Xchanges >> Issue 6.1>> Pedagogy Shaped by Ideology: Beneath or Beyond Plato

Pedagogy Shaped by Ideology:

Beneath or Beyond Plato

Kacey Ross

Because it is nearly impossible to underestimate the impact of Platonic thought on Western culture, identifying Plato’s influence on writing and writing instruction should be easy. However, even though Platonic undertones saturate educational systems, precisely describing the ways that Plato has affected the teaching of writing is difficult.  Part of this difficulty can be explained through mutability; the understanding of Plato’s influence has changed as composition studies have evolved. The influence has been received as positive, negative, and immaterial at different points in the history of rhetoric and composition studies. Plato’s presence in schools writ large has resulted in a kind of public indoctrination, affecting, ultimately, those who teach writing, as well as, more generally, popular ways of thinking and/or habits of mind. These people rely on and replicate Plato’s understanding of the world. Teachers who have been influenced, albeit unknowingly, by Plato have an ideology, which shapes a pedagogy, that is laden with Platonic undertones and is likely to ask the same of students’ writing.

It seems ironic that despite Plato’s attacks on writing in both Phaedrus and Gorgias, his presence still permeates the way writing is taught. Strikingly few scholars ascribe to McAdon’s perception that “Plato’s view of rhetoric in the Phaedrus is consistent with the view expressed in the Gorgias—he denounces it completely” (22). Plato is not interested in supporting writing or writers; in fact, his absolute transcendent truth, his understanding of morality, and his prevalent binaries—some of the most basic pillars of Platonic thought—create significant problems for writing.  In order to dethrone Plato, an understanding of his epistemology is imperative; on the most basic level, Plato’s reach for singular unchanging truth shapes his ideology. Because pedagogy is always shaped by ideology, composition teachers need to be keenly aware of the ramifications of ascribing to a Platonic framework, ideology, and pedagogy. Teaching writing without a Platonic undercurrent is possible; it may hold significant benefits for the composition classroom, but it will require an active choice from teachers and writers to think and write in a different way.

Perhaps the most controlling, basic idea upon which Plato’s philosophy rests is a “belief in the eternal, unchanging, absolutes” (Grube 1). Plato’s truth is constant and transcendent. Socrates, Plato’s mouthpiece according to many scholars, asserts this ideology by awarding the title “Wise Man” to those who “know…wherein the real truth lies; and [are] able to defend [it]…and…can…expose the trivialities of written things” (Phaedrus 70). The implication of agreeing with Plato on this foundational level is the fixedness of truth and knowledge. According to G.M.A. Grube, a prominent Platonic scholar, “Plato insisted upon the possibility of knowledge and upon the existence of absolute values. To do this he had to establish the existence of an objective universally valid reality” (3). The permanence and transcendent nature of truth that Plato espoused saturates his philosophy, and it provides a fixed goal toward which to strive.

Ascribing to Plato’s belief in eternal, unchanging, absolute truth has an impact on the teaching of writing; Plato’s ideology of reaching for truth can be transcribed to understand that the purpose of writing is to search out that Platonic truth in order to gain knowledge. Kastely suggests “there is a progression within the dialogue that leads ultimately to an articulation of Plato’s attitude toward writing” (140).  Plato only sees writing as a mediocre tool within the dialectical movement toward truth, and if the purpose of writing is to move an individual closer to Plato’s unchanging truths, the function of writing becomes very limited.

The process pedagogy movement, prominent in the 1970s and '80s, made visible significant tensions between Platonic truth and the writing process. Process pedagogy revolves around the idea that “instead of a two-step transaction of meaning-into- language,” writing is “an organic, developmental process in which you start at the very beginning—before you know your meaning at all—and encourage your words gradually to change and evolve…. What looks inefficient—a rambling process with lots of writing and lots of throwing away—is really efficient since it’s the best way you can work up to what you really want to say and how to say it” (Elbow13-14). The result of an organic, growing, and changing understanding of writing is an organic, growing, and changing truth that is intertwined with the writer. As the writing evolves, so does the writer, and so does the writer’s individual truth. Even though composition studies have evolved since process pedagogy emerged, its remnants are still visible in drafting, peer revision, and other commonplaces in the writing classroom. The multiple truths, which stand in opposition to Platonic binaries and are a cornerstone of process theory, did not fade, but they ceased to be intentionally personal truths.

