The Selected Writings of Pierre Hadot by Hadot Pierre; Sharpe Matthew; Testa Federico

Author:Hadot, Pierre; Sharpe, Matthew; Testa, Federico [Testa, Translated by Matthew Sharpe and Federico]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Published: 2020-04-28T00:00:00+00:00

4 Dialectic and rhetoric as parts of philosophy

We have presented above the radical opposition between Plato and Aristotle regarding the relations between rhetoric and dialectic, on the one hand, and philosophy, on the other. For Plato, philosophy was essentially dialectic: that is to say, communal research in dialogue, of the Truth of the forms which founds the very possibility of dialogue (and a philosophical rhetoric can only be grounded on this dialectic). For Aristotle, on the contrary, dialectic and particularly rhetoric are absolutely exterior to philosophy, given that they are but techniques of persuasion, and not sciences that would investigate a specific realm of reality. They start from common opinions rather than scientific principles. Instead of dialectic, philosophy should normally use the analytic,u a special method for scientific demonstration. Is it necessary to recall en passant that the creator of logic, in the modern sense of the word, never uses in his work the term ‘logic’ to designate a particular discipline, either dialectic or analytic?

The use of the word ‘logic’ to designate a specific part of philosophy only appears, for the first time, with the Stoics, who put it on the same plane as ethics and physics.v This Stoic logic, the science of human discourse, comprises two parts. On the one hand, there is rhetoric, defined by the Stoics as the science of speaking well; that is, of continuous discourse. On the other hand, there is dialectic, defined as the science of ‘discussing with rectitude’; which is to say, the science of dialogue or of discourse, insofar as it is broken down into questions and answers.76 The theory of this dialectic contains the following chapters, organized in a rigorous way:w

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