Gorgias

“Now, Gorgias, I think that you have defined with great precision what you take the art of oratory to be, and, if I understand you correctly, you are saying that oratory is a maker of conviction, and that this is the sum and substance of its whole activity.”

Socrates summarizes the progress he and Gorgias have made in defining oratory as an art whose object is conviction. For Gorgias, this conviction is what makes oratory so important, as an orator can use their ability to produce conviction to control the masses. Socrates, however, will note and exploit the potential dangers of being able to use speech to control the masses, as oratory professes to do.

“Oratory serves, Socrates, to produce the kind of conviction needed in courts of law and other large masses of people, as I was saying just now, and the subject of this kind of conviction is right and wrong.”

Pressed by Socrates, Gorgias further refines his definition of oratory to specify the subject on which it convinces others, namely, right and wrong. Gorgias’s grandiose claims, which the orator thinks establish the importance of his art, really only make his position increasingly precarious and ultimately enable Socrates to point out the potential dangers of oratory. The Meaning of Right and Wrong is of paramount importance to Socrates, who objects to oratory largely because he believes it does not instill true knowledge and morality in the citizens.

“SOCRATES. Now which kind of conviction does oratory produce about right and wrong in courts or law and with other large masses: the kind which engenders knowledge or the kind which engenders belief without knowledge?

GORGIAS. The kind which engenders belief, obviously.

SOCRATES. Oratory, then, as it seems, produces conviction about right and wrong which is a matter of persuasion and belief, not the result of teaching and learning?

GORGIAS. Yes.”

Having established a distinction between knowledge, which must be true, and belief, which can be true or false, Socrates asks Gorgias whether oratory produces conviction based on knowledge or on belief. In asserting that the conviction produced by oratory “engenders belief” rather than knowledge, Gorgias makes a very dangerous concession that will, in Socrates’s view, undermine the value of his art by contradicting what Socrates believes is The Purpose of Art.

“And what sort of man am I? I am one of those people who are glad to have their own mistakes pointed out and glad to point out the mistakes of others, but who would just as soon have the first experience as the second; in fact I consider being refuted a greater good, inasmuch as it is better to be relieved of a very bad evil oneself than to relieve another.”

Socrates makes a point of the friendliness of the dialogue and the importance of using his elenchus to produce the truth: Socrates and Gorgias are cooperating, not competing. This passage may be an example of Socratic irony, as the ease with which he leads his interlocutor here into inconsistent and illogical assertions may cast doubt on whether Socrates is earnestly looking to be refuted himself in any way.

“So when the orator is more convincing than the doctor, what happens is that an ignorant person is more convincing than the expert before an equally ignorant audience.”

Socrates begins to demonstrate the flaws in Gorgias’s definition of the orator, especially Gorgias’s assertion that the object of oratory is to produce conviction that engenders belief rather than knowledge. If the conviction that the orators produce in the masses is based not on knowledge but on belief, and if an orator can really convince the masses on expert matters more successfully than the expert, then the orator’s control of the masses leads to dangerous ignorance instead of true knowledge and morality.

“What are we to make of this? By the dog, Gorgias, it will need more than a short discussion if we are to get to the bottom of it to our satisfaction.”

With his customary show of politeness and even deference, Socrates asks Gorgias what should be done about the inconsistency he has just exposed in the latter’s reasoning. This is another example of “Socratic irony,” for here as elsewhere Socrates shows himself very capable of leading his interlocutors where he wants them to go, and as is soon revealed, Socrates does have his own opinions on the subject of the debate. Note also Socrates’s invocation, “by the dog,” an allusion to the Egyptian god Anubis, which Socrates often uses in Plato’s dialogues.

“POLUS. Since you think Gorgias confused about the nature of oratory, you tell me what you take oratory to be.

SOCRATES. Are you asking me what sort of art I take it to be?

POLUS. Yes, indeed.

SOCRATES. No art at all, Polus, if I’m to tell you the truth.

POLUS. What do you think it is then?

[…]

SOCRATES. I should call it a sort of knack gained by experience.”

Polus, disgusted with the course of the dialogue between Socrates and Gorgias, aggressively steps in to take up his teacher’s cause. When Polus demands to know how Socrates classifies oratory, Socrates explains that he classifies it not as an art (techne) but as a “knack gained by experience” (empeiria). He goes on to develop the distinction by defining an art as anything grounded in rational theory, while a knack—like oratory—is a collection of principles backed by experience that aim at producing pleasure. At last Socrates’s own (rather low) opinion of oratory is made explicit, reflecting his ideas about The Purpose of Art.

“POLUS. And do you think that good orators are meanly thought of in a state, and regarded as panders?

[…]

SOCRATES. In my opinion they are not thought of at all.

POLUS. Not thought of? Have they not very great power in the city?

SOCRATES. If by power you mean something that is good for its possessor, no.

POLUS. That is what I do mean.

