Gorgias

Summary

Gorgias is Plato's longest early dialogue and his most direct confrontation between philosophy and political ambition. Socrates and his friend Chaerephon arrive at the house of the Athenian Callicles just after the famous orator Gorgias of Leontini has finished a display. Socrates wants to know what rhetoric is and what it teaches, and the conversation passes through three opponents, each bolder than the last. Gorgias says rhetoric is the art of persuasion in courts and assemblies, the greatest of goods because it gives its owner power over others. He boasts that he can talk patients into surgery when their physician cannot. Socrates draws out that rhetoric produces belief without knowledge and that the orator persuades the ignorant about justice without teaching it. Gorgias concedes that he would teach justice to a pupil who lacked it, which sits awkwardly with his earlier claim that the teacher is not to blame if a pupil misuses his skill. Gorgias' young follower Polus takes over. Socrates now gives his own account: rhetoric is not an art but a knack, a part of flattery, which aims at pleasure rather than the good. As cookery imitates medicine and cosmetics imitate gymnastics, so sophistry imitates legislation and rhetoric imitates justice. Polus holds up the Macedonian usurper Archelaus as a happy criminal; Socrates replies that doing injustice is worse than suffering it, that the unpunished wrongdoer is the most miserable of men, and that a person who has done wrong should go to the judge as to a physician to be cured. Callicles, a rising politician, breaks in to say that Socrates has turned the world upside down. By nature, he argues, the stronger and better should have more; law and conventional morality are inventions of the weak majority to tame the strong. Philosophy suits boys, not grown men, and Socrates would be helpless in court. Against his praise of satisfied appetite Socrates sets images of leaky jars and a man forever scratching an itch, and argues that pleasure and good are different, that a good soul, like a good house or ship, has order, and that the great Athenian statesmen, Pericles among them, flattered the people rather than making them better. Callicles withdraws into sullen short answers, and Socrates finishes the argument largely alone. The dialogue ends with a myth of judgment. Souls are judged naked after death by Minos, Rhadamanthus and Aeacus, who see the scars that injustice has left; the curable are punished to be healed, and incurable tyrants serve as warnings. Written after Socrates' trial, the Gorgias reads with grim irony when Socrates says he would be tried like a physician prosecuted by a cook before a jury of children. Its central claim, that it is better to suffer wrong than to do it, stands close to the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount, and early Christian readers saw the resemblance, though Plato reaches it by argument rather than revelation.

Plot or Argument

• Late for the display (447a-449c)

  Socrates and Chaerephon arrive at Callicles' house after Gorgias has finished speaking. Socrates asks that Gorgias answer briefly what his art is, and Polus' first attempt at an answer is a florid speech that misses the question.

• Persuasion without knowledge (449c-461b)

  Gorgias defines rhetoric as persuasion about the just and unjust in courts and assemblies. Socrates distinguishes belief from knowledge and gets Gorgias to admit that the orator persuades the ignorant without teaching, and that he would teach justice to his pupils, a concession that clashes with his claim that teachers bear no blame for misuse.

• The map of flattery (461b-466a)

  Polus demands Socrates' own view. Socrates calls rhetoric a knack, not an art, and lays out a proportion: cookery is to medicine as cosmetics to gymnastics, sophistry to legislation, and rhetoric to justice. True arts aim at the good and can give a reason; flatteries aim at pleasure.

• Do tyrants do what they will? (466a-468e)

  Polus praises the orator's power to kill, exile and confiscate like a tyrant. Socrates argues that such men do what seems best to them but not what they really will, since everyone wills the good and they act without knowing it.

• Archelaus and the worse evil (469a-481b)

  Polus cites Archelaus of Macedon as a happy criminal. Socrates argues that doing injustice is worse and more shameful than suffering it, that just punishment benefits the one punished as medicine heals the sick, and that rhetoric's only honest use would be to accuse oneself and one's friends.

• Callicles: nature against law (481b-488b)

  Callicles charges Socrates with trading on the gap between nature and convention. Nature shows that the stronger should rule and have more; law is the weak majority's defence. He warns Socrates that philosophy pursued into adulthood leaves a man helpless and ridiculous.