When process pedagogy began to lose ground to social epistemic rhetoric, the undeniable tensions between rhetoric and writing studies and Platonism became even more evident. Social epistemic rhetoric, which has at its very foundation the belief that meaning or truth, is created as writing happens, (between the reader, writer, text, and context) cannot actually coexist with a Platonic framework that endorses an ultimate, unchanging truth. Faigley explains this contradiction saying rhetoric and writing studies have settled on a model that “decisively reject[s] the primacy of consciousness and instead has consciousness originating in language, thus arguing that the subject is an effect rather than a cause of discourse” (9). Asserting that the subject of rhetoric is an effect rather than a cause of discourse stands in direct contradiction to Platonism. Plato believes writing is a weak reflection of truth, and can only attempt to represent a “subject.” Not only does social epistemic rhetoric reject a stoic truth, it claims that discourse happens as an effect—that is it does not exist to relate ideas, but to generate ideas.

Since the time that rhetoric and writing studies moved beyond current traditional rhetoric, the theory of the discipline has been complicating the often unchallenged Platonic framework that undergirds Western society and educational practices. Regardless of what theoretical school composition teachers subscribe to, Plato’s fixed notions of truth are problematic for writing instruction because they assume that all writers ascribe to one definition of truth and share the singular goal of moving toward it. In a Platonic framework, this truth goal is Plato’s truth, not the situated, kairotic, necessary truth of a writer rhetor who is working in the real world and for a distinct purpose. Moving away from Platonic rhetoric creates space for “a rhetoric that compels us to tell what must be told, to retell what needs to be retold, to search for the words that will make our day and the days of others” (Poulakos 175). An understanding of writing which encourages writers to write anything that needs to be told within a situation, instead of only writing in the pursuit of fixed transcendent truth has the possibility to open writing for writers—to make writing responsive to individual, communal, civic, societal, and cultural situations. Beyond not being kairotic or situated, the absolute truths that are inherent in Plato’s philosophy are discouraging because writers cannot know what they know, they cannot be certain or even knowledgeable about anything because Plato’s truth is transcendent. Further, under Plato’s model, writers most certainly cannot know anything through writing because it only offers a weak representation of reality.

The competition between fixed singular-truth epistemologies and kairotic multiple-truth epistemologies is not new to writing studies. However, recognition that Plato’s influence is one of the primary factors that encourage teachers to push students toward a “correct answer” can provide insight about the deeply imbedded tendency for writing to be judged as “right” or “wrong.” Subscribing to Plato’s fixed, transcendent truth enables one to make simple judgments of writing as ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ because all writing is for the singular purpose of nearing Platonic truth. Critics who are influenced by Platonic models may contend that they are not judging writing by  labeling it “right” or “wrong” but, rather, are teaching students to communicate in standard modern English. I am not advocating abandoning assessing writing. However, I am asserting that grading that echoes Plato’s belief that there is such a thing as “right” or “wrong” writing has the potential to indicate to students only one “right” way to write, that the “right” model is the only mode which is acceptable. This “right” model of truth is often labeled as standard modern English because it has easily measurable “right” and “wrong” aspects. Standard modern English is much broader than the rightness and wrongness of Platonic binaries; it has room to move beyond Plato and allow writers to explore multiple equally valid truths.