SOCRATES. Then in that case I consider orators the least powerful people in the city.”

Socrates, here as elsewhere, shows a penchant for the dramatic: He deliberately provokes Polus’s brash nature with propositions phrased to shock and upset him, using this strategy to lead his interlocutor into careless concessions and inconsistencies. Socrates defends the paradoxical ideas that orators (whom he compares to tyrants) are powerless despite having all the trappings of power, because they lack knowledge of what is truly good for the soul.

“SOCRATES. Because the greatest of all misfortunes is to do wrong.

POLUS. That is the greatest? Surely it is worse to suffer wrong?

SOCRATES. Certainly not.

POLUS. Do you mean to say that you would rather suffer wrong than do wrong?

SOCRATES. I would rather avoid both, but if I had to choose one or the other I would rather suffer wrong than do wrong.”

Socrates’s proposition that doing wrong is the greatest misfortune that can befall a person becomes the turning point of his debate with Polus. Polus’s attempts to refute this proposition rests on citing various examples of wicked individuals who seem to prosper, but Socrates easily dismisses such arguments by reasoning—based on conventional definitions of traditional values such as “good,” “shameful,” and “fine,” to which Polus agrees—that such individuals are not truly happy. Socrates’s defense of his proposition here ultimately hinges on the idea that doing wrong causes harm to the soul, while doing good or even receiving just punishment for one’s wrongdoing is healthy for the soul.

“I maintain that a man and a woman are happy if they are honourable and good, but miserable if they are vicious and wicked.”

Socrates’s assertions regarding the true nature of happiness build upon his previous arguments but also on the gaps in his interlocutors’ arguments. Polus’s examples of happy wrongdoers, such as the Macedonian tyrant Archelaus, fail to move Socrates because Socrates believes that true happiness lies in behaving justly and in accordance with what is good for the soul.

“On the other hand, Polus, my opinion is that the wrongdoer, the criminal, is miserable in any case, but more miserable if he does not pay the penalty and suffer punishment for his crimes, and less miserable if he does pay the penalty and suffer punishment at the hands of gods and men.”

Socrates’s proposition that it is better to be punished for one’s wrongdoing than to escape punishment ultimately rests on the idea of the soul: If the soul is truly harmed by wickedness and benefited by justice, as Socrates maintains, then it would indeed follow that being punished justly “at the hands of gods and men” would benefit the soul.

“Then we shall have no use for oratory, Polus, as a means of defence either for our own wrongdoing or for those of our parents or friends or children or country.”

Socrates suggests that there is no use for oratory, if indeed it is true that it is fine and useful to be punished for one’s wrongdoing and that escaping one’s just punishment by means of oratory is actually harmful for the soul. Socrates thus dismantles the value of oratory so grandiosely maintained by Gorgias and Polus. However, Socrates does go on to list different uses for oratory: One can use oratory to denounce themselves of their own wrongdoing or, alternatively, one can use oratory to do harm to their enemies’ souls by ensuring that they escape punishment for their wrongdoing.

“O Socrates, your language shows all the extravagance of a regular mob-orator; and the reason for your present harangue is that the very thing has happened to Polus that he blamed Gorgias for allowing to happen to him in his encounter with you.”

Callicles begins his offensive by stating that Socrates treated his previous interlocutors unfairly, leading them to make a concession that contradicted their original proposition and then taking advantage of that concession. This objection reflects an important critique of Socrates’s elenchus, which sometimes does not necessarily uncover the “truth,” as Socrates claims it does, so much as simply expose the limitations of Socrates’s interlocutors.

“That is why by convention an attempt to have more than the majority is said to be wrong and shameful, and men call it wrongdoing; nature, on the other hand, herself demonstrated, I believe, that it is right that the better man should have more than the worse and the stronger than the weaker.”

Callicles maintains that Gorgias and Polus were refuted because they failed to recognize the fundamental opposition between convention (nomos) and nature (physis). For Callicles, conventional values such as shame and wickedness are invented by the weak to protect themselves from the strong, but in nature it is right for the stronger to rule the weaker. Despite starting strong, though, Callicles soon flags under the onslaught of Socrates’s questioning, showing that he is not as prepared to challenge traditional conventions as he initially seemed.

“I have noticed that anyone who is to make an adequate test as to whether a soul is living well or the reverse must have three qualities, all of which you possess: understanding, goodwill, and a readiness to be perfectly frank.”

Socrates lists the qualities that interlocutors must have for the elenchus to work correctly (“understanding, goodwill, and a readiness to be perfectly frank”) and expresses his belief that Callicles, more so than his previous interlocutors, seems to exhibit these qualities. Socrates is to be disappointed: Callicles, unlike Gorgias or Polus, refuses to concede when he has been refuted, and to avoid making any fatal concessions, he increasingly makes claims that he does not believe, until at last he stops taking an active part in the discussion.

