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

1. Aspasia and Aristotle:The First Lady and the Father of Greek Rhetoric November 6, 2006 Grace Bernhardt and Shreelina Ghosh

2. Aspasia’s 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” (J&O, 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

3. Aspasia’s 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?

4. Aspasia’s Background • Teacher of Rhetoric • Helped Pericles compose Funeral Oration • Kennedy makes no reference to Aspasia’s 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.” (B&H, 59) • None of her texts have survived

5. Aspasia in Classical Sources • Several paragraphs of narrative in Plutarch’s life of Pericles • Oration attributed to her in Plato’s dialogue Menexenus • Allusions to Aspasia also made by four of Socrates’ pupils • In works by Athenaeus • Dialogue attributed to her by Xenophon

6. Jarratt and Ong’s 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” (J&O, 10)

7. Bizzell and Herzberg’s 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!)

8. Jarratt and Ong’s Motivating Questions • “Did Aspasia exist?” • “If so, can she be known?” • “And then, is that knowledge communicable?” (9)

9. Bizzell and Herzberg’s 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?

10. Jarratt and Ong’s Methods • A review of the classic sources • An overview of the current commentary • An undertaking of interpretive histiographical tasks

11. Bizzell and Herzberg’s Methods • Presentation and analysis of historical texts referencing Aspasia

12. Aspasia in Plato’s 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.” (B&H, 58)

13. Interpreting Plato’s Representation • Bloedow sees Aspasia as representative of rhetoric and democracy (J&O, 17) • Jarratt and Ong look at Aspasia as “at the intersection of the axes of gender and colonialism” (J&O, 18)

14. 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.” (J&O, 18) • On one level, Plato seems to expand conception of female • Closer reading shows reversal

15. Gender in Menexenus • Plato’s attribution of epitaphios to a female author emphasizes the purpose of women: to reproduce warriors (J&O, 18) • Autochthony – the conception that men were born directly from the soil of Athens • Aspasia’s oration talks at length about autochthony—Plato “forc[es] her to testify to her own devaluation as a female.” (B&H, 58)

16. Gender in Menexenus • Jarratt and Ong contend that Plato’s choice to include Aspasia as author of oration serves to downplay woman’s 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)

17. 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

18. 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.” (J&O, 21) • Aspasia represents the “stranger,” “sojourner,” and “woman” all at once

19. 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 person’s 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?

20. Pandora’s 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)

21. 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 Plato’s death Sources: Aristotle, pages 169-240 of Bizzell and Herzberg, Chapter 9: Rhetoric in Greece and Rome, Kennedy

22. Aristotle’s Rhetorical Theory • Artistic proofs • Logos • Enthymeme • Maxim • Example • Pathos • Ethos • Inartistic proofs

23. Inventio • Topoi • Special group • Common group • Stasis • Conjectural • Definitional • Quantitative • Translative

24. Aristotle’s Three Types of Speeches • Forensic speeches • Deliberative speeches • Epideictic or ceremonial speeches

25. The Five Canons • Invention • Arrangement • Style • Memory • Delivery

26. Aristotle’s Rhetoric • Never published in Aristotle’s 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

27. Three Books of RHETORIC Book One: Definition and Kinds of Rhetoric Book Two: Kinds of Proofs Book Three: Delivery

28. 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 Atwill’s 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 Epistēmē … Praxis … Poiēsis

29. Aristotle’s 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 Aristotle’s Rhetoric and the Theory/Practice Binary by Janet M. Atwill

30. Aristotle’s 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

31. Aristotle’s Taxonomy of Knowledge • Practical knowledge • Study of ethics and politics • Directed toward the end of eudaimonia • Concerned with action and human behavior

32. Aristotle’s 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)

33. 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)

34. Atwill’s 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,” Aristotle’s greatest contribution to rhetoric may have been his willingness to allow it these two failures.” (164)

35. 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 forms—theoretical and practical • Binary then overshadows the triad and productive knowledge gets left out

36. The Theory/Practice Binary • Gayatri Spivak writes in Explanation and Culture: Marginalia {JAC 10.2 (1990)}, Aristotle’s techne is a “dynamic and undecidable middle term” between theory and practice. • Can writing bridge the binary?

37. 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

38. Grimaldi and Rhetoric as Theoretical Knowledge • Rhetoric’s 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. • Aristotle’s 28 koinoi topoi are ways in which the mind naturally and readily reasons.

39. Aristotle’s Application of Criteria • Aristotle’s definition of rhetoric emphasizes that rhetorical knowledge is contingent on context, time, and history (175) • “rhetoric must conform to the key criterion of productive knowledge—the capacity to be ‘otherwise’” (175) • Aristotle’s triangular relationship between the speaker, subject and audience makes clear relationship of rhetoric and productive knowledge with social exchange

40. 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

41. Robyn’s 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.

42. 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

43. Aristotle wins! • Philosophy has taken Aristotle’s definition • Aristotle’s 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)

44. 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

45. Ideal States: Plato v. Aristotle • Plato believes the philosopher/king rules in ideal republic; compromise state is ruled by laws • Aristotle’s 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 state’s order

46. Analyzing Orators

47. 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 Aristotle’s three types of speeches? • In what ways could the orator strengthen their speech in Aristotle’s opinion?