Nellie Wallace Lectures
Next Lecture
Trinity Term 2010
Ineke Sluiter, Leiden University
Thinking with language: from grammar to free speech
In this series of lectures and seminars, Ineke Sluiter will discuss different aspects of (ancient) linguistic thought, not primarily in its technical aspects, but with attention to the roles and functions of ideas about language in different genres. She will be paying particular attention to Plato’s Cratylus; to the different roles of ‘language talk’ in Greek drama, particularly in Sophocles; and to etymology, its link with genealogy, and its various discursive functions. The introductory lecture will focus on an icon of modern language ideology, free speech.
In the seminar sessions, she will introduce and discuss a number of passages from Plato’s Cratylus that illuminate Socratic rhetoric, and the interconnectedness of literary, rhetorical and philosophical issues.
Programme:
Thursday, 6th May: 5 p.m., Lecture Theatre, Ioannou Classics Centre [followed by a party to welcome Professor Sluiter]
Opening lecture: Free speech, political deliberation, and the marketplace of ideas
This lecture explores the metaphor of the “marketplace of ideas” in debates over freedom of speech and political deliberation. Starting from the legal case against controversial Dutch politician Geert Wilders, it takes a look at the archaeology of the concept in ancient Greece, fast-forwards to the United States at the beginning of the 20th century, analyses the nature of the frame of the “marketplace”, and studies three subsequent theories that take their lead from this metaphor: marketplace mechanisms as a way to elicit information from a group in order to make the deliberative process more effective (Sunstein); the analysis of the metaphor as a vehicle of social criticism (Ingber); and the consequences of more recent insights into the functioning of the actual economy for ideas about freedom of speech (Blocher). After a brief return to the Wilders case and the “rhetoric of free speech”, I will end with the briefest of suggestions for an alternative model for thinking about free speech: an evolutionary theory of rhetoric.
Seminars (both 5 p.m. in the Okinaga Room, Wadham College)
Tuesday, 11th May: Seminar 1: Socratic rhetoric in Plato’s Cratylus
Tuesday, 18th May: Seminar 2: ‘Language talk’ in Plato’s Cratylus: literary form, rhetorical function, philosophical content.
Lectures (all 5 p.m. in the Lecture Theatre, Ioannou Classics Centre)
Thursday, 20th May: Lecture 2: Names and Genealogy: Language Talk in Sophocles
Thursday, 27th May: Lecture 3: Names and Genealogy: the Role of the Opening Riddle in the Cratylus
Thursday, 3rd June: Lecture 4: Etymology in discourse: thinking with language in antiquity and the middle ages
Previous Lectures
Hilary Term 2008
Professor Christof Rapp (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)
| Title: | Aristotle's Rhetoric and Aristotelian Philosophy’ |
| Date: | Weeks 2 – 7, Wednesdays at 5pm |
| Location: | Lecture Room, 10 Merton Street |
| Week 2 (23 Jan 2008) | The dialectical approach to rhetoric [Handout] |
| Week 3 (30 Jan 2008) | Enthymemes and truncated syllogisms [Handout] |
| Week 4 (6 Feb 2008) | Topoi in dialectic and rhetoric [Handout] |
| Week 5 (13 Feb 2008) | Rhetoric and ethical theory [Handout] |
| Week 6 (20 Feb 2008) | A system of emotions [Handout] |
| Week 7 (27 Feb 2008) | The poet and the rhetorician [Handout] |
| Abstract: | Aristotle’s art of rhetoric borrows from several areas of Aristotelian philosophy: Above all, the artful rhetoric requires the dialectician’s competence for valid arguments and acceptable opinions. Then the rhetorician benefits from the study of character and emotions as well as from political theory. This is why Aristotle himself describes the art of rhetoric as an offshoot of dialectic and political science. Furthermore there are certain poetical techniques that are apt to improve the persuasiveness of prosaic speeches. –The six lectures on ‘Aristotle’s Rhetoric and Aristotelian philosophy’ will pick out some of those philosophically salient issues that are distinctive of Aristotle’s art of rhetoric. |