The Stoic ‘Science of Speaking Well’

This paper argues that despite prima facie impressions, the first Stoics (the 3rd c. bc) put forward a conception of rhetoric of similar if not of equal importance as that of Plato and Aristotle, who represent two landmarks in the earliest development of what we may call ‘philosophical rhetoric’. The paper shows that the Stoics built upon their predecessors’ ideas, and that once we see this continuity, common features in Plato’s, Aristotle’s and the Stoics’ conception of rhetoric come to the fore. For all of them argumentation, logical or dialectical, is at the core of philosophical rhetoric. The paper also addresses passages in Plutarch which accuse the Stoics of contradiction in their approach to rhetoric.