• Leaky jars and the cormorant (488b-499b)

  Callicles identifies the stronger with the wiser and braver and praises the life of unchecked appetite. Socrates answers with the image of sound and leaky casks, the life of a cormorant and the itch, and then argues that pleasure and good come apart, since pleasure and pain can coexist and cowards enjoy as much as the brave. Callicles concedes that some pleasures are better than others.

• Order in the soul and the failed statesmen (499b-519d)

  Socrates argues that goodness in body and soul is order and proportion, that self-control is the soul's health, and that the gods and men are bound together by geometrical equality. Callicles falls silent and Socrates largely argues alone. Themistocles, Cimon, Miltiades and Pericles are judged as servants of the people's appetites, who left Athens no better and were turned upon by the citizens they had pampered.

• The physician before a jury of children (519d-522e)

  Socrates claims to be the only Athenian practising the true art of politics and predicts that, if tried, he will be like a doctor accused by a cook before children, unable to defend himself by pleasing. What he fears is not death but arriving in the next world with a soul full of injustice.

• The judgment of naked souls (523a-527e)

  Socrates tells the myth of Zeus' reform of the judgment of the dead, in which Minos, Rhadamanthus and Aeacus judge souls stripped of body and rank. He ends by urging Callicles to practise justice and every virtue, and to follow the argument rather than the life Callicles had urged on him.

Characters

• Socrates, questioner

  Insists on short questions and answers, offers an unusually long positive account of his own, and argues that the philosopher who aims at the good of his hearers is the only true statesman.

• Gorgias of Leontini, orator and teacher of rhetoric

  The celebrated Sicilian speaker, courteous and proud of his power; he defends rhetoric as a neutral instrument but is caught between that claim and the admission that he would teach justice.

• Polus, Gorgias' pupil

  Young, impetuous and the author of a treatise on rhetoric; he admires tyrants and laughs at Socrates' paradoxes, yet is brought to grant that doing wrong is more shameful than suffering it.

• Callicles, host and aspiring politician

  An Athenian known only from this dialogue; frank and forceful, he champions natural justice as the rule of the stronger and the life of appetite, and finally refuses to continue.

• Chaerephon, Socrates' companion

  Socrates' devoted friend, who asks Gorgias the first questions and appears again in the Apology as the man who consulted the Delphic oracle.

• Archelaus of Macedon, absent example

  The king who seized the throne by murdering his relatives, offered by Polus as proof that the unjust can be happy and reappearing in the myth as a likely incurable.

Lessons

• What is persuasion for?

  Gorgias treats rhetoric like boxing: a powerful skill whose misuse is the pupil's fault, not the teacher's. Socrates presses the point that persuasion about justice without knowledge of justice is dangerous, because the speaker can make the ignorant believe anything. The rhetoric student should leave this section asking not only how to persuade, but whether he knows the truth of what he urges and whether his hearers will be better for believing it.

  • Is Gorgias right that a teacher of rhetoric is no more to blame for a pupil's misuse than a boxing instructor?
  • What is the difference between producing belief and producing knowledge, and why does Socrates think it matters in a law court?
  • Can you think of a case where a skilled speaker persuaded people of something false? What should a listener have asked?

• Cookery and medicine: the anatomy of flattery

  Socrates' proportion (465c) is one of the most memorable diagrams in Plato. Medicine knows what is good for the body and can give reasons; cookery knows only what pleases and works by routine. Before a jury of children the cook would win. The scheme lets students test any practice, including entertainment, advertising, preaching and teaching, by asking whether it aims at the good of the people it serves or only at their pleasure.

  • Fill in Socrates' four pairs. Which modern practices would you place on the side of flattery, and why?
  • Is all pleasure-giving activity flattery, or can an art aim at both pleasure and good?
  • Why does Socrates say that a knack cannot give a reason for what it does?

• Better to suffer wrong than to do it

  Polus thinks it obvious that being wronged is worse than wronging. Socrates argues the reverse, and adds that punishment, rightly given, is a kindness to the guilty, as surgery is to the sick. Students should follow the argument step by step and decide where, if anywhere, it fails. The conclusion resembles Christ's command to turn the other cheek and Paul's counsel to suffer wrong rather than defraud (1 Corinthians 6:7), but Socrates reaches it through an account of the soul's health.

