This is just what I've gathered from reading the assigned Wiki articles, I could be completely wrong about all of this. D: Also, all quotes are from said Wiki articles.
So what strikes me as particularly interesting in Cicero's work, De Oratore, is that while the dialectic style is very similar to Plato's (aside from it being portrayed in a more novel-like format rather than a script format), it is not as clear as it is in Plato's works of who the "good guy" or "inherently right" person is. With Plato's works, it's pretty much obvious from the start that Socrates will be in control of the conversation at pretty much all times and is (according to Plato) always right. In De Oratore though, it is not quite as clear who the main protagonist is. I assumed for a good while that it was Crassus, as he was the one doing most of the speaking, and appeared to be filling a Socrates-like role as the wise instructor tutoring the younger students through dialogue. However, it appears towards the second half of the first book that it may actually be Antonious who may be the lead here, as he talks for a good portion of both the first and second book. But the nice thing is that while these men are debating, both of them appear to be portrayed as intelligent, and even those in smaller roles (with the possible exception of Scaevola) appear to be portrayed mostly positively, not quite as the straw men that Plato could be guilty of creating at times.
We definitely see some very different veiws between Crassus and Antonious though, and I'll go into analyzing the two for a bit:
So Crassus seems to hold some very Platonic views here, and reminded me a bit of Socrates with his overall humility, intelligence, with a hint of snark (though he doesn't seem to be quite the amusingly sarcastic jerk that Socrates could be at times). Crassus' view of the perfect orator seems as idealistic and impractically unrealistic as Plato's ideas of ultimate truth and knowledge -- sweet, well-meaning, but laughably unrealistic. Crassus feels that being an orator requires natural talent more than anything else, that being an orator requires "the subtility of a logician, the mind of a philosopher, the language of a poet, the memory of a lawyer, the voice of a tragic actor and the gesture of the most skilled actor" as well as also as natural gifts of "the ability to invent, richness in talking, strong lungs, certain voice tones, particular body physique as well as a pleasant looking face." Oh, and the perfect orator also knows everything. EVERYTHING. For can you speak of something you don't know about?
Crassus seems to be an interesting blend of Plato and Aristotle, for while Crassus is, like Aristotle, more practical and forgiving of rhetoric and the rules for rhetoric he gives seem very similar to some of the ones Aristotle laid out, he also does support philosophy, have many larger, semi-distant from reality ideas, and seems to be a strong advocate for a moral orator (consideration of morality being something Aristotle left out during his long rhetoric book of "hey, here's this big book on human psychology and how to manipulate people").
Antonious on the other hand, seems to be far more practical than Crassus. While he clearly admires Crassus and supports most of his points, Antonious' views seem to be less extreme. He disagrees with Crassus' idea that an orator must know everything, and instead feels that he only need to be able to speak well on the subjects he does know. He does seem to be not as kindly inclined towards philosophy as Crassus, feeling that philosopher "pretends to know everything about everything," and that Plato's ideals were "very far from common life."
Again, these two characters seem to be portrayed intelligently enough to tell who's going to end up "right" in this debate, or if a winner will even be picked. Reading what I have about Cicero though, I hesitantly feel that his views align more with Crassus, and that he will be the ultimate winner of the debate, but I am not positive about that. If nothing else though, I do approve of Cicero's seemingly lesser use of strawmen arguments.
Questions:
1. Do you believe Cicero's personal beliefs align closer to Crassus or Antonious?
2. Do you believe that a person must know absolutely everything about a subject in order to speak/debate about it? Or is it possible to only know part of a subject, but still be able to speak knowledgeably enough? And is it morally wrong to speak of a subject that you don't fully understand?
So what strikes me as particularly interesting in Cicero's work, De Oratore, is that while the dialectic style is very similar to Plato's (aside from it being portrayed in a more novel-like format rather than a script format), it is not as clear as it is in Plato's works of who the "good guy" or "inherently right" person is. With Plato's works, it's pretty much obvious from the start that Socrates will be in control of the conversation at pretty much all times and is (according to Plato) always right. In De Oratore though, it is not quite as clear who the main protagonist is. I assumed for a good while that it was Crassus, as he was the one doing most of the speaking, and appeared to be filling a Socrates-like role as the wise instructor tutoring the younger students through dialogue. However, it appears towards the second half of the first book that it may actually be Antonious who may be the lead here, as he talks for a good portion of both the first and second book. But the nice thing is that while these men are debating, both of them appear to be portrayed as intelligent, and even those in smaller roles (with the possible exception of Scaevola) appear to be portrayed mostly positively, not quite as the straw men that Plato could be guilty of creating at times.