Plato’s model works well if writing teachers subscribe to a singular-truth epistemology; if, however, they believe in multiple truths, attempting to apply labels of “right” and “wrong” to writing becomes difficult. It limits teachers to commenting on and assessing writing in relation to aspects that can be counted as “right” or “wrong.” One of the real-world applications, then, of subscribing to Plato’s fixed, universal, transcendent truth is a pedagogy that values grammatical correctness, vocabulary, and the presence of analysis over the development of thought and the quality of content. An alternative for instructors who want to resist the binary framework that is rooted in the Platonic tradition is assessing student writing by examining the progress of individual writers’ work over the span of multiple drafts. This alternative does not require that an instructor use “right” and “wrong” labels, or judge writing against “correct”; instead, teachers are able to monitor and promote progress while being invested in the aims, intentions, and motivations of the individual writer.

Plato’s epistemology continues to be problematic for writing classrooms when teachers claim the existence of multiple truths but cling to Plato’s ideology in their actions. Encouraging discovery and development through exploration of multiple truths (which is present in social-epistemic rhetoric as well as postructuralist pedagogy) runs contradictory to Plato’s universal, absolute truth. For Plato, his truth corresponds to correctness while anything else results in failure. These competing ideologies which lead to very different pedagogies have the potential to be very frustrating to students. According to Jasper Neel, “Platonic writing, regardless of its point of departure or ‘topic,’ will finally carry the students into a dialectical search for truth” (83).  A likely result of the competition between a Platonic ideology and a pedagogy shaped by constructivist theory is that despite being introduced to the idea of multiple truths, writers are conditioned to strive toward fixed truth. These confused writers who want to use writing naturally, for exploration and discovery, for learning and communicating what they know, are always already frustrated and failing because despite the desires of writers, the habits of many teachers force writing into the Platonic box, the box that says there exists a “right” way to write and that those who strive for it will be rewarded.

Another pillar of Platonic ideology that has serious ramifications for writing studies is Plato’s assumption that true morality can only be achieved by a select few—by those who have the potential to become a wise, knowledgeable philosopher. Plato understood the end of his goal, achieved by striving toward the truth, to be wisdom and knowledge. Characterizing Plato’s ideal philosopher, Socrates says “The better parts of discursive thinking prevail, as they lead toward a regimented life and a love of wisdom….then all involved enjoy a blessed and harmonious life” (Phaedrus38). Plato believed that knowledge is “not only an understanding of Truth, of the structure of the world, but also of the moral and aesthetic realities in it, of its purpose and the reason why in all things” (Grube 255-256).

Not surprisingly, perceptions of Plato’s division between the philosopher and the rhetor are scattered. Taken at face value, Plato clearly posits the philosopher above the rhetor in Phaedrus, but “many scholars of contemporary rhetorical and composition studies…attribute to Plato a positive, dialectical, or philosophic view or rhetoric” (Noe 21). Conversely, the opinion of many other scholars is that “In sharp contrast to this dialectical or philosophical rhetoric interpretation…he denounces [rhetoric and writing] completely” (Noe 22). Because Plato labeled himself as a philosopher, and not a rhetor, and was labeled as such by his contemporaries, he should be (and will be) treated as such.

Plato’s distinction between the philosopher and the non-philosopher, often depicted as a rhetor, can be seen in his metaphor in Gorgias that posits the philosopher as a doctor and the rhetor as a cook. To draw a distinction between the philosopher and the rhetor, Socrates says, “cooking is the pandering that lurks beneath medicine…what cooking is to medicine is what rhetoric is to justice” (55), which is in the domain of philosophy. Within Plato’s analogy, philosophy is an important matter of the soul that deals with the essence of life. Rhetoric, conversely, is sustenance, a necessary part of existence, but not the core. Put simply, cooking imparts pleasing tastes but doesn’t heal the body; rhetoric is appealing to the body, but doesn’t serve a central, internal purpose. Plato’s metaphor rests on the assumption that justice, a key piece of morality, can only be known and understood by the wise man—the philosopher.

