While these two books have different purposes, they both ask readers to consider the relationship between friendship and rhetoric and the limitations placed upon rhetoric and deliberation in a polity where there is not friendship. This makes them interesting not only to scholars of rhetoric and Plato but also to readers interested in deliberation or democratic theory.
Michael Kochin suggests that rhetoric has the important function of “protect[ing] human relationships from ever changing facts and circumstances” (p. 3). Because Kochin sees rhetoric as a tool for preserving relationships so that communication will be possible, he is critical of those scholars who believe that argumentation is the most important quality of rhetoric. He doubts argument's efficacy, for “[a]rguments make the things argued for unclear or dubitable, where assertion or illustration makes things manifest, or, even better, self-evident” (p. 14). This is a provocative claim that brings him into contact with the substantial literature on democratic deliberation. Perhaps the greatest flaw in Five Chapters on Rhetoric is that it does not seriously engage the literature on deliberative democracy, as Kochin makes an interesting case for his position that rhetoric is less about articulating reasons through argument and more about preserving relationships that allow channels of communication to remain open.
Given his preference for “men, not measures,” it is not surprising that Kochin focuses on the role of character in rhetoric. He discusses the interplay between character as moral uprightness and character as expertise and asserts that successful orators demonstrate their superior expertise while simultaneously showing that they are possessed of a moral character acceptable to the political community at large. The latter is clearly more difficult, but Kochin rejects the notion that it is best achieved through the use of a persona and suggests that “[w]hat is to be concealed here is not one's true character, but one's art in making one's own character and that of one's opponent appear to the audience” (p. 51). He could use more clarity on this point; it seems that he is brushing aside the role of personae completely, when he is actually claiming that a public figure cannot adopt a persona that is incongruent with his or her actual self.
Kochin argues that we can derive criteria for judging actions—and thus character—through speech, and that Demosthenes' On the Crown gives us criteria for judging action that are superior to both intentionalist and consequentialist criteria. On Kochin's reading of Demosthenes, good actions are those actions that were taken with the fullest possible knowledge of the context at the time of the action and with the most thoughtful consideration of all the potential consequences that a rational person could have foreseen. It would have been nice to see him discuss the ways in which our political institutions would have to be changed to facilitate decision making by this standard, particularly with respect to providing citizens with information about what exactly proper foreknowledge would look like, because his standard presents a very interesting alternative to the imperfect approaches of judging by motive or results.
During this discussion of how best to express action in speech, Kochin suggests that the same scholars who overemphasize argument misunderstand the purpose of using numbers in rhetoric. Numbers and statistics “[present] the speaker as reasonable but [do] not invite the audience to reason with the speaker” (p. 90). They permit speakers to distance themselves from the carefully constructed version of their actions and character that they are actively presenting, thus making the presentation of their actions and character appear more objective (this is the art of making one's character clear). While the ‘mere things’ approach to recounting actions and character is ideal, Kochin warns that the orators cannot go too far else they “risk … forfeiting the audience's good opinion” (p. 107).
In that warning and subsequent praise of saying something-that-is-“nothing,” the relationship (or nonrelationship) between rhetoric and friendship comes to the fore. On the surface, Kochin seems to be offering up the saying of nothing as a substitute for friendship; after all, would we not be honest and direct with our friends? (He has his doubts.) However, since the most “typical” way of saying nothing is to discuss “the experiences, locations and affiliations one shares with one's audience” (p. 115), it seems that saying nothing allows for the establishment of community in ways that argumentative rhetoric cannot. Saying nothing, like the Demonsthenic criteria for judging action, emerges as a third way—this time between the high standard of classical friendship and individualism.
Kochin argues that the real art of rhetoric is neither manipulation nor ornamentation. The real art of rhetoric is presenting good people, good policies, and promising potentialities clearly. He is adamant that rhetoric cannot make revolting things appealing. This claim might be a bit optimistic, but it allows him to develop a very appealing standard for political rhetoric. However, given Kochin's desire to assert new roles and standards for political rhetoric, the book seems incomplete without a more thorough engagement with the democratic theory literature. Still, it provides a great service by bringing together literature from disparate disciplines to comment on the role of rhetoric, and those who are interested in rhetoric should take seriously the new standards and criteria articulated here.
