GUN LAW (Page that goes over the topic

Fixing Cracks in the Foundation: Cicero and the

Philosophy/Rhetoric problem

An Annotated Bibliography

Joe Weinberg

Month/Day/Year

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Initially, I began this project expecting to focus on the break between philosophy and

rhetoric, and particularly Cicero’s desire to reintegrate the two. But as I started researching, I

realized that Cicero’s participation in both of the two fields was almost as important as his desire

to bring them back together. That is, his connections with the two go a long way to explaining

why it was so important to him to bring them back together. In fact, there is a trend in recent

scholarship that he was deeply engrossed in both, that he straddled both sides of the divide. His

instructors came from both camps, and he wrote and thought about both sides. Wanting to

combine his two interests makes perfect sense from a scholarly point of view, but also from a

personal one. He clearly loved the two disciplines, and it makes sense to want to repair what he

saw as an unnecessary and unfortunate rift, one that weakened both disciplines. He wrote about

this rift both at the beginning of his career (On Invention) and later on (On the Ideal Orator).

While there has been debate over whether he belonged to both or to neither, it seemed clear that

his connection, whatever it was, was strong with both fields.

Were I to pursue this through a final project, the focus would likely shift from just a

general treatment of rhetoric by philosophers and philosophy by rhetoricians and focus more

strongly on Cicero himself. I would look more in depth into his pedagogical beliefs and read his

works more generally and more closely; one thing I can be certain of is that this bibliography is

itself a fragment of what would be necessary to do this project justice. To be fair, this project

could grow to the size of dissertation, forcing me to learn both Latin and Greek (which in itself

would have helped some of the articles make more sense). But even keeping it as a smaller order

project, I think more research is needed. This bibliography has significant gaps in Cicero’s

biography and his academic history. It also does not show the connection between Cicero,

Aristotle, and Plato quite as strongly as I would like it to.

One trend that cropped up was the question of whether Plato was as opposed to rhetoric

as we seem to think he is. I’d be very interested to follow this trend, especially where it intersects

with Cicero and his education. How much of his work is responding to Plato, and how much is

influenced by it? There are a great number of places this can go. Of course, I’d eventually need

to settle on one thing, and I think it likely that I would settle on a brief biographical overview of

Cicero in relation to the split between the two fields, in an effort to explain why he took such

pains to try to repair the rift. I’m not sure I could do his actual attempts to make the repair

justice, but I think I could convincingly present reasoning as to why he tried.

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Clark, M. L. “Cicero at School.” Greece & Rome. 15.1 (1968); 18-22.

This relatively short article discusses Cicero’s early life, specifically the education he received in

his early teenage years. It discusses his relationship with Atticus, a contemporary of his, and their

friendship through school. This work is important because it establishes Cicero as coming from a

background that was, educationally, mixed between rhetoric and philosophy. This connection

through his early years may serve as a partial explanation for his desire to see the two fields

coming back together. This article also stresses that Cicero was pushed towards Greek over Latin

rhetoric, which may explain why he saw Socrates as being responsible for the break between the

tongue and the mind.

Corbeill, Anthony. “Rhetorical Education in Cicero’s Youth.” Brill's Companion to Cicero:

Oratory and Rhetoric. Ed. James M. May. Boston: Leiden, 2002. 23-48.

While there was focus on the anonymous work To Gaius Herennius, this article primarily spoke

of Cicero’s education and his connection with Hellenistic ideas. It discusses his early exposure to

Greek philosophy, but also the importance of his legal training on some of his earlier works like

On Invention (26). It discusses his introduction to the school of Epicurus and Phaedrus, and also

mentions that Cicero spent time studying under the philosophy Philo of Larissa, who was at the

time (88 BCE) the head of the Academy in Athens. There is also mention of Cicero spending

time listening as often as possible to Quintus Mucius Scaevola, giving him a strong rhetorical

base In a way this article goes through Cicero’s thought process regarding the schism between

rhetoric and philosophy. Initially, in his younger works, Cicero acknowledges his eclectic

education, and the importance of philosophy in the instruction of rhetoric, but has “no concrete

suggestions for resolving the division” (37). While there are a few missteps, like Cicero’s

tentative move towards rejecting Greek philosophy (45), he does come back to the idea in the

end, saying in On the Orator that philosophy is important to rhetoric, that rhetoric is the practice

and philosophy the theory (46).