  • Where does Polus' resistance to the argument break down? Do you think he was fairly refuted?
  • Why does Socrates say that the unpunished wrongdoer is the most miserable of men?
  • How is Socrates' claim like and unlike the Christian teaching on suffering injustice and on repentance?

• Callicles and the law of the stronger

  Callicles gives the most powerful statement in ancient literature of the view that justice is a convention of the weak and that nature authorises the strong to take more. He is not a straw man: he speaks with conviction, cites Pindar and the conquests of Xerxes, and gives Socrates friendly warnings about his safety. Students should take his argument seriously before judging it, and notice which of his premises Socrates attacks.

  • What evidence does Callicles give that nature favours the stronger? How strong is it?
  • Socrates asks whether the many, being stronger together, are not then the better by Callicles' own standard. Why does this trouble Callicles?
  • Where do people today make arguments like Callicles', and how would you answer them?

• The physician tried by the cook

  Near the end Socrates predicts his own trial: he will be like a doctor accused by a cook before a jury of children, unable to defend bitter medicine against sweets. The image gathers the dialogue's themes of flattery, true politics and the cost of telling people what is good for them rather than what pleases them. Written after Socrates' execution, it asks students what faithfulness to the truth may cost, and whether the cost is worth paying.

  • Why does Socrates claim to be the only true politician in Athens? What does he mean by politics?
  • Is the physician's silence before the children a failure of rhetoric or a mark of integrity?
  • What does the closing myth add that the argument alone could not?

Context

Gorgias of Leontini, a Sicilian city, came to Athens as an ambassador in 427 BC and dazzled the city with a new, ornamented prose style; he taught for high fees across Greece and lived to a great age. In democratic Athens, where citizens spoke for themselves in court and the Assembly decided war and peace by vote, skill in speaking was the path to influence. The dialogue's dramatic date is uncertain and internally inconsistent: it refers to Pericles as lately dead (429 BC) and to Archelaus' recent seizure of power (c. 413 BC), and Socrates mentions presiding in the Council at a vote, perhaps the trial of the generals after Arginusae (406 BC).

Composition

The Gorgias is usually dated to the 380s BC, after Plato's first visit to Sicily and probably before the Republic, with which it shares many themes. It was written in the knowledge of Socrates' trial and death in 399 BC, which the text repeatedly foreshadows. The library's text is Benjamin Jowett's translation (third edition, 1892); Jowett does not print Stephanus numbers, so locations in this record follow standard editions.

Reception

The Gorgias was read throughout antiquity as Plato's chief statement on rhetoric; Aristotle's Rhetoric can be read partly as an answer to it, and Cicero and Quintilian defended the orator against its charges. Its myth of judgment was widely read, and Christian writers noticed its affinity with the doctrine of judgment and with the teaching that it is better to suffer evil than to do it. Callicles has been compared, since the nineteenth century, with Nietzsche's critique of conventional morality.

Comparisons

• The Republic

  Callicles' case for the stronger is restated by Thrasymachus in Book I of the Republic and refined by Glaucon in Book II. The Republic answers at length with the tripartite soul and the ideal city, and its closing myth of Er parallels the Gorgias myth of judgment; the Gorgias, by contrast, defends the just life without first building a city.

• Poetics

  In the Gorgias (502b-d) Socrates classes tragic poetry as a kind of public rhetoric aimed at pleasing a crowd of men, women and children. Aristotle's Poetics answers that tragedy has its own end, the catharsis of pity and fear through a well-made plot, and so rescues poetry from the charge of mere flattery.

• Rhetoric

  Aristotle opens his Rhetoric by calling rhetoric the counterpart of dialectic, a real art with its own methods of proof. Where Socrates in the Gorgias denies that rhetoric is an art at all, Aristotle grants it the status of a techne while agreeing that truth and justice are naturally stronger than their opposites.

