Copyright © 1996 R.J. Kilcullen
Note: The Readings volume does not include extracts from this dialogue; you will need your own copy (Penguin Classics) or a library copy.
Quotations below are from Plato, Gorgias, tr. W. Hamilton (Penguin, 1960).
The Gorgias is about rhetoric as an art, and also about good and evil in political activity. Gorgias was a citizen of Leontini in Sicily, and was a member of the delegation which that city sent during the Peloponnesian war to ask Athens to involve itself in the affairs of Sicily (Thucydides III.86). Now, after the war, Gorgias travels from city to city, accompanied by his pupil Polus, teaching the art of making speeches. While in Athens he is staying at the house of Callicles, a man active in Athenian politics (not known to history - probably fictional). Callicles meets Socrates and Chaerephon in the street or market place, and invites him home to hear a 'demonstration' of Gorgias' skill.
Read 447a-449a
'What the power of his art consists in', 'what it is that he professes and teaches', 'What sort of man [shoemaker, doctor, painter...?] is he'. Socrates wants the name, and especially a definition, of the art Gorgias teaches, while Polus wants to recommend it.
Read 449b-453a
Socrates wants a definition in terms of (i) what the art aims at (weaving aims at producing clothes, music at making melodies), and (ii) what material it works with, namely speech, and (iii) what the speech is 'about'.
A definition is unsuccessful if it is not sufficiently specific, i.e. if it applies also to something else besides what it is supposed to define. Thus a definition of rhetoric should not also apply to the art of medicine, or arithmetic.
Notice that besides defining rhetoric Gorgias also asserts that it confers the greatest good, namely political power. Whether, and under what conditions, political power is a good will turn out to be the main subject of the dialogue.
Read 453b-455c
Just as earlier he wanted to know what the orator's speech is about, now Socrates wants to know what the conviction it produces is about, since there are other arts (such as arithmetic) which produce conviction about certain subjects.
'The nature of the conviction' (453b): the orator does not produce conviction based on knowledge. Note the distinction between knowledge and belief (even a true belief may be right by accident, and then it is not knowledge - we might say, 'You were right, as it turns out, but you did not really know').
Read 455d-460a
Like Polus, Gorgias is not really interested in defining oratory, but wants to recommend it as a means to power. He says that although it can be used for evil purposes it should not be, and Socrates takes this up. Power based on ability to produce convictions which are beliefs and not knowledge cannot be a good thing unless it is guided by knowledge of the difference between good and evil. Gorgias agrees: 'I suppose... I shall have to teach a pupil those things as well'.
Read 460b-461b
Do you agree that someone who knows what is right will do it? - that is, who has it actually before his or her mind at the moment of decision, not merely in abstract terms but in application to the act under consideration?
By knowledge of right and wrong, or good and evil, Socrates probably means a knowledge of priorities - this is better than that; and by 'good' or 'right' he probably means not morally good or right, but good or right all things considered (Socrates does not seem to distinguish between moral goodness and other sorts). Is it possible to have actually before your mind the thought, 'All things considered, not to do this is better than to do it', and yet decide to do it? (That virtue is knowledge, and that no one does wrong willingly, are among the 'Socratic paradoxes'.)
The dialogue falls into three main parts, in which Socrates carries on discussion with Gorgias, Polus and Callicles respectively. Gorgias' pupil Polus now takes up the argument (with occasional interventions from Gorgias).
Read 461c-466a
'All because Gorgias did not like not to agree... that the orator must know what is right': This was only one premiss of the argument that led to the improbable conclusion. Why not question one of the others, instead of this one? (What was the conclusion? What other premisses were there? Is any of the others more questionable?)
'Not an art but a knack gained by experience': Socrates assumes that those who have a real art (or as we might say a science) (i) know what they are doing and why it works, and (ii) can distinguish correctly between good and bad results.
'Producing gratification or pleasure': Socrates assumes (iii) that pleasure is not the same as good, and is not necessarily good, and that being pleased or gratified is not the same as being benefited. From (iii) it follows (iv) that pleasure and pain do not mark the difference between good and bad results. From (ii) and (iv) it follows that a practice that takes pleasure as the criterion of success is not an art. (Find the sentences or phrases in the text which make the above points. Do you agree with these points? Are there bad pleasures?)