“By the gods, you simply never stop talking of cobblers and fullers and cooks and doctors; as if our argument were concerned with them!”

Callicles expresses annoyance when Socrates employs an analogy with different kinds of craftsmen and tradesmen (the “craftsman analogy”) to try to understand what Callicles means by asserting that by nature the stronger should rule the weaker. This analogy (which Socrates employs throughout the dialogue) will soon lead into Socrates’s idea that, like other craftsmen, the ideal politician should be an expert—specifically, an expert on advising the citizens on their best interests.

“SOCRATES. Tell us my good friend and have done with it, what you mean by the better and stronger and how they differ from other people.

CALLICLES. I have told you that I mean people who are intelligent in the city’s affairs and have courage. They are the people who ought to rule cities, and right consists in the rulers having more than the ruled.”

At Socrates’s prompting, Callicles defines the “stronger” who ought to rule over the “weaker” in more specific terms, as those who have superior intelligence and courage. This definition reflects contemporary Athenian attitudes advocated by the upper class, wherein intelligence and courage were highly prized. In arriving at this definition, Callicles has shifted his position several times, especially to avoid the democratic implication—pointed out by Socrates—that the majority can be defined as the most powerful force in the city-state. The aristocratic Callicles, much like Socrates and Plato, is firmly antidemocratic.

“The truth, Socrates, which you profess to be in search of, is in fact this: luxury and excess and license, provided that they can obtain sufficient backing, are virtue and happiness; all the rest is mere pretence, man-made rules contrary to nature, worthless cant.”

Callicles now introduces the idea that pleasure (hedone) is what produces happiness, a form of radical hedonism meant to combat Socrates’s ideal of “self-control” or “moderation” (sophrosyne). Callicles’s assertions are once again based on his premise that convention and nature are opposed: Thus, traditional moral values such as moderation are, in Callicles’s view, “man-made rules contrary to nature,” while the basic impulse to pleasure stands as the only virtues there are.

“I’ve been listening to you and expressing agreement for a long time, Socrates, with the thought in my mind all along that if one gives in to you on any point, even in jest, you seize on the admission triumphantly with all the eagerness of an adolescent.”

It becomes increasingly clear that Callicles is not an adequate interlocutor for the purposes of the Socratic elenchus: Because he is unwilling to be proved wrong, he consistently gives Socrates the responses he thinks will prevent him from being refuted rather than responses that are frank and sincere. Before long, he will virtually stop responding altogether.

“It inevitably follows, Callicles, that the disciplined man whom we have described, being just and brave and reverent, is perfectly good; and a good man does well in all his actions, and because he does well is happy and blessed, whereas the wicked man who does wrong is wretched.”

Socrates summarizes his conclusion about The Meaning of Right and Wrong, asserting that happiness is produced by being “disciplined” through having “self-control” (sophrosyne) and its concomitant virtues of justice, bravery, and reverence. For, he claims, if happiness is produced by what is good, then only the virtuous or “disciplined man” can be truly happy.

“Wise men say, Callicles, that heaven and earth, gods and men, are held together by the bonds of community and friendship and order and discipline and righteousness, and that is why the universe, my friend, is called an ordered whole or cosmos and not a state of disorder and license.”

Socrates introduces the idea of virtue as a kind of order or kosmos, a system whose validity is based on its fundamental rationality. Socrates’s virtues are based not only on convention, but also on nature, meaning that a person who is “better” or “stronger” in respect to Socrates’s conventional virtues is also better in respect to natural virtues. In other words, there is no opposition between convention and nature, as Callicles had maintained before.

“I believe that I am one of the few Athenians—perhaps indeed the only one—who studies the true political art, and that I alone of my contemporaries put it into practice. So because what I say on any occasion is not designed to please, and because I aim not at what is most agreeable but at what is best, and will not employ those ‘niceties’ which you advise, I shall have no defence to offer in a court of law.”

Socrates’s vision of philosophy and politics lead him to the conclusion that he is virtually the only Athenian who “studies the true political art,” for he alone tries to teach the Athenians to improve themselves and their souls. Socrates’s awareness that his brand of philosophy/politics makes him unpopular foreshadows Socrates’s own execution in 399 BCE for impiety, a charge inspired by Socrates’s unpopularity.

“The law ordains that, when his times comes to die, a man who has lived a righteous and holy life shall depart to the Isles of the Blessed and there live in complete happiness, free from evils, but that the man whose life has been wicked and godless shall be imprisoned in the place of retribution and judgment, which is called Tartarus.”

Socrates introduces an account (logos) of the afterlife to explain why he (like all good people) has nothing to fear from death. Socrates introduces his belief that the righteous are rewarded after they die (departing to the mythical “Isles of the Blessed”) while the wicked are punished. Though this account draws on elements of traditional myth, Socrates characterizes it as true, perhaps because the underlying message on The Meaning of Right and Wrong is consistent with the positions he has defended before.