Editing Isocrates (section)

==Legacy==
[[File:Parc de Versailles, Rond-Point des Philosophes, Isocrate, Pierre Granier MR1870 03.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Isocrates sculpture located at the Parc de Versailles]]
Because of [[Plato]]'s attacks on the sophists, Isocrates' school – having its roots, if not the entirety of its mission, in rhetoric, the domain of the sophists – came to be viewed as unethical and deceitful. Yet many of Plato's criticisms are hard to substantiate in the actual work of Isocrates; at the end of ''[[Phaedrus (dialogue)|Phaedrus]]'', Plato even shows Socrates praising Isocrates (though some scholars have taken this to be sarcasm). Isocrates saw the ideal orator as someone who must possess not only rhetorical gifts, but also a wide knowledge of philosophy, science, and the arts. He promoted the Greek ideals of freedom, self-control, and virtue; in this, he influenced several Roman rhetoricians, such as [[Cicero]] and [[Quintilian]], and influenced the core concepts of [[liberal arts education]].{{citation needed|date=June 2024}}

Although Isocrates has been largely marginalized in the history of philosophy,<ref name="Matson 1957 423–427">{{Cite journal|last=Matson|first=W. I.|date=1957|title=Isocrates the Pragmatist|journal=The Review of Metaphysics|volume=10|issue=3|pages=423–427|jstor=20123586 |issn=0034-6632}}</ref> his contributions to the study and practice of rhetoric have received more attention. Thomas M. Conley argues that through Isocrates' influence on Cicero, whose writings on rhetoric were the most widely and continuously studied until the modern era, "it might be said that Isocrates, of all the Greeks, was the greatest."<ref>{{Cite book|last=Conley|first=Thomas M.|title=Rhetoric in the European tradition|date=1990|publisher=Longman|isbn=0-8013-0256-0|location=New York|oclc=20013261}}</ref> With the [[Neo-Aristotelianism (literature)|neo-Aristotelian]] turn in rhetoric, Isocrates' work sometimes gets cast as a mere precursor to Aristotle's systematic account in ''[[Rhetoric (Aristotle)|On Rhetoric]].''<ref name="Haskins 2010">{{Cite book|last=Haskins|first=Ekaterina V.|title=Logos and power in Isocrates and Aristotle|date=2010|publisher=University of South Carolina Press|isbn=978-1-57003-873-0|location=Columbia, S.C.|oclc=632088737}}</ref> However, Ekaterina Haskins reads Isocrates as an enduring and worthwhile counter to Aristotelian rhetoric. Rather than the Aristotelian position on rhetoric as a neutral tool, Isocrates understands rhetoric as an identity-shaping performance that activates and sustains civic identity.<ref name="Haskins 2010"/> The Isocratean position on rhetoric can be thought of as ancient antecedent to the twentieth century theorist [[Kenneth Burke]]'s conception that rhetoric is rooted in identification.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Haskins|first=Ekaterina|date=July 2006|title=Choosing between Isocrates and Aristotle: Disciplinary Assumptions and Pedagogical Implications|url=http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02773940600605552|journal=Rhetoric Society Quarterly|language=en|volume=36|issue=2|pages=191–201|doi=10.1080/02773940600605552|s2cid=145521219 |issn=0277-3945}}</ref> Isocrates' work has also been described as proto-[[Pragmatism|Pragmatist]], owing to his assertion that rhetoric makes use of probable knowledge with the aim resolving real problems in the world.<ref name="Matson 1957 423–427"/><ref>{{Cite book |editor1=Michele Kennerly |editor2=Damien Smith Pfister |date=2018 |title=Ancient rhetorics and digital networks |isbn=978-0-8173-9157-7|location=Tuscaloosa |publisher=University of Alabama Press |oclc=1021296931}}</ref>

Isocrates' innovations in the art of rhetoric paid closer attention to expression and rhythm than any other Greek writer, though because his sentences were so complex and artistic, he often sacrificed clarity.<ref name="yorku1998" />