Isocrates
Among the most influential Greek rhetoricians of his time, Isocrates made many contributions to rhetoric and education through his teaching and written works.
Within two generations, rhetoric had become an important art, its growth driven by social and political changes such as democracy and courts of law.
[2] He passed his youth in a period following the death of Pericles, a time in which "wealth – both public and private – was dissipated", and "political decision were ill-conceived and violent" according to the 2020 Encyclopedia Britannica.
[6] Late in his life, he married a woman named Plathane (daughter of the sophist Hippias) and adopted Aphareus (writer), one of her sons by a previous marriage.
He played no direct part in state affairs, but he published many pamphlets which influenced the public and provide significant insight into major political issues of the day.
Isocrates described rhetoric as "that endowment of our human nature which raises us above mere animality and enables us to live the civilized life.
He promoted broad-based education by speaking against two types of teachers: the Eristics, who disputed about theoretical and ethical matters, and the Sophists, who taught political debate techniques.
He emphasized that students needed three things to learn: a natural aptitude which was inborn, knowledge training granted by teachers and textbooks, and applied practices designed by educators.
Rather than delineating static rules, Isocrates stressed "fitness for the occasion," or kairos (the rhetor's ability to adapt to changing circumstances and situations).
His school lasted for over fifty years, in many ways establishing the core of liberal arts education as we know it today, including oratory, composition, history, citizenship, culture, and morality.
[15] For the extent of the rest of the oration, Isocrates advises Nicocles of ways to improve his nature, such as the use of education and studying the best poets and sages.
Isocrates uncritically applauds Euagoras for forcibly taking the throne of Salamis and continuing rule until his assassination in 374 BC.
Ten years later Isocrates wrote a letter to Archidamus, now the king of Sparta, urging him to reconcile the Greeks, stopping their wars with each other so that they could end the insolence of the Persians.
[16] At the end of the Social War in 355 BC, 80-year-old Isocrates wrote an oration addressed to the Athenian assembly entitled On the Peace; Aristotle called it On the Confederacy.
The Spartans, however, needed an interpreter to clear up any misunderstandings of double meanings which might lie concealed beneath the surface of complicated words.
This text is important to scholars' understanding of literacy in Sparta because it indicates that Spartans were able to read and that they often put written documents to use in their public affairs.
[citation needed] Although Isocrates has been largely marginalized in the history of philosophy,[17] his contributions to the study and practice of rhetoric have received more attention.
[20] Isocrates' work has also been described as proto-Pragmatist, owing to his assertion that rhetoric makes use of probable knowledge with the aim resolving real problems in the world.
[17][21] Isocrates' innovations in the art of rhetoric paid closer attention to expression and rhythm than any other Greek writer, though because his sentences were so complex and artistic, he often sacrificed clarity.
