Aspasia and Aristotle: The First Lady and the Father of Greek Rhetoric

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Aspasia and AristotleThe First Lady and the
Father of Greek Rhetoric

• November 6, 2006
• Grace Bernhardt and Shreelina Ghosh

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Aspasias Background

• Non-Athenian Greek female
• From Miletus, one of the Greek colonies in Ionia
• it is logical to assume that she came in contact
  with early philosophical thought in some form
  (JO, 10)
• Arrived in Athens in mid-440s B.C.E.

Sources Aspasia Rhetoric, Gender, and Colonial
Ideology by Susan Jarratt and Rory OngAspasia,
pages 56-66 of Bizzell and Herzberg
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Aspasias Background

• Companion of Pericles, the democratic leader of
  Athens
• As foreigner, forbidden from marrying Pericles
• Jarrat and Ong claim she did not fit categories
  for Athenian women of wives, concubines,
  hetaerae, or prostitutes often mislabeled a
  mistress or courtesan
• Did she run a house of prostitution? Was she a
  courtesan or hetaera? Does it matter?

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Aspasias Background

• Teacher of Rhetoric
• Helped Pericles compose Funeral Oration
• Kennedy makes no reference to Aspasias influence
  when describing the Funeral Oration attributed to
  Pericles (204)
• Taught Socrates (?)
• Developed the Socratic method (?)
• It is easy to imagine that such an indirect
  method originated with a woman who was legally
  powerless, in a compromised and vulnerable
  position, but who attempted to advise and
  influence men of great power. (BH, 59)
• None of her texts have survived

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Aspasia in Classical Sources

• Several paragraphs of narrative in Plutarchs
  life of Pericles
• Oration attributed to her in Platos dialogue
  Menexenus
• Allusions to Aspasia also made by four of
  Socrates pupils
• In works by Athenaeus
• Dialogue attributed to her by Xenophon

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Jarratt and Ongs Purposes

• To reconstruct Aspasia as a rhetorician of
  fifth-century B.C.E. (9)
• Part of a larger goal of recovering women in the
  history of rhetoric (10)
• To argue that Aspasia marks the intersection of
  discourses on gender and colonialism, production
  and reproduction, rhetoric and philosophy (JO,
  10)

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Bizzell and Herzbergs Purposes

• To explore the complexity of the role of women in
  ancient Greece
• To explore and present historical texts which
  reference Aspasia
• To question how Aspasia, a woman with no
  surviving texts, can be included in a history of
  rhetoric (while acknowledging that no texts of
  Socrates exist either!)

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Jarratt and Ongs Motivating Questions

• Did Aspasia exist?
• If so, can she be known?
• And then, is that knowledge communicable? (9)

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Bizzell and Herzbergs Motivating Questions

• How can we explain the existence of a woman such
  as Aspasia in a Greek society that limited women
  to the home?
• Was Aspasia a hetaera when Pericles met her?
• How plausible is it that a woman could have
  possessed the skills that Aspasia did?

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Jarratt and Ongs Methods

• A review of the classic sources
• An overview of the current commentary
• An undertaking of interpretive histiographical
  tasks

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Bizzell and Herzbergs Methods

• Presentation and analysis of historical texts
  referencing Aspasia

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Aspasia in Platos Menexenus

• Dialogue between Socrates and Menexenus
• Socrates acknowledges that Aspasia was his
  teacher and that she composed funeral orations
• The oration attributed to Aspasia is exaggerated
  in style, with just the sorts of embellishments
  that Socrates elsewhere condemns, and full of
  historical errors that create an absurdly
  positive view of Athens. (BH, 58)

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Interpreting Platos Representation

• Bloedow sees Aspasia as representative of
  rhetoric and democracy (JO, 17)
• Jarratt and Ong look at Aspasia as at the
  intersection of the axes of gender and
  colonialism (JO, 18)

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Gender in Menexenus

• Reading the literary text against the social
  text, we find Plato giving voice to a woman at a
  time when women were mostly denied public voice,
  and fixed most effectively in the role of
  reproduction. (JO, 18)
• On one level, Plato seems to expand conception of
  female
• Closer reading shows reversal

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Gender in Menexenus

• Platos attribution of epitaphios to a female
  author emphasizes the purpose of women to
  reproduce warriors (JO, 18)
• Autochthony the conception that men were born
  directly from the soil of Athens
• Aspasias oration talks at length about
  autochthonyPlato forces her to testify to her
  own devaluation as a female. (BH, 58)

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Gender in Menexenus

• Jarratt and Ong contend that Platos choice to
  include Aspasia as author of oration serves to
  downplay womans power and creativity
• Bizzell and Herzberg present alternative view
  Other scholars, however propose that Socrates
  really did admire Aspasia and that Plato is doing
  no more than poking fun at this admiration.
  (58-59)

