Plato sharply contrasts Socrates’ dialectical manner of argumentation to the rhetorical way of using arguments. The upshot of this contrast seems to be clear: the dialectical use of arguments is epistemically valuable, while the rhetorical use is epistemically deficient. What is less clear, however, is how Plato justifies this sharp contrast. In this paper, I consider seven different ways scholarship has tried to answer this question. I argue that none of them manage to explain Plato’s clear-cut…
Read morePlato sharply contrasts Socrates’ dialectical manner of argumentation to the rhetorical way of using arguments. The upshot of this contrast seems to be clear: the dialectical use of arguments is epistemically valuable, while the rhetorical use is epistemically deficient. What is less clear, however, is how Plato justifies this sharp contrast. In this paper, I consider seven different ways scholarship has tried to answer this question. I argue that none of them manage to explain Plato’s clear-cut distinction. This has two important consequences. First, it shows that the distinction between the rhetorical and dialectical use of arguments is considerably more delicate and multi-layered than is commonly thought. Second, it also shows that the commonly accepted definitions of dialectic fail to sufficiently distinguish dialectic from rhetoric. That does not mean, however, that there is no essential difference between them. Rather, I suggest, Plato distinguishes rhetoric from dialectic by following a paradigm-based approach: he points to paradigmatic differences between them and, in so doing, he reveals what is essential about each of them.