: The Seventeenth Century (Harvard University Press, 1939). However, in England, several writers influenced the course of rhetoric during the seventeenth century, many of them carrying forward the dichotomy that had been set forth by Ramus and his followers during the preceding decades. Of greater importance is that this century saw the development of a modern, vernacular style that looked to English, rather than to Greek, Latin, or French models. Francis Bacon (1561-1626), although not a rhetorician, contributed to the field in his writings. One of the concerns of the age was to find a suitable style for the discussion of scientific topics, which needed above all a clear exposition of facts and arguments, rather than the ornate style favored at the time. Bacon in his The Advancement of Learning criticized those who are preoccupied with style rather than "the weight of matter, worth of subject, soundness of argument, life of invention, or depth of judgment." On matters of style, he proposed that the style conform to the subject matter and to the audience, that simple words be employed whenever possible, and that the style should be agreeable. See Lisa Jardine, Francis Bacon: Discovery and the Art of Discourse (Cambridge University Press, 1975). Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) also wrote on rhetoric. Along with a shortened translation of Aristotle's Rhetoric, Hobbes also produced a number of other works on the subject. Sharply contrarian on many subjects, Hobbes, like Bacon, also promoted a simpler and more natural style that used figures of speech sparingly. Perhaps the most influential development in English style came out of the work of the Royal Society (founded in 1660), which in 1664 set up a committee to improve the English language. Among the committee's members were John Evelyn (1620-1706), Thomas Sprat (1635-1713), and John Dryden (1631-1700). Sprat regarded "fine speaking" as a disease, and thought that a proper style should "reject all amplifications, digressions, and swellings of style" and instead "return back to a primitive purity and shortness" (History of the Royal Society, 1667). While the work of this committee never went beyond planning, John Dryden is often credited with creating and exemplifying a new and modern English style. His central tenet was that the style should be proper "to the occasion, the subject, and the persons." As such, he advocated the use of English words whenever possible instead of foreign ones, as well as vernacular, rather than Latinate, syntax. His own prose (and his poetry) became exemplars of this new style.

Modern developments

Walter Jost has examined Rhetorical Thought in John Henry Newman (1989). (John Henry Newman lived from 1801-1890.) The Canadian Jesuit philosopher and theologian Bernard Lonergan (1904-1984), who was deeply influenced by Newman's An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent (1870), worked out what he styles the generalized empirical method in Insight: A Study of Human Understanding (1957) and elsewhere. In a review article originally published in the Quarterly Journal of Speech (1985: 476-88), John Angus Campbell has characterized Lonergan's generalized empirical method as his rhetoric, an astute observation that has not yet been widely noted. Even so, Lonergan's generalized empirical method holds enormous potential for taking the theory of rhetoric to the next level of significance. (Campbell's essay is reprinted in Communication and Lonergan (Sheed & Ward, 1991: 3-22). At the turn of the twentieth century, there was a revival of rhetorical study manifested in the establishment of departments of rhetoric and speech at academic institutions, as well as the formation of national and international professional organizations. Theorists generally agree that a significant reason for the revival of the study of rhetoric was the renewed importance of language and persuasion in the increasingly mediated environment of the twentieth century. The rise of advertising and of mass media such as photography, telegraphy, radio, and film brought rhetoric more prominently into people's lives. For example, when McLuhan was working on his 1943 Cambridge University doctoral dissertation on the verbal arts and Nashe, mentioned above, he was also preparing the materials that were eventually published as the book The Mechanical Bride: The Folklore of Industrial Man (Vanguard Press, 1951). This book is a compilation of exhibits of ads and other materials from popular culture with short essays about them by McLuhan. The essays involve rhetorical analysis of the ways in which the material in the item aims to persuade, and commentary on the persuasive strategies in each item. After studying the persuasive strategies involved in such an array of items in popular culture, McLuhan shifted the focus of his rhetorical analysis and began to consider how communication media themselves impact on us as persuasive, in a manner of speaking. In other words, the communication media as such embody and carry a persuasive dimension. McLuhan uses hyperbole to express this insight when he says "the medium is the message." This shift in focus from his 1951 book led to his two most widely known books, The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man (University of Toronto Press, 1962) and Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (McGraw-Hill, 1964). These two books led McLuhan to become one of the most publicized thinkers in the 20th century. No other scholar of the history and theory of rhetoric was as widely publicized in the 20th century as McLuhan. It should be noted here that McLuhan read Lonergan's Insight, mentioned above, in 1957 (see Letters of Marshall McLuhan, 1987: 251). Lonergan's book is an elaborate guidebook to cultivate one's inwardness and on attending to and reflecting on one's inward consciousness. McLuhan's 1962 and 1964 books represent an inward turn to attending to one's consciousness that is far more pronounced than anything found in his 1951 book or in his 1943 dissertation. By contrast, many other thinkers in the study of rhetoric are more outward oriented toward sociological considerations and symbolic interaction. McLuhan's famous dictum "the medium is the message" can be paraphrased with terminology from Lonergan. At the empirical level of consciousness, the medium is the message, whereas at the intelligent and rational levels of consciousness, the content is the message. Thus McLuhan is enjoining us to attend to the empirical level of consciousness.

