Professional Documents
Culture Documents
i
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This book brings out the complex unity of Platos Gorgias. Through a care-
ful analysis of the dialogues three main sections, including Socrates famous
quarrel with his archrival Callicles, Devin Stauffer shows how the seem-
ingly disparate themes of rhetoric, justice, and the philosophic life are woven
together into a coherent whole. His interpretation of the Gorgias sheds new
light on Platos thought, showing that Plato and Socrates had a more favorable
view of rhetoric than is usually supposed. Stauffer also challenges common
assumptions concerning the character and purpose of some of Socrates most
famous claims about justice. Written as a close study of the Gorgias, The Unity
of Platos Gorgias treats broad questions concerning Platos moral and political
psychology and uncovers the view of the relationship between philosophy and
rhetoric that guided Plato as he wrote his dialogues.
i
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viii
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To Dana
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Devin Stauffer
The University of Texas at Austin
iii
cambridge university press
Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, So Paulo
Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of urls
for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not
guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
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Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
v
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vi Contents
Bibliography 183
Index 189
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Acknowledgments
For their financial support while I was working on this book, I would
like to thank the Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation, the Lynde and Harry
Bradley Foundation, Kenyon College, and The University of Texas at
Austin. I would also like to thank the readers for Cambridge Univer-
sity Press and the colleagues and friends who helped me in various
ways during the years I spent working on this book. In particular,
I am grateful to Fred Baumann, Christopher Bruell, Kirk Emmert,
Robert Faulkner, Pam Jensen, Lorraine Pangle, Thomas Pangle, and
Tim Spiekerman. An earlier version of a section of Chapter 3 appeared
in the Review of Politics in the Fall of 2002.
vii
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Introduction
1
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2 Introduction
to the highest aspirations that are, if not always the most effective,
perhaps the most revealing expressions of human nature. And more
simply, readers are drawn to Plato by what has always drawn readers
to him, but now is made all the more appealing by its absence from
modern thought: an answer to the question of the best life, conveyed
by a moving portrait of a noble figure who lived that life.
Of course, to feel an initial attraction to a thinker is not yet to under-
stand his thought, to say nothing of judging its adequacy. Especially
for those of us who are drawn to Plato by an enchantment with his
vision of the philosophic life as it was lived by Socrates, that initial
attraction, if it is to be more than the idle dreaming that his modern
critics claim Plato encourages, must transform itself into a more seri-
ous encounter with his work. What precisely is Platos account of the
philosophic life? How is it related, for instance, to his understanding
of virtue, his estimation of political life, and his analysis of human
nature and human concerns? When we probe questions such as these,
we are likely to find ourselves before long in a state that Plato would
have called aporia a state of perplexity, or, translated more literally,
a state of being without a path. The primary source of our aporia
is the apparently chaotic, strikingly foreign, and undeniably daunting
world that one enters in reading Platos dialogues. Platos dialogues, for
all of their immediate attractiveness, are extremely complex and diffi-
cult, perhaps especially so on basic questions such as those I have just
posed. It is true and part of their appeal that Platos works address
some of the simplest questions of human life. But they treat those
questions in ways that are anything but simple or straightforward.
They certainly were not written for readers with the habits formed by
our modern embrace of convenience and efficiency. The experience of
reading Plato, then, is likely for many of us to be a mixture of attrac-
tion and frustration, or of initial attraction followed by a sense of the
great difficulty of understanding Platos treatment of the issues under
discussion in the dialogues.
This mixed experience in reading Plato is provoked by no dialogue
more than by the Gorgias. On the one hand, Plato presents Socrates
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Introduction 3
1. Shorey, What Plato Said, 154; Shorey is quoted by Dodds, Gorgias, 266,
Newell, Ruling Passion, 1011, and Kahn, Plato and the Socratic Dialogue,
126. See also Williams, Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy, 22: Once at least
in the history of philosophy the amoralist has been correctly represented as
an alarming figure, in the character of Callicles. So powerful is Callicles
attack on Socrates that several commentators have expressed the view that
Plato must have felt considerable sympathy with it. See Dodds, Gorgias,
1314; Jaeger, Paideia, 2:1378; Kagan, The Great Dialogue, 161.
2. These phrases are from Kahn, Plato and the Socratic Dialogue, 125; Taylor,
Plato, 103; Jaeger, Paideia, 2:126; Dodds, Gorgias, 31.
3. The passage from Themistius can be found in Grote, Plato, and the Other
Companions of Sokrates, 2:317n.
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4 Introduction
Introduction 5
are rare, and, in my view, none has successfully explained how its
different parts fit together.8
To be sure, the temptation to move quickly to the conflict between
Socrates and Callicles is great. Not only are the intensity and gravity
of that section attractive, but even a brief overview of the movement of
the dialogue can show how complex and apparently disorganized it is.
Before the battle between Socrates and Callicles, the dialogue opens
with Socrates arrival at a site in Athens where the famous rhetorician
Gorgias has just finished giving a display of his rhetorical powers.
8. While there have been many discussions of the Gorgias in broad studies of
Platos thought, these discussions generally make only cursory mention of
large sections of the dialogue, often virtually ignoring the first half. This
is true also of the many articles that have been written on the Gorgias.
Of the few book-length works devoted entirely to the Gorgias, two are the
well-known commentaries of Terence Irwin and E. R. Dodds. Since these
are written as commentaries accompanying editions of the Greek text, how-
ever, they provide many interpretive remarks without offering a complete or
unified interpretation of the dialogue as a whole. Beyond the works of Irwin
and Dodds, Ilham Dilmans Morality and the Inner Life is subtitled A Study in
Platos Gorgias. Dilman himself stresses, however, that his book is intended
less as a close textual interpretation of the dialogue than as a wide-ranging
reflection on a cluster of questions presented in the Gorgias approached
as having a life independent of the dialogue (vii). Dilmans study, in any
case, proceeds in a very different way from my own, and it leads to very
different conclusions. The same is true of George Plochmann and Franklin
Robinsons A Friendly Companion to Platos Gorgias. While Plochmann and
Robinson search, as I do, for the unity of the dialogue, they end up, in their
final attempt to provide an intuitive awareness of the unity that binds
together the dialogue, listing nine conclusions that have more to do with
unity in the cosmos as a whole than with unity in the sense of the coher-
ence of the parts of the Gorgias itself (see 3501). Finally, one of the most
interesting and impressive interpretations of the Gorgias is Seth Benardetes
The Rhetoric of Morality and Philosophy, half of which is devoted to the
Gorgias. Although I have benefited from Benardetes study, his many fas-
cinating observations are pieced together in a cryptic fashion that seems
intended more to point the reader down intriguing roads of reflection than
to present a clear path that leads from the surface of the text to a unified
interpretation of the dialogue.
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6 Introduction
Socrates speaks first with Gorgias and then with a young admirer of
Gorgias named Polus. A summary of the main themes discussed in
these conversations and then in the Callicles section can suffice to
bring out the difficulty of grasping their unity. After discussing with
Gorgias the character of the art of rhetoric and its relationship to jus-
tice, Socrates argues with Polus about the nobility of rhetoric, and then
engages him in a longer argument about the temptations of tyranny
and about whether it is worse to do injustice or to suffer it. The con-
clusion of Socrates argument with Polus in particular, the conclu-
sion they reach that doing injustice is indeed worse than suffering
it prompts Callicles entry into the conversation. Callicles responds
to a brief provocation from Socrates by delivering a long, vehement
attack both on the position Socrates took in his argument with Polus
and on Socrates way of life as a whole. But following Callicles attack,
which seems initially to bring a measure of clarity to the dialogue by
directing the conversation to the question of the best life, Socrates
returns first to the question of justice, then abruptly turns away from
that question to discuss moderation and self-control. The discussion
of moderation and self-control is followed by a critique of hedonism,
after which Socrates returns to the theme of rhetoric, turns for some
time to the issues of virtue and the proper aims of politics, and then
finally comes back again to rhetoric and to the contest between the
philosophic life and the political life. This is an oversimplified sum-
mary of the dialogue that does not include, among other things, the
theme of punishment, the issue of self-protection, or the account of
the afterlife at the end of the dialogue. What could possibly tie this
apparent chaos of a dialogue together?
The unity of the Gorgias can be brought out only by a careful study of
the dialogue as a whole, one that follows its every twist and turn, con-
stantly examining the connections between its various parts. Beyond
even what is typical of Platos dialogues, the Gorgias is full of strange
passages, questionable arguments, and confusing transitions. Only a
reading of the dialogue that begins from the surface and works through
the complexities that appear even or especially on the surface can
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Introduction 7
8 Introduction
10. The most helpful discussion of these controversies, and especially of their
roots in the nineteenth century, divide between Friedrich Schleiermacher
and Karl Friedrich Hermann, is Kahn, Plato and the Socratic Dialogue, 36
48. For two discussions that approach the same issues from a perspective
different from Kahns, see Irwin, Platos Ethics, 316, and Vlastos, Socrates,
Ironist and Moral Philosopher, 45106.
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Introduction 9
11. Second Letter 314c24. While Platos remark points to the central impor-
tance of his portrait of Socrates, it also suggests that that portrait may be
an embellishment of the historical Socrates. This remark from the Second
Letter should be considered together with Seventh Letter 341b7342a1,
another important statement by Plato on his own writings that is in har-
mony with the statement in the Second Letter. Although the authenticity of
Platos letters has been challenged, a strong defense of their authenticity
is Morrow, Platos Epistles, 316. See also Caskey, Again Platos Seventh
Letter, 22027; Rosen, Platos Symposium, xiiixviii.
12. Apology 20c421b5.
13. Apology 21b823c1.
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10 Introduction
Introduction 11
for many years while no one spoke up on his behalf.16 Socrates sug-
gests, then, that rhetoric might have helped to protect him, had he
been more willing to practice it himself or had someone practiced it
on his behalf. And this is tied to another broad issue that also links
the Gorgias to the Apology, the issue of what may be called, in broad
terms, the defensibility and the nobility of Socrates life. In a section
of the Apology that follows Socrates Delphic autobiography and his
direct response to the official charges against him, Socrates raises an
objection that sounds very similar to an objection Callicles raises in the
Gorgias. Perhaps someone would say, says Socrates, conjuring up a
potential critic of his life, Arent you ashamed of engaging in a pursuit
from which you now run the risk of dying?17 Not only does this objec-
tion sound as if it could have come from the mouth of Callicles, but
Socrates response in the Apology bears many similarities to positions
he takes in the Gorgias. Most important, he argues in both dialogues
that considerations of reputation and safety should be subordinated
to considerations of justice.18 At least in the Apology, however, the fact
that Socrates offers this argument as a response to an objection he
himself raised, and by doing so presents himself as a hero resembling
the great Achilles,19 should give us some pause. Moreover, while he
suggests that his life resembled that of Achilles in his willingness to
put justice above all other considerations, especially his concern to
protect his own life, Socrates goes on to respond to the understand-
able question of why his devotion to justice did not lead him into
politics by pointing to the risks to his life that political activity would
have entailed.20 The context, character, and seeming inconsistency of
Socrates self-presentation in this crucial section of the Apology should
12 Introduction
Introduction 13
14 Introduction
1. Many have stressed this feature of the dialogue. See, e.g., Friedlander, Plato,
2:244; Taylor, Plato, 11516; Jaeger, Paideia, 2:138; Dodds, Gorgias, 45;
Voegelin, Plato, 28; Kahn, Drama and Dialectic in Platos Gorgias, 76.
15
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The Prelude 17
6. See Apology 20e621b9. That the role played by Chaerephon at the begin-
ning of the Gorgias establishes a link with the Apology is suggested also by
Saxonhouse, An Unspoken Theme in Platos Gorgias, 1401, and Seung,
Plato Rediscovered, 28.
7. See Apology 21b823d2, 29c631a7.
8. Consider Apology 37e338a8.
9. On Socrates turn to his distinctive dialectical activity, see, in addition
to Apology 20c423d2, Phaedo 96a6102a1. See also Phaedrus 229c6230d5;
Xenophon, Memorablia, I.2.1116. Bruell, On the Socratic Education, 1428,
helps to illuminate the passage from the Apology.
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The Prelude 19
preference for what would seem to be a less direct path to his stated
aims adds to the mystery surrounding his intentions in coming to
see Gorgias. And further adding to that mystery is Socrates decision
not to question Gorgias directly, but to begin by using Chaerephon
as a front man (see 447b8d5). By pushing forward and urging on
Chaerephon, a pale and skinny man nicknamed the bat, who was
perhaps the strangest of Socrates many strange friends,10 Socrates
provokes a skirmish between Chaerephon and Polus, an admirer of
Gorgias who displays the appropriateness of his name, colt, by leap-
ing in to answer in Gorgias place. The bat takes on the colt, or,
alternatively, the poor mans Socrates takes on the poor mans Gorgias,
in what is supposed to be an examination of the identity of Gorgias
art but ends up as a comedy leading to a speech by Polus in praise of
Gorgias art as the noblest of all arts (447d6448c9).