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Covino, William A. The Art of Wondering: A Revisionist Return to the History of

Rhetoric. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook. 1988.

A history of rhetoric broken into parts by both time and groups of authors, this book has a

section on Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero, in which Covino discusses the important of the field of

rhetoric to philosophy and vice versa. By examining Phaedrus, Rhetoric, and De Oratore,

Covino makes the case that Cicero himself tried to make, namely that the two fields must merge

in order to be successful. He points out that readings of Phaedrus may not be quite so negative

for rhetoric as is generally assumed, pointing out how Plato seems only opposed to rhetoric used

for the wrong reasons, as well as how Aristotle illustrates rhetoric as a philosophy. These

arguments provide a lot of strength to Cicero’s project, and are very interesting in the direction

they take, looking at these works from a different and fascinating perspective.

Gaines, Robert N. "Cicero's Partitiones Oratoriae and Topica: Rhetorical Philosophy

and Philosophical Rhetoric." Brill's Companion to Cicero: Oratory and Rhetoric. Ed.

James M. May. Boston: Leiden, 2002. 445-480.

Though there is some discussion early on about Cicero not originally seeing philosophy as

particularly important to rhetoric (such as in De invention), this article primarily shows Cicero’s

belief that philosophy in fact is an important part of rhetoric, that it is the basis for the theoretical

principles of rhetoric. Gaines says that oratory requires several skills and knowledge’s that “must

be acquired from the pursuit of Academic philosophy” (458). Generally speaking, this piece is

presenting reasons why it is important for the two fields to merge, as well as some of Cicero’s

attempts to achieve this merger. It is an interesting article as it flows through Cicero’s career,

discussing both his earlier works and those that came late in his life, such as Partitiones

oratoriae, which, according to Gaines, “must certainly represent Academic philosophical inquiry

into the nature of rhetoric, whatever else the treatise might be designed to do” (459). The overall

strength of this article was that it not only presented reasons why Cicero would want to

reintegrate philosophy and rhetoric, but also how he attempted to do so later in his life, such as in

Topica, which was intended “to illustrate the application to rhetoric of doctrines drawn from a

field in philosophy” (476).

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Glucker, John. "Cicero's Philosophical Affiliations." The Question of "Eclecticism."

Studies in Later Greek Philosophy. Ed. John M. Dillon and A. A. Long. Berkeley,

CA: University of California Press, 1998. 34-69.

Essentially a history of Cicero’s academic career, this book goes through his philosophical origin

as an academic skeptic under his teacher Philo of Larissa, then his movements through stoicisim

and the peripatetic school, called his membership in the old academy under Antiochus, and

finally his return to skepticism under Carneades and Philo. It is suggested that his change in

affiliation had to do with the circumstances of his life: when happier, he was left skepticism

behind, and returned to it when his life once more faltered. This work establishes Cicero as being

strongly influenced by philosophy throughout his career, which may explain why it was so

important to him to reconnect philosophy and rhetoric.

May, James M., and Jakob Wisse. Cicero: On the Ideal Orator. New York: Oxford

University Press, 2001.

A more or less primary source, it is in this book that we find the problem Cicero had with the

break between philosophy and rhetoric in essentially his own words. The translation of De

Oratore covers much of the problem in question, as well as presents the identification of the

problem, of how Socrates “was the source of the rupture, so to speak, between the tongue and the

brain, which is quite absurd, harmful, and reprehensible, and which has resulted in our having

different teachers for thinking and for speaking” (3.61). The problem in his words and his reason

why it is essential to solve the problem colors the rest of the examination over the topic.

McKendric, Paul. The Philosophical Books of Cicero. London: Gerald Duckworth + Co.

1989.

