Techne in the Gorgias and Republic

Techne in the Gorgias
and The Republic
CCR 711 ::: Sept. 10, 2013
Monday, September 16, 13

Sometimes confusion is
the best response.

Lindsey:
So is rhetoric a moral techne? What does that mean?
Better yet,“since knowledge, at least in the form of a
rigorous moral techne, is always lacking” and human
nature is to appeal to Eros, because Eros seeks that
which is lacking, then do we ever truly achieve, know, or
embody a moral techne? If the moral techne is always
lacking then it can never be determined and as such is it
not like chasing after the horizon line? These questions
thus cause me to wonder if techne, in this sense, is not
something that is sought, but rather the means or
mode to seek? But again, what does that mean?
In regards to these ﬁnal two questions—I think this is
where rhetoric comes in.

The Republic

elentic knowledge (235)

examples of technai
technitēs

Or is it a fact that it needs neither itself nor another
art to consider its advantage and provide against
its deficiency? For there is no defect or error at all
that dwells in any art. Nor does it befit an art to
seek the advantage of anything else than that of its
object. But the art itself is free from all harm and
admixture of evil, and is right so long as each art is
precisely and entirely that which it is. And consider
the matter in that precise way of speaking. Is it so
or not?” (342b and c. Let’s take a look at c in the text.)

For tell me this: we ordinarily say, do we not, that
each of the arts is different from others because its
power or function is different? And, my dear
fellow, in order that we may reach some result,
don't answer counter to your real belief.” “Well,
yes,” he said, “that is what renders it different.”
And does not each art also yield us benefit that is
peculiar to itself and not general, as for example
medicine health, the pilot's art safety at sea, and
the other arts similarly?” “Assuredly.” (346a)

“And did we not agree that the benefit derived
from each art is peculiar to it?” “So be it,” he said.
“Any common or general benefit that all craftsmen
receive, then, they obviously derive from their
common use of some further identical thing.” “It
seems so,” he said. “And we say that the benefit of
earning wages accrues to the craftsmen from their
further exercise of the wage-earning art.” (346c)

But if we are to consider it 'precisely' medicine
produces health but the fee-earning art the pay,
and architecture a house but the fee-earning art
accompanying it the fee, and so with all the others,
each performs its own task and benefits that over
which it is set, but unless pay is added to it is there
any benefit which the craftsman receives from the
craft?” (346d)

“Woodfruff makes this point:‘Here is the main bridge
from early Plato’s theory of Techne to later Plato’s
theory of Forms: if you have a techne, you know the
essential nature of your product; essential natures will
turn out into the middle dialogues to be Forms.’ Since
techne is not restricted to production,Woodruff’s
‘product’ is not quite accurate. Still, he is right: techne
implies a knowable ti as a subject matter to be
mastered by the technitēs. It is “ti-ness” that, perhaps,
the Forms are meant to explain an make
possible.” (Roochnik 248)

“Woodfruff makes this point:‘Here is the main bridge
from early Plato’s theory of Techne to later Plato’s
theory of Forms: if you have a techne, you know the
essential nature of your product; essential natures will
turn out into the middle dialogues to be Forms.’ Since
techne is not restricted to production,Woodruff’s
‘product’ is not quite accurate. Still, he is right: techne
implies a knowable ti as a subject matter to be
mastered by the technitēs. It is “ti-ness” that, perhaps,
the Forms are meant to explain an make
possible.” (248)

areté

And is it not also true,” said I, “that the art naturally exists for
this, to discover and provide for each his advantage?” “Yes,
for this.” “Is there, then, for each of the arts any other
advantage than to be perfect as possible2?” (341d)
“What do you mean by that question?” “Just as if,” I said,
“you should ask me whether it is enough for the body to be
the body or whether it stands in need of something else, I
would reply, 'By all means it stands in need. That is the
reason why the art of medicine has now been invented,
because the body is defective and such defect is
unsatisfactory. To provide for this, then, what is
advantageous, that is the end for which the art was devised.'
Do you think that would be a correct answer, or not?” (341e)