Since Chaerephon proves to be less than a master of cross-
examination, Socrates must step in to object to Polus speech. And
we may safely assume that Socrates never intended to let Chaerephon
do all of his work for him. Nor does Socrates want to spend much time
speaking with Polus. He shoves him out of the way so that he can speak
with Gorgias. Socrates does this by complaining to Gorgias about
Polus speech: rather than answering Chaerephons question by identi-
fying Gorgias art that is, by saying what it is Polus instead praised
that art as if someone were blaming it (448d1e4). In other words,
Socrates complains that Polus gave a rhetorical rather than a dialecti-
cal answer. With this complaint, together with Socrates further elabo-
ration of it (448e6449a2), an important distinction between rhetoric
and dialectics begins to emerge out of the din of this early bickering
(see especially 448d910). The most obvious difference between the
two, according to Socrates suggestions, is that rhetoric involves giv-
ing long speeches, whereas dialectics involves brief questions and brief
answers (449b4c6). But Socrates also points to another, perhaps more
11. See Nichols, The Rhetoric of Justice in Platos Gorgias, 1312: According
to Socrates, whereas dialectic seeks to state what a thing is, rhetoric praises
or blames by proclaiming what kind of thing something is. At first sight
rhetoric involves praise and blame, whereas dialectic seeks knowledge that
is more fundamental and, perhaps, dispassionate.
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awake our doubts that Socrates professed purpose is the final word
about his true purpose. But it is better to withhold judgment about
Socrates true purpose until we have followed the steps in his exami-
nation of Gorgias. Before considering why Socrates ensnares Gorgias,
we need to see precisely how he ensnares him.
Socrates has already given two statements of his guiding ques-
tion to Gorgias. His second formulation, which speaks of rhetoric
as a science (episteme, 449d9), has the effect of drawing Gorgias
attention more directly to the knowledge possessed by the rhetori-
cian; and Gorgias affirms that he regards the rhetorician as a knower
(see 449e56). Yet this movement makes even more difficult the task
that Socrates sets for Gorgias of distinguishing rhetoric from the
other arts, since many of the other arts can also be said to be about
speeches, namely, about those speeches that concern the subject mat-
ter (to pragma) of which each art has knowledge (see especially 450b1
2). For instance, just as the medical art is about speeches (those about
diseases), so the gymnastic art is also about speeches (those about
the good and bad condition of bodies). Are these and other such arts,
Socrates asks, also to be regarded as rhetorical since they are about
speeches (450a3b5)? Gorgias first attempt to escape this difficulty is
not to point to a particular subject matter (a pragma) of which rhetoric
alone among the arts has knowledge, but rather to suggest that rhetoric
is distinctive because it operates entirely through speeches. Unlike the
other arts, each of which involves some handiwork toward which the
artisans knowledge is directed, rhetoric, according to Gorgias, has its
entire action and efficacy through speeches (450b6c2). But this will
not suffice. For while there are indeed many arts that involve a consid-
erable amount of handiwork, Socrates reminds Gorgias that rhetoric is
far from the only art that operates primarily through speeches. Arith-
metic, calculation, geometry, draughts-playing, and many other arts
involve just as little handiwork and operate just as exclusively through
speeches as rhetoric does (450d4451a6). Thus, Socrates reasserts the
issue to Gorgias: try to say what rhetoric, which has its power in
speeches, is about (451a67).
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15. Compare Apology 17a118a6; see also Romilly, The Great Sophists in
Periclean Athens, 6869.
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which the art is the cause? A literal reading of his statement suggests
the former, but that is a more enigmatic answer than the latter.16
To understand the ambiguity of Gorgias reply, we must consider
his own situation as a teacher of rhetoric. Gorgias himself is a rhetori-
cian, but not one who has directed his art to its typical end. Rather than
enter politics himself, he is content to train aspiring politicians in the
art of speaking persuasively. This choice may reflect a kind of respect or
appreciation on his part for knowledge itself, or at least for the exper-
tise that belongs to his art; yet the knowledge or expertise to which
he has devoted himself would seem to be directed toward the service
of other ends.17 Certainly, Gorgias must appeal to these other ends in
order to attract students, who are eager to possess the rhetorical art not
for its own sake but for the sake of those ends, or, stated more bluntly,
he must advertise with a more alluring slogan than learn rhetoric for
its own sake.18 Gorgias advertising becomes clear in his response to
Socrates request that he say more about the great good that rhetoric
provides. No longer speaking as if the art of rhetoric were somehow
itself the greatest good that is, no longer preserving the ambiguity
of his preceding statement Gorgias indicates his interest in potential
students by speaking to them directly:19
is a political gathering. And in fact with this power you will have the doctor
as your slave, and the trainer as your slave and that moneymaker will
come to sight as a moneymaker for another, not for himself, but for you,
the one with the ability to speak and to persuade multitudes. (452e18)
20. Kastely, In Defense of Platos Gorgias, 100, is wrong to claim that Gorgias
does not defend rhetoric as a means to increase personal power; he sees
it as an art existing for the benefit of the community. Romilly, The Great
Sophists of Periclean Athens, 6870, and Weiss, Oh, Brother! 2034, present
more nuanced views, but they, too, describe Gorgias as more public-spirited
than he is. More accurate, in my view, are Dodds, Gorgias, 10; Nichols,
The Rhetoric of Justice in Platos Gorgias, 1335; Rankin, Sophists, Socrat-
ics, and Cynics, 43; Murray, Plato on Power, Moral Responsibility and the
Alleged Neutrality of Gorgias Art of Rhetoric, 3579.
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21. Compare Apology 18e519a7, 37a2b2. See also Benardete, The Rhetoric
of Morality and Philosophy, 2122; Saxonhouse, An Unspoken Theme in
Platos Gorgias, 141.
22. See Thucydides 3.4243. On this passage in Thucydides, see Orwin,
The Humanity of Thucydides, 15862, Democracy and Distrust, 31325;
Bolotin, Thucydides, 2831.
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If the impression that he and Socrates are on the same page has encour-
aged Gorgias to be outspoken about his art, Socrates gives Gorgias a
further push before abandoning him. Socrates gives this further push
by combining another argument meant to ruffle Gorgias pride in his
art with a direct appeal to Gorgias desire to attract students. Socrates
argues, first, that when cities make some of their most important deci-
sions, they turn for counsel, not to rhetoricians, but to experts in the
arts most relevant to the matters at hand; for instance, they turn to doc-
tors or shipwrights when they are choosing doctors or shipwrights, to
architects when they are constructing walls, harbors, or dockyards,
and to skilled generals when they are making battle plans (455b2c2).
Or what do you have to say about these things, Gorgias? (455c23).
23. Most commentators share the views of Barker, Greek Political Theory, 134,
that Socrates and Plato held a severely unfavorable view of rhetoric, and
Romilly, The Great Sophists in Periclean Athens, 71, that one of the aims of
the Gorgias is to reject rhetoric utterly. See, e.g., Jaeger, Paideia, 2:127
32; Friedlander, Plato, 2:24755; Grote, Plato, and the Other Companions of
Sokrates, 2:3701; Dilman, Morality and the Inner Life, 1424; Irwin, Platos
Ethics, 9597. More nuanced views can be found in Nichols, The Rhetoric of
Justice in Platos Gorgias, 13149; Weiss, Oh, Brother! 195206; Kastely,
In Defense of Platos Gorgias, 96109; Black, Platos View of Rhetoric,
36174. As Black points out, there are a number of passages in other dia-
logues that support the suggestion that Socrates and Plato held a more
complicated and less negative view of rhetoric than most suppose. In
addition to Phaedrus 259e1279c8, see Republic 414b8415c7, 459c8d2,
493c10494a5; Statesman 303e7304e1; Laws 663a9664c2.
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24. Socrates reference to those inside (ton endon onton) at 455c6 refers, as
Dodds explains, to those who had been listening to Gorgias earlier speech
and are now observing the conversation between Socrates and Gorgias. See
Dodds, Gorgias, 209.
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the rise of the Athenian empire, is only a prelude to his longest speech,
which proclaims and celebrates the power of rhetoric.
In his speech, Gorgias argues that rhetoric is a kind of master ability,
because it is the only art that is able to gather under itself all of the
other arts and to put them into its service or into the service of the man
who possesses it (456a78; see again 452e48). This bold claim is to
some extent obscured by Gorgias first example, in which he describes
his own ability as a rhetorician to help his brother and other doctors
by convincing their patients to submit to painful treatments (456b1
5). Although this example conveys the impression that the rhetorician
is an excellent servant of others, Gorgias is unwilling to leave matters
at that, and he goes on to make a much different argument on behalf
of rhetoric. Rhetoric allows the rhetorician himself, if he wishes, to
triumph in any public contest. For instance, if a rhetorician were to
enter a city to compete with a doctor in a contest that required each of
them to speak in the assembly about why he should be chosen as the
citys doctor, the doctor would get nowhere and the rhetorician would
get the job if he wanted it (455b6c2). And the doctor is just one of
the craftsmen who could easily be defeated by the rhetorician, for
there is nothing about which the rhetorician would not speak more
persuasively than any of the other craftsmen before a crowd (456c6
d5). In short, Gorgias argument is that rhetoric is so powerful that the
rhetorician always wins (see 456c67).
But there is a problem with this argument. For, although it may
be a strong argument for the power of rhetoric, arent the victories
that rhetoric enables the rhetorician to win over the other craftsmen
undeserved? Gorgias argument, in other words, draws attention to
what makes rhetoric so attractive to potential students, but it does
so at the expense of highlighting what is dubious about rhetoric: the
ability to win undeserved victories is an ability that enables one not
only to defeat the other arts but also to triumph over justice itself. This
problem helps to explain the dramatic and sudden turn that occurs
in the middle of Gorgias speech. Immediately after boasting about
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the power rhetoric gives the rhetorician, Gorgias changes course and
argues that rhetoric must not be used unjustly (see 456c6d5; the shift
comes at 456c7).25 According to Gorgias new argument, rhetoric is
like any other powerful skill such as skill in boxing or the ability to
fight with weapons that must not be turned to an unjust use. And if
it is ever turned to an unjust use, he argues, the teacher should not be
blamed or punished, since he imparted the art to be used justly and did
not expect the student to abuse his skill: If someone, having become
a rhetorician, does injustice with this power and art, one should not
hate the teacher and expel him from the cities. For he imparted it for
the sake of a just use, but the student used it differently. It is just, then,
to hate, expel, and kill the one who uses it incorrectly, but not the one
who teaches it (457b5c3).
Now, this remarkable change in Gorgias speech reflects his aware-
ness of the straits in which the dubiousness of rhetoric leaves him as
a teacher of rhetoric who has spoken so openly about the power of
rhetoric. Wanting to trumpet the power of his art in order to attract
students, Gorgias is caught between this desire and his awareness that
the teacher of an unjust art must worry about the wrath of the cities.
This tension governs his speech, explaining its movement (compare
especially 456b6c6 with 457a4c3).26 Yet to say that Gorgias has an
awareness of the problem posed by his boasts about the power of
rhetoric is not to say that his awareness is sufficiently acute or that
his solution to the problem is satisfactory. His solution, to repeat, is to
claim that he imparts the art of rhetoric to be used justly and thus to
try to shift all of the blame to the student whenever it is used unjustly.
But this is hardly convincing, since surely a teacher must bear some
responsibility for the unjust use to which a student puts his lessons,
especially if that teacher attracts students in the first place by holding
25. This shift in Gorgias speech is stressed also by Benardete, The Rhetoric of
Morality and Philosophy, 23; see also Weiss, Oh, Brother! 199202.
26. Compare Protagoras 316b8d3. A similar tension can be found in Protagoras
famous speech, which runs from 320c8 to 328d2 of the Protagoras.
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out a vision of the undeserved victories his students will be able to win
once they possess his art (see again 452e18, 456b6c6). Gorgias has
said much more than he should have. He has crossed a crucial line by
drawing so much attention to the power of rhetoric for accomplishing
unjust ends. Perhaps if his art were indeed all-powerful, he would have
no need to worry about its public reputation. But the power of rhetoric
is not so great that it can overcome the need for concealment.27
Considering the retreat with which his speech ends, Gorgias must
have some sense that he made a mistake in the first part of his speech.
If this leaves him worried after his speech, Socrates immediate reply
cannot be encouraging. For Socrates tells Gorgias that he has spot-
ted an inconsistency in what Gorgias has said (457e15). In other
words, Socrates lets Gorgias know that he now has him on a hook.
