Gorgias (;Robichaud, Denis. Plato's Persona: Marsilio Ficino, Renaissance Humanism, and Platonic Traditions, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018, p. 32: "Gorgias's art is sonorous, reverberating the oral pronunciation of gorgos." ) is a Socratic dialogue written by Plato around 380 BC. The dialogue depicts a conversation between Socrates and a small group at a dinner gathering. Socrates debates with self-proclaimed rhetoricians seeking the true definition of rhetoric, attempting to pinpoint the essence of rhetoric and unveil the flaws of the sophistic oratory popular in Athens at the time. The art of persuasion was widely considered necessary for political and legal advantage in classical Athens, and rhetoricians promoted themselves as teachers of this fundamental skill. Some, like Gorgias, were foreigners attracted to Athens because of its reputation for intellectual and cultural sophistication. Socrates suggests that he (Socrates) is one of the few Athenians to practice true politics (521d).
Dramatis personae
Socrates Gorgias Polus Callicles Chaerephon
Major themes
Definition of rhetoric Socrates interrogates Gorgias to determine the true definition of rhetoric, framing his argument in the question format, "What is X?" (2). He asks, "… why don't you tell us yourself what the craft you're an expert in is, and hence what we're supposed to call you?" (449e).
Throughout the remainder of the dialogue, Socrates debates about the nature of rhetoric. Although rhetoric has the potential to be used justly, Socrates believes that in practice, rhetoric is flattery; the rhetorician makes the audience feel worthy because they can identify with the rhetorician's argument.
The question of techne: art vs. knack Socrates and Polus debate whether rhetoric can be considered an art. Polus states that rhetoric is indeed a craft, but Socrates replies, "To tell you the truth, Polus, I don't think it's a craft at all" (462b). The dialogue continues:
"POLUS: So you think oratory's a knack?
"SOCRATES: Yes, I do, unless you say it's something else.
"POLUS: A knack for what?
"SOCRATES: For producing a certain gratification and pleasure." (462c)
Socrates continues to argue that rhetoric is not an art, but merely a knack that "guesses at what's pleasant with no consideration for what's best. And I say that it isn't a craft, but a knack, because it has no account of the nature of whatever things it applies by which it applies them, so that it's unable to state the cause of each thing" (465a).
The morality of rhetoric Socrates discusses the morality of rhetoric with Gorgias, asking him if rhetoric was just. Socrates catches the incongruity in Gorgias' statements: "well, at the time you said that, I took it that oratory would never be an unjust thing, since it always makes its speeches about justice. But when a little later you were saying that the orator could also use oratory unjustly, I was surprised and thought that your statements weren't consistent" (461a). To this argument, Gorgias "… is left wishing he could respond, knowing he cannot, and feeling frustrated and competitive. The effect of the 'proof' is not to persuade, but to disorient him".White, James B. "The Ethics of Argument: Plato's Gorgias and the Modern Lawyer." The University of Chicago Law Review 50.2 (1983): 849–895, at 865. 27 Apr. 2011.
Socrates believes that rhetoric alone is not a moral endeavour. Gorgias is criticised because, "he would teach anyone who came to him wanting to learn oratory but without expertise in what's just …" (482d). Socrates believes that people need philosophy to teach them what is right, and that oratory cannot be righteous without philosophy.
Truth Socrates continually claims that his methods of questioning are aimed at discovering the truth. He sarcastically compliments Callicles on his frankness because it helps expose the truth about oratory: "I well know that if you concur with what my soul believes, then that is the very truth. I realize that the person who intends to put a soul to an adequate test to see whether it lives rightly or not must have three qualities, all of which you have: knowledge, goodwill, and frankness." (487a). Truth can be found through deliberation with others, relaying to one another the knowledge in one's soul to come to a conclusion about each other's beliefs.
At the same time, truth is not based upon commonly accepted beliefs. Socrates outlines a problem about truth when it is misaligned from public opinion: "you don't compel me; instead you produce many false witnesses against me and try to banish me from my property, the truth. For my part, if I don't produce you as a single witness to agree with what I'm saying, then I suppose I've achieved nothing worth mentioning concerning the things we've been discussing" (472c).
Summary
Introduction (447a–449c) The dialogue begins just after Gorgias has given a speech. Callicles says that Gorgias is a guest in his home, and has agreed to a private audience with Socrates and his friend Chaerephon. Socrates gets Gorgias to agree to his cross-examination style of conversation. Gorgias identifies his craft as rhetoric, and affirms that he should be called a rhetorician. As Socrates asks him questions, he praises him for the brevity of his replies. Gorgias remarks that no one has asked him a new question in a long time, and when Socrates asks, he assures him that he is just as capable of brevity as of long-windedness (449c).