• The Last Days of Socrates

  The Apology shows the trial that the Gorgias anticipates: Socrates refuses to beg or flatter the jury and is condemned. His remark in the Gorgias that he would be like a physician tried before children reads as Plato's comment on that verdict, and the Crito's argument that one must never return wrong for wrong develops the Gorgias' central thesis.

• On the Genealogy of Morality

  Nietzsche's account of a slave revolt in morality, in which the weak redefine the strong as evil, echoes Callicles' claim that law is an invention of the weak majority. Callicles, however, still appeals to natural justice, while Nietzsche questions the value of moral judgments as such; comparing them clarifies both.

Quotes

Medical Lens

The Gorgias is one of the richest classical sources for how Greeks thought about medicine as a model of expertise. Socrates distinguishes a true art (techne), which knows the nature of its object and can give the reason for what it does, from a knack (empeiria) that works by routine and aims at pleasure; medicine is his paradigm of the first and cookery of the second. Gorgias' boast that he could persuade his brother Herodicus' patients to accept the knife and cautery when the physician could not is an early record of the problem of patient compliance and of the gap between medical knowledge and the power to persuade. Socrates extends the medical model to the soul: injustice is a disease, punishment a painful cure, and the wise wrongdoer seeks the judge as a sick man seeks the doctor, a foundational text for the idea of philosophy as therapy. The pilot passage (511e-512b), which says the pilot cannot know whether saving a passenger with an incurable bodily disease has benefited him, belongs to Greek debates about the value of prolonging a diseased life and should be presented as Socrates' argument, not as an ethical guide. The Herodicus here is Gorgias' brother, not the dietetic trainer Herodicus of Selymbria mentioned in the Republic.

• 456b

  Gorgias claims he has persuaded patients of his brother Herodicus to take medicine or submit to the knife and cautery when the physician could not, and that a speaker would defeat a physician in an election for public doctor.

  Physicians Doctors Surgery Medical Ethics
• 464b-465d

  Socrates' scheme of arts and flatteries: medicine and gymnastics care for the body, cookery and cosmetics counterfeit them; the physician would starve if judged by children against a cook.

  Ancient Medicine Physicians Doctors
• 478a-480d

  Punishment compared to medical treatment: the wrongdoer who avoids justice is like a sick child who fears burning and cutting, and should go to the judge as to a physician.

  Philosophy AS Therapy Surgery
• 504a-505b

  Health as order in the body, justice and self-control as order in the soul; the physician forbids the sick their appetites as the statesman should restrain the vicious.

  Philosophy AS Therapy Ancient Medicine
• 511e-512b

  The pilot reflects that saving a passenger with great and incurable bodily disease may confer no benefit, and still less one with an incurable soul.

  Medical Ethics
• 521e-522a

  The physician accused by the cook before a jury of children of cutting, burning, starving and giving bitter potions, able to say only that he did it for their health.

  Physicians Doctors Medical Ethics

Creative Prompts

• Classroom

  Draw Socrates' table of four arts and four flatteries, then add a fifth row of your own for a modern practice (social media, advertising, journalism) and defend where you placed it.

• Dialogue

  Write the trial Socrates imagines at 521e-522a: a cook prosecutes a physician before a jury of children. Give the physician the best defence you can without lying.

• Essay

  Is it better to suffer injustice than to do it? Write an essay that states Socrates' argument fairly, raises Polus' strongest objection, and gives your own judgment.

• Fiction

  Write a short story in which a young person ambitious for power, like Callicles, meets the consequences of the leaky-jar life Socrates describes.

Further Reading

• Republic, Plato

  Develops the Gorgias' questions about justice, the stronger and the soul's health into a full political philosophy.

• Phaedrus, Plato

  Offers a more favourable account of a rhetoric grounded in knowledge of the soul.

• Encomium of Helen, Gorgias

  Gorgias' own display speech, which compares the power of speech over the soul to the power of drugs over the body.

• Rhetoric, Aristotle

  Treats rhetoric as a genuine art, partly in answer to Plato.

• On Christian Doctrine, Augustine

  Book IV adapts classical rhetoric to Christian teaching while insisting that eloquence serve truth.

• Plato: Gorgias, E. R. Dodds

  The standard commentary on the Greek text, with a full introduction on Callicles and the dialogue's date.