And Socrates sets this hook more deeply in Gorgias mouth by giv-
ing a long speech about the difference between competitive arguers
who love victory and truth-seekers who would gladly be refuted if they
said something false (457c4458b3). Claiming to belong to the latter
group himself, Socrates gives Gorgias the choice of affirming that he,
too, is such a person and thus continuing the conversation or break-
ing off the conversation where it stands. This choice, of course, is
no real choice at all, since no one with a sense of pride could well
declare himself a lover of victory who would prefer flight to refuta-
tion. Gorgias makes some effort to squirm off the hook by appealing
to the members of the audience, who, he points out, must be tired from
watching the display he gave even before Socrates arrival (458b4c2).
But this feeble attempt at escape backfires when Chaerephon and
Callicles speak for the whole audience in urging Gorgias and Socrates
to continue (458c3d4). As he himself acknowledges, Gorgias is stuck,
27. Gorgias dilemma is discussed also by Kahn, Drama and Dialectic in Platos
Gorgias, 8084; Shorey, What Plato Said, 1367; Nichols, The Rhetoric of
Justice in Platos Gorgias, 1334; Romilly, The Great Sophists in Periclean
Athens, 6870; Benardete, The Rhetoric of Morality and Philosophy, 2425;
Murray, Plato on Power, Moral Responsibility and the Alleged Neutrality
of Gorgias Art of Rhetoric, 35961.
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to learn from him. And to make matters worse or better or at any rate
more impressive, Socrates has not only managed to trap Gorgias by
luring him into the crucial mistake of speaking more openly than his
better judgment would dictate, but he has also shown his superiority
and goodwill by then freeing his captive without inflicting much dam-
age; he has merely humbled Gorgias pride rather than destroying his
precious reputation. Gorgias must at this point be experiencing some-
thing akin to awe, an emotion with which he has little familiarity. Cer-
tainly, Socrates has managed to gain his attention, and Gorgias must
not know what to make of Socrates concluding statement that the two
of them would need to spend much time together in order adequately
to sort out the matters they have been discussing (see 461a7b2). Is
Socrates proposing some kind of continued association? What is this
mysterious wizard after?
If these are Gorgias thoughts at the end of his conversation with
Socrates, we must admit that they are ours, too. It is clear that Socrates
has won a strategic victory by outmaneuvering Gorgias. But his rea-
sons for doing so are still unclear. We may safely assume that Socrates
wished to make an impression on Gorgias. But to what end? One possi-
ble explanation is that Socrates wished to discredit Gorgias in order to
combat his harmful influence as a teacher. Perhaps Socrates conversa-
tion with Gorgias is part of a larger Socratic project aimed at exposing
the sophists as teachers of injustice and protecting the young from the
dangers of sophistic education.30 Yet the difficulty with understanding
Socrates conversation with Gorgias as part of such a larger project is
that Socrates is remarkably polite and respectful in his treatment of
Gorgias. Socrates never delivers, in particular, the final blow that one
would expect if he were trying to discredit Gorgias. In fact, Socrates
treatment of Gorgias is so gentle that it appears not as the treatment of
30. For different versions of this common suggestion, see Jaeger, Paideia, 2:127
9; Friedlander, Plato, 2:246; Dodds, Gorgias, 15; Romilly, The Great Sophists
in Periclean Athens, 15661; Lewis, Refutative Rhetoric as True Rhetoric in
the Gorgias, 200; Kastely, In Defense of Platos Gorgias, 98.
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31. Socrates treatment of Gorgias should be contrasted with his much harsher
treatment of Protagoras in the Protagoras. After humiliating Protagoras
before many of his admirers and students, Socrates leaves the scene as
soon as they have finished talking (see Protagoras 362a14). The difference
between Socrates treatment of Gorgias and his treatment of Protagoras is
noted also by Shorey, What Plato Said, 134, and Weiss, Oh, Brother! 200.
See also Fussi, Why Is the Gorgias So Bitter? 4950, 55.
32. Compare the similar suggestions offered by Nichols, The Rhetoric of Justice
in Platos Gorgias, 131, 137, 1489, and Weiss, Oh, Brother! 195206. My
suggestion is closer to that of Nichols.
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40
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2. Much less is known of Polus the aptly named colt (see 463e12) than
of the much more famous Gorgias. Polus did, however, produce at least one
writing on rhetoric. See Dodds, Gorgias, 1112. Beyond his appearance in
the Gorgias, Polus is mentioned (mockingly) in the Phaedrus (see 267b10
c3), and Aristotle refers to his view of the relationship between experience
and art (Metaphysics 981a15). For an extensive discussion of Aristotles
reference to Polus, arguing that it pertains to the historical Polus, not to
Polus statement at 448c47 of the Gorgias, see Renehan, Polus, Plato, and
Aristotle, 6872.
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462c10d2, 463d3, 466a910).3 For his part, Socrates shows his new
willingness to engage Polus by proposing that they have a conversa-
tion (461c5d4). But that does not mean that Socrates is warm and
welcoming towards Polus. To the contrary, he seems to make every
effort to be as rude and provocative as possible, insulting Polus at
every turn and even suggesting that he could barely endure listening
if Polus should give a long speech (see, e.g., 461e1462a1, 462c10d2,
463d4e2, 466a48). Since Socrates behavior is such a marked depar-
ture from the politeness he showed toward Gorgias, we will have to
consider how his harsher tone contributes to his aims in conversing
with Polus.4
3. We also should recall that, in his brief exchange with Chaerephon at the
beginning of the dialogue, Polus was eager to defend rhetoric as the noblest
of the arts (see again 448c89 and e5). That Socrates opens his present
exchange with Polus by addressing him as noblest Polus and by telling him
you are just (461c5, d2) may be an indication of more than Socratic irony.
Cf. Nichols, The Rhetoric of Justice in Platos Gorgias, 138; Benardete, The
Rhetoric of Morality and Philosophy, 31.
4. On Socrates rudeness towards Polus, see Michelini, Rudeness and Irony
in Platos Gorgias, 5059; see also Arieti, Platos Philosophic Antiope, 204;
Shorey, What Plato Said, 137; Grote, Plato, and the Other Companions of
Sokrates, 2:321.
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6. For a helpful discussion of the meaning of the term art (techne), see Jaeger,
Paideia, 2:1301. The most important aspect of Jaegers discussion is his
emphasis on the importance of knowledge in the Greek conception of techne,
a point that risks obfuscation by the translation art.
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10. Socrates quotes the same saying, homou panta chremata, in the Phaedo
(72c45). According to Dodds, Gorgias, 2312, this saying can be traced
back to the opening line of a work of Anaxagoras, homou panta chremata
en, which Anaxagoras used to describe the chaos that existed before the
intervention of nous, but that became proverbial for any state in which
distinctions are obliterated, like Hegels night in which all cows are black.
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11. Socrates introduces the qualification that he is speaking of actions that are
for the sake of something at 467d67. While he leaves open the possibility
that his argument does not apply to all actions, Socrates does not call this
possible limitation to Polus attention, and he at times gives the impression
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that he is speaking about all human actions (see, e.g., hekastote at 467c6 and
d3 and panton at 467d6).
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elements of the human good are obvious, and also to show that an
argument that appeals only to prudence could never really shake that
conviction.15
15. For a line of argument bearing some important similarities to the one just
considered, see Second Alcibiades 138b6141b8. On that line of argument
and Alcibiades reaction to it, which resembles Polus reaction here, see
Bruell, On the Socratic Education, 4043.
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never enviable because injustice is the greatest of all evils (see espe-
cially 469b89) that he will defend throughout the rest of the dia-
logue. Indeed, this position will play such a large role in Socrates
arguments from here on that it may be called, for the sake of simplic-
ity, the Socratic thesis.16
Socrates turn to justice and to the Socratic thesis, however, cannot
be explained entirely by the fact that he has now been put on the spot.
It is also important that this turn occurs immediately after the failure
of Socrates preceding argument to move Polus from his conviction
that the elements of the human good are obvious. For it makes sense
that, in the wake of showing that an appeal to prudence carries little
power to shake that conviction, Socrates would turn to justice in order
to reveal that Polus views are more complex than they seem. After all,
isnt it through the concern for justice, or, in other words, through
ones moral experience, that one can first be awakened to the thought
that there are restrictions on the pursuit of goods such as rule, wealth,
and pleasure? And isnt this thought connected to the further thought
that ones truest good may lie in something beyond the enjoyment of
these more obvious goods?17 Socrates turn to justice is the best way
of revealing that Polus is not as simple as his reaction to Socrates
opening argument made him seem. Furthermore, given that Polus
reaction was based on a commonly held view, Socrates can thus teach
through Polus a more general lesson about the complexity of human
concerns and the depth of the human attachment to justice.
16. Another reason for giving it this title is that the same thesis, or at least a
position very similar to it, plays an important role in other dialogues. See,
e.g., Crito 48b349e3, Apology 28b330d5, and Cleitophon 407a5e2. What
I refer to as the Socratic thesis is sometimes referred to by other titles.
For example, McKim, Shame and Truth in Platos Gorgias, 35, calls it the
Socratic Axiom; Kahn, Drama and Dialectic in Platos Gorgias, 8586,
and Santas, Socrates, 18394, refer to it, as many others do, as a Socratic
paradox.
17. Compare Bruell, On the Socratic Education, 4243; see also 2730.
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whether the unjust are already suffering from their injustice, but that
by no means amounts to a complete abandonment of the concern for
justice or of the belief that justice is superior to injustice. By thinking
about the difference between the Socratic and the ordinary response
to injustice, then, we are led almost immediately to wonder whether
the extremism of the Socratic thesis is not a result of its more rigorous
attention to the demands of consistency even or especially where the
ordinary view wavers and lacks complete clarity as to its principles.19
Yet, to repeat, Socrates extremism broadens the divide between
himself and Polus, who rejects Socrates argument even more vehe-
mently than most people would. There has been little evidence so far
that Polus has any concern for justice, much less a concern strong
enough to lead him to accept the Socratic thesis. To say that there has
been little evidence, however, is not to say that there has been none
(see again 461b3c4) and Socrates has only begun his discussion of
justice with Polus.
it: it is not only justice but also education that is essential to the virtue
upon which happiness and misery depend (consider paideias at 470e6
in the context of 470e411). Might Socrates be indicating here that he
thinks that there are elements of virtue other than justice, elements
that might even be higher in the same way that legislation was earlier
presented as a higher art than justice? In any case, this line of thought
is not pursued, because Socrates quickly returns to the view that jus-
tice is the sole determinant of happiness. He says that he would regard
Archelaus as unhappy if in fact he is unjust (compare 471a13 with
470e611).
But what about the injustice of Archelaus? Polus thinks, to repeat,
that it is obvious. How could a man who has lived Archelaus life not
be unjust? Growing ever more frustrated and incredulous, Polus deliv-
ers his longest speech of the dialogue, describing the injustices that
paved Archelaus path to power (471a4d2). According to Polus vivid
account, delivered with a blend of venom and sarcasm, Archelaus had
no right to the throne of Macedonia. Born of a woman who was a
slave of his uncle Alcetas (Perdiccas brother), Archelaus in accor-
dance with the just should have lived as a slave of Alcetas. While
such a life, Polus says to Socrates, would have made Archelaus happy
according to your argument, he chose instead to make himself mis-
erable by doing the greatest injustices. After the death of his father,
Polus reports, Archelaus began his rise to power by first eliminating
his uncle and his uncles son, his own cousin. Deceiving these men
by promising them that he would help them seize power, he got them
drunk at a feast, threw them into a wagon, dragged them into the
night, and slit their throats. Once Archelaus had committed these
crimes, Polus continues, he failed to notice that he was making him-
self most wretched, and so, rather than repenting, he next trained
his sights on his seven-year-old brother, the legitimate son of Perdic-
cas and the rightful heir to the throne. Not wishing to make him-
self happy by following the just course of rearing this young boy and
then turning power over to him, he chose instead to throw him into
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23. It is worth noticing that even in Polus own description of Archelaus plot
against his uncle and cousin, Polus speaks of Archelaus using the ruse that
he was intending to give back rule of Macedonia (see 471b2). Although it
may be true that Perdiccas had taken the throne from Alcetas (see 471b23),
the indication that the throne at least in some sense belonged to Archelaus
even before the actions described by Polus suggests that the situation in the
wake of Perdiccas death was more complicated and Archelaus claim to
the throne possibly more legitimate than Polus suggests by insisting that
justice clearly demanded that Archelaus live as a slave of Alcetas. On Polus
simplification of a possibly more complicated situation, see also Benardete,
The Rhetoric of Morality and Philosophy, 44.