Agreeing to operate under a Platonic frame of reference then insists that people ascribe to Plato’s specific definition of morality in order to be viewed as knowledgeable. In fact, when Plato opened the academy, he claimed “Philosophy alone could lead men to acquire that wisdom upon which the goodness both of the state and of the individual soul was ultimately based” (Grube 179). The linking of morality and knowledge works within Plato’s epistemology because all knowledge is aimed at one truth, and morality is reserved for those seriously seeking that constant truth. The existence of universally valid definitions of anything, but certainly of morality, is problematic because it leaves only one understanding of morality—Plato’s understanding.

Just as Plato’s understanding of morality allows him to categorize and cast judgment on the world, it creates space to categorize and cast judgment on writing. Because of Plato’s strict path to morality, writing risks being classified as good or bad based solely upon whether or not it supports Plato’s truth and morality. According to Plato, good writing lies in “knowing wherein the real truth lies; and if [the writer] is able to defend them when submitting his writings to cross-examination; and if he can when speaking expose the trivialities of written things, then such a person should not have a name which derives from these pursuits but be given a name related to what he has taken seriously” (Phaedrus 70); that man should be a philosopher, not a rhetor. Plato’s wise men, those who focus only seriously on philosophy, have as their priority finding truth and, in doing so, pointing out the “triviality” of written text. Plato’s insistence that writing is a mere shadow of knowledge should indicate that his model is not useful for composition classrooms, yet Platonism continues to have a foothold in the very discipline he repeatedly attempts to debase.  

Within a Platonic framework, the converse of Plato’s link between morality, knowledge, and value then is true; writing that does not specifically set out to pursue Plato’s truth comes from unknowledgeable people and cannot “really be valuable and beautiful [because it] is undertaken in an artful way but has omitted the dialectical method” (Phaedrus 53). Plato’s ultimate goal for the wise person is philosophy. Because he counterposes philosophy to rhetoric, the wise person can “spend [her or his] idle time amusing themselves and their friends with writing, just so long as no one takes it seriously, just so long as it remains a pleasant pastime” (Neel 64). Even though Plato draws a crisp and divisive line between rhetoric and philosophy and clearly explains the only worthwhile role of writing is for the amusement of the wise philosopher, he does it in writing. Contemporary audiences are forced to consider whether Phaedrus was written as a “pleasant pastime” for Plato’s amusement, and nothing more.

Beyond a limiting perception of morality, Plato’s ideology invites his frequent creation and use of dualisms, or binary oppositions. This Platonic hallmark undergirds many Western patterns of thought. Philosophical examples are the “Platonic dualisms that counterpose practice and theory, material and ideal, and so on” (Harkavy16).  Specific examples of his incessant desire to organize the world into binary oppositions are available through Plato’s text. Gorgias is full of comparisons of things that are right or wrong, just or unjust, moral or immoral, and technical skills or knacks. Phaedrus rests on an oral/textual binary because orality, in the form of Philosophy of ideas, is superior to textuality practiced by rhetoricians. Not only are the practices organized into binary oppositions, Plato goes beyond practice to value the practitioners and their theories of rhetoric and philosophy at opposite ends of this binary. In both Phaedrus and Gorgias, Plato situates philosophy and rhetoric at opposite ends of a binary, but it is clear that his impulse to categorize existence into binary oppositions stretches beyond Philosophy.

As a tool of philosophy, binary oppositions may be useful; but, for rhetoric, binaries pose a real problem. They are problematic for rhetoric, and as such, for writing, because a rhetorical world view resists neat classifications and instead places emphasis on contingency, kairoticness, situatedness, and purpose. Commenting on the departure of rhetoric from Plato’s binaries, Poulakos says, “Because the rhetorician concerns himself with the particular and the pragmatic, his way is not that of an abstract absolutism created in the spirit of a priori truths; rather, it is that of a relativism of a concrete rhetorical situation to which situationally derived truths are the only opportune and appropriate responses” (28). The binaries of Platonic thought are, therefore, counterproductive to the purposes of rhetorical education, yet their existence persists in writing—it is even something that some teachers privilege.  All Platonic binaries and dualisms ask thinkers, and writers, to classify the world into polar opposites instead of representing the reality of spectral contiguity.

