The Democratic Philosopher: Rhetoric as Hegemony in Gramsci

THIS ESSAYARGUES THAT THE CONCEPT OF HEGEMONY IN GRAMSCI RECAPITULATES and summarizes in Western thought the perennial argument between philosophy and rhetoric, knowledge and politics, and dialectic and power. These dichotomies hark back to Plato's critique of sophists such as Gorgias, Protagoras, and Thrasymachus. Plato attempted to undermine the rational and theoretical bases of rhetoric in order to establish the supremacy of philosophy over politics, as well as the supremacy of dialectical speech over rhetorical speech (Hariman 1986; Fontana, Nederman, and Remer 2004). The essay further argues that this antinomy is inherent in Gramsci's hegemony, which represents an attempt to reconcile the demands of philosophy with the requirements of political action. Gramsci's hegemony is complex, multiform, and many layered, characterized by interwoven yet differentiated polarities (see Williams 1960; Nardone