Current state of rhetorical study

Rhetorical theory today is as much influenced by the research results and research methods of the behavioral sciences and by theories of literary criticism as by ancient rhetorical theory. Early rhetorical theorists attempted to turn the study of rhetoric into a social science that allowed predictive analyses of human behavior. Interdisciplinary scholars of symbol systems, such as Ernst Cassirer (1874-1945), Hugh Duncan, and most notably Kenneth Burke (1897-1993), influenced a new generation of rhetorical scholars who drew from various disciplines to more fully comprehend the phenomenon of human communication in all its aspects. While ancient rhetorical scholarship had focused primarily on rhetoric as oral speech, contemporary rhetorical theorists are interested in the panoply of human symbolic behavior—both the spoken and written word as well as music, film, radio, television, etc. Thus Kenneth Burke, who defined the human being as the "symbol-using animal," defined rhetoric as "the use of symbols to induce cooperation in those who by nature respond to symbols." Current rhetorical theory also draws heavily from cultural studies and design studies. Other notable 20th-century authors in the study of the history and theory of rhetoric include Wayne C. Booth, Edward P.J. Corbett, James Kinneavy, Richard A. Lanham, Chaim Perelman, I.A. Richards, Stephen Toulmin, and Richard M. Weaver.

References

Primary texts

The locus classicus for bilingual editions of Greek and Latin primary texts is the Loeb Classical Library that is published in the United States by Harvard University Press. For other translations, see the bibliographies accompanying the Wikipedia entries about each author. see the external links section for online editions of several important works, including" :Rhetorica ad Herennium :Cicero's De Inventione :Quintilian's Institutio oratoria :Thomas Wilson's The Arte of Rhetorique
External links

- [http://rhet.net/ rhet.net--an internet portal for rhetoricians]
- [http://humanities.byu.edu/rhetoric/silva.htm Silva Rhetoricae]
- [http://rhetoric.eserver.org/ EServer Rhetoric and Composition]
- [http://www.godstruthfortoday.org/Library/bullinger/FiguresOfSpeech.html Figures of Speech] by E.W. Bullinger Systematically Classified
- [http://www.figarospeech.com/ It Figures - Figures of Speech]
- [http://www.uky.edu/ArtsSciences/Classics/rhetoric.html A Glossary of Rhetorical Terms with Examples] by Division of Classics at The University of Kentucky.
- [http://wac.colostate.edu/books/lauer%5Finvention/ PDF edition of Janice Lauer's Invention in Rhetoric and Composition]
- [http://www.geocities.com/mskochin/workinprogress/fivechapcurr.PDF PDF edition of Michael S. Kochin's Five Chapters on Rhetoric: Character, Action, Things, Nothing, and Art]
- [http://specgram.com/CXLVII.3/09.seely.rhetoric.html Twenty Special Forms of Rhetoric]: A humorous look at twenty non-traditional but nonetheless commonly used forms of rhetorical argumentation.
- [http://www.galilean-library.org/int21.html An introduction to Rhetoric and rhetorical figures] by Paul Newall at the Galilean Library, aimed at beginners. Online primary texts
- [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Aristot.+Rh.+1.1.1 Online Greek and English editions of Aristotle's Rhetoric]
- [http://dobc.unipv.it/scrineum/wight/herm1.htm Online Latin edition of Rhetorica ad Herrenium]
- [http://dobc.unipv.it/scrineum/wight/invs1.htm Online Latin edition of Cicero's De Inventione]
- [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Cic.+de+Orat.+1.1 Online Latin edition of Cicero's De Oratore]
- [http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/gutbook/lookup?num=9060 Online English edition of Demosthenes' orations]
- [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Dem.+21+1 Online Greek editions of Demosthenes' orations]
- [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Isoc.+13+1 Online Greek and English editions of Isocrates' Against the Sophists]
- [http://visualiseur.bnf.fr/Visualiseur?Destination=Gallica&O=NUMM-83897 Online edition of 1576 edition of Susenbrotus' Epitome troporum]
- [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.03.0096 Online edition of 1593 edition of Henry Peacham's The Garden of Eloquence]
- [http://eir.library.utoronto.ca/rpo/display/displayprose.cfm?prosenum=17 Online edition of George Puttenham's The Arte of Poesie]
- [http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/%7Erbear/arte/arte.htm Online edition of Thomas Wilson's The Arte of Rhetorique]
- Category:Linguistics Category:Narratology ja:修辞技法

