Exhortations to Philosophy: The Protreptics of Plato, Isocrates, and Aristotle by James Henderson Collins II

Good reasons to philosophize: On Hadot, Cooper, and ancient philosophical protreptic

“…It aims to persuade or exhort someone towards a particular action. In this way, it is counterposed to dissuasive or “apotreptic” discourses aiming to turn someone away from some course of action (Aristotle 2020, 1358a–59a; see Collins 2015, 39).…”

“…Amongst Socrates' pupils, Antisthenes is credited with a protreptic urging readers to justice and courage. Aristippus of Cyrene is known to have written a work entitled Protreptic (Collins 2015, 31–32). Plato's Phaedo is considered by some sources as a meaningfully protreptic work, alongside parts of the Euthydemus and the Clitophon , to which I return in section 3.1.…”

“…The last ancient philosophical work bearing the title Protreptikos is attributed to Themius in the fourth century C.E. (Collins 2015, 31–32).…”

“…James Henderson Collins's Exhortations to Philosophy (2015) opens by specifying philosophical protreptic‐involved attempts by philosophers and other would‐be sophoi to recruit new students. They did so, after the middle of the fifth century, in the context of intellectual competition with other teachers promoting alternative ways of life, theoretical discourses, and of course rival arts like rhetoric to prospective students (see section 1 above; Collins 2015, 4–5, 7–8, 17–18, 38). The goal of such exhortations was to convert non‐philosophers into what the Stoics called prokoptonta : that is, students motivated to pursue forms of philosophical inquiry or, indeed, any other exercises associated with a philosophical life, in contrast to their pursuing other possible bioi available to them in the ancient cities.…”

“…The ancient Greek verb protrepö literally evokes a movement, “to turn towards.” The verb has a wide variety of meanings: from soldiers turning in headlong flight in Homer or a person giving way to grief, to more active uses, describing forms of persuasive speech acts: exhortation, injunction, and the rousing of an addressee to some emotion or deed (Collins 2015, 7–8). In Aristotle's Rhetoric , “protreptic” rhetoric shows up as one branch of deliberative oratory.…”