Notice that Polus again wants to say how fine a thing oratory is, and Socrates insists that we must be able to say what it is before there is any point in discussing whether it is a good thing. (Must definition always come first?)
What is Socrates' conception of the true art of politics?
'Popular lecturing' (465c) is 'sophistic': 'popular lecturer' is what this translator calls a Sophist.
Read 466b-468d
This passage (in translation, at least) seems a game of words. But if you take 'will' in a restricted sense to mean 'will as an end' the argument follows. Notice the distinction between means and end (or goal, purpose, aim). Power means ability to achieve ends. Those who do not know how to use the means to achieve their ends are not powerful, however great their 'control' (in other senses) of the means may be. (What other sorts of control are there? Are there other sorts of power?)
Read 468e-473e
Socrates says (another 'Socratic paradox') that it is better to suffer wrong than to do wrong, and, if you do wrong, better to be punished for it than to escape punishment. 'Better' means 'more good for'; 'happy' and 'miserable' mean not pleasant and painful states of mind, but truly good and truly evil ways to be. Re-read the passage with these meanings in mind.
Read 474a-478e
If nothing can be more A unless it is either more B or more C (or both), and if (in comparison with E) D is more A and not more B, then (in comparison with E) D must be more C. (Do you agree?). Now substitute 'base' for 'A', 'painful' for 'B', 'harmful' for 'C', 'doing wrong' for 'D', and 'suffering wrong' for 'E' (write all this out). Now re-read 474c-475c. Now write the argument out again with 'fine' for 'A', 'pleasant' for 'B' and so on as before.
Some more premisses: what is more harmful is more evil; what is just is fine; what is beneficial is good; if X W-s Y Z-ly, then Y is W-ed Z-ly. Re-read 475c-477a.
Query: 'painful', 'beneficial' etc. invite the question 'for whom?' Does the argument prove that punishment is good for the person punished?
Read 479a-481b
This completes the second section of the dialogue. Are there other possible uses for rhetoric besides the ones Socrates refers to?
Read 481b-486d
On the natural rule of the stronger see Thucydides, I.76 and V.105. On morality as protection for the weak see Thucydides, V.90 and III.84. In Plato's Republic, Thrasymachus puts forward a view like that of Callicles: justice is obeying the law, which is made in the interests of the rulers (e.g. of the many); for those strong enough to break the law with impunity justice is foolishness. See Rep. 343-4.
Read 486e-488d
The argument might have been clearer if the term 'better' had not figured in it. (Callicles himself mentions the 'best' at 483e.) The real question is: What is meant by 'strong', when it is said that it is natural for the strong to rule the weak?
Read 488d-492e
A new idea is introduced: the strong should not only rule, they should also 'have the lion's share'. Question: The lion's share of what? Answer: of whatever they happen to desire - and the more they desire the better, since then (if they are strong enough to get what they want) the greater the satisfactions they will have. ('That such behaviour is virtue': arete, translated 'virtue', was not restricted to ethical meanings. Understand it here as something like 'effectiveness'.)
Read 492e-495a
'Continuall successe in obtaining those things which a man from time to time desireth, that is to say, continually prospering, is that men call FELICITY... For there is no such thing as perpetuall Tranquillity of mind, while we live here; because Life itself is but Motion, and can never be without Desire...'; Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (ed. C. B. MacPherson, Penguin, pp. 129-30). '... the Felicity of this life, consisteth not in the repose of a mind satisfied... Nor can a man any more live, whose Desires are at an end, than he, whose Senses and Imaginations are at a stand. Felicity is a continuall progresse of the desire, from one object to another; the attaining of the former, being still but the way to the later. The cause whereof is, That the object of mans desire, is not to enjoy once onely, and for one instant of time; but to assure for ever, the way of his future desire... So that in the first place, I put for a generall inclination of all mankind, a perpetuall and restlesse desire of Power after power, that ceaseth onely in Death'; ibid. pp. 160-1.
'Initiated': into one of the mystery religions.
