According to Protagoras, the opposing reasons are juxtaposed, so we should learn how to craft our debates to win. Goodness of arguments can be formed in many ways, and the different positions taken might be true, but by an absolute standard one is going to be stronger and win. Plato and Aristotle had beef with the sophists because of these arguments. There is only Truth, and instead of arguing two sides of an argument, rhetoricians should look towards teaching Truth.
Today, dissoi logoi is played out in culture systems and our judicial system. First, every culture systems have ethnocentricism which is responsible for sparking wars, misunderstandings, and bad blood throughout centuries. By trying to argue that one is right over another is hard to do. In Dissoi Logoi, the author says “what some consider being good in one situation could be bad for another…and vice versa” (296). In some cultures it might be acceptable to sleep with your sister and eat your parents, while in an American culture one might be jailed or excluded from society. Right and wrong are different from each person, culture, and time. Plato would roll over in his grave if he knew what was going on today in the judicial system. The job of hiring a lawyer is to argue your side of the story, means that dissoi logoi is being practiced by writing out the other side of the argument, examining weak spots, and find common ground that would resolve in cooperation (www.niu.edu) instead of finding Truth.
Roochnik, David. "Teaching virtue: the contrasting arguments (dissoi logoi) of antiquity." Journal of Education 179.n1 (Wntr 1997): 1(13). Expanded Academic ASAP. Gale. Kansas State University Libraries. 5 Mar. 2008
Olbrys, Stephen Gencarella. "Dissoi logoi, civic friendship, and the politics of education." Communication Education 55.4 (Oct 2006): 353(17). Expanded Academic ASAP. Gale. Kansas State University Libraries. 5 Mar. 2008
http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:cPaFlm6n-2QJ:www.engl.niu.edu/wac/dissoi.html+dissoi+logoi&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-68428/Sophist#560294.hook
3 comments:
Good Post April. Sort of like the Ancient Greeks I too have to use Dissoi Logoi to keep my many wives. ok ok, i'll write a serious reply later, but just had to make sure Tim caught that as well.
I agree with you completely, April. It seems that dissoi logoi should be adopted by more people. If more people understood that things are contextual, we would have less conflict (especially within cultures).
I am not quite sure that Plato would hate the judicial system, aside from the radical abuses in it. Plato practices the same art of dissoi loggoi as the sophists. He simply uses the art with a different motive i.e., to discover the Truth. Saint Thomas Aquinas mastered this method as well. He figured that a person couldn't be sure if their position is correct if they do not argue both sides of the argument equally. In theory, our judicial system is supposed to work in this manner. Two people come forth to give the two sides of an argument the best that they can and the Truth should be make itself known. The problem with our system is that the law is wrought with loopholes and those with money can exploit it and evade Justice. And as Plato says in the "Gorgias" it is those who evade the curative force of Justice who are the most wretched of all.
But this is all trivial if right and wrong are based on personal opinion. What is Justice? If Justice is relative to whatever every individual thinks, then we have no grounds to critique the judicial system. Or, for that matter, it would be "bad" to critique anything because everything is good to somebody. ULTIMATEly, relativism leads to ethnocentricism because it allows no means to transcend our own culture. It is only through taking a moral absolutist position that anyone can transcend ethnocentricism. And it is only the moral absolutist that can condemn the egregious acts of violence that other people commit. Any such act cannot be critiqued or condemned without recourse to some form of absolute Truth. Without it, who are we do say genocide is wrong. It's just their thing, isn't it?
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