Plato’s binary division of thought from action is particularly problematic for writing studies because it attempts to separate theory from practice, that is, thought about writing from actual writing. Harkavy claims that “For Plato, learning occurred through contemplative thought, not through action and reflection” (12) even though the most engaging learning combines thought, action, and reflection. Plato establishes the distinction between thought and action when he has Socrates ask whether it is “necessary for those who intend to speak well and beautifully to have before all else a discursive understanding of the truth about the subject he means to discuss” (Phaedrus 43). The language of Socrates's question does several things; it implies that thinking and composing are separate things; it indicates that thought must happen before speech—and therefore writing—can happen; and it certainly privileges knowledge, or thought, above action or practice. Harkavy points out “Plato viewed knowledge as deriving from the ideal, spiritual universe of permanent and fixed ideas” (12). The exalting of knowledge, and implicit devaluing of action and reflection, lines up neatly with Plato’s belief in the supremacy of philosophy. It does not, however, support a rhetorical education or the writing classroom.  In the writing classroom, theory informs practice—the two are tightly interwoven.

Because Plato believed in fixed definitions and a common ultimate goal for humanity, dualisms that assign value fit nicely into his paradigm; this tendency continues to pervade thought patterns and educational models today. However, Susan Jarratt claims that “This historical formulation is under attack” (Role of the Sophists 85). She explains that emerging schools of thought are “challeng[ing]… the binary basis of Western Philosophy, question[ing] the dualities on which these histories rest” (Role of the Sophists 85). While this resistance exists, the conceived challenges to binaries and dualisms may not be seen as direct challenges to Plato’s fixed notions of truth. In actuality, they are.  Poststructuralist thought, specifically deconstructionism, offers a drastically different approach to understanding and thinking about the world. By resisting classifying the world as good/bad, male/female, spiritual/physical, or black/white, people, who both think and write, are actually resisting Plato’s model.

Plato’s strongholds which support much of Western thought continue to pervade writing studies, create problems for writers, and complicate the teaching of writing. Platonic ideology does little to support the kind of critical thought that is valued in the contemporary university, yet Plato and his philosophy continue to hold a place of power over writing. By attacking the usefulness and power of rhetoric, Plato banishes the possibility of thinking critically through writing.

Rhetoric, a rhetoric not tainted by a Platonic lens, provides a better grounding for writing classes. Because composition pedagogy has historically been strongly influenced by Platonic thought, it is difficult to imagine a different kind of writing pedagogy. Without valuing Plato, writing runs the risk of being “labeled ‘mere sophistry,’ [and being] rejected out of hand” (Neel 6). Despite the risks of rejecting Plato, contemporary theorists—including Jarratt, Neel, and Poulakos—have suggested that there is “an epistemological alternative to philosophy as the ground of logic and timeless truth. It stands for the process of reformulating human “truths” in historically and geographically specific contexts” (Jarratt, Role of the Sophists 90). This alternative version of perceiving reality and shaping writing instruction offers new possibilities. By removing Plato from his position of authority, we can “recast historical discourse…by changing the key terms through which narrative circulates” (Jarratt, Role of the Sophists 89). Much later, Poulakos continues the effort to find a different historical home for  rhetoric and writing studies, suggesting that “During the last twenty years sophistry has emerged as the new orthodoxy of rhetoric” (175). He suggests that the sophists may present a more meaningful historical home for rhetoric and writing studies, but having scholars who have labeled themselves as sophists indicates “that the contest is over. [His] interest, however is in keeping it alive. Doing so affords us new creations and new inventions, the kind that we need if we are to carry ourselves and our words forward” from Plato’s controlling grasp on the practices of composition classrooms (176).  Conceiving of writing without Plato’s ground rules creates space for a new kind of writing that reflects writing for discovery, critical thought, creation of knowledge, and multiple truths.  