Physical and intellectual combat compared (449d–458c) Gorgias admits under Socrates' cross-examination that while rhetoricians give people the power of words, they are not instructors of morality. Gorgias does not deny that his students might use their skills for immoral purposes (such as persuading the assembly to make an unwise decision, or to let a guilty man go free), but he says the teacher cannot be held responsible for this. He makes an argument from analogy: Gorgias says that if a man who went to wrestling school took to thrashing his parents or friends, you would not send his drill instructor into exile (456d–457c). He says that just as the trainer teaches his craft (techne) in good faith, and hopes that his student will use his physical powers wisely, the rhetorician has the same trust, that his students will not abuse their power.
Socrates says that he is one of those people who is actually happy to be refuted if he is wrong. He says that he would rather be refuted than to refute someone else because it is better to be delivered from harm oneself than to deliver someone else from harm. Gorgias, whose profession is persuasion, readily agrees that he is also this sort of man, who would rather be refuted than refute another. Gorgias has only one misgiving: he fears that the present company may have something better to do than listen to two men try to outdo each other in being wrong (458b–c). The company protests and proclaims that they are anxious to witness this new version of intellectual combat.
The debate about rhetoric (458d–466c) Socrates gets Gorgias to agree that the rhetorician is actually more convincing in front of an ignorant audience than an expert, because mastery of the tools of persuasion gives a man more conviction than mere facts. Gorgias accepts this criticism and asserts that it is an advantage of his profession that a man can be considered above specialists without having to learn anything of substance (459c). Socrates calls rhetoric a form of flattery, or pandering, and compares it to pastry baking and self-adorning (kommōtikōn). He says that rhetoric is to politics what pastry baking is to medicine, and what cosmetics are to gymnastics. All of these activities are aimed at surface adornment, an impersonation of what is really good (464c–465d).
Bruce McComiskey has argued that Gorgias may have been uncharacteristically portrayed by Plato, because "… Plato's Gorgias agrees to the binary opposition knowledge vs. opinion" (82).McComiskey, Bruce. "Disassembling Plato's Critique of Rhetoric in the Gorgias." Rhetoric Review 11.1 (1992): 79–90. 27 Apr. 2011. This is inaccurate because, "for Gorgias the sophist, all 'knowledge' is opinion. There can be no rational or irrational arguments because all human beliefs and communicative situations are relative to a kairotic moment" (83).
The pitiful tyrant (466d–481b) Socrates then advances that "orators and tyrants have the very least power of any in our cities" (466d). Lumping tyrants and rhetoricians into a single category, Socrates says that both of them, when they kill people or banish them or confiscate their property, think they are doing what is in their own best interest, but are actually pitiable. Socrates maintains that the wicked man is unhappy, but that the unhappiest man of all is the wicked one who does not meet with justice, rebuke, and punishment (472e). Polus, who has stepped into the conversation at this point, laughs at Socrates. Socrates asks him if he thinks laughing is a legitimate form of refutation (473e). Polus then asks Socrates if putting forth views that no one would accept is not a refutation in itself. Socrates replies that if Polus cannot see how to refute him, he will show Polus how.
Socrates states that it is far worse to inflict evil than to be the innocent victim of it (475e). He gives the example of tyrants being the most wretched people on earth. He adds that poverty is to financial condition as disease is to the body as injustice is to the soul (477b–c). This analogy is used to define the states of corruption in each instance. Money-making, medicine, and justice are the respective cures (478a,b). Socrates argues that just penalties discipline people, make them more just, and cure them of their evil ways (478d). Wrongdoing is second among evils, but wrongdoing and getting away with it is the first and greatest of evils (479d). It follows from this, that if a man does not want to have a festering and incurable tumour growing in his soul, he needs to hurry himself to a judge upon realising that he has done something wrong. Socrates posits that the rhetorician should accuse himself first, and then do his family and friends the favour of accusing them, so great is the curative power of justice (480c–e).
Socrates maintains that, assuming the converse of the previous argument, if your enemy has done something awful, you should contrive every means to see that he does not come before the judicial system."... supposing it is our duty to injure somebody, whether an enemy or anyone else—provided only that it is not against oneself that wrong has been done by such enemy, for this we must take care to avoid—but supposing our enemy has wronged some one else, we must make every exertion of act and word to prevent him from being punished or coming to trial" (480e–481a). Polus and Callicles are both astounded at Socrates' position and wonder if he is just kidding (481b).
Callicles criticizes philosophy (481c–505b) Callicles observes that if Socrates is correct, people have life upside down, and are everywhere doing the opposite of what they should be doing. Socrates says that he and Callicles share similar conditions in that he is in love with Alcibiades and philosophy, while Callicles is in love with the son of Cleinias and the Athenian Demus, and that neither can stop their beloveds from saying what is on their minds. While the statements of certain people often differ from one time to the next, Socrates claims that what philosophy says always stays the same (482b).