Drama

:This article refers to the art form. For the town, see Drama, Greece. Drama is a term generally used to refer to a literary form involving parts written for actors to perform. Dramas can be performed in a variety of media: live performance, film, or television. "Closet dramas" are works written in the same form as plays (with dialogue, scenes, and "stage directions"), but meant to be read rather than staged; examples include the plays of Seneca, Manfred by George Gordon Byron, and Prometheus Unbound by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Other dramatic literature may not resemble plays at all, such as the Imaginary Conversations of Walter Savage Landor. Drama is a Greek word meaning `action', drawn from the Greek verb dran, `to do'. Greek tragedians applied it to the plays they wrote; Euripides is portrayed in the Acharnians of Aristophanes crying out, "Oimoi ta dramata!" (Oh no what's become of my plays).

The problem with the term

There are many forms of drama. It may be helpful to imagine drama as an umbrella, with all of its subforms underneath it. Theatre is one of these forms. It is the act of drama, a dramatisation, if you will. It has a unique ability to allow us to play, allowing us to be another person or in a situation that we would not normally encounter such as, being a general in a war. This is what makes Drama a great way of teaching, learning, and growing as a person. Drama has a holistic way of teaching people. Whether it be in a play or by partaking in a role-play situation, we learn through interactions with others--this allows participants to not only learn facts as they would from a book or in a classroom, but to enter the world of another person, to be allowed to explore how they feel about this situation or person, whether it be a war-torn town or the wolf in the Three Little Pigs. Every interaction with another character or situation gives a greater understanding of what is happening around us. In a drama session with primary children on the subject of homelessness, the class was asked to enter its own classroom, but to imagine that it was a back lane where a homeless person lived. The class was given pieces of newspaper and was asked to place the newspaper so as to represent objects, such as a telephone, television, cat, and so forth. Through the drama, the children began to feel the isolation of this character, even though he never existed. The class added to the drama by giving each object a story, thereby creating a background for this person; the children worked together, respecting other ideas and not feeling pressured, the outcome being that they thought more about how hard it must be to live alone. They broadened their own perceptions of the world. This all occurred within the safety of the classroom, the group, and the drama. Drama has many uses in today's world. It is already used by therapists, and is being introduced more into schools as an alternative to just reading facts from a book.

Greek drama

The three types of drama composed in the city of Athens were tragedy, comedy, and satyr plays. The origins of Athenian tragedy and comedy are far from clear. We must understand that drama began for the Greeks as a part of religious ritual. The chorus seems to have originated first, with a leader, singing a song about some legendary hero; in later years the leader, rather than singing about the hero, began to impersonate him. Spoken dialogue between several actors was added, and the result was "tragedy" in the Greek form. The very first prize for tragedy went to Thespis in 534 BC. In fact, the two masks associated with drama with the smiling and frowning faces are both symbols of the Muses Thalia and Melpomene. Thalia is the Muse of Comedy (the smiling face), and Melpomene is the Muse of Tragedy (the frowning face).

The importance of Playing

If you look at a small child when they are playing they are enthralled with their own world, and through their actions, thoughts and the way they play they learn about themselves, others, and the world around them. Play allows them to act out new situations, try out new ways of doing things and by doing so learn. When people grow up the idea of play becomes less important, entering into the imagination becomes more difficult and the idea of play can go out of the window all together. However this is where Drama has the unique and undeniable ability to help others learn and grow as individuals, as it allows them to play. Through playing we can once again try out situations, whether it be for a job interview by live action role-playing (aka. LARP), or just to think about new ideas, we can also gain confidence in ourselves and learn to trust others. Playing allows us to imagine, and to use our imagination to our advantage. Playing is also an important part in therapy, again entering the imagination and allowing ourselves to pretend and to think of things in other ways, which is why Drama therapy is such a good form of treatment for people who have had severe emotional, and psychological problems. It is important to note that, as do most psychologists who adopt a Scientist-Practitioner model, the evidence to support therapeutic efficacy of Drama therapy is anecdotal rather than scientific. Play and Drama are synonymous; even actors were originally called players, since they act out plays (as in, to play the role).