24. We should recall here the zeal for punishing that Polus displayed earlier
in his conversation with Socrates (see again 468e6469a10). Nichols, The
Rhetoric of Justice in Platos Gorgias, 139, also suggests that Polus dis-
plays anger at the apparent prosperity of the unjust; he describes Polus
account of Archelaus as a prosecutors speech of accusation overlaid with
the cynical intellectuals bitter revelation of the rewards for injustice. See
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some of the most respected names in Athens: his list, which spans
the Athenian political spectrum, includes Nicias and his brothers as
well as the whole house of Pericles (472a2b3).26 Socrates acknowl-
edgment that these men could be brought as witnesses by Polus is
surprising because it suggests that the human concern for justice is in
fact not so deep; it suggests that even decent men including the most
pious have grave doubts about whether injustice is always the worst
path. In other words, Socrates seems to place himself, as an advocate
of the Socratic thesis, in a minority, not to say in a minority of one
(consider 472b34, c12).27 And yet his speech is not as simple as this
suggests. For although Socrates grants that these witnesses could be
brought to testify in support of Polus view that the unjust are some-
times happy, he also says that, in offering this testimony, they would
be false witnesses (see 472a12, b46). By this, Socrates means more
than that they would be wrong; he also means that they would be lying
or giving their support to a claim they do not really believe.28 Socrates
thus seems puzzlingly to move within the same speech between
conceding and denying that most people agree with Polus rather than
with him. It is possible, however, to make sense of this wavering. For
SOCRATES: But what about this? Which is more shameful, doing injustice
or suffering it? Answer !
POLUS: Doing it.
SOCRATES: So, then, is it also worse, if indeed it is more shameful?
POLUS: Far from it. (474c49)
Or do you have anything beyond these things to say about the nobil-
ity of the body? (474d3e1). When Polus says that he does not have
anything beyond use or pleasure to account for the nobility of bodies,
Socrates then applies this view to all other noble things, replacing the
term use with benefit such that nobility appears to rest either on
pleasure or on benefit or on a combination of the two. He mentions
again the examples of shapes, colors, and sounds, and then turns to
laws and practices: Also indeed for things pertaining to laws and prac-
tices, that is, the noble ones, surely there isnt anything beyond these
namely, their being either beneficial or pleasant or both (474e17).
Socrates final example is the nobility of learnings or sciences, which
Polus readily agrees should be understood along the same lines
(475a12).
Socrates analysis leads to the view that the noble must always be
understood in terms of pleasure or benefit, and the shameful always
in terms of pain or harm. According to this view, whenever one of two
things is nobler than the other, its greater nobility must be explained
by the greater pleasure it brings or the greater benefit, or by both; and,
similarly, the greater shamefulness of one of two things must be due to
the greater pain it brings or the greater harm, or to both (475a5b2).
It is at this point that Socrates reminds Polus of his position regarding
doing injustice and suffering it. For while Polus has argued that suf-
fering injustice is worse than doing it, he has also conceded that doing
injustice is more shameful. But that concession now means given
the analysis of the noble and the shameful that Polus has accepted
that doing injustice must exceed suffering injustice either in pain or
in harm or in both (475b58). Yet it can hardly be claimed that those
who do injustice endure more pain than those who suffer it; and if
doing injustice does not exceed in pain, it obviously cannot exceed both
in pain and in harm (475b8c5). There remains only one alternative:
doing injustice must exceed suffering injustice in harm (475c68). Yet
what exceeds in harm is more harmful that is to say, worse than
what it exceeds, and no one would choose for himself what is worse
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rather than what is better (475d4e3). Polus, then, did not know what
he was saying when he claimed that suffering injustice is worse than
doing it and when he attributed this view to the vast majority of human
beings. For it turns out that Socrates was right to claim that neither I
nor you nor any other human being would prefer to do injustice than
to suffer it, since it proves to be worse (475e36).
Socrates argument is a remarkable display of his powers. That is
not to say, however, that there are no objections that could be raised
against it. The most important problems concern the central claim of
the argument that the nobility of noble things can be understood only
by looking away (apoblepon) to some pleasure or some benefit, or
to both. For while it may be true that nobility cannot be understood
without looking away to something (see again 474d35), one could
object to the view that it has to be pleasure or benefit or a combination
of these to which one looks. Couldnt one argue that, when we regard
something as noble, we are looking precisely to its nobility itself, a
quality that has a being of its own that is not reducible to pleasure
or benefit? Or, alternatively, even if one grants that it is necessary to
look to pleasure or benefit, doesnt that still leave open the question
of whose pleasure and benefit must be served? In Socrates own first
example the nobility of bodies the pleasure mentioned was said
to belong to those beholding the noble bodies, not to those possessing
them (see 474d89). Couldnt one suggest something similar about
noble men and their actions, that is, that they come to be regarded as
noble because of the pleasure and benefit they bring to others?32 Or, to
approach the issue in another way, one might ask whether the nobility
of things such as bodies, colors, shapes, and sounds really provides
a good model for understanding the nobility of human beings and
their actions. Socrates exploits the range of the term noble (kalos) by
suggesting that it means the same thing regardless of what it modifies;
and he makes his case easier by turning to practices and laws, and then
to doing and suffering injustice, only after first establishing a certain
view of nobility through the examples of bodies, colors, shapes, and
sounds. But doesnt the nobility of human beings and their actions
have a special character that makes it more resistant to explanation in
terms of benefit or pleasure?33
These objections are sufficient to cast doubt on Socrates argument.
But Polus does not raise any of them. He goes along with the argu-
ment. And we can understand why he does not object by considering
the character of the objections just raised. For they have the tenor of
what one might call moral objections to Socrates analysis of nobility in
terms of pleasure and benefit. That is, they are objections to what one
34. See, e.g., the protest of Kahn, Drama and Dialectic in Platos Gorgias, 93
94, against Socrates reliance on a superficial analysis of to kalon, which
has the effect of reducing the moral sense [of the term] (the emphasis is
Kahns). See also Friedlander, Plato, 2:2567.
35. Polus failure to object to Socrates argument is not given sufficient atten-
tion by those who emphasize the weaknesses of the argument. See, e.g.,
Vlastos, Was Polus Refuted? 45460, Socrates, Ironist and Moral Philoso-
pher, 13948; Mackenzie, Plato on Punishment, 2414; Santas, Socrates,
23340. Although McKim goes too far, in my view, in the other direction
by downplaying too much the logical problems with Socrates argument,
his analysis has the virtue of stressing the dramatic significance of Polus
agreement and what it reveals about Polus concerns (see especially Shame
and Truth in Platos Gorgias, 4647). Kahn, Drama and Dialectic in Platos
Gorgias, 9495 also discusses Polus agreement, but he explains it merely as
the result of his deference and attachment to public opinion. My own anal-
ysis will differ in important ways from McKims, but it is closer to McKims
than to Kahns.
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36. See again 470d5471d2; recall also his earlier anger at Socrates at 461b3c4.
37. Compare McKim, Shame and Truth in Platos Gorgias, 4447. My argu-
ment in the present paragraph is similar to McKims. The next paragraph,
however, will bring out my disagreement with McKim who, in my view,
presents Socrates success as more complete than it is.
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and so little did even Socrates prior argument stick that at a cru-
cial juncture Polus has to be reminded of its central principle (see
477c45). One gets the sense that Polus is willing to go along with
Socrates argument to the extent that he is willing more because
he is committed to following out a line of reasoning to its conclu-
sion than because he is genuinely persuaded (see especially 475e23,
480e12).39
There are, as it turns out, good reasons not to be persuaded by
Socrates argument about punishment. Without going into the details
of this intricate and lengthy argument, it is possible to give a brief sum-
mary of its main steps.40 Socrates argument begins with a defense of
the principle that whenever an action occurs, the one who suffers
that action has an experience, in his suffering, of the same sort or
quality as the experience of the doer, in his doing. Thus, for instance,
if a hard and swift striking occurs, the one who is struck is struck hard
and swiftly, just as the striker strikes hard and swiftly (476b7c3). The
purpose of establishing this principle is that it enables Socrates to
argue that just punishment involves not only the performing of a just
action by the punisher, but also the suffering of one by the person who
is punished (476d5e3). This, in turn, enables Socrates to return to the
agreements already reached in the preceding argument. By recalling
those agreements, he can get Polus to concede that just things are noble
things and hence also good things, and, therefore, that the recipient of
punishment, as a sufferer of just things, must suffer or experience good
things (476e2477a4). Of course, Socrates reliance here on the earlier
39. Contrast McKim, Shame and Truth in Platos Gorgias, 4647. For eval-
uations of the extent of Socrates success with Polus closer to my own,
see Kastely, In Defense of Platos Gorgias, 97, 106; Arieti, Platos Philo-
sophic Antiope, 205; Benardete, The Rhetoric of Morality and Philosophy,
5051.
40. For a more thorough analysis of this argument and its weaknesses, see
Mackenzie, Plato on Punishment, 1804. Compare also Benardete, The
Rhetoric of Morality and Philosophy, 5357; Santas, Socrates, 2406; Grote,
Plato, and the Other Companions of Sokrates, 2:336.
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agreements depends on the assumptions that all just things are noble
and, as noble, good for everyone involved, assumptions that one might
well question in the case of punishment (see 476b12 together with
476e2477a4).41 But the more important difficulties with Socrates
argument arise as he goes on to try to articulate the great benefit that
one receives from being punished. Socrates argues that punishment
improves the unjust soul by releasing it from the evils that plague it.
And he argues that, just as poverty is the evil of possessions, and sick-
ness is the evil of the body, the evil of the soul is injustice. Or, rather,
Socrates argues this in some places, whereas in others he presents
injustice as just one of a set of evils of the soul that also includes
intemperance, cowardice, and ignorance.42 Socrates mention of these
other evils or vices raises several questions about his argument. Does
punishment release one from all of the evils of the soul? Or does it
release one from only one of them? And for that matter, how exactly
does it release one from any of them? If it is extremely hard to see
how punishment might release one, for example, from ignorance, it
is not obvious how it releases one even from injustice. Yet Socrates
argument depends decisively on the view that punishment releases one
from a great harm and an amazing evil, because only if that is true
would an unjust man be better off seeking out punishment despite
the undeniable pain it entails (see 477d1e6). Socrates, however, does
not make a complete and convincing case that punishment cures the
soul of injustice. Nor does he answer the prior question of exactly why
injustice is such a great harm and an amazing evil to have in the soul
in the first place.43
The last of these problems with Socrates argument is the most sig-
nificant, because it reveals the largest gap in the argument and the
deepest reason for Polus reluctance to embrace it fully. To appreci-
ate the importance of this gap, though, we must first give due weight
to Socrates argument and be careful not to be too dismissive of it.
Since it culminates in strange claims such as that the best way to
get revenge against an enemy is to help him escape the benefits of
being punished (see 480e5481b1), it is tempting to regard this argu-
ment as simply ridiculous and ironic.44 But there are several reasons
why that temptation should be resisted. Socrates argument sketches
out what may be called, with some justification, a Socratic theory
of punishment. According to this theory, punishment improves the
unjust soul by releasing it from the evils that plague it. Perhaps most
important in this connection is that Socrates makes no mention of
what are commonly thought to be the two most important aims of
punishment: deterrence and retribution. In fact, it is Socrates silence
about these aims, as much as anything else, that makes his argument
seem so strange and unrealistic. Yet, strange as it is, Socrates argu-
ment captures something that may at times be hard to discern but is
no less present in our beliefs about punishment than the concern to
deter future crimes and to get revenge for past ones. Dont we also
believe that punishment can rehabilitate the unjust soul or provide
the path to redemption? While not always on the surface, it is not
entirely foreign to the ordinary outlook on punishment to believe that
the suffering involved in punishment is a suffering that purifies and
restores. And if that belief is at odds with the belief that punishment
should also cause deserved harm, that tension reveals not so much
a flaw in Socrates presentation as a kind of quandary in our beliefs
about punishment a quandary that consists in our belief that punish-
ment should be at once something harmful and something beneficial.
Socrates theory of punishment, then, can have the virtue of awaken-
ing us to this quandary and calling attention to the hopes buried even in
These questions must remain open questions for now. For we are
left at the end of Socrates conversation with Polus still wondering
precisely what Socrates is after. And while the suggestion conveyed by
these questions is a plausible one, a couple of considerations should
make us hesitant to take it as the last word. One reason for doubt is
Socrates limited success with Polus, which we have been forced to
acknowledge. Would it be possible for Gorgias to do better? Even if
Socrates can show Gorgias the complexity of Polus concerns, could
even the master rhetorician provide a cure for Polus sickness? Beyond
this, it is also worth noticing that Socrates concluding statement
on rhetoric offers an incomplete enumeration of the uses to which
rhetoric might be put. Socrates rejects the use of rhetoric for self-
defense when one is in the wrong, and he embraces its use for self-
accusation in the same situation. But what about self-defense when
one is not in the wrong, that is, when one is unjustly accused? Didnt
our earlier thoughts about Socrates interest in rhetoric lead us in that
direction? It is true that Socrates silence about this use of rhetoric can
be explained by the fact that he is defending the position that justice
should always be ones foremost concern. It would not be in keeping
with the spirit of this position to express a concern for self-protection,
and Socrates stresses more than once that his statement about rhetoric
is governed by the position he is taking about justice (see 480a14, b3,
and e3). Yet Socrates silence about self-protection is not complete,
since he adds, in a surprising remark, that one must take care not
to suffer injustice at the hands of ones enemies (see 480e67). And
the very connection between the issue of self-protection and Socrates
position on justice leaves us at this point with unresolved questions.