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Colonial Ideology in Menexenus

• Plato emphasizes autochthony
• True mother for Athenians (whole) and
  stepmother for others (fractured)
• Ideology hides unequal power relations between
  men and women and the power of cultural dominance

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Colonial Ideology in Menexenus

• Defining the norm through a polar opposition
  wipes out difference within each pole,
  differences that, in this case, expose the
  relations of production in an imperialist
  economy. (JO, 21)
• Aspasia represents the stranger, sojourner,
  and woman all at once

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Questions to Ponder

• Bizzell and Herzberg conclude that
• If indeed she did teach Socrates the so-called
  Socratic method, her contribution to the history
  of both philosophy and rhetoric is far-ranging.
  At the very least, recognizing her activity here
  erects a monument to the rhetorical labors of
  Aspasia and other classical women and marks the
  spot where a more substantial edifice may be
  built if the search for textual remains succeeds.
  (59)
• Is it necessary for a rhetorician or philosopher
  to contribute a method or theory in order to be
  included in history?
• Are textual remains necessary for understanding a
  persons role in history?
• How might we piece together the contributions of
  women to Greek rhetoric in light of the fact that
  few, if any, artifacts have survived?

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Pandoras Box The Roles of Women in Ancient
Greece

• Lecturer Ellen B. Reeder, curator of the Walters
  Art Gallery in Baltimore
• Fall of 1995 exhibit with accompanying catalogue
• Reviews the lives of Greek women and their
  portrayal in art (mostly pottery)

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Aristotle

• 384-322 B.C.E.
• Born to Greek parents in the Macedonian town of
  Stagira around the time Plato opened the Academy
  in Athens
• Entered Academy at 17 years old
• Stayed on as teacher, leaving 20 years later upon
  Platos death

Sources Aristotle, pages 169-240 of Bizzell and
Herzberg, Chapter 9 Rhetoric in Greece and Rome,
Kennedy
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Aristotles Rhetorical Theory

• Artistic proofs
• Logos
• Enthymeme
• Maxim
• Example
• Pathos
• Ethos
• Inartistic proofs

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Inventio

• Topoi
• Special group
• Common group
• Stasis
• Conjectural
• Definitional
• Quantitative
• Translative

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Aristotles Three Types of Speeches

• Forensic speeches
• Deliberative speeches
• Epideictic or ceremonial speeches

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The Five Canons

• Invention
• Arrangement
• Style
• Memory
• Delivery

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Aristotles Rhetoric

• Never published in Aristotles lifetime
• Most likely not intended for publication
• Began as notes for rhetoric classes in the
  Academy
• Divided into three books
• Published (hand-copied) for the first time by
  Andronicus of Rhodes around 83 B.C.E.
• First printed edition published in 1475 B.C.E. by
  George of Trebizond

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Three Books of RHETORIC
Book One Definition and Kinds of Rhetoric Book
Two Kinds of Proofs Book Three Delivery
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Questions for Discussion

• Rhetoric is a productive knowledge in that it
  does " 'produce' persuasion, speeches, and
  texts' but as a discipline concerned with "
  'seeing' the available means of persuasion (thus
  not necessarily of using them),' rhetoric also
  maintains a theoretical aspect.
• Janet Atwills review of Classical Rhetoric
  Its Christian and Secular Tradition (U of North
  Carolina P, 1980) by George A. Kennedy
• Discussion Prompt Practical, Theoretical and
  Productive aspects of Rhetoric

Episteme Praxis Poiesis
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Aristotles eudaimonia

• Eudaimonia translates as happiness or the good
  life
• For Aristotle, distribution of eudaimonia is not
  equal
• Aristotle wrestles over whether eudaimonia is an
  activity or a state

Sources Aristotle and the Boundaries of the Good
Life and Aristotles Rhetoric and the
Theory/Practice Binary by Janet M. Atwill
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Aristotles Taxonomy of Knowledge

• Theoretical knowledge
• Philosophy
• Metaphysics, math, natural sciences
• Highest knowledge
• Actual knowledge that is identical with its
  object
• Contemplation of the notion of an end, or telos
• Pursued for no practical or utilitarian end

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Aristotles Taxonomy of Knowledge

• Practical knowledge
• Study of ethics and politics
• Directed toward the end of eudaimonia
• Concerned with action and human behavior

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Aristotles Taxonomy of Knowledge

• Productive knowledge
• Technai of architecture, navigation, medicine,
  and rhetoric (?)
• Concerned with the contingent or what can be
  otherwise (173)
• Implicated in social and economic exchange
• Purposeful knowledge resistant to determinate
  ends
• Productive knowledge always remains in exchange
  because its end is in the user as opposed to the
  artistic construct. (174)

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Where does rhetoric fit?