Drama as a tool for education

There are many forms of Educational drama these all share one common goal, to create awareness or an understanding of an idea, or issue.The following is a few examples of the main forms in which drama is used as a tool for education. T.I.E. (Theatre in education). This is the typical image of drama, seen highly throughout the 1960s to 1990s. Usually performed for youth groups, or schools by a drama group this form of theatre was usually a devised piece which used abstract ideas to communicate a message, it follows in the tradition of plays seen throughout history such as morality plays like Everyman. This form of theatre could also be compared to commedia del arte, and other such travelling forms of theatre. Pantomime. These stories follow in the tradition of fables and folk tales, usually there is a lesson learned, and with some help from the audience the hero/heroine saves the day. This kind of play uses stock characters seen in masque and again commedia del arte, these characters include the villain(doctore) the clown/servant(Arlechino/Harlequin/buttons) the lovers etc. These plays usually have an emphasis on moral dilemnas, and good always triumphs over evil, this kind of play is also very entertaining making it a very effective way of reaching many people. D.I.E. (Drama in Education). Unlike Theatre in education, D.I.E. is based more upon workshops, and the group creating their own scenarios, ideas and even subject matter through the use of Drama and Drama workshops. Sometimes this kind of work may lead to the creation of a play, or a piece of T.I.E or some other kind of means to show a result from the work. Drama in Education utilises skills used across the spectrum of dramatic activity, everything from teacher in role to normal theatrical conventions of audience and spectator. D.I.E is usually run in youth clubs, schools, community centres etc. D.I.E. involves a high amount of participation by the group, and is therefore aimed for smaller groups of individuals.

Workshops

A workshop is a situation where a group is allowed to explore and think about an issue, a book, a thought, a play, anything. Within drama terms it is an active situation with a lot of learning and experiencing. Drama workshops have many different styles and approaches much like any group activity, this style and approach is determined by the group's willingness to participate, the frame and distance that they are from the drama is usually the holding form for the session, in the example shown through teacher in role we see the group are "framed" as social workers and because of their role in the drama they are at a very close distance, if the group were older at age 14-17 say then they would be less likely to enter into the drama and a more suitable frame would have to be chosen. For example instead of social workers they could become reporters, which would allow them to remain at the spectator end of the drama and give them chance to reflect on the conditions surrounding events. However this does not mean that the group always have to have a frame, they can remain themselves and still participate in the drama, allowing them to think about how they feel about the situation. In this case the group may enter the drama as themselves and how they would act in a situation, or explore being characters in a situation and what is making them act the way they are, comparing them to situations that they could imagine being in. The important thing about drama workshops is to allow the group to play, and through playing learn.

The difference between drama and theatre

In the field of theatrical performance and dramatic expression, there is a tendency to use the terms "drama" and "theater" synonomously. The terms are problematic and can be open to confusing usage. Strictly speaking, however, the terms refer to different qualities or aspects of dramatic expression. Note this following quote from Bernie Warren: :Most people tend to equate drama with theater. However, there are subtle but important differences between the two. Theater is a collective art. Theater requires many people — actors, writers, designers, technicians, etc. — all working together in a period of rehearsal and creative exploration towards a common goal. Whatever the benefits experienced by participants along the way, theater is evaluated by how well the performance communicates to its audience. :Drama is an individual pursuit undertaken within a social context. Defined by human action and interaction, drama is primarily concerned with what happens to participants while they are engaged in activity. It is an extension of children’s play and, like that play, is often free and spontaneous. Drama has no fixed end product, no right or wrong way of doing. As a result, its effects, unlike theater performances, are often unique and unrepeatable. Above all, dramatic experience is a very human activity— one that reaffirms “I exist. My life has meaning.” :(Bernie Warren with Tim Dunne, Drama Games. Captus Press, 1989, p.2) Drama (or dramatization) could also be a prose or verse composition telling a story which shows life or character through conflict and emotions. It is usually performed by actors and actresses in a theatrical setting, but can also refer to pre-recorded television programs or opera. In sum, "drama" is a generic term for creative play and imaginative taking on of a role, whereas, theatre "requires" an audience and sometimes the technicalities of performance for an audience. With theatre we are concerned with individuals, with drama we are concerned with the individuality of the individuals.

External links

- [http://www.empirecontact.com/magicstar/index.html Magic Star of Dramatic Writing], a compilation of the wisdom of contemporary and classical experts on dramatic writing, including a discussion of concept, character, story, dialogue, and action.
- [http://mrspock.marion.ohio-state.edu/dickson2002/greek%20&%20roman%20drama%20timeline.htm Greek & Roman Drama Timeline]
- [http://www.arlymasks.com/timeline.htm Greek & Roman Mask Timeline] Category:Theatre Category:Arts ja:ドラマ ko:드라마

