审美与实践的统一--对古希腊修辞学的重新审视

The Unity of Aesthetic and Practice--Re-examination of Ancient Greek Rhetoric

修辞学在古希腊城邦事务中发挥着重要作用。审美之维是修辞学的内在话语力量,实践之维是修辞学的外在话语力量,从智术师到柏拉图再到亚里士多德都在努力促成二者的统一。智术师生活的时代是古希腊的全盛时期,雅典民主制为修辞活动的进行提供了便利,民主政体对辩论、演说的需要也使智术师们大有用武之地。同时也产生了一些不好的倾向,那就是过分注重语词的华美,尤其是以“说服”为目的而忽视话语背后更重要的真和善,所以就有了柏拉图对修辞学的“审美批判”,其目的是要从更高的维度上重建一种政治修辞学或哲学修辞学。而亚里士多德则将修辞学构建为一种“城邦性的技艺”,最终实现了审美与实践的统一。

Rhetoric plays an important role in ancient Greek city-states’affairs.The dimension of aesthetic is the inner discourse power of rhetoric,while the dimension of practice is the outer power.From Sophists to Plato and Aristotle,they are all working hard to promote the unity of the two.The era when the Sophists lived was the heyday of ancient Greece.Athenian democracy promoted the development of rhetoric.At the same time,the need of the democratic system for debate and speech also made Sophists very useful.But there have also been some bad tendencies,that is,to pay too much attention to the beauty of discourse,especially for the purpose of“persuasion”while ignoring the more important truth and goodness behind the discourse,so there come Plato’s“aesthetic criticism”of rhetoric.Its purpose is to reconstruct a political rhetoric or philosophical rhetoric from a higher dimension.Aristotle constructs rhetoric as a kind of“civic art”,and finally achieves the unity of aesthetics and practice.