Sophisticated Skepticism
Precursors of Rhetoric
Parmenides
He is seen as monist (Stanford Phil.) as opposed to dualist or pluralist—so according to him there is “ONE fundamental reality or substance that constitutes the entirety of existence” (GPT).
So what is that reality/substance for Parmenides? Looks like the answer is Alethia.
“On Nature” Objective Truth=ALETHIA vs. Subjective Truth=DOXA (where we get dox=opinion, heterodox, orthodox?)
Acknowledgement of female deity right away. Contrasts with Western Christian culture. “Justice holds the keys to retribution.” So, 1) Justice has a lot of power in the culture then as a female deity. 2) Retribution is acceptable and evidence of or maybe even the same thing as justice. 3) Christianity would challenge this. What other traditions challenge this? Accept this idea of retribution as equaling justice?
“…it is right that you should learn all things, both the persuasive, unshaken heart of Objective Truth, and the subjective beliefs of mortals, in which there is no true trust.”
Wisdom/knowledge flows from Justice in the work. I could see it working the other way—gain knowledge of truth and then one can know what Justice is.
Only two ways of thinking according to the text:
The first is the law of non-contradiction. And it seems to me like this is both an underpinning of Western philosophy and perhaps a fatal flaw—or at least a major weakness of Western philosophy when it comes to understanding and wrestling with deep matters of philosophy. Paradoxes do exist and the way we handle those as humans is important. Willing to entertain contradictions is something that I want to learn more about. I am hoping the book “A Guide for the Perplexed” (Schumacher) helps me with this. Question: What is the role of paradox in Western philosophy and modern rhetoric? Does it become a cop-out of sorts when one accepts dueling realities (truths)—or is it at least viewed that way from within the boundaries of the culture who is programmed to play the rhetoric game where there must be a winner and a loser?
It seems important to contrast the Eastern idea of paradox with the Western. (GPT) Paradoxes “may hold deeper truths that transcend conventional understanding. In Eastern philosophies, paradoxes are often used to provoke deeper thought, challenge dualistic thinking, and guide individuals toward a more profound understanding of reality.” ***So perhaps the Greeks understanding of reality was/is too rational. Is there meaning and a level of understanding beyond the rational? If so, we dismiss paradox and contradiction at a cost to ourselves.
GPT on Law of Non-contradiction: The phrase "it is and it is impossible for it not to be" is an example of a logical principle known as the Law of Non-Contradiction. This law is a fundamental principle of classical logic and philosophy and states that something cannot both be and not be at the same time and in the same respect.
In other words, the Law of Non-Contradiction asserts that a proposition and its negation (opposite) cannot both be true simultaneously. This principle forms the basis of rational thinking and coherent reasoning. It's a fundamental concept in various fields, including philosophy, mathematics, and logic, and is used to establish the consistency and validity of arguments and statements. …Both of these phrases illustrate the concept that something cannot simultaneously possess a property and its opposite.
“… it is not possible for nothing to be. I urge you to consider this last point, for I restrain you firstly from that path of inquiry.”
Challenge accepted, P. Is this kind of where Decartes distills everything down to with cogito ergo sum? He tries eliminating everything else, but cannot eliminate everything.
“For never shall this be proved: that things that are not are.”
I think we may be up against the limitations of language here. Maybe that tells us something about the logical nature of language and even the connection between logic and language contained in the very term logos.
Could the Greek to English translation be leaving a lot of context and meaning out or making this more difficult to read and process? Are we missing a lot of context and connotations here?
So the claim of Alethia is that there is just some stuff that cannot be argued about. This would provide some common ground for engaging in rhetoric in a group, but we see today how people do dispute what at least one sides holds as fact/objective truth. Is this the end result of rhetoric run amok?
DOXA: we already saw it referred to as untrustworthy. According to the intro, perceived reality is reality—or, all we have is our beliefs (subjectively experienced truths?) as our truth.
The idea of the aether seems important here. Is it the catch all for non-material, non-observable elements? Spiritual?
A continuation of the prioritizing of the feminine controlling force: “the goddess who governs everything. For she rules over hateful birth and union of all things, sending female to unite with male, and again conversely male with female. She devised Love first of all the gods.”
(Interestingly not Justice? Not wisdom? Not power/strength?) Is Love somehow more objectively feminine than those others, or is that simply encoded through culture? Is the maternal responsibility of the female what really informs our concept of love universally?