Outside of Plato’s transcendent truth, rhetoric offers new possibilities for writers. We are no longer constrained by unchanging or absolute truth; “in distinction to episteme, rhetoric does not strive for cognitive certitude, the affirmation of logic, or the articulation of universals. Conditioned by the people who create it, rhetoric moves beyond the domain of logic and, satisfied with probability, lends itself to the flexibility of the contingent” (Poulakos 26). For writers, this shift is important because it opens up endless possibilities for thought and for writing. Outside of Plato, writing can be used to explore and consider the possible. When not all writing is directed toward absolute truth, there exists a place for spectral contiguity, distinct opinions, and multiple truths. When writing is no longer controlled by Plato, it can operate recursively because it is not always moving linearly toward a truth.

Writing to explore multiple truths problematizes Plato’s insistence on a singular truth and the idea that writing exists as a tool to move toward that specific truth. Additionally, when Plato’s absolute “truthiness” disintegrates, so does his specific link between knowledge, wisdom, and morality. Instead, “The rhetorician concerns himself with the possible because he refuses to keep people in their actual situation...He tries to lift them from the vicissitudes of custom and habit and take them into a new place where new discoveries and conquests can be made” (Poulakos 31).  This new place is beyond or at least apart from Plato’s truth, so when rhetoric, through writing, decides to deviate from Plato’s prescribed path, it creates new knowledge through “new discoveries and conquests” (Poulakos 31). Knowledge that exists apart from Plato’s philosophical knowledge is valuable; it leads to critical thinking and to well-informed rhetors.

Even though Plato may not have been able to “bear the thought of the truth as an unclosable, infinitely operating external system” (Neel 69), writing can handle that kind of truth. Knowledge, wisdom, and phronesis, practical wisdom rather than morality, that come from a discursive, messy rhetoric isn’t Plato’s, but it is an alternative that works for writing, and it works in a way that is complementary to how writing works. In fact, “time, place, relationship. And personal interest draw attention to the momentary and transistory, to the now of the rhetorical act, even when that act takes place textually” (Noe 362). This shifting, changing, non-linear, inventive picture of writing is accurate; it is how writing actually happens—even how writing happened for Plato in Gorgias and Phaedrus.

According to Neel, and self-evident to anyone who has ever written anything, “there is no possible way that all of Phaedrus was invented first and then arranged” (61). If rhetoric, through writing, can provide an alternative road to knowledge, it can also bring writers to phronesis. For instance, the sophists “sought to ground the abstract notions of their predecessors in the actuality of everydayness. Conscious of people’s susceptibility to each others’ language, they taught eloquence whose peculiar characteristic is ‘to show the manifold points of view existing in a thing, and to give force to those which harmonize with what appears to me to be more useful’” (Poulakos 26). By learning to view the world as multifaceted and undeterminable, rhetors nurture a habit of mind that is moral because they learn to consider others, weigh options, and situate issues. These, not Plato’s aristocratic characteristics, define a practical wisdom that is good for both self and society.

Rhetoric also provides a constructive alternative to Plato’s insistence on organizing the world into binary oppositions. If writers choose to move beyond Plato’s model, rhetoric becomes a tool that can “show the manifold points of view existing in a thing, and…give force to those which harmonize with what appears … useful” (Poulakos 26). Instead of philosophizing on those binary ends that Plato would have all writers focus on, rhetoric gives writers tools for shaping an epistemology that embraces both/and instead of either/or. This rhetoric, this writing, helps people exist in and make sense of the middle, the gray, the spectrum between Plato’s good and bad, right and wrong, and black and white. The critical position offered by a both/and epistemology produces practical understanding and wisdom rather than Plato’s philosophical morality. Further, a new Platonic-less understanding of rhetoric creates space for complicating Plato’s either/or framework with that already favored by feminist, deconstructive, and social constructionist schools of thought. This framework is one with many valid truths, one which “allows humans to act in the absence of certain a priori truth” (Jarratt, Rereading the Sophists 8). Radically different from Platonic philosophy, this rhetoric is reminiscent of the rhetoric of the sophists, and it provides a very useful alternative for writing—an alternative that models how writing actually happens: in diverse ways and with diverse tools. Approaching writing through a both/and epistemology that leaves Plato and his binaries behind will bring writers to different places.