What might Socrates evaluation of the uses of rhetoric be if his posi-
tion concerning justice should prove to be questionable? Would there
be a stronger case for a rhetoric of self-defense? And what might such
rhetoric look like?
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82
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deep as any in Platos dialogues; nowhere else does Plato allow a critic
of the philosophic life to speak so forcefully.1 Moreover, the divide
between Socrates and Callicles will prove to be unbridgeable. Whereas
Socrates has been able in some manner to come to a meeting of the
minds with Gorgias and Polus, Callicles will remain resistant to the
end both to Socrates charms and to his arguments. The reasons for
Callicles recalcitrance, however, are far from simple and clear; and
while it is easy to observe the divide between Socrates and Callicles, it
is much harder to understand it. Our task, then, is to try to follow the
often confusing twists and turns of the conversation between Socrates
and Callicles in an effort to uncover what truly divides these two very
different men.
Some initial help in understanding the divide between Socrates
and Callicles is given by the opening speech that Socrates delivers in
response to Callicles opening question. Socrates treats Callicles from
the beginning as someone with whom he is already familiar, and it
is Socrates who initiates the hostilities with a long speech describing
both what he and Callicles have in common and what divides them.2
By Socrates account, he and Callicles are both lovers, that is, they
share that intense experience of the soul that is called eros.3 But if
the experience of love is a common ground between them, they differ
1. Many commentators have stressed the depth of the divide between Socrates
and Callicles and the power of Callicles challenge to the Socratic way of life.
See, for example, Taylor, Plato, 106, 122; Jaeger, Paideia, 2:1367; Voegelin,
Plato, 2832; Romilly, The Great Sophists in Periclean Athens, 156; Kahn,
Plato and the Socratic Dialogue, 134; Euben, Corrupting Youth, 217; Newell,
Ruling Passion, 1011.
2. Socrates is now talking to a fellow Athenian, although one of whom nothing
is known beyond his role in the Gorgias. Some have speculated that Callicles
is a fictional character, others that he is a mask for some other figure. But
these are mere speculations, and dubious ones at that, as Dodds, Gorgias,
1213, argues. Consider also Romilly, The Great Sophists in Periclean Athens,
156; Rankin, Sophists, Socratics and Cynics, 69; Taylor, Plato, 116.
3. To better understand the significance of Socrates use of the term eronte at
481d3, see Symposium 205a5209e4. See also Newell, Ruling Passion, 1113.
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in the first place in the objects of their love. Socrates describes him-
self as a lover of Alcibiades and of philosophy, and he attributes to
Callicles a love of the Athenian demos and of a young man named
Demos (481d25). Now, in light of many things Callicles will go on to
say, we will have to wonder what Socrates has in mind in speaking of
Callicles as a lover of the demos and as an erotic man more generally.
But for now we should merely observe a further difference between
Socrates and Callicles that Socrates calls to our attention. For Socrates
not only points out that he and Callicles love different things, but he
also indicates that he differs from Callicles in his ability to oppose one
of his beloveds. Whereas Callicles, according to Socrates, is forever
turning with the whims and opinions of his beloveds, Socrates claims
to stand firmly with the speeches of philosophy and blames his other
beloved, Alcibiades, for his unsteadiness (481d5482b1).
Socrates greater consistency is due, he claims, to the consistency
of philosophy and its unwavering speeches. Responding to Callicles
question about whether he really believes the Socratic thesis, Socrates
makes the most important statement of his opening reply to Callicles:
Dont be amazed that I say such things, but stop philosophy, my beloved,
from saying them. For, my dear comrade, it always says what you now
hear from me and is not nearly so unsteady as the other beloved. For this
son of Cleinias [Alcibiades] holds different views at different times, but
philosophy always holds the same ones, and it says what you are now
amazed at; and you yourself were present when these things were being
said. Therefore, either refute that one, just as I said a while ago, by showing
that doing injustice and not paying the penalty when one does injustice are
not the most extreme of all evils; or else, if you let this remain unrefuted,
then, by the dog, the god of the Egyptians, Callicles will not agree with
you, Callicles, but will go through all of life in disagreement. (482a3b6)
With this statement, Socrates sets the stage for his quarrel with
Callicles. But he does so in a complicated way. Perhaps most impor-
tant, he makes here a crucial addition to his presentation of the
Socratic thesis: he now presents this thesis, as he has not done up to
this point, as the view of philosophy. Socrates thus brings philosophy
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4. Cf. Nichols, The Rhetoric of Justice in Platos Gorgias, 142; Dodds, Gorgias,
15, 2667, 390; Taylor, Plato, 11617.
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Whenever I see someone who is older still philosophizing and not aban-
doning it, this man, Socrates, seems to me to need a beating. For, as I
just said, it falls to this man, even if he has a very good nature, to become
unmanly by fleeing the centers of the city and the agora, in which the poet
says men become highly distinguished, and by lowering himself into
spending the rest of his life whispering with three or four boys in a corner,
never to utter anything free, great, or sufficient. (485d1e2)
9. Cf. Jaeger, Paideia, 2:1389; Romilly, The Great Sophists in Periclean Athens,
1559.
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10. Euripides Antiope has been lost, but from what is known of the play it is
generally agreed that the most important scene depicted a dispute between
the brothers Zethus and Amphion over the best way of life. Zethus argued
for the active political life against his more philosophic brother. For an
extensive and helpful discussion of the Antiope and its role in the Gorgias,
see Nightingale, Platos Gorgias and Euripides Antiope, 12141. See also
Dodds, Gorgias, 2756; Arieti, Platos Philosophic Antiope, 2001.
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Callicles hostility. One reason for the obscurity is that Callicles seems
to waver over the precise character of his objection to philosophy. Or,
perhaps better, he judges philosophy by a standard of nobility that
lacks clarity as to its central principle. Nobility appears, in the section
of Callicles speech in which he attacks philosophy, to consist in the
Periclean ability and willingness to devote oneself to political affairs
and to gain a great reputation through service to the city, thereby mak-
ing oneself invulnerable to attack by ones inferiors. But this formu-
lation contains a question or an ambiguity. Is Callicles defense of the
active life of involvement in the affairs of the city based on the thought
that only such a life makes possible truly noble action (see 484c8d2,
485c6e2)? Or is it based on the thought that only such a life provides
one with safety and protection from attack (see 486a3c3)? His argu-
ment, it seems, is based on both of these grounds, or rather it shifts
between the two grounds. Of course, the two grounds are connected,
since preeminence in the city generally brings with it the power to pro-
tect oneself, and Callicles presents self-protection as a responsibility
that it is not only dangerous but also shameful to neglect. Still, the
two grounds are not the same, and they may even at times be at odds.
After all, is stepping to the fore of the turbulent struggle to lead the
city always the least risky course of action? Did Pericles, for example,
lead the safest life in Athens? That Callicles criticism of philosophy
lacks perfect clarity or consistency should make us wonder whether
Callicles himself fully grasps his deepest objection to philosophy. Is it
possible that Callicles feels a hostility whose deepest source he cannot
quite articulate? Does he feel in his bones, in other words, something
that he cannot adequately express in speech?
necessary to pursue the truth to its attainment, and thus that the truth
will not come fully to light in their conversation.11
That Socrates and Callicles will be unable to reach the truth together
in a complete meeting of the minds was to some extent already sug-
gested by Socrates statement that he has found in Callicles a touch-
stone with which he can test whether his own soul is golden. After
all, while a touchstone may be used to test gold, it is not transformed
into gold in the process.12 But there may be a further meaning of this
analogy, one that can help us better understand the character and lim-
its of the coming discussion. For the analogy suggests that in some
sense Callicles soul will be the guiding standard for the discussion
between Socrates and Callicles, and in particular the standard against
which Socrates soul is to be tested. More precisely, Callicles soul will
be used to test not so much the nature of Socrates soul as whether
Socrates soul has been nobly cared for (kalos tetherapeusthai, 486d5
6) and whether it lives correctly (orthos . . . zoses, 487a12). Now, since
the care that Socrates soul has received is above all the care provided
by philosophy, and since the life it lives is the philosophic life, we may
take this suggestion to mean that philosophy and the philosophic life
are somehow going to be brought, in what follows, to the touchstone
of Callicles soul and its concerns.
But hasnt Callicles already given us reason to think that this test is
likely to be failed? Or is Socrates optimistic that it could be passed, that
the philosophic life could come to sight as golden, if the philosophic
life were seen for what it is and not as it appeared in Callicles attack
on it? These thoughts lead us to expect at this point a defense of the
philosophic life against Callicles attack on it. And Socrates further
11. On the irony of Socrates praise of Callicles, see Jaeger, Paideia, 2:140;
Shorey, What Plato Said, 144; Benardete, The Rhetoric of Morality and
Philosophy, 62; McKim, Shame and Truth in Platos Gorgias, 40; Miche-
lini, Rudeness and Irony in Platos Gorgias, 56. Contrast Irwin, Platos
Ethics, 102.
12. Cf. Benardete, The Rhetoric of Morality and Philosophy, 62, 6869.
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13. Compare the more straightforward procedure Socrates follows in the Apol-
ogy in responding to an objection to his life very similar to the one raised by
Callicles (28b331c3).
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views results that, as we will see, will not only provide a better
understanding of Callicles concerns but also cast those concerns in
a certain light.
14. Some support for the suggestion that Socrates thinks Callicles concerns can
best be understood by beginning from his moral views can perhaps be found
in the way Socrates begins his examination of those views. As a preface to his
opening question about Callicles view of justice, Socrates exhorts Callicles
to pick it back up for me from the beginning (ex arches, 488b2). Although
this remark refers most obviously to the early section of Callicles speech
in which Callicles gave his account of natural justice, Socrates may mean
to indicate that the order of Callicles speech somehow reflected accurately
the true order of his concerns. That is, the beginning to which Socrates
refers may be at once the beginning of Callicles speech and the beginning
for Callicles in a deeper sense.
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15. Callicles did not mention any laws set down by the superior, at least not by
the superior understood as the group he praised as opposed to the one he
criticized (consider 483b47, c79, e45, 484b5). Even if one takes the justice
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of their laws as implied by the view that the rule of the superior is just, the
extension from their laws to their beliefs is questionable. Socrates is able to
obscure the dubiousness of this further extension by moving with apparent
seamlessness from the nouns nomous (laws, 488d6) and nomima (lawful
usages, 488d9, e4) to the verb nomizousin (believe, 488e7, 489a2). Cf.
Santas, Socrates, 2634.
16. Cf. Shorey, What Plato Said, 1445; Friedlander, Plato, 2:262; Klosko, The
Refutation of Callicles in Platos Gorgias, 127; Kahn, Drama and Dialectic
in Platos Gorgias, 99100. Compare Laws 625c9627c2.
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17. On the other hand, it does reveal, something about Callicles that he does
not have a perfectly clear grasp of who he thinks the better are or in what
he thinks virtue consists. See Nichols, The Rhetoric of Justice in Platos
Gorgias, 143: The greatest weakness associated with [Callicles] position
is that, though he perhaps divines, he cannot yet clearly and coherently artic-
ulate in what superiority consists. Nichols also speaks of Callicles inability
to articulate the nobler and more demanding goals to which he is nonethe-
less somehow drawn (143).
18. Callicles addition of courage at 491a7b3 is prepared by his statement at
490a7 in which he speaks of the better and the more prudent. In this earlier
statement, we can already see that prudence is not all there is to superiority
in Callicles eyes.
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20. The significance of this moment is stressed also by Newell, Ruling Passion,
20; Nichols, The Rhetoric of Justice in Platos Gorgias, 143; Kahn, Drama
and Dialectic in Platos Gorgias, 102. To see the character of Callicles view
that prudent leaders are rightly concerned that the affairs of the city be
well managed, contrast Protagoras 319a12.
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way. No sooner has Callicles offered his most direct and revealing
statements about justice, claiming that the superior as he has now
defined them deserve to rule and to have more than others, than
Socrates abruptly turns the discussion away from justice. Instead of
pursuing the still incomplete examination of Callicles view of justice,
he asks Callicles whether the superior as he understands them should
also be rulers over themselves, that is, over their pleasures and desires
(491d4e1). Socrates thus changes the topic from justice to modera-
tion and self-control.