Is this materialist philosophy in a bit of a oversimplified, non-biology way? “According to the union within each person of disparate body parts, thus does mind emerge in humans.”
I am super interested in the theories of mind and how AI/LLMs intersect with and challenge these. The questions we may need to get to (as they relate to this text): Can a computer/machine experience either type of truth, objective or subjective? Parmenides says people only experience the latter. If a non-human consciousness differs from ours, we need to understand that in order to more effectively communicate with that entity. A new paper released last week explores the consciousness of AI: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2308.08708.pdf . (YouTube’s AI Explained gives run-down). Important point from that—(“they essentially say if you are reading this report on a screen you are having a conscious visual experience of the screen that is separated from sentience which is also sometimes used to mean being capable of pleasure or pain and they say that it's possible for a system to be sentient without being conscious by sensing its body or environment and it's possible for a system to be conscious without sensing its body or environment it also might be possible to be slightly conscious or conscious to a greater degree than humans Ilya Sutskever famously said it may be that today's large neural networks are slightly conscious and Carl Schulman and Nick Bostrom wrote an entire chapter of a book on the possibility that models become more conscious than human beings they say such beings could contribute immense value to the world and failing to respect their interests could produce a moral catastrophe…if silicon can be a replacement to carbon and if these analogies hold then there is a strong case that most or all of the conditions for Consciousness suggested by current computational theories can be met using existing Tech.”)
Gender Issues
“…for if, when the seed is mingled, the forces therein clash and do not fuse into one, then cruelly will they plague the offspring with a double-gender” There is plenty to discuss culturally here. Some cultures would see double gender as a blessing, not a plague. Native American idea of two-spirit people, for example.” https://www.ihs.gov/lgbt/health/twospirit/#:~:text=Traditionally%2C%20Native%20American%20two%2Dspirit,a%20distinct%2C%20alternative%20gender%20status.
” She placed young males on the right side of the womb, young females on the left.” Significance? Was one side a preferred side or is this arbitrary?
From Pullman notes: Sophisticated rhetoric's key terms are temporary, ephemeral, contextual, and local. (as in the sophists’ rhetoric? Or some newer conception leveraging the root?)
Thucydides
…wrote the “Pericles’s Funeral Oration”—a transcription (translation?) which presents many potential problems related to truth and rhetoric (motivations esp.). The type of rhetorical example here is…
GPT: “"Epideictic" refers to a type of rhetoric or speech that is centered around praise, blame, or the demonstration of values. Also known as "demonstrative rhetoric," epideictic rhetoric is often used in ceremonial or ceremonial-like settings to celebrate, honor, or critique individuals, events, or ideals. It's one of the three classical branches of rhetoric, alongside deliberative and forensic rhetoric.”
Sophists
Question: When did the term sophist become a pejorative? Did the sophists ever recover or did rhetoric become irreputable business forever after a point in history?
GPT says: the term "sophist" acquired a pejorative sense during ancient times due to philosophical disagreements and concerns about their methods. While the negative perception persisted for some time, more recent scholarship has led to a reevaluation of their contributions and a more nuanced understanding of their role in the development of rhetoric, philosophy, and critical thinking.
Sophist: (from Wikipedia) teacher in ancient Greece in the fifth and fourth centuries BC. Sophists specialized in one or more subject areas, such as philosophy, rhetoric, music, athletics and mathematics. They taught arete, "virtue" or "excellence", predominantly to young statesmen and nobility.
Am I a modern sophist? Do we want these in our culture? Do we need these? Has the modern capitalist machine destroyed the value and respect of what a sophist tried to do? Has the modern higher ed system moved away completely from the goal of making more virtuous people? …mostly. Do I want to hold what ground is left? Is it even safe for me to do so? Erosion of tenure. Is it worth it?
Protagoras:
--first professional sophist according to Plato. Contributes to the foundations of sophisticated skepticism.
(I have to just copy from gpullman.com on Protagoras. I can’t distill or add much beyond what is there.)
Humanism (?) -- "Man is the measure of all things--of things that are, that they are; of things that are not, that they are not."
Contextual relativism -- "men, he says, apprehend different things at different times owing to their differing dispositions."