While Kochin's work leaves us wondering how important strong friendship is to a community so long as orators can be clear and know when to say nothing, Mary Nichols argues that strong friendship is necessary for developing the art of conversation that drives both philosophy and politics. Most modern readers tend to associate friendship with Aristotle, not Plato, but Nichols argues that “Socrates can offer a remedy for modern alienation while preserving a fundamental place for the individualism central to modern thought and politics” (p. 6) because he shows us how friendship allows us to “[experience] our own as other” and “experience the strange in the familiar” (p. 5). Without these experiences—which come only through friendship—we cannot reach out to our fellow citizens.
Before engaging the Platonic dialogues, Nichols considers the modern, alienated Socrates of Kierkegaard and Nietzsche. While acknowledging that Nietzsche sees Socrates as more than a rationalist and that Kierkegaard understands the role that “human incompleteness” plays in the Socratic project, Nichols argues that the difference between Socrates and these modern thinkers is “captured in [Socrates'] understanding of friendship and political community, how the latter is a reflection of the former, and how both are fundamental to a good human life” (p. 24).
From here, Nichols moves to a close reading of the Symposium that highlights the dialogue's focus on “the mutual dependence of Socratic philosophizing and political life” (p. 30). In the Symposium, we see that “[i]t is Socrates' understanding of love … rooted in both human need and resourcefulness that explains … his connection and even his love for other human beings. That same understanding limits imperialism while encouraging noble political action” (p. 30). Nichols reads Socrates' speech about Love as a response to the type of accusations that he will eventually face in the Apology (represented in the speeches of Pausanias, Phaedrus, and Eriyxmachus), a defense of the possibility of philosophy against Aristophanes, and, perhaps most importantly, a corrective to Agathon's “all you need is love” platitudes. Indeed, the speech makes clear that unless the lover is able to give birth to wisdom in another soul—which requires friendship—then love has not finished its task.
Indeed, the Symposium represents an unfinished teaching that continues in the Phaedrus, where “Socrates … links love with self-knowledge and friendship” (p. 87). Since humans are incomplete and need speech for “not merely reminding, but generation” (p. 94), Socrates tells Phaedrus that we need a “rhetoric [that] indicates the necessity of adjusting speeches to the souls of one's listeners” (p. 94). This requires friendship; how else to know the soul of one's interlocutor? This would also seem to completely condemn the written word, but Nichols suggests that Socrates' criticism of writing is not wholly damning, for “writing dialogues that leave questions, or laws that leave room for application to individual cases” (p. 146) can create opportunities for “conversation” with readers-as-friends.
We still need to understand what a friend is and thus must turn to the Lysis. Nichols reads the dialogue more optimistically than does David Bolotin, arguing that the dialogue presents friendship “as a standard for philosophy [and political community] insofar as friends remain separate, while they belong together” (pp. 154–55). In other words, friendship is essential for the philosophic life that can come ever closer to completing us (for the alienated person will remain forever divorced from truth) and “saves us from alienation while preserving our own identity” (p. 215). Friendship “offers support for our complex identities as human beings and citizens” (p. 190).
While Nichols makes a compelling case for her readings, her case would be even stronger if she highlighted examples of friendship in action in the dialogues. For example, the guests in the Symposium let Socrates speak “in his own way” because “[t]hey are either remarkably polite or they want to hear what he has to say” (p. 57). Both possibilities are plausible (the first represents an interesting example of saying nothing), but there is a third option: The others consider Socrates their friend and are happy to allow him to speak however he pleases. Elsewhere she writes that “Phaedrus only wants to hear the speech and does not care whether he sees the speaker” (p. 101). However, she does not address the possibility that it might only be because Phaedrus and Socrates are already friendly that Phaedrus would be willing to listen to the speech without seeing Socrates' face. It seems that this ability to trust and overlook quirks is an important part of the friendship that allows Socrates to reach out to his fellow citizens.
This does not detract overmuch from Nichols's rich readings. Her argument that these three dialogues form a unified teaching on the importance of friendship and that Socrates is a proponent of friendship, not alienation, is convincing and an important contribution to the literature. She advances a high standard for rhetoric in political life and makes a case for conversational rhetoric that augments similar arguments in the democratic theory literature. In doing so, she joins Kochin in understanding that the relationship between friendship and rhetoric helps drive the prospects for genuine popular government.