La Fontaine

Fontaine is a French word meaning fountain or natural spring. Fontaine or Fontaines is the name or part of the name of several communes in France:
- Fontaine, in the Aube département
- Fontaine, in the Isère département
- Fontaine, in the Territoire de Belfort département
- Fontaine-au-Bois, in the Nord département
- Fontaine-au-Pire, in the Nord département
- Fontaine-Bellenger, in the Eure département
- Fontaine-Bonneleau, in the Oise département
- Fontaine-Chaalis, in the Oise département
- Fontaine-Chalendray, in the Charente-Maritime département
- Fontaine-Couverte, in the Mayenne département
- Fontaine-Denis-Nuisy, in the Marne département
- Fontaine-de-Vaucluse, in the Vaucluse département
- Fontaine-en-Bray, in the Seine-Maritime département
- Fontaine-en-Dormois, in the Marne département
- Fontaine-Étoupefour, in the Calvados département
- Fontaine-Fourches, in the Seine-et-Marne département
- Fontaine-Française, in the Côte-d'Or département Fontaine is also the name of several persons:
- Joan Fontaine
- Just Fontaine
- Larry Phillip (Phil) Fontaine
- Phil Fontaine
- Jerry Fontaine La Fontaine is the name of several persons:
- Henri La Fontaine
- Jean de La Fontaine
- Oskar Lafontaine

Plato

Plato (Greek: Πλάτων Plátōn) (ca. May 21? 427 BC – ca. 347 BC) In his youth he was given the nickname Plato ("broad"), which referres to his athletic countenance, his wrestling stance. Born Aristocles, was an immensely influential classical Greek philosopher, student of Socrates, teacher of Aristotle, writer, and founder of the Academy in Athens. In countries speaking Arabic, Turkish, Persian, or Urdu, he is called Eflatun, which means a spring of water, and, metaphorically, of knowledge. Plato lectured extensively at the Academy, but he also wrote on many philosophical issues. The most important writings of Plato are his dialogues, although a handful of epigrams also survive, and some letters have come down to us under his name. It is believed that all of Plato's authentic dialogues survive. However, some dialogues ascribed to Plato by the Greeks are now considered by the consensus of scholars to be either suspect (e.g., First Alcibiades, Clitophon) or probably spurious (such as Demodocus, or the Second Alcibiades). Socrates is often a character in the dialogues of Plato. How much of the content and argument of any given dialogue is Socrates' point of view, and how much of it is Plato's, is heavily disputed. However, Plato was doubtless strongly influenced by Socrates' teachings, so many of the ideas presented, at least in his early works, were probably borrowings.

Biography

Plato was born in Athens or Aegina in May or December in 428 BC or 427 BC. He was raised in a moderately well-to-do aristocratic family. His father was named Ariston, and his mother Perictione. His family claimed descent from the ancient Athenian kings, and he was related—though there is disagreement as to exactly how—to the prominent politician Critias. Plato's own real name was Aristocles; his nickname, Plato, originated from wrestling. Since Plato means broad, it probably refers either to his physical appearance or to his wrestling stance or style. Plato became a pupil of Socrates in his youth, and—at least according to his own account—he attended his master's trial, though not his execution. He was deeply affected by the city's treatment of Socrates, and much of his early work records his memories of his teacher. It is suggested that much of his ethical writing is in pursuit of a society where similar injustices could not occur. Plato was also deeply influenced by a number of prior philosophers, including: the Pythagoreans, whose notions of numerical harmony have clear echoes in Plato's notion of the Forms; Anaxagoras, who taught Socrates and who held that the mind, or reason, pervades everything; and Parmenides, who argued for the unity of all things and may have influenced Plato's concept of the soul. When he was 40 years old, Plato founded one of the earliest known organized schools in Western civilization on a plot of land in the Grove of Academe. The Academy was "a large enclosure of ground which was once the property of a citizen at Athens named Academus... some, however, say that it received its name from an ancient hero" (Robinson, Arch. Graec. I i 16), and it operated until AD 529, when it was closed by Justinian I of Byzantium, who saw it as a threat to the propagation of Christianity. Many intellectuals were schooled in the Academy, the most prominent one being Aristotle.

Work

Aristotle.]]

Themes

Unlike Socrates, Plato wrote down his philosophical views, leaving behind a considerable number of manuscripts. In Plato's writings are debates concerning the best possible form of government, featuring adherents of aristocracy, democracy, monarchy as well as other issues. A central theme is the conflict between nature and convention, concerning the role of heredity and the environment on human intelligence and personality long before the modern "nature versus nurture" debate began in the time of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, with its modern continuation in such controversial works as The Mismeasure of Man and The Bell Curve. Another key distinction and theme in the Platonic corpus is the dichotomy between knowledge and opinion, which foreshadow modern debates between David Hume and Immanuel Kant, and has been taken up by postmodernists and their opponents, more commonly as the distinction between the 'objective' and the 'subjective'. Even the story of the lost city or continent of Atlantis came to us as an illustrative story told by Plato in his Timaeus and Critias.