'Catamite': 'A boy or youth kept for or participating in homosexual activities' (Concise Macquarie Dictionary).
'Good and bad pleasures': Some would say that pleasure precisely as such is always good, and if some pleasures are bad it is because the activities of those who seek them are bad for some other reason (other than the nature of the pleasure). Others would say that some pleasures are bad precisely in themselves: e.g. that the pleasures of sadism are evil even apart from the injury done to the victim - that the pleasures of imaginary sadism are evil, even apart from the possibility that it may lead to actual sadism (even if the watchers of violent videos, for example, will never do anything violent or otherwise bad as a result of watching). (The dialogue Philebus is a thorough discussion of pleasure. See also Gosling and Taylor, The Greeks on Pleasure, BJ1481.G636.)
Read 495b-499b
Arguments to prove that pleasure is not identically the good. If X and Y are opposites, then a thing cannot simultaneously be, become, or cease to be, both X and Y. Good and evil are opposites. Therefore if pleasure is good and pain evil then pleasure and pain cannot exist, or cease to exist, at the same time in the same part of the same person. But they do (pleasures of drinking, eating). Therefore it is not true that pleasure is good. Analyse for yourself the argument of 497e-. (Query: Aren't pleasure and pain opposites, even if they are not respectively good and evil? Then how can pleasures and pain exist etc. at the same time?)
Read 499c-510a
'It needs an expert' (500b) provides the theme for this section. On what an expert does (i.e. on what a true 'art' does) see 503de and 506de. Notice 'regulation', 'moderation', 'restraint', 'discipline', 'self-control', as providing 'form' for a human being (do you agree?). Doing wrong is lapse into disorder, a violation of the true art of living.
(There is a translator's slip at 506c (at the end): 'Good as a means to pleasure' should be 'Pleasure as a means to good'.)
Read 510b-522e
This section is of course a criticism of politics in a democracy. (Compare the passage at 481-2 above.) The successful democratic politician does not practise a genuine art, since he must aim to please, without distinguishing good pleasures from bad.
The value of navigation and swimming: cf. Apology, 28a-29c.
Is the way the citizens treat him a fair test of a politician's work?
Read 523a to the end
Plato often uses 'myth' (simply the Greek word for 'story') to convey ideas for which he does not at the moment wish to argue in detail. What is/are the point/s of this story?
In the Gorgias there is a lot said about how conversation and argument should be carried on ('the art of conversation' or dialogue, 448d). Review the following passages and make a brief summary: 449bc, 453bc, 454c, 457c-458c, 461c-462a, 465e-466a, 471e-472d, 474ab, 475e, 486d-487b, 505e-506a, 509a. Compare Protagoras, 329ab, 331c, 333c, 334d, 336a-d, 347c-348a, 360e-361e.
Points to note: Some who are regarded as skilled in politics are merely good at persuading ignorant people to do what they want, serving their hearer's mistaken ideas about what is good. This is not real power. Others have the genuine art of politics; they are self-controlled, help others to be self-controlled, know how to do them genuine good by making them better people. Those who practice the genuine art of politics may not be successful; they may come to great harm; but they would rather suffer wrong than do it. Survival will not be their overriding aim (511b), and they will not expect, or try, to have a glorious political career in a city whose citizens are not virtuous (513).
The argument does not prove that there cannot be a genuine art of rhetoric. It does not show that oratory is of no use to the good man in defending himself against injustice. Though he would rather suffer wrong than do it, he would rather not suffer it ('I would rather avoid both', 469c).
Socrates does not really prove that punishment is better for the person punished - that may not be the only way of being made good.
He does not say what the good is, merely that it is not pleasure.
He does not prove (and does not intend to prove) that pleasure is never good - merely that pleasure as such is not the good.
Readers often feel that since Socrates is obviously on the right side they must try to agree with him - and yet have an uneasy feeling that many of his arguments are fallacious or silly. Choose a passage where you think that Socrates is arguing to a false conclusion and refute him. Choose another passage where you think he is arguing to a true conclusion but using an unsound argument, refute the argument, and then give your own reason for thinking that the conclusion is true.
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