• Atwill argues that it is easy to exclude rhetoric
  from theoretical knowledge because such knowledge
  is concerned with day-to-day functions of the
  state
• It is harder to separate rhetoric from practical
  knowledge because that means saying rhetoric is
  distinct from ethics and an aim at the good life
  (163)

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Atwills Placement of Rhetoric

• Atwill argues we should place rhetoric in
  productive knowledge
• while it may seem strange to praise rhetoric for
  failing either to consist of the highest
  knowledge or to be driven by the end of the good
  life, Aristotles greatest contribution to
  rhetoric may have been his willingness to allow
  it these two failures. (164)

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Theory/Practice Binary

• Atwill states that the greatest barrier to
  understanding productive knowledge is the modern
  opposition of theory to practice (164)
• This binary causes thought to have only two
  formstheoretical and practical
• Binary then overshadows the triad and productive
  knowledge gets left out

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The Theory/Practice Binary

• Gayatri Spivak writes in Explanation and Culture
  Marginalia JAC 10.2 (1990), Aristotles techne
  is a dynamic and undecidable middle term
  between theory and practice.
• Can writing bridge the binary?

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Productive knowledge and rhetoric

• Cope art must be a form of productive knowledge,
  but rhetoric is more of a practical knowledge
• Lobkowicz notes that rhetoric is compared to
  medicine as a kind of productive knowledge
• Grimaldi dismisses domain of productive
  knowledge and puts rhetoric in theoretical domain

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Grimaldi and Rhetoric as Theoretical Knowledge

• Rhetorics relationship to philosophy and ethics
  strongly indebted to structural linguistics
• Enthymeme is the general method of reasoning
  and unites the three rhetorical proofs of ethos,
  pathos and logos.
• Probabilities can be sufficiently rooted to
  object reality to make an inference from eikos.
• Aristotles 28 koinoi topoi are ways in which the
  mind naturally and readily reasons.

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Aristotles Application of Criteria

• Aristotles definition of rhetoric emphasizes
  that rhetorical knowledge is contingent on
  context, time, and history (175)
• rhetoric must conform to the key criterion of
  productive knowledgethe capacity to be
  otherwise (175)
• Aristotles triangular relationship between the
  speaker, subject and audience makes clear
  relationship of rhetoric and productive knowledge
  with social exchange

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Subjects of Productive Knowledge

• Subjects of productive knowledge are redefined by
  their use of techne and act of social exchange
• Techne can never be private property therefore,
  users and makers of techne cannot be private,
  stable entities (185)
• Subjects exist at point of competition
• Productive knowledge crosses boundaries of
  knowledge and subjectivity

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Robyns Journal Comment

• Anyway, I also think this quote contradicts
  Kennedy's general belief that rhetoric is
  conservative. I guess Atwill is not specifically
  talking about rhetoric, but she is saying that
  rhetoric is a techne and so it has these
  features, right? Anyway, it seems she is saying
  the opposite of Kennedy any techne, including
  rhetoric, is not in the business of "securing
  boundaries," but of "transgression and
  renegotiation." Subjects of productive knowledge
  are always crossing boundaries, always
  questioning.

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Philosophy Isocrates v. Aristotle

• Isocrates emphasizes the organizing power of
  philosophy and its ability to help us understand
  life does not separate philosophy from the art
  of discourse
• Aristotle philosophy is a higher order thinking
  available when necessities of life are fulfilled
  places rhetoric in the domain of techne rather
  than philosophy

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Aristotle wins!

• Philosophy has taken Aristotles definition
• Aristotles taxonomy left room for art and placed
  rhetoric in the domain of techne rather than
  philosophy
• Atwill states that What is lost in the taxonomy,
  however, is the sense of the art of rhetoric as a
  valued mode of intervention into existing
  conditions and a means for the invention of new
  possibilities. (189)

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Ideal States Plato v. Aristotle

• Both are confronted with problem of how to
  distribute rights, benefits and honors in a state
  in which both order and value are defined by
  class function. (178)
• For Aristotle, distribution of eudaimonia is not
  equal. Aristotle wrestles over whether eudaimonia
  is an
• activity or a state

Aristotle and Plato School of Athens by Raphael
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Ideal States Plato v. Aristotle

• Plato believes the philosopher/king rules in
  ideal republic compromise state is ruled by laws
• Aristotles ideal is aristocracy compromise
  state is a polity (mixed constitution that gives
  political responsibility to the middle class)
• Plato relies on technai to define hierarchy of
  state
• Aristotle relies on eudaimonia as basis for
  states order

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Analyzing Orators
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Questions to Guide your Analysis

• What appeals or strategies does the orator use in
  their speech to convince their audience?
• What topoi does the orator use?
• What type of speech is this, according to
  Aristotles three types of speeches?
• In what ways could the orator strengthen their
  speech in Aristotles opinion?