21. On the suddenness with which Socrates changes the topic of the conver-
sation, see Kahn, Drama and Dialectic in Platos Gorgias, 1023; Klosko,
The Refutation of Callicles in Platos Gorgias, 127; Gentzler, The Sophistic
Cross-Examination of Callicles in the Gorgias, 36.
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This is the noble and just according to nature, which Im now telling you
outspokenly: the man who will live correctly must let his own desires be
as great as possible and not restrain them, and, when they are as great
as possible, he must be capable of serving them through courage and
prudence and of filling them up with the things for which desire at any
given time arises. . . . In truth, Socrates, which you claim to pursue, this is
how it is: luxury, intemperance, and freedom, if they have support that
is virtue and happiness; but those other things, the embellishments, the
agreements of human beings that are contrary to nature, those are drivel
and worth nothing. (491e6492a3, 492c38)
22. Grote, Plato, and the Other Companions of Sokrates, 2:344; Newell, Ruling
Passion, 2122.
23. By the others at 492d2 Socrates may be referring only to Gorgias and
Polus, who were unwilling to state the view expressed in Callicles speech.
But Socrates remark also admits of a broader reading, and such a reading
is suggested by his use of the present tense at 492d3: dianoountai men legein
de ethelousin. On this point, consider Laws 660d11662a8.
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them is that the first image relies on an account of the afterlife, whereas
the second does not go beyond this world. The account of the after-
life on which the first image relies comes not from Socrates himself
but from some clever myth-telling man, probably some Sicilian or
Italian (493a56). According to this mans account, which seems to
have been crafted out of a love of wordplay, the part of the soul in
which the desires reside, because it is persuadable ( pithanon) and per-
suasive ( peistikon) ought to be called a jar ( pithon); the thoughtless
(anoetous) ought to be called the unitiated (amuetous); and the jar
in an uninitiated mans soul since his desires are intemperate and
insatiable ought to be regarded as perforated or leaky (493a6b3). If
this much could suggest that the thoughtless or uninitiated suffer for
their intemperance even during their lives on earth, the heart of the
myth-tellers account is his further suggestion that in Hades the unini-
tiated are miserable because they are compelled to carry water to their
leaky jars in other leaky things. These other leaky things are sieves,
which, as Socrates learned from the man who explained the myth-
tellers account to him, represent mens souls regarded as wholes, or at
least the souls of the thoughtless, which are unable to retain anything
due to their unreliability and forgetfulness (493b3c3).26
26. Especially when one tries to put its parts together, the account Socrates
relates has a number of puzzling features. For instance, the soul is pre-
sented as a sieve in which water is carried to a jar that itself is presented
as a part of the soul. Should the sieve be seen as the soul in a different
sense or in a different aspect from that of the jar? And what should one
make of the suggestion that the desires that reside in the soul would per-
sist (unchanged?) even after the soul is separated from the body? There
also is the question of Socrates sources, which move from Euripides, to an
anonymous wise man, to some clever myth-telling man whose account
(so the story goes) was explained to Socrates by the anonymous wise man
(on these sources, see Dodds, Gorgias, 297300). Without trying to resolve
the various riddles posed by this patchwork account (e.g., Is the wise mans
interpretation true to the original meaning of the myth?), let me suggest
that Socrates may mean to convey an important thought by indicating that
the desires of the thoughtless are somehow more insatiable than those of
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the thoughtful, and that this makes the souls of the thoughtless somehow
more fickle and persuadable. According to the suggestion conveyed by the
interpretation of the myth offered by Socrates anonymous wise man, the
souls of the thoughtless seem to be dominated by the part of the soul in
which the desires reside, and, perhaps for that reason, they are less reliable,
more given to changing up and down, and more prone to forgetfulness.
The full meaning of this suggestion, however, cannot be drawn out of the
present passage, which at most provides a few provocative hints.
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28. Socrates took an earlier step in this direction with his initial response
to Callicles speech about the unleashing of desire: And tell me: Do you
assert that one must not chasten the desires, if one is to be such as one
ought, but let them be as great as possible and prepare satisfaction for them
from any place whatsoever, and that this is virtue? (492d5e1). Although
Callicles went along with this, Socrates formulation pushed him to a view
that he did not quite assert in his speech. In fact, Callicles probably had
in mind specific desires (the most intense) and specific sources of satis-
faction (the most attractive) when he praised the unleashing of desire. On
this issue, see Nussbaum, The Fragility of Goodness, 144; Newell, Ruling
Passion, 23.
29. That unrestricted hedonism is not, in fact, necessary to a defense of immod-
eration is pointed out by Gentzler, The Sophistic Cross-Examination of
Callicles in the Gorgias, 3638, and Klosko, The Refutation of Callicles in
Platos Gorgias, 12834. Gentzler provides a helpful discussion of Socrates
tactics in driving Callicles toward a defense of unrestricted hedonism. Her
argument should be contrasted with Irwin, Platos Moral Theory, 120, 124
5, Platos Ethics, 1046. See also Kahn, Drama and Dialectic in Platos
Gorgias, 1034; Newell, Ruling Passion, 24.
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happiness and misery, or the good and the bad: they cannot coexist,
and it is impossible for a human being to have them or to be released
from them at the same time (496b5c3). Once he has gotten Callicles
to agree that the good and the bad must have this character, Socrates
then argues that pleasure and pain have a different relationship to one
another. Pleasure and pain are necessarily joined, since any particular
pleasure depends on the experience of a particular pain and is always
experienced together with that pain. The pleasures of eating and drink-
ing, for instance, depend on the pains of hunger and thirst, and these
pleasures persist only insofar as those pains have not completely van-
ished (496c6e8). What is true of the painful desires for food and drink,
Socrates suggests, is true of all other desires and pleasures, for every
lack and desire is painful (496d4; see also 497c68).
Now, Socrates argument is ostensibly meant to show that pleasure
cannot be the good since it lacks the unmixed character of the good
(see 496e9497a5, 497c6d7). But this argument is not an impressive
refutation of hedonism. For one thing, it is not true that the opposites
that Socrates uses as his examples health and sickness, strength and
weakness, and swiftness and slowness cannot coexist. After all, any
human being could be described as both healthy and sick to various
degrees at any given time of his life, at least until his death, at which
point health and sickness depart simultaneously. And strength and
weakness, like swiftness and slowness and many other opposites, are
relative qualities, such that any strong being could also be said to be
weak just as any swift being could also be said to be slow depending
on what it is being compared to. In addition to these difficulties with
Socrates examples, one could also raise objections to his analysis of
pleasure. Does every pleasure really depend on the presence of pain?
Arent there some pleasures for instance, the pleasure of a beautiful
sight, or the smell of a rose, or perhaps even the joy of an insight that
are free of pain?31 More important than this objection, however, is the
he would take a position that hides or buries his concerns. Why would
Callicles try to conceal his deepest convictions even from himself?
This question can be extended beyond the narrow one of why
Callicles defended hedonism, since hedonism is only the most extreme
of the positions Callicles has taken that would seem to reject all ordi-
nary notions of virtue. If the conversation up to this point has shown
us that Callicles is morally serious or attached to virtue, we have also
seen Callicles make a number of arguments that express what would
appear to be an extremely cynical point of view. In addition to defend-
ing hedonism, he has argued, for instance, that nobility has no genuine
meaning beyond what is advantageous, and that it is simply a man-
ifest fact that should not be lamented that the strong dominate the
weak (see again especially 483a7e1, 488d1e6, 491e5492c8). Thus
far, Socrates has had to make considerable efforts to strip away these
covers and bring to the surface what Callicles really believes. But what
is the source of Callicles reluctance to acknowledge what are in fact
his own deeper views?
The reasons for this reluctance run deeper than his desire to avoid
appearing nave or to win a victory over Socrates and his moralis-
tic arguments. To understand the deeper reasons, we must consider
the painful thoughts that come with acknowledging the concerns that
Callicles hides. For to admit that one is concerned with virtue, and
that one has a deep desire to see virtue triumph, is to open oneself
to sorrow and anger when virtue fails or is defeated by vice. That
this problem troubles Callicles can be seen most clearly in an impor-
tant exchange in a later section of the dialogue. There, Socrates and
Callicles will discuss a possible situation in which a just man who runs
the risk of refusing to assimilate to an unjust regime is destroyed by a
more self-protective man who has assimilated (see 510d4511a7). In
response to Socrates effort to remind him that this prospect would
involve a base man killing one who is noble and good, Callicles will
exclaim, Isnt that exactly the infuriating thing? a response that
reveals both his continued attachment to virtue and also the problem
that leads him to bury that attachment (511b16). The heart of the
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35. That Callicles dilemma is not idiosyncratic to him but troubles even people
of more conventional decency can be seen by considering Laws 625c9627c2
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and 661d6662a8 (cf. 689a1c3). What sets Callicles apart from the likes of
Kleinias and Megillus in the Laws is his keener sense of the problem that
they also experience and his greater effort to overcome the internal division
it produces.
36. Consider Republic 357a2362c8.
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123
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Noble Rhetoric, the Order of the Soul, and the Socratic Thesis 127
what Socrates has in mind by speaking of it. Is Socrates calling for its
creation? If Socrates has returned to the question of rhetoric for the
sake of Gorgias as much as for the sake of Callicles (see again 500a7
b5, 501c7d2), is Socrates pointing to a better use that could be made
of Gorgias powers? And might Socrates even have wanted to send
a certain message to Gorgias by weaving his return to the theme of
rhetoric together with his reminder of Callicles attack on philosophy?
These questions are difficult to answer at this point, since we have
not learned much about the character of noble rhetoric or why it
might be needed. But we can say that we have seen the first steps
in a restoration or rehabilitation of rhetoric and we may wonder
whether this does not bring us closer to Socrates unacknowledged
but true purpose in the remainder of the dialogue.
In laying out the criticism of rhetoric that led to the suggestion that
rhetoric is double, with a shameful form and a noble form (see again
503a5b1), Socrates based his argument and thus this distinction on
the difference between aiming at pleasure and struggling to make the
souls of the citizens as good as possible. He complicated matters, how-
ever, by adding the further objection that ordinary rhetoricians act for
the sake of their own private interest, giving little thought to the com-
mon good (502e67). In other words, Socrates criticism highlighted
not only the lowness of what ordinary rhetoricians provide but also the
selfishness of their motives. This is important because it is the latter
point more than the former that provokes a protest from Callicles that
leads to the next stage of the conversation. Callicles is bothered less
by the thought that ordinary rhetoricians provide mere pleasure than
by the suggestion that they are simply out for themselves (consider
503a24). He does not think that is true in all cases. He insists that
it is not true of the great Athenian statesmen Themistocles, Cimon,
Miltiades, and Pericles (503c13).
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Noble Rhetoric, the Order of the Soul, and the Socratic Thesis 129
devotee of virtue and the city, would find it hard to concede that the city
should be devoted to low ends, Socrates is justified in pressing Callicles
toward greater rigor and consistency. Finally, Socrates procedure will
also allow him to begin to sketch something of the character of noble
rhetoric and its aims.
Socrates begins his description of the noble rhetorician the good
man, who speaks with a view to the best by comparing him to the
other craftsmen, who do not perform their tasks at random but instead
look away to something, namely, to whatever their work (ergon) hap-
pens to be and to the form (eidos) into which they are trying to mold
whatever they are working on (503e15). (The important Platonic term
form eidos makes its appearance here as an image or pattern that
would seem to exist in the minds eye of a craftsman and then later
in the result of his work.) Socrates gives the examples of painters,
house builders, and shipwrights, all of whom are typical craftsmen in
the sense that they put the materials of their work into a certain order
until they have formed an arranged and ordered whole (503e5504a2).
The same is true, according to Socrates, even of gymnastic trainers
and doctors, who work on the body (504a35). As for the character
and goodness of the final order aimed at by each of the craftsmen,
that would seem to be established by the use to which the craftsmans
work is to be put. For instance, the order of a ship is dictated and
vindicated, so to speak, by the needs of sailing, just as the order of a
house is dictated and vindicated by the needs of daily life. It is hard to
deny that an ordered ship, an ordered house, or even an ordered body
is preferable to a disordered one (504a8b3).
So far so good. But what about the soul? Is it true in that case, too,
that arrangement and order render it useful, whereas disorder has
the opposite effect? Socrates puts this question to Callicles, and Cal-
licles assumes, in the wake of the preceding examples, that it is also
necessary to agree to this (see 504b36). And perhaps it does make
sense to assume that an ordered soul, even if its order is more compli-
cated than that of a ship or a house, is more useful than a disordered
one. But a more questionable step comes next. For after reminding
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Noble Rhetoric, the Order of the Soul, and the Socratic Thesis 131
Noble Rhetoric, the Order of the Soul, and the Socratic Thesis 133
8. On this odd expression and Socrates use of the word muthos in this passage,
see Brisson, Plato the Myth Maker, 60.
