Long ago, in Greece, about 500 hundred years before the time of Christ,the idea of democracy arose. It was not a democracy in the same way that we think of American democracy today, because there was slavery, and only property owners could vote, but still, the first democracies originated in the ancient Greek city states.

    Because democracy was a new idea in an old world, there were problems to be worked out among individuals and groups of citizens.  They had to vote now, over whether or not to go to war, to build a bridge, to pass a law.  Since each citizen had a voice, there arose differences of opinion. For people unused to independence there are rewards, but also many challenges.

    Partly to settle these differences, but also because they were a bunch of deep thinkers and planners, they knew that in trying to define their new way of government people would see issues differently.  Citizens realized that they needed rules to discuss things civilly--without having their discussions break down into bickering and fighting.   According to Sharon Crowley, a professor of Rhetoric and Composition here at ASU, "the study of rhetoric was equivalent to the study of citizenship" (Crowley1999).

    Individuals arose who began to codify rhetoric, or to say it more simply begin to record the rules for giving  good speeches, and for writing well.  These citizen/teachers realized that the art of communication, and especially the art of persuasion were vital to the success of democracy. As the rule of force decreased, the importance of persuasion increased.  Now, in order to accomplish their aims, groups had to come to consensus or agreement with other groups. If they didn't agree, one group of people had to sway the other to their way of thinking.  Sounds like politics today, doesn't it?

    According to James Murphy, "rhetoric was invented about the year 476 B.C. by Corax of Sicily (Murphy 1983).  Soon there were schools of rhetoric in Rome, Athens, and in many of the city states.  And of course, the different schools had different ideas about how to teach rhetoric, and different ideas about what democracy was, or should be.  Debates emerged not only over what democracy should be, but what "good" men should be, the true meaning of ideas, and the meaning of truth to list only a few questions these early philisopher/rhetoricans examined.

    One of the first groups of rhetoricians in Athens, were called Sophists.  The Greek meaning of Sophist is "wisdom bearer." While the Sophists were seen early on as wise and clever because of thier argument style (often flowery, and extremely witty), as time progressed and their philosophy coalesced they did not live up to thier reputation. You could think of these roaming teachers more like hired guns, or highly paid lawyers. They were interested in winning and getting paid well. They would argue, and teach thier students to forcefully argue, for what the "client" desired regardless of whether or not the goal was moral, ethical, or "good". They believed that might was right, and that natural law upheld this claims. They were more likely to consider "truth" relative to the situation at hand--or to what they could prove. Georgias one of the Sophists, took the position of "Anti-foundationalism."

On the other hand, were Socrates, Plato and later Aristotle who developed his philosophy influenced by these teachers. Socrates and Plato and rhetoricians influenced by them were interested in developing the idea of concepts, one of which was the universal concept of "good." Not only what was good for one, but in the concept of good--what was the highest good for the many in any given situation. After Socrates death, Plato continued to develop the philosophy of concepts and ideas. Think of Plato as a seeker of truth who wanted to put truth to practical use, and felt that the study of philosphy should render man "morally better" and who taught that ideas are patterns or models of things. They believed that there were/ or could be established absolutes such as "Truth, Beauty, etc." and that these concepts remained unchanged.

Watch this page . . .  more to come.  If you have ideas about  information you would like to see here, please send email to jvan@asu.edu.