Sophists of the Court: Diplomacy, Rhetoric and the Problem of Representation
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.52610/rhs.v24i81.21Keywords:
Rhetoric, Diplomacy, Representation, Perpetual PeaceAbstract
Rhetoric and diplomacy shares something we might call the problem of representation, arising out of the difficulties to ever accurately represent something. In the article, this joint problem is approached through an investigation into its different solutions, taking us from Plato’s and Aristotle’s critique of the sophists, through Demosthenes’ and Aeschines’ joint effort to create peace between Athens and Philip II of Macedon, to Rousseau, Kant, and contemporary scholars studying diplomatic rhetoric. In Kant’s idea of perpetual peace and Perelman’s concept of a universal audience, we eventually find what we might call modernity’s answer to this ancient problem, the acceptance of what in Hegelian parlance could be called the bad infinity of diplomatic and rhetorical communication. Finally, and by contrast, Lacan’s use of the diplomat as an illustration of the limits of representation is discussed and the possibility of avoiding the endless dialectic of trial and error is developed.
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