Form and basis

Plato wrote mainly in the form known as dialogue. In the early dialogues, several characters discuss a topic by asking questions of one another. Socrates figures prominently, and a lively, more disorganized form of elenchos/dialectic is present; these are called the Socratic Dialogues. The nature of these dialogues changed a great deal over the course of Plato's life. It is generally agreed that Plato's earlier works are more closely based on Socrates' thought, whereas his later writing increasingly breaks away from the views of his former teacher. In the middle dialogues, Socrates becomes a mouthpiece for Plato's own philosophy, and the question-and-answer style is more pro forma: the main figure represents Plato and the minor characters have little to say except "yes", "of course" and "very true". The late dialogues read more like treatises, and Socrates is often absent or quiet. It is assumed that while some of the early dialogues could be based on Socrates' actual conversations, the later dialogues were written entirely by Plato. The question of which, if any, of the dialogues are truly Socratic is known as the Socratic problem. The ostensible mise-en-scene of a dialogue distances both Plato and a given reader from the philosophy being discussed; one can choose between at least two options of perception: either to participate in the dialogues, in the ideas being discussed, or choose to see the content as expressive of the personalities contained within the work. The dialogue format also allows Plato to put unpopular opinions in the mouth of unsympathetic characters, such as Thrasymachus in The Republic.

Metaphysics

:Main article: Platonic idealism Platonism has traditionally been interpreted as a form of metaphysical dualism, sometimes referred to as Platonic or Exaggerated Realism. According to this reading, Plato's metaphysics divides the world into two distinct aspects: the intelligible world of "forms", and the perceptual world we see around us. The perceptual world consists of imperfect copies of the intelligible forms or ideas. These forms are unchangeable and perfect, and are only comprehensible by the use of the intellect or understanding—i.e., a capacity of the mind that does not include sense-perception or imagination. This division can be found before Plato in Zoroastrian philosophy (6th century BC), in which the dichotomy is referenced as the Minu (intelligence) and Giti (perceptual) worlds. The Zoroastrian ideal city, Shahrivar, also exhibits certain similarities with Plato's Republic. Republic In the Republic Books VI and VII, Plato uses a number of metaphors to explain his metaphysical views: the metaphor of the sun, the well-known allegory of the cave, and most explicitly, the divided line. Taken together, these metaphors convey a complex, and, in places, difficult theory: there is something called The Form of the Good (often interpreted as Plato's God), which is the ultimate object of knowledge and which, as it were, sheds light on all the other forms (i.e., universals: abstract kinds and attributes), and from which all other forms "emanate". The Form of the Good does this in somewhat the same way as the sun sheds light on, or makes visible and "generates" things, in the perceptual world. (See Plato's metaphor of the sun) In the perceptual world, the particular objects we see around us bear only a dim resemblance to the more ultimately real forms of Plato's intelligible world; it is as if we are seeing shadows of cut-out shapes on the walls of a cave, which are mere representations of the reality outside the cave, illuminated by the sun. (See Plato's allegory of the cave) We can imagine everything in the universe represented on a line of increasing reality; it is divided once in the middle, and then once again in each of the resulting parts. The first division represents that between the intelligible and the perceptual worlds. This is followed by a corresponding division in each of these worlds: the segment representing the perceptual world is divided into segments representing "real things" on the one hand, and shadows, reflections and representations on the other. Similarly, the segment representing the intelligible world is divided into segments representing first principles and most general forms, on the one hand, and more derivative, "reflected" forms, on the other. (See the divided line of Plato) The form of government derived from this philosophy turns out to be one of a rigidly fixed hierarchy of hereditary social classes, in which the arts are mostly suppressed for the good of the state, the size of the city and its social classes is determined by mathematical formulae, and eugenic measures are applied secretly by rigging the lotteries in which the right to reproduce is allocated. The exact relationship of such a government to the lofty philosophy presented in the book has been debated. Plato's metaphysics, and particularly its dualism between the intelligible and the perceptual, would inspire later Neoplatonic thinkers, such as Plotinus and Gnostics, and many other metaphysical realists. Plato also influenced Saint Justin Martyr. For more on Platonic realism in general, see Platonic realism and the Forms. Although this interpretation of Plato's writings (particularly the Republic) has enjoyed immense popularity throughout the long history of Western philosophy, it is also possible to interpret his suggestions more conservatively, favoring a more epistemological than metaphysical reading of such famous metaphors as the Cave and the Divided Line. There are obvious parallels between the Cave allegory and the life of Plato's teacher Socrates (who was killed in his attempt to "open the eyes" of the Athenians), for example. This example reveals the dramatic complexity that often lies under the surface of Platos' writing (remember that in the Republic, it is Socrates who relates the story.).

Epistemology

Plato also had some influential opinions on the nature of knowledge and learning which he propounded in the Meno, which began with the question of whether virtue can be taught, and proceeded to expound the concepts of recollection, learning as the discovery of pre-existing knowledge, and right opinion, opinions which are correct but have no clear justification.

