Political Theory between Philosophy and Rhetoric: Politics as Transcendence and Contingency (Rhetoric, Politics and Society)

This book explores the significance of rhetoric from the perspective of its complex relationship with philosophy. It demonstrates how this relationship gives expression to a basic tension at the core of politics: that between the contingency of its happening and the transcendence toward which it strives. The first part of the study proposes a reassessment of the ancient quarrel between philosophy and rhetoric, as it was discussed by Plato, Aristotle, and above all Cicero and Quintilian, who ambitiously attempted to bring them together creating an ideal that is at the roots of the humanist tradition. It then moves to twentieth-century political theory and shows how the questions that emerge from that quarrel still strongly resonate in the works of key thinkers such as H. Arendt, L. Strauss, and R. Rorty. The volume thus offers an original contribution that locates itself at the intersection of politics, rhetoric, and philosophy Acknowledgments 6 Contents 8 Chapter 1: Introduction 10 Part I 20 Chapter 2: Between Philosophy and Rhetoric: Plato and Aristotle 21 2.1 Introduction: Philosophy Against Rhetoric? 21 2.2 Plato’s Paradigmatic Critique of Rhetoric on Behalf of Philosophy 25 2.3 Aristotle’s Full Revaluation of Rhetoric 34 Chapter 3: The Union of Philosophy and Rhetoric: Cicero and Quintilian 59 3.1 Introduction: Bringing Philosophy and Rhetoric Together 59 3.2 Cicero: Eloquence as a Political, Ethical, and Existential Ideal 62 3.3 Quintilian’s Institutio oratoria and the Rhetorical Formation of the Self 72 Part II 92 Chapter 4: Politics as Transcendence: Leo Strauss 93 4.1 Introduction 93 4.2 The Modern Oblivion of Eternity 96 4.3 The Recovery of Classical Philosophy: From Contingency to Transcendence 103 4.4 Strauss’s Philosophical Rhetoric: Or on the Art of Writing Between the Lines 108 Chapter 5: Politics as Contingency: Richard Rorty 125 5.1 Introduction 125 5.2 Rorty’s Humanism: The Priority of Language and Politics over Truth and Philosophy 130 5.3 Rorty’s Antihumanism and the Unpersuasiveness of the Public/Private Division 136 5.4 At the Bottom of Rorty’s Public/Private Division 143 Chapter 6: Politics as Transcendence and Contingency: Hannah Arendt 154 6.1 Introduction 154 6.2 Arendt’s Political Critique of Philosophy 158 6.3 Politics Between Contingency and Transcendence 160 6.4 Politics as Judgment and Persuasion 170 6.5 Conclusion: Politics Between Distinction and Deliberation, Agonism and Persuasion 176 Chapter 7: Afterword 187 Bibliography 191 Index 210 Front Matter ....Pages i-viii Introduction (Giuseppe Ballacci)....Pages 1-10 Front Matter ....Pages 11-11 Between Philosophy and Rhetoric: Plato and Aristotle (Giuseppe Ballacci)....Pages 13-50 The Union of Philosophy and Rhetoric: Cicero and Quintilian (Giuseppe Ballacci)....Pages 51-83 Front Matter ....Pages 85-85 Politics as Transcendence: Leo Strauss (Giuseppe Ballacci)....Pages 87-118 Politics as Contingency: Richard Rorty (Giuseppe Ballacci)....Pages 119-147 Politics as Transcendence and Contingency: Hannah Arendt (Giuseppe Ballacci)....Pages 149-181 Afterword (Giuseppe Ballacci)....Pages 183-186 Back Matter ....Pages 187-215 Annotation Exploring the significance of rhetoric from the perspective of its complex relationship with philosophy, this book demonstrates how this relationship gives expression to a basic tension at the core of politics: that between the contingency of its happening and the transcendence toward which it strives. Ballacci proposes a reassessment of the ancient quarrel between philosophy and rhetoric, as it was discussed by Plato, Aristotle, and above all Cicero and Quintilian, who ambitiously attempted to bring them together creating an ideal that is at the roots of the humanist tradition