Atechnē
DOI
10.5325/jj.22136006
Abstract
"TECHNĒ
technē. From philosophy to media theory to writing studies, to cybernetics, considerations of technē attend to the systems that produce, and reproduce, social life.1 Perhaps this is especially so in the study of rhetoric, where the arrival of technē rhētorikē in fourth-century BCE Attica marks the arrival of a system for producing and performing civic discourse in the service of what Paul Woodruff terms First Democracy. For ancient Athenians, creating a new polity to resist tyranny, essential practices of political deliberation, judicial decision-making, and cultural orchestration of norms to live by could not be left to the whims of tyrants or the (so-called) wisdom of kings. Instead, a new polity needed to be produced by a technē of persuasive public argument using practical reasoning in proofs about probabilities of political, judicial, and cultural matters."
Document Type
Book Chapter
ISBN
978-0-271-09153-2
Publication Date
2021
Publisher Statement
Purchase a copy of the book here: https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/9780271091532/html
Recommended Citation
Mifsud, Mari Lee. 2021. “Atechnē,” in The New Handbook of Rhetoric: Inverting the Classical Vocabulary, edited by Michele Kennerly. Penn State University Press, p. 25-37, 2021. https://muse.jhu.edu/book/103486.