The state

Plato's philosophical views had many societal implications, especially on the idea of an ideal state or government. There is some discrepancy between his early and later views. Some of the most famous doctrines are contained in the Republic during his middle period. Plato asserts that individual people have three distinctive functions, just like the soul:
- Productive (Workers) - The laborers, carpenters, plumbers, masons, merchants, farmers, ranchers, etc. These correspond to the "appetite" part of the soul.
- Protective (Warriors) - Those who are adventurous, strong, brave, in love with danger; in the armed forces. These correspond to the "spirit" part of the soul.
- Governing (Rulers) - Those who are intelligent, rational, self-controlled, in love with wisdom, well suited to make decisions for the community. These correspond to the "reason" part of the soul and are very few. According to this model, the principles of Athenian democracy (as it existed in his day) are rejected as only a few are fit to rule. Instead of rhetoric and persuasion, Plato says reason and wisdom should govern. This does not equate to tyranny, despotism or oligarchy, however. As Plato puts it: :"Until philosophers rule as kings or those who are now called kings and leading men genuinely and adequately philosophize, that is, until political power and philosophy entirely coincide, while the many natures who at present pursue either one exclusively are forcibly prevented from doing so, cities will have no rest from evils,... nor, I think, will the human race." (Republic 473c-d) Plato describes these "philosopher kings" as "those who love the sight of truth" (Republic 475c) and supports the idea with the analogy of a captain and his ship or a doctor and his medicine. Sailing and health are not things that everyone is qualified to practice by nature. A large part of the Republic then addresses how the educational system should be set up to produce these philosopher kings.

Platonic scholarship

oligarchy Plato's thought is often compared with that of his most famous student, Aristotle, whose reputation during the Western Middle Ages so completely eclipsed that of Plato that the Scholastic philosophers referred to Aristotle as "the Philosopher". However, in the Byzantine Empire, the study of Plato continued. The Medieval scholastic philosophers did not have access to the works of Plato—nor the knowledge of Greek needed to read them. Plato's original writings were essentially lost to Western civilization until they were brought from Constantinople in the century before its fall, by George Gemistos Plethon. Medieval scholars knew of Plato only through translations into Latin from the translations into Arabic by Persian and Arab scholars. These scholars not only translated the texts of the ancients, but expanded them by writing extensive commentaries and interpretations on Plato's and Aristotle's works (see Al-Farabi, Avicenna, Averroes). Only in the Renaissance, with the general resurgence of interest in classical civilization, did knowledge of Plato's philosophy become widespread again in the West. Many of the greatest early modern scientists and artists who broke with Scholasticism and fostered the flowering of the Renaissance, with the support of the Plato-inspired Lorenzo de Medici, saw Plato's philosophy as the basis for progress in the arts and sciences. By the 19th century, Plato's reputation was restored, and at least on par with Aristotle's. Notable Western philosophers have continued to examine Plato's work since that time, diverging from traditional academic approaches with their own philosophy as a basis. Nietzsche attacked Plato's moral and political theories, Heidegger expounded on Plato's obfuscation of Being, and Karl Popper argued in in The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945) that Plato's proposal for a government system in The Republic was prototypically totalitarian.

Bibliography

Plato's writings (most of them dialogues) have been published in several fashions; this has led to several conventions regarding the naming and referencing of Plato's texts. Those works ascribed to Plato that have a separate Wikipedia article can be found in :Category:Dialogues of Plato

By tetralogy

One tradition regarding the arrangement of Plato's texts is according to tetralogies. This scheme is ascribed by Diogenes Laertius to an ancient scholar and court astrologer to Tiberius named Thrasyllus. In the list below, works by Plato are marked (1) if there is no consensus among scholars as to whether Plato is the author, and (2) if scholars generally agree that Plato is not the author of the work. Unmarked works are assumed to have been written by Plato.

Tetralogies

- I. Euthyphro, (The) Apology (of Socrates), Crito, Phaedo
- II. Cratylus, Theaetetus, Sophist, Statesman
- III. Parmenides, Philebus, (The) Symposium, Phaedrus
- IV. First Alcibiades (1), Second Alcibiades (2), Hipparchus (2), (The) (Rival) Lovers (2)
- V. Theages (2), Charmides, Laches, Lysis
- VI. Euthydemus, Protagoras, Gorgias, Meno
- VII. (Greater) Hippias (major) (1), (Lesser) Hippias (minor), Ion, Menexenus
- VIII. Clitophon (1), (The) Republic, Timaeus, Critias
- IX. Minos (2), (The) Laws, Epinomis (2), Letters (1)

Works not in tetralogies

The remaining works were transmitted under Plato's name, most of them already considered spurious in antiquity:
- Axiochus (2), Definitions (2), Demodocus (2), Epigrams, Eryxias (2), Halcyon (2), On Justice (2), On Virtue (2), Sisyphus (2)

Stephanus pagination

The usual system for making unique references to sections of the text by Plato derives from a 16th century edition of Plato's works by Henricus Stephanus. An overview of Plato's writings according to this system can be found in the Stephanus pagination article.