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Noble Rhetoric, the Order of the Soul, and the Socratic Thesis 135
As Socrates spells out his account of virtue, we begin to see the sig-
nificance of his emphasis on order: moderation comes to sight as the
highest virtue. Socrates argues that since the orderly soul is moderate,
the moderate soul is good, and the soul that experiences the opposite
to the moderate is bad (506e6507a7). The soul that experiences the
opposite to the moderate, according to Socrates, is the foolish and
intemperate soul (see he aphron te kai akolastos at 507a67). By men-
tioning two opposites of moderation foolishness in addition to intem-
perance Socrates suggests that at least one meaning of moderation
here is a kind of sensibleness or even a kind of wisdom.11 This, in turn,
can help us to grasp the most remarkable feature of Socrates present
account of virtue: at least at the beginning of this account, he presents
all of the other virtues as derivative from moderation (507a5c7).12
For this to make sense, it would seem that moderation must incor-
porate a kind of wisdom that is able to discern the fitting things,
since it is out of his concern to do the fitting things that the mod-
erate man as Socrates here describes him can be relied on to do the
just things toward human beings, to act piously toward the gods, and
to be courageous (see 507b15). The virtuous man, because he does
the deeds of justice, piety, and courage, can be said to be just, pious,
and courageous; but the spirit of his actions would seem to be that of a
sensible concern not to make foolish mistakes (consider 507b5c5). By
presenting virtue in this way, Socrates makes it easy to defend virtue
as conducive to the happiness of the moderate man and he even
adds that he himself is convinced that moderation is the path to hap-
piness (see 507b8d1). But one could wonder how closely the virtue
11. On the two opposites of moderation, see Dodds, Gorgias, 336. As Dodds
points out, the more common opposition is sophron-akolastos (moderate-
intemperate). But for the opposition sophron-aphron (moderate-foolish) and
the broader meaning of moderation implied by that opposition, see Protago-
ras 332a4335b5; Laws 710a38; Xenophon, Memorabilia 1.1.16, 1.3.9.
12. Cf. Benardete, The Rhetoric of Morality and Philosophy, 61: Moderation
becomes the single virtue into which even justice is absorbed. See also
85, 90.
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Noble Rhetoric, the Order of the Soul, and the Socratic Thesis 137
other hand, Socrates now moves away from the view that the sensible
actions of the moderate man produce benefits that flow directly from
the actions themselves by suggesting, instead, that moderation and
justice are good because they enable the virtuous to unite in friend-
ship and community with other human beings and with the gods (see
507d6e6). Socrates speech culminates in a vision of the cosmos of
heaven, earth, gods, and men bound together by the ties of commu-
nity, friendship, orderliness, moderation, and justice (507e6508a2).
This is why, he tells Callicles, they call this whole a cosmos, not dis-
ordered or intemperate.14 Socrates tells Callicles that he fails to see
the cosmic power of geometrical equality: You seem to me not to
apply your mind to these things, and, wise though you are about them,
you do not realize that geometrical equality has great power among
gods and human beings, but you think that one must practice taking
more, since you neglect geometry (508a38).15
Now, Socrates seems to be serious here in urging Callicles to
embrace the view that he sets forth. He certainly addresses him directly
by name (see 507c1, e6, 508b4). And if we recall our earlier suggestion
that Callicles is troubled by doubts about whether the virtuous receive
14. The Greek word kosmos (translated above as cosmos) is the same word
that I have been translating as order. To call this whole a kosmos is to
claim that it is orderly. As for who they are who call this whole a kosmos,
that may refer either to people in general or to the wise mentioned by
Socrates at 507e6.
15. Geometrical equality refers to what is more often called proportional
equality, the equality of ratios in a geometrical progression. This is the
kind of equality that provides the standard for Aristotles famous account of
distributive justice (see Nicomachean Ethics 1131a10b22). Socrates sug-
gestion here that such equality somehow has force throughout the universe
may have Pythagorean origins (see Dodds, Gorgias, 3389; see also Olym-
piodorus, Commentary on Platos Gorgias, Lecture 35). Whether or not it
has such origins, the vision Socrates here holds out of an ordered whole,
supportive of virtue, has drawn the attention of many commentators, some
of whom place considerable weight on this passage. See, e.g., Friedlander,
Plato, 2:269; Jaeger, Paideia, 2:1467; Voegelin, Plato, 3637; Kahn, Drama
and Dialectic in Platos Gorgias, 96, 119; Newell, Ruling Passion, 32, 38.
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16. Compare the similar objection of Irwin, Platos Moral Theory, 1256, 12930.
Irwins critical analysis should be contrasted with Friedlander, Plato, 2:269;
Jaeger, Paideia, 2:146; Voegelin, Plato, 36.
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Noble Rhetoric, the Order of the Soul, and the Socratic Thesis 139
These things that came to sight for us up there in the earlier speeches,
are, as I say, held down and bound if I may put it in a rather rude way
by iron and adamantine arguments [logois], as it would seem at any rate.
And if you or someone younger than you does not loosen them, it will
be impossible for anyone saying something different from what Im now
saying to speak nobly. For to me at least, the speech [logos] is always the
same that I do not know how these things stand, but of those I meet up
with, as now, no one who says something different is able to avoid being
ridiculous. (508e6509a7)
17. On this last question, consider Socrates statement about himself at 482b7
c3 in light of his preceding remark about Callicles. On the general question
of this paragraph, while Socrates statements that he does not know whether
the Socratic thesis is true are sometimes noted by other commentators, these
statements are usually not taken very seriously. See, for instance, Jaegers
claim, after noting what looks like the logical indecision of [Socrates] con-
versations, that nonetheless there glows the relentless moral conviction of
his life, sure of its ultimate aim, and therefore possessing that hotly sought
for knowledge which renders any faltering of will impossible (Paideia,
2:150; see also 1467). Or consider Kahns claim: There is no doubt that
Socrates regards the doctrine of the paradoxes as established by the refuta-
tions of Polus and Callicles (Drama and Dialectic in Platos Gorgias, 110,
the emphasis is Kahns; see also 11113, 11819; in his quotation on page
111 of Socrates crucial statement at 508e6509a7, Kahn omits Socrates
claim that he does not know whether his thesis is true). Similar to Kahns
insistence that there is no doubt that Socrates thinks his thesis has been
established is McKims insistence that Socrates of course believes in the
position he defends, a position whose truth, according to McKim, is beyond
argument (see Shame and Truth in Platos Gorgias, 47, 48; see also 3946).
Consider also Vlastos, Socrates, Ironist and Moral Philosopher, 45, 21432;
Brickhouse and Smith, Platos Socrates, 3041, 1278. Somewhat closer to
my own analysis is Kastely, In Defense of Platos Gorgias, 97.
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magnitude of the harm they leave one unable to ward off (509b1c3).
By this principle, whenever one is forced to accept one incapacity as
the price of avoiding another, the nobler choice would be to avoid suf-
fering the greatest harm. And the greatest harm, Socrates once again
claims, is doing injustice rather than suffering it (509c67). Of course,
one would wish to be able to avoid both doing injustice and suffering
it. But this wish, according to Socrates, must remain a mere wish,
since one can develop the capacity to avoid one of these evils only by
leaving oneself vulnerable to the other.21
Socrates develops his argument by focusing initially on the capacity
whose importance Callicles is far more willing to grant: the capacity
to avoid suffering injustice. Callicles shows little interest in Socrates
suggestion that it might be necessary to develop a certain capacity and
art to avoid doing injustice, a capacity and art that would enable one
to fulfill what Socrates claims is everyones wish never to do injustice.
Callicles is much more receptive to Socrates suggestion that the art
that enables one to suffer no injustice or as little as possible consists
either in ruling in the city perhaps even becoming a tyrant or in
making oneself a comrade of the regime in power (compare 509d7
510a5 with 510a6b1). Socrates is able to use Callicles eager embrace
of this suggestion, however, to lay out an argument that emphasizes
the divide between the path one must follow to protect oneself from
suffering injustice and the path that keeps one from doing injustice.
Dropping the possibility that one might rule the city oneself, Socrates
concentrates on what it takes to gain the favor of the regime in power.
According to Socrates, the ancient and wise principle of attraction
like to like governs, especially since tyrants fear their superiors
and despise their inferiors. True friendship to any regime, including
a tyranny, requires that one assimilate to the regime by giving one-
self the same character as the regime, by praising and blaming the
same things, and by submitting to those in power (510b2d9). Socrates
21. The word dunamin, which I translate as capacity, also carries the sense of
power.
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is left without any grounds for his disdain for what he regards as
the lowly arts of his inferiors. Any notion that there is a difference
between rhetoric and the other saving arts or at any rate one that
reflects well on rhetoric is made to appear as unjustified snobbery
on the part of the rhetorician and his advocates such as Callicles (see
512b3d6).
But the main point of this argument is not to chastise Callicles for
his snobbery. Rather, it is to exhort him to embrace a notion of virtue
that does not give so much weight to protection:
Consider, you blessed man, whether the noble and the good are really
nothing more than saving and being saved. For the true man, at least,
must give up his concern to live for some specific length of time, and he
must not cling to life. Instead, turning over what concerns such things to
the god and trusting in the womens saying that no one can escape his fate,
he must examine what lies beyond that: In what way may he who is going
to live for a time live best? Will it be by assimilating himself to that regime
in which he lives, and should you, then, now become as similar as possible
to the Athenian demos, if you are going to be dear to it and to have great
power in the city? Consider whether this is profitable for you and for me,
so that, you demonic man, we shall not suffer what they say the Thessalian
women who draw down the moon suffer: our choice of this power in the
city will come at the cost of what is dearest to us. (512d6513a7)
24. Contrast the suggestion of Benardete, The Rhetoric of Morality and Phi-
losophy, 93, that Callicles praises Socrates speech, but his feelings are
not behind it. This suggestion, in my view, misjudges the tone of Cal-
licles response and the dramatic significance of this moment in the
dialogue.
25. Socrates statement about Callicles love of the demos poses a problem
for those commentators who portray Callicles as an aristocrat who sim-
ply despises the Athenian people. See, for instance, Barker, Greek Political
Theory, 7172; Romilly, The Great Sophists in Periclean Athens, 120, 158
61; Dodds, Gorgias, 1314; Kastely, In Defense of Platos Gorgias, 1012.
Of these commentators, only Dodds mentions Socrates statement; and he
attempts to explain it away with the remark that Callicles love of the demos
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is in fact love of power (352). For a more balanced account, see Newell,
Ruling Passion, 1213, 3537.
26. Kahn, Drama and Dialectic in Platos Gorgias, 96, is moved by this section
to speak of Socrates fearlessly risking and finally giving up his life in the
cause of justice and loyalty to moral principle. He argues: The dialectical
invulnerability to contradiction which Socrates claims for his basic thesis
that arete is what we really want, our true good and happiness is matched
by the dramatic appeal of the portrait of Socrates as the embodiment of this
very thesis (113). For similar expressions of admiration of Socrates as he
portrays himself in this section, see Friedlander, Plato, 2:2701, and Jaeger,
Paideia, 2:1478.
27. See, e.g., Apology 23b724b2, 28d629a1, 37c4e2.
28. Compare Apology 28b530c1 with 32e233a1; see also 31c432c3.
29. Cf. Brisson, Plato the Myth Maker, 57.
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Callicles Heroes, True Rhetoric, and Socrates True Political Art 149
To the extent that the preceding section of the dialogue offered a por-
trait of Socrates life, which was at least one of its aims, that life came
to sight as one opposed to assimilation and guided by a concern to live
well rather than to live long. Whatever may be the advantages of such
a presentation, it makes the philosophic life appear as a life at odds
with the city. And for this reason it would meet with at least some
resistance from those who place great weight on service to the city,
as it did from Callicles. In this connection, it is worth recalling that
Socrates has taken up only part of Callicles charge against philosophy:
the reproach of vulnerability rather than that of uselessness. Socrates
never explicitly addresses the latter part of the charge. But he may
address it implicitly. The section of the dialogue to which we have
now come will culminate in Socrates famous claim that he practices
the true political art. We will have to consider, however, the precise
meaning of that claim, and to see whether the true purpose of this
section is to show that, when each is seen in the proper light, there is
a harmony between philosophy and the city.
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Callicles Heroes, True Rhetoric, and Socrates True Political Art 151
Socrates argument here suggests that the public realm, or the city
as city, is higher and more important than the private realm in which
people are treated as individuals: the latter appears as a mere training
ground for the former. Yet Socrates argument also should lead us
to ask whether equivalent things can be accomplished in each realm.