Perspectivism -- "Protagoras was the first to say that on every issue there are two arguments opposed to each other; these he made use of in arguing by the method of questioning, a practice he originated." Perhaps Protagoras was the first to assert that one should be able argue both sides of a case, which became a standard rhetorical method of assessment and standard to inquiry. As a trial lawyer of today would tell you, never ask a question you don't know the answer to.
Agnosticism -- "Concerning the gods, I cannot know either that they exist or that they do not exist; for there is much to prevent one's knowing: the obscurity of the subject and the shortness of man's life."
Careerism (?) "Protagoras was the first man to exact a fee of a hundred minas. He was also the first to distinguish the tenses of the verb, to expound the importance of the right moment (kairos), to conduct debates, and to introduce disputants to the tricks of argument."
Gorgias
—the sophist with (too much?) style (rhythmic and poetic with prose)
Do we want “sue for peace” in the first paragraph—instead of piece?
Exegesis: (*GPT) systematic and critical interpretation or analysis of a text
Gorgias shows “…language and reality, linguistic representation of ontology is merely representative. Words are not things, but people forget this if they ever knew it and so are convinced that imaginary beasts exist, "beast" here being a metaphor for the whole content of human understanding. Rhetoric is as powerful as it is because people think words are things or that they actually represent things” (Pullman). Example: if someone uses a slur unwittingly and without malice, we can see the power of the *use of the word by the effects on others. Maybe yelling “fire” illustrates this too?
“Plato who used his representation of Gorgias to promote dialectic, the practice of identifying and securing consensus about what is true through disciplined discourse.” (Pullman) –Was this to establish premises for deduction and ensure they were “accepted truths”?
Screw this Gorgias guy. He is hurting my head. I can see why Plato might have decided take him on. I suppose he has value as a starting point though. Does absurdity and existential nihilism have roots with Gorgias’s “On Nature”?
Encomium of Helen (Gorgias)
(GPT) An encomium is a rhetorical or written composition that praises and extols the virtues, qualities, achievements, or character of a person, place, thing, or concept.
“Now it is not unclear, not even to a few, that in nature and in blood the woman who is the subject of this speech is preeminent among preeminent men and women.” *I am not not unimpressed with the use of the double negative. Does this rhetorical trick have a name? (GPT “The rhetorical device that involves the use of two or more negatives in a sentence to express a negative idea is called "litotes." Litotes is a form of understatement”) There’s always a name!
“For it is the nature of things, not for the strong to be hindered by the weak, but for the weaker to be ruled and drawn by the stronger, and for the stronger to lead and the weaker to follow. God is a stronger force than man in might and in wit and in other ways. If then one must place blame on Fate and on a god, one must free Helen from disgrace.” ***So much to unpack here. There are some major assumptions about the nature of power here. What about the idea that the slave actually grants power to the master, because without the slave, the master has no power? Does this get at paradox? Yes, as represented by Hegel’s slave/master theory (the master is dependent upon the slave to even be a master). Lecan adds to this with his “a madman is not only a beggar who thinks he is a king, but a king who thinks he is a king.” This video contains a good breakdown: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wves5FsVUXA&list=PLMkzPnspPUFGam8MKan9OFF0VtO_q7ZD_&index=11
“But if she was raped by violence and illegally assaulted and unjustly insulted, it is clear that the raper, as the insulter, did the wronging, and the raped, as the insulted, did the suffering.” It’s not surprising to see an anti-victim blaming sentiment from a culture with female deities. But, if "It is right then for the barbarian who undertook a barbaric undertaking in word and law and deed to meet with blame in word…,” then what happened to the strong exercise power over the weak idea (assuming male physical strength vs female physical weakness here)? According to Gorgias, we can’t blame Helen for going with the will of the Gods. This makes sense, I suppose. But what are the implications for free will then?
“Speech is a powerful lord…it can stop fear and banish grief and create joy and nurture pity.”
All rhetoric is [WRONGFUL] deception: “All who have and do persuade people of things do so by molding a false argument…. The persuader, like a constrainer, does the wrong…”
Where our conviction comes from: “on most subjects most men take opinion as counselor to their soul, but since opinion is slippery and insecure it casts those employing it into slippery and insecure successes.”
The power of speech/words/rhetoric: “The effect of speech upon the condition of the soul is comparable to the power of drugs over the nature of bodies. For just as different drugs dispel different secretions form the body, and some bring an end to disease and others to life, so also in the case of speeches, some distress, others delight, some cause fear, others make the hearers bold, and some drug and bewitch the soul with a kind of evil persuasion.”