Loeb Classical Library

James Loeb provided a very popular edition of Plato's works, still in print in the 21st century: see Loeb Classical Library#Plato for how Plato's works were named in Loeb's publications.

References

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- Oxford University Press publishes scholarly editions of Plato's Greek texts in the Oxford Classical Texts series, and some translations in the Clarendon Plato Series.
- Harvard University Press publishes the hardbound series Loeb Classical Library, containing Plato's works in Greek, with English translations on facing pages.
- [http://www.lesbelleslettres.com Les Belles Lettres] also publishes Plato's complete works in Greek with French translations.

External links

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- [http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/authrec?fk_authors=93 Works by Plato] at Project Gutenberg
- [http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/authrec?fk_authors=688 Spurious and doubtful works] at Project Gutenberg
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- [http://www.philosophicalsociety.com/Archives/Plato%20And%20The%20Theory%20Of%20Forms.htm "Plato & The Theory of Forms," at Philosophical Society.com]
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
- [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato/ Plato]
- [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato-ethics/ Plato's Ethics]
- [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato-friendship/ Friendship and Eros]
- [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato-metaphysics/ Middle Period Metaphysics and Epistemology]
- [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato-utopia/ Plato on Utopia]
- [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato-rhetoric/ Rhetoric and Poetry]
- Other Articles
- [http://www.philosophicalsociety.com/Archives/The%20Platonic%20Conception%20of%20Philosophy.htm "The Platonic Conception of Philosophy"] Category:427 BC births Category:347 BC deaths Category:Ancient Athenians Category:Ancient Greek philosophers Category:Classical Humanists Category:Famous drinkers Category:Platonism ko:플라톤 ms:Plato ja:プラトン simple:Plato th:เพลโต

Thought

Thought or thinking is a mental process which allows beings to model the world, and so to deal with it effectively according to their goals, plans, ends and desires. Concepts in our language, which are akin to thought are cognition, sentience, consciousness, idea, and imagination. As of yet, the english language has not coined more specific words for the exact experiences and endeavors people do in their minds on a daily basis. Thinking involves manipulation of information, as when we form concepts, engage in problem solving, reason and make decisions. Thinking is a higher cognitive function and the analysis of thinking processes is part of cognitive psychology. The basic mechanics of the human mind reflect a process of pattern matching. In a Moment of Reflection, new situations and new experiences are judged against recalled ones and judgements are made. In order to make these judgements the intellect maintains present experience and sorts relevant past experience. It does this while keeping present and past experience distinct and seperate. Animals can't do that, so they can't make those judgements. They depend on instincts. The intellect can mix, match, merge, sift and sort concepts, perceptions and experience. This process is called reasoning. Logic is the science of reasoning. The awareness of this process of reasoning is access consciousness ( see philosopher Ned Block). The imagination performs a different function. It combines the reasoning intellect with your feelings, intuitions and emotions. This is magical or irrational thinking, depending on your point of view. Thinking can be modelled by a field ( like a mathematical representation of an electro-magnetic field, but with each point in the field a point of consciousness) . Paterns are formed and judgements are made within the field. Some philosophers ( panpsychists/ panexperientialists- see wikibook on consciousness) believe the entire field is conscious in and of itself, a consciousness field. They say consciousness creates thinking, thinking and other brain processes do not create consciousness. Other scientist (for ex. Bernard Baars ) think of it as a workspace. No scientist claims to understand how we are conscious. Other philosophers ( ex. Thomas Nagel) have said they do not have a clue as to how we are aware of our thinking.

Aids/pitfalls to thinking

#Use of

Dialogue

Literature

Philosophy/Theology

See also

References

Conversation

Conversational Phenomena

Types of Conversation

Topics of Conversation

Famous Conversations

Literature on Conversation

See also

External links

Greek language

History

Classification

Geographic distribution

Official status

Phonology

Vowel sounds

Rhetoric

History

Introduction

Ancient Greece

The Sophists

Aristotle

Roman rhetoricians

Rhetoric from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment

Sixteenth century

Seventeenth century

Modern developments

Current state of rhetorical study

See also

Rhetorical remedies

References

Primary texts

External links

Drama

The problem with the term

Greek drama

The importance of Playing

Drama as a tool for education

Workshops

The difference between drama and theatre

See also

External links

La Fontaine

Plato

Biography

Work

Themes

Form and basis

Metaphysics

Epistemology

The state

Platonic scholarship

Bibliography

By tetralogy

Tetralogies

Works not in tetralogies

Stephanus pagination

Loeb Classical Library

See also

References

External links

Thought

Aids/pitfalls to thinking