The Lost Years - Literary Competition, Philosophy, and Politics in the Generation after Plato and Isocrates

FAIN: FT-57157-09

Tarik Wareh
Trustees of Union College (Schenectady, NY 12308-3256)

I will prepare the draft manuscript of my book, The Lost Years - Literary Competition, Philosophy, and Politics in the Generation after Plato and Isocrates, for publication. The book describes the literary and intellectual history of the crucial, but little understood, transitional period from Classical to Hellenistic philosophy and literature, focusing on the politics and the educational character of the Athenian schools founded by Plato and his contemporary Isocrates. The book develops a coherent picture of an intellectual playing field as it existed during this period and problematizes the boundary between rhetoric and philosophy. It revises current notions in the history of philosophy with an argument that Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics cannot be fully understood without reference to the tradition of rhetorical education which we can know through Isocrates' surviving works. It analyzes the extensive intellectual contacts between Isocratean and Academic circles.

Associated Products

The Theory and Practice of Life: Isocrates and the Philosophers (Book)
Title: The Theory and Practice of Life: Isocrates and the Philosophers
Author: Tarik Wareh
Abstract: This book is a study of the literary culture within which the works, schools, and careers of Plato, Aristotle, and contemporary Greek intellectuals took shape. It focuses on the important role played by their rival Isocrates and the rhetorical education offered in his school. Wareh shows that when Aristotle illustrates his ethical theory by reference to the practical arts, this is no simple appeal to a homespun commonsense analogy, but a sign of dependence on the traditions and concepts of rhetorical and empirical methodology. Likewise, when Plato in the Phaedrus constructs the possibility of a truly philosophical rhetoric on the model of “Hippocratic” medicine, his uncomfortable consciousness of rhetorical theory’s relevance, prestige, and power is revealed. The second half of the book brings together the fragmentary evidence for the participation of “Isocrateans” in the philosophical polemics, princely didactics, and literary competition of the fourth century, shedding new light on the “lost years” of intellectual and literary history that lie before the dawn of the Hellenistic period.
Year: 2012
Publisher: Hellenic Studies series, Harvard University Press
Type: Single author monograph
ISBN: forthc. 9/2012

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