Gorgias’s motivation: “I wished to write a speech which would be a praise of Helen and a diversion to myself.”
Dissoi Logoi: Two-Fold or Contrasting Arguments
(Pullman) “…the rhetorical importance of contextual relativism, the ability to see an issue from all sides and to recognize that what is good in one way will almost always be bad in it's opposite way and sometimes both good and bad.”
On the nature of bad and good: “illness is bad for the sick but good for the doctors.”
There is almost a silver-lining-to-every-cloud angle here.
Seemly vs. Shameful: This is more about what is appropriate and how context is important—about how something good in one context is bad in another. Ex. “it is seemly to have sexual intercourse with one's own husband, but very shameful with someone else's.” The book The Humans (Matt Haig) has a great take on this when the alien protagonist embodied in another human’s body cheats on his wife because he has no clue that it is wrong. “…seemly to treat one's friends kindly, but shameful to treat one's enemies in such a way.”—until Christ flips this.
“…if one were to order all mankind to bring together into a single pile all that each individual considered shameful, and then again to take from this mass what each thought seemly, nothing would be left, but they would all, severally, take away everything. For not everyone has the same views.” ***There is no universal standard of what is seemly and shameful. I believe this is at the heart of moral relativism. C.S. Lewis takes this on with some success at the outset of Mere Christianity. He establishes that there is at least some general idea of right/wrong or good/bad that is shared by people because they “quarrel.” There would be no point in quarreling, he says, if there were no standard from which to argue one is right or wrong. He calls the standard “The Law of Nature” and says that despite “differences in moralities” across time and cultures, these do not amount to “total difference.” It is true that there are major similarities in the biggest world religions/philosophies. He tries to establish that selfishness is some kind of point we can all agree on as bad, but I think Lewis misses the mark a little with this opening line of reasoning because there are examples of cultures where selfishness is admired. Need we really look any further than American capitalism? The main point for Lewis, I suppose, is that everyone knows internally that there is a standard—regardless of whether the standard is the same for everyone, it is universally present as one’s sense of right and wrong. And it is this sense which influences how we behave, what we feel we should or should not do.
Just vs. Unjust
“Some say that what is just and what is unjust are two different things, others that the same thing is just and unjust.” ***This looks like the illness (good for doctors at the same time bad for the ill) perspective.
“…first of all that it is just to tell lies and to deceive.” This is the ends-justifies-the-means reasoning. Tricking someone into taking medicine that will help them. Not telling someone something to protect their feelings. We even see a justification of stealing from someone—taking their sword so the suicidal man doesn’t harm himself.
“…if one's father has been overpowered by his enemies and jailed, under sentence of death, is it not just to break in through the wall and steal one's father away and so save him? “ ***This is a great question. What if you know he is guilty—unrepentant?
Is it wrong for a mother to steal bread to feed her children?
It seems like it can be helpful to have a guiding principle for these kind of questions related to justice. A basic Christian theology provides this with unselfish love (sacrifice) standing as the first principle from which to reason and act.
The Sophisticated Skeptic
Skepticism as a contrast to the cynicism of Diogenes (who told Alexander the Great to get out of his sun in a famous chreia [structured anecdote that leads to some aphoristic wisdom from a person]). There is a strong connection between self-sufficiency and cynicism as cynicism is a kind of rejection to accept any source or information outside of oneself.
Cynicism, ultimately an anti-social, parasitic way of life. (Pullman)
If we apply skepticism to everything but our cherished beliefs, then we get a potentially lethal dogmatism or a hermetically sealed conspiracy theory, impervious to evidence and reason. (Pullman)
Sophisticated Skepticism rejects absolutes (at the risk of being too wishy-washy and non-committal, I suppose).
It is agnostic as opposed to nihilistic.
Seeks “The best decision possible given the information available at the moment when the decision has to be made, which implies awareness of timing, Kairos.” (Pullman)
“Belief is a manifestation of inventional exhaustion or a lack of imagination.” (Pullman) ***So belief is kind of a resting place for the lazy, tired, and simple-minded. Therefore, it may not be good to ever find oneself speaking of or from belief, but speaking of or from what one might wish/seek to believe seems potentially virtuous.