I agree with what some other posts have already said in the area of what differenciates this critique on the sophists as opposed to Plato's of the foundationalists. The main difference that I see is what they deem to be appropriate forms of payment for the services of being taught the art of oratory. Isocrates thinks that these professors are charging to little and that their demands to have the money up front is simply a testimant to how poor their services must be, while Plato's dialogue stands by the position that if the service is good, then a student will pay his professor after the fact and will insist on paying him well because he is so indebted to him for passing on the knowledge. I don't necessarily think that Isocrates' take on things is right or wrong, but Plato's does seem to me to be a bit idealistic.
amy_lee

I interpreted Isocrates' position to be more of a rant about the art of political discourse to be taken too nonchalantly. From the reading I gathered that Isocrates' main criticism was with the superficial teachings that these professors taught to all students regardless of ability or "knack" for the art. Isocrates didn't believe that anyone who was willing to teach political discourse by primarily addressing the rules and not his/her own actions which speak of integrity and other individual qualities of the like. Isocrates' argument went further than Socrates when he made the accusation that because of those who market this art like it is a task for any person to learn sets an "insignificant price on the whole stock of virtue and happiness." Those that pretend to have the ability to teach this only make sure that they do not contradict themselves in what they are saying, but this superficial teaching only goes so far in that the professor seeks to be paid and has no real concern for whether or not what the preach is being practiced. So I think for Isocates it was more of an integrity issue rather than with Socrates it was more or less a focus on if you are to be paid for your teaching, then you will continue to reap rewards from those you taught (they will look out for you) -- (i.e. the elenchus argument about whether or not it is better to be a victim and Socrates' ideas about how to decrease chances of being a victim even when you do not physically defend yourself). I think another contrasting difference was that Socrates was unwilling to compare himself to others. In one of the excerpts of an argument, Socrates tells his opponent Polus that he would rather be alone in his argument that to go along with everyone else if he knew he knew the truth. Isocrates admits his profession, but in all of his crititism, I think he is so focused on what is wrong with everyone else that a self inspection just has not been done. Although this could be read as similar cocky-ness that Socrates displayed by the end of his argument in Gorgias because he was so determined to lead people to his truth. In the same way Isocrates is determined to point out the wrong doings of others in his profession, but further reading may reveal that he turns the spotlight on himself.

I agree that we do not have enough information from the article to decide if Isocrates believes that qualities such as justice are derived from truth. It just seems that the main difference is that Isocrates does not neccesarily believe that elenchus is the only way to arrive at a certain truth. I agree with Isocrates about this and that speaking about the arts is much different than speaking about the sciences.

I think the main differences to be found between Socrates critique and Isocrates critique of the Sophists are their view of what should be returned for their services, their positions on truth and the methods they present as ways of learning about the art of oratory.
Both Socrates and Isocrates point out they hypocrisy of claiming to teach your students to be righteous and just, while demanding payment for your services in advance because you don’t trust them to pay you after you’ve taught them. However, Isocrates goes on to claim that the rate they charge equates the value they place on their services, and because it is so low it automatically means it is no good. This may or may not be true. It is true that worth of an object can be measured by what you are willing to give for it. For example, a bracelet may be worth $100, but then writing a good paper, while not costing your pocketbook anything, will cost you more than a few hours of hard work. So if the sophist charge less per hour, it could be that they know they are faking it as Isocrates claims, or it could be that they know the value of a mans time, and are trying to give him another reason to spend it at their school.
Socrates critiques both the sophist and Isocrates for charging any monetary cost for the teaching of justice and righteousness. Claiming that if he does his job right the students will know their debt to him and pay it because it is the right thing to do. This is a great argument if you really can teach man to be that selfless. But humans by their very nature are selfish, and need boundaries (or contracts which are enforceable in a court of law) to remind them of their moral obligations to those that they interact with.
The other difference I see between Socrates and Isocrates is their position on truth. As we discussed in class, Plato and Socrates are foundationalist, believing that there is a truth out there and that it can be learned through methods like Dialectic and Elenchus. It is hard to say if Isocrates agrees with this although the passage on the benefits of political discourse (If you study this you will more quickly learn of and possess an honest character than the skill needed to be a successful orator – the study of political discourse can help more than any other thing to stimulate and form sobriety and justice in ones character) leads me to believe that he might not believe in a capital-T truth; but I think he believes that there is something beneficial to sobriety and justice. I don’t think we have enough of the article to really decide for sure if he knows that these are qualities derived from truth or if they are simply qualities that are useful to one engaged in the public lifestyle.
Plato gives examples of Socrates engaging (sometimes rather poorly) in elenchus and dialect. He gives us exact rules and guidelines to follow if we want to duplicate Socrates in our own search for truth. But Isocrates does not (this could be that he doesn’t have a method in mind or that it was lost with the rest of the manuscript). However his school of thought seems to be that the arts are not like the sciences, they cannot be broken down into their parts and duplicated in the same manner to produce a good speech every time. I think he’s wrong (or I'm not understanding him properly) because there are basic rules of rhetoric/writing that must be followed if one is in the very least understood. There is some credit to his line of thought that only those with a natural talent will become great writers or debaters. It does take a certain gifting to be able to write well and with ease. But at the same time, the rules which apply universally to all writing styles can be taught and those without the ‘great aptitude or experience’ can learn and through experience perfect that skill. Practice does make perfect, and perfection will be easier to attain for those who possess talent to begin with, but all who try can learn.

What first strikes me about Isocrates’ criticism is how remarkably similar in content it is to the various anti-Sophist tirades Socrates launches upon in the Platonic dialogues. As far as I understand, Isocrates was a famous political speechwriter, and would thus fall victim to many of Socrates’ attacks on his profession – yet he seems to stand on the same side of the issue, although perhaps we will decide the motivations and ideas that lead him to this understanding differ.
Socrates believed in a truth which was knowable, whose discovery could be sought through philosophy and elenchus, and which was best presented through dialectical speech. I think Isocrates was at least a tentative foundationalist as well, for he continually cast the bad behaviors and motives of other sophists against values like “truth”, “virtue and sobriety”, and “honesty of character”. His attitude toward the pursuit of truth, although vaguely developed, seems to be that people are by nature more or less talented or good, and can learn to be better at enlisting those innate qualities through study. Thus, unlike Socrates claiming he is a fool searching slowly for truth, Isocrates only wants to reveal the latent truth inside the naturally talented.
Notably lacking in this excerpt is any sort of exposition of method. He dismisses most sophists as hacks, proven by their own low (monetary) valuation of their work, and paints their ends as immoral while presenting some of his own moral values. But there is little other than a few rhetorical flourishes on “melodious phrase” and properly arranged elements of discourse to indicate how he thought his art should be taught.
One comment reminded me of the Phaedrus, when Socrates purported to be possessed by the Muses. Socrates’ later definition of dialectical, with the subdivision of ideas into parts, appears a rather dry but thorough technique for presenting a speech. Isocrates, however, criticizes sophists for trying to “apply the analogy of an art with hard and fast rules to a creative process” – perhaps rebutting the notion that there even is a standardized method for inculcating great speech-making ability in just anyone, and reinforcing the notion that only natural aptitudes can be developed? In this, he might even be criticizing Socrates’ approach of finding truth as much as the rhetorical teachings of the sophists.