Empeiria kai Tribē: Plato on the “Art” of Flattery in Rhetoric and Sophistry

Abstract

In this essay I trace the terms empeiria and tribe throughout the Platonic corpus in order to expose their central position within Plato's critique of the sophists and rhetoricians. I find that these two terms-both of which indicate a knack or habitude that has been developed through experiential familiarity with certain causal tendencies-are regularly deployed in order to account for the effectiveness of these speakers even in the absence of a technē; for, what Plato identifies with these terms is the sophists' and rhetoricians' near masterful familiarity with and ability to manipulate the doxa and the dogma of the many, hoi poloi.