Protrepsis and paraenesis

In rhetoric, protrepsis (Greek: πρότρεψις) and paraenesis (παραίνεσις) are two closely related styles of exhortation that are employed by moral philosophers. While there is a widely accepted distinction between the two that is employed by modern writers, classical philosophers did not make a clear distinction between the two, and even used them interchangeably.

Clement of Alexandria differentiated between protrepsis and paraenesis in his Paedagogus. Other writers, however, both before and after him, conflated the two. Pseudo-Justin's protrepsis is entitled a Paraenetic Address to the Greeks and Magnus Felix Ennodius' Paraenesis didascalia is actually in the style of protrepsis.

The modern distinction between the two ideas, as generally used in modern scholarship, is explained by Stanley Stowers thus:

In this discussion I will use protreptic in reference to hortatory literature that calls the audience to a new and different way of life, and paraenesis for advice and exhortation to continue in a certain way of life. The terms however were used this way only sometimes and not consistently in antiquity.

In other words, the distinction often employed by modern writers is that protrepsis is conversion literature, where a philosopher aims to convert outsiders to following a particular philosophical path, whereas paraenesis is aimed at those who already follow that path, giving them advice on how best to follow it. This is not a universally-held distinction. Swancutt, observing Stowers' recognition that the two ideas were not formally distinguished in this way by classical philosophers, argues, for example, that the modern distinction is a false dichotomy that originated with Paul Hartlich's De Exhortationum a Graecis Romanisque scriptarum historia et indole, published in 1889.

Classical writers' perspectives differed from the modern view. For example: Malherbe's explanation of Epictetus' view of protrepsis (as set out in the third of his Discourses) is:

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