Throwing out Plato’s division between thought and action is particularly useful for rhetoric and writing because it makes it possible, even helpful, for thought and action—or theory and practice—to coexist. Without Plato’s restrictive binary, rhetoric becomes the grounds for both thought and action. Because “ to be effective as a productive and critical power…the rhetorical ‘art’ needs to be internalized by ‘practice,’” Plato’s either/or division between thought and action will not suffice (Fleming 183). Instead, a strong rhetorical education requires a both/and perspective which embraces thought and action, theory and practice. Specifically realizing that both thought and action are necessary in the writing classroom shatters the Platonic perception that philosophy or thought is superior to rhetoric or action.  Because writing requires thought and thought leads to action, the two are not exclusive but, rather require each other. Without practice, writing cannot be improved or used as a knowledge-making tool; without theory, writers are less likely to be successful as they navigate through the difficult and complicated process that is writing. Writing classrooms that include thought, theory, practice, and action will teach about how writing happens, talk about writing and content, include in-class and out-of-class writing assignments, and employ peer revision and multiple drafts.

By dissolving Plato’s binary oppositions, especially thought vs. action, writing teachers can encourage the embrace and exploration of multiple truths. When teachers create environments where writers are encouraged to think outside a Platonic framework, a new ideology is possible. Destabilizing Plato’s philosophical hold on writing has the potential to create drastically different writers, different thinkers, and different people. By operating under an alternative ideology that doesn’t force classifications and value claims on people and things, a Platonic-less writing pedagogy can create people who are more accepting of others. While it may be impossible to completely remove Plato’s influence from Western thought, writing trains minds, and writing pedagogies that don’t ask writers to classify and make value claims will train minds in a critically different way than the Platonic framework has.  It will open space for understanding and tolerance which could affect society far beyond the composition classroom.

While it may seem that the most pressing issue for rhetoric and writing in the university is “to become a legitimate discipline…[to] explain itself ontologically and epistemologically,” before finding that home, the case must be made for stepping outside of Plato’s aristocratic mansion where many disciplines are quite comfortable (Neel 5). Until the choice is made to escape Plato, “we are still bound to the directives of Plato’s system of Idealism... But because rhetoric came about as an activity grounded in human experience, not in philosophical reflection, we must approach it by looking at those who practiced it [and] those who reflected about it” (Lucaties 25). The case is simple: Plato’s transcendent, absolutist, divisive ideals support philosophy, not rhetoric. In order for writing to advance a rhetoric in which “no position can lay claim to absolute, timeless truth, [and] all formulations are historically specific, arising out of the material conditions of a particular time and place,” rhetoric and writing must leave Plato behind (Berlin 672). Yet, Plato’s attacks against writing presented in Phaedrus and Gorgias must be answered, and the necessary answer is that Plato does not own writing. He cannot expect his message—in writing—about writing to be taken seriously after he “effectively excludes writing from the highest forms of thinking, understanding, and communicating” (Neel 3). Writers, teachers, and rhetoricians who want to inhabit an environment where writing is meaningful and genuine have a choice. They can continue to work inside a Platonic framework which generates abundant problems, or they can intentionally leave Plato, his philosophies, his pedagogy, and his epistemologies behind by choosing to ground the teaching of writing in rhetoric instead of philosophy.

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