Jason:
Roochnik compares knowing erōtika with “self-
knowledge (239), the search for an erotic quest
(242), true knowledge, etc. This reminds me of the
ways in which some of the New Romanticists saw
writing instructing as a pursuit of a hidden truth or
of trying to put to words to that which is mystically
beyond words. If we follow Roochnik’s translation
of erōtika and Socrates’ claims about techne, is it
possible to draw some comparisons between these
concepts and the distinctions between the New
Romanticists and New Classicists’ definitions of
techne?

“Moral knowledge, human wisdom, for Plato is not a
techne, because the human realm is acutely infected by
the inﬂections and contingencies of human eros.
“Techne is ordinary knowledge, the kind we typically
rely upon, certify, and reward.As such, it simply is not
strange enough to treat the erotic complexities of
human moral life” (Roochnik 251).

The Gorgias

Lindsey:
What I found so interesting about the discussion of
techne in Gorgias is how it has caused me to
rethink about how I think about rhetoric. I’ve often
heard phrases such as “the art of persuasion”
applied to rhetoric, but I never paused on “the art,”
“the skill,” or “the craft” of rhetoric. I’ve never
asked myself, what does it mean to consider
rhetoric as art and a skill? And that is the exact
question I asked myself when in section [449a]
Socrates asks of Gorgias, “do you tell us yourself in
what art it is you are skilled, and hence, what we
ought to call you” and Gorgias replied “Rhetoric,
Socrates.”

What is rhetoric?

But there is another class of arts which achieve
their whole purpose through speech and—to put it
roughly—require either no action to aid them, or
very little; for example, numeration, calculation,
geometry, draught-playing, and many other arts:
some of these have the speech in about equal
proportion to the action, but most have it as the
larger part, or absolutely the whole of their
operation and effect is by means of speech. It is one
of this class of arts (450d)
(450e)that I think you refer to as rhetoric. But,
mind you, I do not think it is any one of these that
you mean to call rhetoric.

Rhetoric’s product

Polus
But what do you consider rhetoric to be? [462c]
Socrates
A thing which you say—in the treatise which I read of late—“made art.”
Polus
What thing do you mean?
Socrates
I mean a certain habitude.
Polus
Then do you take rhetoric to be a habitude?
Socrates
I do, if you have no other suggestion.
Polus
Habitude of what?
Socrates
Of producing a kind of gratification and pleasure.

It seems to me then, Gorgias, to be a pursuit that is
not a matter of art, but showing a shrewd, gallant
spirit which has a natural bent for clever dealing
with mankind, and I sum up its substance in the
name flattery. [463b] This practice, as I view it, has
many branches, and one of them is cookery; which
appears indeed to be an art but, by my account of
it, is not an art but a habitude or knack. I call
rhetoric another branch of it, as also personal
adornment and sophistry—four branches of it for
four kinds of affairs.

Well, ﬁne.
What’s an art?
What’s a habitude?
465a-e

and again:
“there were certain industries, some of which
extend only to pleasure, procuring that and no
more, and ignorant of better and worse; while
others know what is good and what bad. And I
placed among those that are concerned with
pleasure the habitude, not art, of cookery, and
among those concerned with good the art of
medicine.” (500b)

(500e) cookery seems to me
(501a) not an art but a habitude, unlike medicine, which, I
argued, has investigated the nature of the person whom she
treats and the cause of her proceedings, and has some
account to give of each of these things; so much for medicine:
whereas the other, in respect of the pleasure to which her
whole ministration is given, goes to work there in an utterly
inartistic manner, without having investigated at all either
the nature or the cause of pleasure, and altogether
irrationally—with no thought, one may say, of differentiation,
relying on routine and habitude for merely preserving a
memory of what is wont to result; and that is how she is
enabled to provide her pleasures.

Techne in the Gorgias and Republic

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