Mainly a set of annotations and explanations of many of Cicero’s works, particularly those

pertinent to the rhetoric/philosophy problem, such as On Invention, On the Orator, or Topica in

the form of outlines explaining them, this work also discusses the importance to Cicero of

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pulling rhetoric and philosophy back together. It also discusses how “the whole structure of his

philosophy was shaped by the rhetorical foundations of his thought” (13). This work provided

an interesting and important counterpoint to Glucker, in that it showed how rhetoric was

important to his philosophy rather than how philosophy was important and influential to his

rhetoric. Showing the other direction helps support reasons for why Cicero would find

reconnecting the two to be so important. This book would provide a great deal of strength to the

base of the argument, in that it would do well to demonstrate Cicero’s leanings towards

philosophy as a prelude to explaining why the rift between philosophy and rhetoric were such a

problem for him.

Grassi Ernesto. Rhetoric as Philosophy: The Humanist Tradition. University Park: The

Pennsylvania State University Press, 1980.

This article discusses the break between philosophy and rhetoric, explaining many of the reasons

for the break and the problems such a break has caused. It cites both Locke and Kant in their

discussions of the problem, as well as investigating the claims of Plato in Phaedrus and Gorgias

regarding rhetoric, and how those claims are misinterpreted; Plato, according to Grassi, was not

opposed to rhetoric, but rather that some rhetoric was okay, but most of it is used for the wrong

reasons and in the wrong ways. It concludes that the two fields are inextricably linked, saying

that “we cannot speak of rhetoric and philosophy, but every original philosophy is rhetoric and

every true and not exterior rhetoric is philosophy” (12). So Grassi is asserting that the two cannot

be split as we think of them to be, but rather they are in many ways the same thing. This work

does not directly deal with Cicero, but it does present a good example of a lens through which

Cicero may have looked at this problem. Alternately, it could be seen as an attempt to see Plato

through the lens of Cicero’s desire to repair the rift.

Vickers, Brian. In Defence of Rhetoric. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988.

This book discusses reasons why rhetoric and philosophy should be linked, and why rhetoric is a

legitimate field. It discusses many of the works of Cicero, focusing on Cicero’s insistent “urging

that the orator must know the whole realm of prudential, practical philosophy, dialectic [. . .] and

philosophy [. . .]” (164). It also discusses Aristotle’s views of rhetoric and how he tried to put

rhetoric in close connection with philosophy, a goal that Cicero would later strive for. What is

interesting is that Vickers seems to suggest that Cicero not only wanted to reconnect the two

fields, but also claimed that rhetoric was superior, that “rhetoric takes all knowledge for its

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province, excelling philosophy or any other discipline in its attempt to communicate whatever it

chooses to discuss” (166-7, my emphasis). This seems opposed to many of the other views of

how Cicero approached the problem and what his actual beliefs were. It is very important to

include this book, as it provides some argument against the ideas in some of the other works that

Cicero wanted to repair the rift; Vickers seems instead to be suggesting that oratory was superior

to philosophy.

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Wisse, Jakob. "De Oratore: Rhetoric, Philosophy, and the Making of the Ideal Orator." Brill's

Companion to Rhetoric: Oratory and Rhetoric. Ed. James M. May. Boston: Lieden, 2002.

375-400.

In this article it is discussed how important it is for the ideal orator to have knowledge and skills

that can only be found in philosophy, how philosophy allows an orator to escape from the

constraints of rules and that “the orator who possesses full philosophical knowledge surpasses

everyone else (3.143)” (383). This article also discusses the split between the two fields,

addressing Socrates and his hostility towards rhetoric, as well as Cicero’s plea for the two fields

to be restored. Interestingly, it also mentions Cicero’s indication that “he regards Plato as the

most prominent enemy of oratory” (390), suggesting that the intended uniting of the fields did

not erase the animosity held towards those involved on the other side. It also suggests that in De

Oratore, “Cicero draws on the disciplines of rhetoric and philosophy, but he belongs to neither

of these two quarrelling camps, and offers a synthesis of the two positions” (397), which puts

this article in conflict with Covino, MacKendrick, and Glucker, who all thought that Cicero was

a member of both camps rather than neither. Though it should be noted that this disagreement is

likely the result of Wisse taking a very specific, and possibly overly narrow, understanding of

‘rhetoric.’ When taken more broadly, this conflict may disappear.