Antidosis and Protrepticus

UPDATE: MOVING TO FRONT 2017 January.

We are making available for scholarly use and comment the latest version of our essay: The Antidosis of Isocrates and Aristotle's Protrepticus.

Abstract: Isocrates' Antidosis ("Defense against the Exchange") and Aristotle's Protrepticus ("Exhortation to Philosophy") were recovered from oblivion in the late nineteenth century. In this article we demonstrate that the two texts happen to be directly related. Aristotle's Protrepticus was a response, on behalf of the Academy, to Isocrates' criticism of the Academy and its theoretical preoccupations. -/- Contents: I. Introduction: Protrepticus, text and context II. Authentication of the Protrepticus of Aristotle III. Isocrates and philosophy in Athens in the 4th century IV. The Protrepticus of Aristotle as a response to the Antidosis of Isocrates V. Conclusion: dueling conceptions of philosophy, still dueling.

The essay, originally based on our talks at the Pacific Division Meeting of the American Philosophical Association in 2006 and at Yale University in 2007, has been cited in the following:

1. Blank, D. Aristotle’s ‘Academic Course on Rhetoric” and the end of Philodemus, On Rhetoric VIII’ Cronache Ercolanesi 37 (2007), 5-48. 
2. Himanka, J. et al. On filosofoitava: Jälkipuhe Aristoteleeseen. Niin &; Näin 4 (2008), 52-53 at 53. Available here.
3. Van der Meeren, S. Exhortation à la Philosophie: Le dossier Grec Aristote (Paris, 2011).
4. Vetekeikis, T. References to Isocrates in Aristotle's Art of Rhetoric. Literatura 53 (2011), 7-40. Available online here. 
5. Zbigniew Danek. Przeciw komu występuje Izokrates w swoim Liście do Aleksandra?. Roczniki Humanistyczne 3 (2015), 53-65. Available online here.  
6. Mihai, C.-I. Competing Arts: Medicine and Philosophy in Aristotle's Protrepticus. Hermeneia 17 (2016), 87-96. Available here.

You can also reach the document through a link from the essays page on www.protrepticus.info.

Isocrates and the Philosophers: Review of Tarik Wareh, The Theory and Practice of Life

I recently reviewed for The Journal of Hellenic Studies Tarik Wareh's monograph The Theory and Practice of Life: Isocrates and the Philosophers (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 2012). The review is available in PDF here. From the review:

Wareh makes great progress by giving fuller consideration to the indispensible evidence of Aristotle’s Protrepticus, which has long been recognized as interrelated with Isocrates’ Antidosis, but has not yet been brought to bear on the reconstruction of Isocrates’ own educational methods and priorities, even by more recent scholars of Isocrates. We are only fairly lately beginning to profit greatly from the fortuitous 19th-century recovery of all of Isocrates’ Antidosis and part of Aristotle’s Protrepticus, as Wareh’s careful sifting of the evidence shows. And yet the Antidosis and its immediate context is crucial, since this is the work in which Isocrates defends his educational principles and conception of philosophy at greatest length, in part by attacking the abstract preoccupations and impracticable priorities of the Academy. Aristotle’s defence of theoretical and mathematical science as the heart and soul of philosophical education in the Protrepticus apparently went so far as to produce speeches against theoretical and mathematical philosophy in the voice of an Isocratean character which were then refuted by Aristotle in his own voice, an innovation in the dialogue genre and philosophical polemics that was embraced and imitated by Cicero in his own dialogues.