Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump during a campaign event in Waterbury, Conn., on April 23. (Charles Krupa/Associated Press) When it comes to rhetoric, Plato was right and Aristotle ...

In Gorgias, Plato describes Socrates dismissing most rhetoric as being mere flattery — a smoky magic trick, of sorts, to distract from truth or, in a broader democratic sense, the quest for justice.

The scope of rhetoric’s dangers was already appreciated in antiquity. Boasting about just how much power his lexical finesse confers, a rhetoric teacher in Plato’s Gorgias offers this cynical ...

When Plato returned to Athens and entered the education business, Ms. Atack argues, he was integrating new ideas into a postdemocratic rhetoric of political virtue.

Plato, who was Aristotle’s mentor, thought otherwise — that rhetoric, or the art of persuasion, in the wrong hands was dangerous and likely to be abused to appeal to people’s base motives ...

Plato, who was Aristotle’s mentor, thought otherwise — that rhetoric, or the art of persuasion, in the wrong hands was dangerous and likely to be abused to appeal to people’s base motives. He foresaw ...

ABSTRACT The Gorgias presents us with a mystery and an enigma: Who was Callicles? And, what was Plato trying to accomplish in this dialogue? While searching for the identity of Callicles, we gain a ...

Plato, the French theorist Jacques Derrida observed in a rare moment of clarity, used the word pharmakon to mean both a poison and its antidote. Rhetoric has poisoned the body politic. Can it cure it?

Robin Reames is the author of " The Ancient Art of Thinking for Yourself." Alexander Gouletas "Rhetorical thinkers understand how persuasion works, but they are not easily persuaded," Reames writes.

Plato mourned the invention of the alphabet, worried that the use of text would threaten traditional memory-based arts of rhetoric. In his “Dialogues,” arguing through the voice of Thamus, the ...