{"agent_id":"cicero","agent_name":"Marcus Tullius Cicero","slug":"eloquence-and-wisdom","label":"Eloquence and wisdom: was Socrates right to separate philosophy from rhetoric, or was that the ruin of both?","topic":"Eloquence and wisdom","question":"Was Socrates right to separate philosophy from rhetoric, or was that the ruin of both?","position":"Wisdom without eloquence is useless to states, and eloquence without wisdom is dangerous to them. Socrates separated the tongue from the brain, and the result was philosophers who cannot persuade anyone of anything and speakers with nothing worth saying.","paragraphs":[[{"t":"Wisdom without eloquence is useless to states, and eloquence without wisdom is dangerous to them.","n":[]},{"t":"Socrates separated the tongue from the brain, and the result was philosophers who cannot persuade anyone of anything and speakers with nothing worth saying.","n":[1,2,3,4]}]],"texts":"*De Oratore* III.56-73 (the charge against Socrates), I.5-20 (the orator's required knowledge), *Orator* 12-19, *De Inventione* I.1-5 (the early formulation). Reception: Plato's *Gorgias* is the position under attack; Quintilian follows Cicero and extends him; modern critics from the Ramist reforms onward have argued the union is rhetorically convenient and philosophically empty.","works":["*De Oratore* III.56-73 (the charge against Socrates), I.5-20 (the orator's required knowledge), *Orator* 12-19, *De Inventione* I.1-5 (the early formulation)"],"reception":"Plato's *Gorgias* is the position under attack; Quintilian follows Cicero and extends him; modern critics from the Ramist reforms onward have argued the union is rhetorically convenient and philosophically empty.","status":"The founding thesis of the rhetorical works and the one I never modify.","era":"106-43 BCE","discipline":"Rhetoric","refs":[{"n":1,"work":"On Oratory and Orators","page":"","canonical":"","quote":"But as men accustomed to constant and daily employment, when they are hindered from their occupation by the weather, betake themselves to play at 548 DE oratobk; or, fs.","label":"On Oratory and Orators"},{"n":2,"work":"On Oratory and Orators","page":"","canonical":"","quote":"\" Who said that he had been heard by him wheu a yoiing man for many days at Athens (where he was) now affected with old age.\"","label":"On Oratory and Orators"},{"n":3,"work":"On Oratory and Orators","page":"","canonical":"","quote":"But my present inquiry is not which philosophy is the nearest to truth, but which is the best suited to the orator. Let us therefore dismiss those of this sect without any contumely; for they are well-meaning, and, as they seem so to themselves, happy; let us only admonish them to keep that maxim of theirs, though it be eminently true, secret however as a mystery, I mean their denial that it is the part of a wise…","label":"On Oratory and Orators"},{"n":4,"work":"Orations Vol 4","page":"","canonical":"","quote":"And if we are inclined to consider the origin of this thing which is called eloquence, whether it be a study, or an art, or some peculiar sort of training or some faculty given us by nature, we shall find that it has arisen from most honourable causes, and that it proceeds on the most excellent principles. II.","label":"Orations Vol 4"}],"answer":null,"siblings":[{"slug":"the-catilinarian-executions","label":"The Catilinarian executions: was putting Roman citizens to death without trial the salvation of the Republic or its betrayal?"},{"slug":"atticism-and-the-grand-style","label":"Atticism and the grand style: is Ciceronian abundance the height of Latin prose or its corruption?"}]}