We definitely see some very different veiws between Crassus and Antonious though, and I'll go into analyzing the two for a bit:
So Crassus seems to hold some very Platonic views here, and reminded me a bit of Socrates with his overall humility, intelligence, with a hint of snark (though he doesn't seem to be quite the amusingly sarcastic jerk that Socrates could be at times). Crassus' view of the perfect orator seems as idealistic and impractically unrealistic as Plato's ideas of ultimate truth and knowledge -- sweet, well-meaning, but laughably unrealistic. Crassus feels that being an orator requires natural talent more than anything else, that being an orator requires "the subtility of a logician, the mind of a philosopher, the language of a poet, the memory of a lawyer, the voice of a tragic actor and the gesture of the most skilled actor" as well as also as natural gifts of "the ability to invent, richness in talking, strong lungs, certain voice tones, particular body physique as well as a pleasant looking face." Oh, and the perfect orator also knows everything. EVERYTHING. For can you speak of something you don't know about?
Crassus seems to be an interesting blend of Plato and Aristotle, for while Crassus is, like Aristotle, more practical and forgiving of rhetoric and the rules for rhetoric he gives seem very similar to some of the ones Aristotle laid out, he also does support philosophy, have many larger, semi-distant from reality ideas, and seems to be a strong advocate for a moral orator (consideration of morality being something Aristotle left out during his long rhetoric book of "hey, here's this big book on human psychology and how to manipulate people").
Antonious on the other hand, seems to be far more practical than Crassus. While he clearly admires Crassus and supports most of his points, Antonious' views seem to be less extreme. He disagrees with Crassus' idea that an orator must know everything, and instead feels that he only need to be able to speak well on the subjects he does know. He does seem to be not as kindly inclined towards philosophy as Crassus, feeling that philosopher "pretends to know everything about everything," and that Plato's ideals were "very far from common life."
Again, these two characters seem to be portrayed intelligently enough to tell who's going to end up "right" in this debate, or if a winner will even be picked. Reading what I have about Cicero though, I hesitantly feel that his views align more with Crassus, and that he will be the ultimate winner of the debate, but I am not positive about that. If nothing else though, I do approve of Cicero's seemingly lesser use of strawmen arguments.
Questions:
1. Do you believe Cicero's personal beliefs align closer to Crassus or Antonious?
2. Do you believe that a person must know absolutely everything about a subject in order to speak/debate about it? Or is it possible to only know part of a subject, but still be able to speak knowledgeably enough? And is it morally wrong to speak of a subject that you don't fully understand?
Hi Kelline,
ReplyDeleteI agree that Crassus' views seem to be a little more intense than Antonious, and I couldn't quite decide who was supposed to be "right." They both made excellent points, and when I found myself not agreeing with one completely, the other presented a similar idea I was thinking. Crassus' views were almost a replica of Aristotle, and I found some similarities to Plato and Socrates when he capitalizes on moral correctness. Cicero was involved politically and always tried to involve his oratory skills with the law, so I can see how Crassus' could be the influence of Cicero in the book. It also says that Cicero was incredibly smart and knowledgeable; people heard of him as a student and admired his work. This could play in with Crassus' argument that and oratory must know everything, since it seems that Cicero was probably in the same situation.
I don't personally think a person needs to know EVERYTHING about a subject to be able to debate it, because a great deal of arguments don't necessarily focus on the content of a subject, but how the content is used. If the person gets the jist of an idea, they can argue their belief of whether it is right or wrong or agree or disagree due to their personal beliefs. However, I would entirely agree that the more knowledge a person has about a subject, the easier it will be to find examples when the time comes to persuade. I would almost say that it's probably more important to possess the actual skills of rhetoric as opposed to the knowledge-- as we've discussed several times, just knowing about a subject doesn't mean it's going to be conveyed correctly... a person must have the right skillset. This does bring on the problem of conveying an idea incorrectly of with the purpose of deception, which contradicts Crassus' belief that everyone should study moral-correctness. So I guess in order to be the PERFECT orator, you should possess an extensive knowledge of the subject, have incredibly rhetorical skills, and be morally right. These are combinations of Aristotle and Plato, with tweaks to both ideas. But in order to simply be an orator, one probably only needs to possess 1 or 2 of these qualities.