Might it not be the case, especially when it comes to improving peoples
souls, that narrower but deeper results can be achieved in private? If
the main purpose of Socrates present argument is to pour cold water
on Callicles political ambitions, his argument also points to a certain
question. This is a question that arose earlier in another form, when
Socrates raised the issue of the size of public audiences and of what
can truly be accomplished by public speech (see again 454c7455a7).
By making another argument that leads us to reflect on the same issue,
Socrates may be urging his audience to keep that issue in mind during
his present treatment of Callicles and his heroes. Also, we should bear
in mind that it is not only the political ambitions of Callicles and the
political activity of his heroes that are at issue, but also the political
activity or lack thereof of Socrates himself. On this point, it is
worth noticing that Socrates does not apply to himself the test that he
applies to Callicles, although he leads us to think for a moment that
he is about to do so (see 514a5b3, 515a14). By pointing to such a
step and then backing away from it, Socrates makes us wonder how
he would be judged. In his case, however, the troubling prospect is
not so much that he himself might fail the test that Callicles fails.
Rather, it is closer to the opposite: if Socrates could pass the test by
pointing to souls that he has improved in private, the question would
then arise of why he has not taken the further step of using his abilities
in public life.30 This is a question that Socrates will eventually allow
to come to the surface and address explicitly. Before that moment
comes, however, he may supply some less conspicuous indications of
considerations that should affect how we receive his explicit answer.
31. To Socrates claim that he has heard the charge that Pericles made the
Athenians lazy, cowardly, overly talkative, and greedy, Callicles responds that
Socrates must have been listening to those with cauliflower ears (515e4
9, following Doddss suggested translation). This odd expression refers to
those traditionalists in Athens who retained Spartan tastes for simplic-
ity, and for manly activities such as boxing and wrestling (thus the crushed
or cauliflower ears) and who were critical of the Periclean movement
toward luxury and the liberation of desire. For a colorful depiction of this
political divide, see the dispute between the Just Speech and the Unjust
Speech in Aristophanes Clouds. See also Protagoras 342b6c3; Kagan, The
Great Dialogue, 75, 131; Seung, Plato Rediscovered, 67; Benardete, The
Rhetoric of Morality and Philosophy, 95.
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Callicles Heroes, True Rhetoric, and Socrates True Political Art 153
take account of the role fortune plays in political affairs. Nor does it
acknowledge the limits of human nature, which restrict the improve-
ment that any political leader can achieve in his efforts to reshape the
human beings under his rule. Or does Socrates show some recogni-
tion of the limits of what can be achieved in politics by restricting the
improvement of which he speaks to the instilling of a kind of justice
that seems to consist in mere gentleness (consider 516b7c4)? Does
Socrates use of the analogy of the taming of animals by caretakers
and charioteers suggest that the civilizing effect of good political rule
is not so different from a kind of taming?
If Socrates restriction of the virtue achievable in politics to mere
gentleness suggests that his argument is not simply unrealistic but
blends idealism and realism in a complex mixture, the same can be
said of the remarkable conclusion of his argument. In fact, the most
important and surprising thing about the argument is how Socrates
ends it:
34. Socrates will later refer to the characteristic activity of Callicles heroes as
flattery. See 521b1.
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Callicles Heroes, True Rhetoric, and Socrates True Political Art 155
35. This suggestion would be lost if one followed Meisers suggestion to fill a sup-
posed lacuna before te kolakike at 517a6. For a discussion of this suggestion,
see Dodds, Gorgias, 360. Dodds himself is tempted by Meisers suggestion,
but he does not follow it.
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36. Notable for its absence from Socrates list is his earlier example of cosmetics.
37. See Kastely, In Defense of Platos Gorgias, 104. Kastely also stresses the
broader movement in this passage towards a greater openness to rhetoric.
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Callicles Heroes, True Rhetoric, and Socrates True Political Art 157
complaint about all political men, past and present. On the heels of a
suggestion that would seem to suggest that the blame likely to come
to the current generation of Athenian leaders is misplaced, Socrates
says that it is ridiculous of political leaders to complain, as they often
do, that they are mistreated by the city they have served. Such men
claim that they are unjustly treated by the very city for which they
have done so much good. But the whole business is a lie, Socrates
argues, for no leader of a city would ever be unjustly brought down
by the very same city that he leads (519b8c2). The complaint of
indignant political leaders, according to Socrates, resembles that of
the sophists, who claim to be teachers of virtue only to turn around
and complain when they are mistreated by their students. Neither
political leaders nor sophists can accuse their students of mistreat-
ing them without thereby undercutting their claims to be teachers of
virtue (519c2520b8).
Socrates line of argument here includes a serious critique of Athe-
nian imperialism, especially of those leaders such as Pericles who cre-
ated or at least exacerbated a feverish sickness in Athens by inflam-
ing the passions of the Athenians. To this extent, Socrates argu-
ment may be regarded as a genuine, if very brief and blunt, criti-
cism of the politics that fueled Athens rise to great power and set
it up for a fall.40 Nevertheless, it is hard to swallow his claim that
the complaints of all mistreated political leaders are the height of
irrationality (see especially 519b34, d15). The standards to which
Callicles Heroes, True Rhetoric, and Socrates True Political Art 159
41. For examples of passages in which Socrates offers a more sober assessment
of what can be accomplished in politics, see Republic 487e7489a2, Apology
31d633a1. Too many commentators, in my view, fail to raise the question
of the adequacy of Socrates argument about political leadership in their
admiring accounts of this argument. See, e.g., Barker, Greek Political The-
ory, 13943; Taylor, Plato, 1257; Shorey, What Plato Said, 14652; Jaeger,
Paideia, 2:14950; Friedlander, Plato, 2:2701; Voegelin, Plato, 38; Kahn,
Plato and the Socratic Dialogue, 131. Those who do question Socrates argu-
ment include Arieti, Platos Philosophic Antiope, 199; Kastely, In Defense
of Platos Gorgias, 1023; Vickers, In Defense of Rhetoric, 8990. Vickers
criticism is a case in which a critic of Socrates is more perceptive than his
admirers.
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which any political activity, including even true rhetoric, would have
to bow? We should be reminded here of our earlier question about
whether the taming that political leaders might achieve, while surely
something to be appreciated, is the same as instilling genuine virtue,
and also of the questions raised by Socrates earlier acknowledgment
of the problem posed by the sheer number of people to whom a politi-
cal leader must speak. Might the thread that runs throughout Socrates
seemingly ever more unreasonable condemnation of political leaders
be an indirect and well-disguised reflection on the limits of politics? If
so, this reflection should be brought together with the rehabilitation of
rhetoric that also runs throughout this same section. For not only are
the limits of politics important to understanding the need for rhetoric,
but they also would have a necessary influence on the character of even
true or noble rhetoric. Could any rhetoric even the true rhetoric to
which Socrates points dispense entirely with all forms of flattery
and with all service to desires, including the flattery that consists in
praising a kind of virtue that may not be true virtue and the service to
desires that may not be entirely reasonable? These considerations, fur-
thermore, may also help us to come to a deeper understanding of why
Socrates himself stayed out of politics and why his recommendation
of a new kind of rhetoric is not accompanied by a willingness to take
it up himself. Since Socrates own avoidance of politics is one of the
underlying issues of this section of the dialogue, it makes sense that he
would want to provide at least some indications of the reasons for that
choice.42
There are reasons, however, that Socrates would not want to make
these considerations too clear or prominent. For one thing, there is a
danger that his avoidance of politics, if explained by pointing to the
limits of politics, might appear to some as a shameful abandonment
42. In his explicit account of his own life to which he is about to turn, Socrates
will say, in a comment on pleasures that the Athenians regard as benefac-
tions and benefits, I envy neither those who provide them nor those to
whom they are provided (522b6).
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Callicles Heroes, True Rhetoric, and Socrates True Political Art 161
Dont say [Callicles] what you have said many times, that [if I dont do
what you encourage me to] anyone who wishes will kill me, lest I, in
turn, say that it will be a base man killing a good one. And dont say that
he will seize anything I have, lest I, in turn, say that whatever things he
seizes he will not know how to use, but rather, just as he seized them from
me unjustly, so too, once he has them, he will use them unjustly, and if
unjustly, shamefully, and if shamefully, badly. . . . This I know well: if I am
called before a law court in a case involving one of these dangers of which
you speak, my accuser will be someone base for no decent man would
accuse a human being who doesnt do injustice and it would be nothing
strange if I should die. Do you want me to tell you why I expect these
things? (521b4c2, c9d4)
Callicles Heroes, True Rhetoric, and Socrates True Political Art 163
such rhetoric, Socrates true political art is the source of the danger
he is in rather than a path to safety. Socrates stresses that it is because
of his practice of this art that he will find himself helpless in a law
court. In a famous statement that predicts his ultimate fate, he com-
pares his hopeless situation in court to that of a doctor brought before
a jury of children to be accused by a cook of harming and corrupt-
ing the children with his painful procedures, deprivations, and bitter
medicines:
with here44 as a form of service to the city that seeks to improve the
city by improving its citizens. But according to his further account
of what he actually does, as opposed to the impressive lead-up he
gives (compare 522b49 with 521d6e1), Socrates accomplishments
are fairly limited. By his own description, or at any rate according to a
charge that he does not deny (see 522b79 and 521e6522a3), Socrates
does not seem to lead his fellow citizens all the way to virtue. Rather,
he does two perhaps interconnected things: he produces perplexity
(aporia) in the young, and he abuses those who are older by mak-
ing bitter speeches in public and in private (522b79). The speeches
that Socrates directs against those who are older would seem to be
his bitter potions, which may serve not so much to remedy the ill-
nesses of the adults themselves as to contribute to his effort to pro-
duce perplexity in the young by shaking their admiration of the most
prominent models and authorities.45 Considered in light of these indi-
cations, however, Socrates activity, while in some sense directed to the
improvement of the young, cannot be regarded as an effort to inculcate
virtue in any ordinary sense of the term.46 Could the deeper meaning,
44. The reason I add this qualification is that, not only because of its brevity but
also because of its character and purpose, Socrates account of his activ-
ity here may not speak to all of its aspects. Socrates may be referring only
to that aspect that can with some plausibility be called political. Despite
his efforts in some places (especially in the Apology) to give the impres-
sion that this aspect is the whole of his activity, Socrates also indicates that
that impression is misleading: consider Apology 38a16 and Phaedo 96a6
100a8.
45. Consider Apology 21b923a2 together with 23c2d1 and 33b9c4. Also worth
considering in this connection are Republic 331c1332c3, 515c4516d7,
537e1539c3. In speaking in the present passage of the Gorgias of the
younger and the older, Socrates may have in mind not only age but also
attitude and openness.
46. Some commentators go too far, in my view, in ascribing such an aim
to Socrates true political art. See, e.g., Jaegers discussion of Socratic
paideia as a complete system that provides the moral education that
fulfills the states true mission as a moral teacher (Paideia 2:14959).
See also Friedlander, Plato, 2:2702; Barker, Greek Political Theory, 1414;
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Callicles Heroes, True Rhetoric, and Socrates True Political Art 165
then, of his claim that he alone practices the true political art be that
he provides the true education that the leaders of the city only claim
to provide? And might not that education consist, in large measure,
in a kind of deeducation, or in a stripping away of the convictions
that the young have already received from their primary education at
the hands of the city?47 This suggestion would help to explain what
Socrates means by indicating here that his activity is medical. It
would also help to explain why, as Socrates gently indicates, the city
is not likely to see him merely as a pain-inducing surgeon working
towards health, but will grasp and sympathize with the charge that
he is a corrupter (see the use of diaphtheirein at 522b7 and the oth-
erwise strange use of diaphtheirei at 521e8). Bringing the young into
a state of perplexity may well appear to the city to be an act of cor-
ruption; and Socrates, I suggest, is trying in this very brief account
of his predicament to provide some indication of the source of the
citys anger against him, without making matters worse by saying too
much.48
To spell out a bit more fully the character and necessity of Socrates
delicate account of his situation, Socrates is far from denying that he is
in danger and that he would have a hard time defending his life before
the city. In fact, if anything, he exaggerates the danger he is in and his
own helplessness (see 522a9b1). This exaggeration contributes to his
self-presentation as a man who is above considerations of safety. But
it also serves a further purpose for those in his audience who would
be likely to doubt the sincerity of that aspect of his self-presentation.
For such listeners, Socrates account of the danger he faces carries a
different message. Socrates, I suggest, is trying to indicate at least the
Brickhouse and Smith, Platos Socrates, 13741. Consider the more complex
account of Villa, Socratic Citizenship, 1516, 2728, 3641.
47. Consider Republic 515c4516d7, 537e1539a1.
48. A sign of Socrates reserve in this passage is that, while he predicts his later
indictment for corrupting the young, he makes no mention of impiety as
part of the charge that could be and of course later was brought against
him. Compare Apology 18a7c3, 23c2d7, 24b8c1.
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an effort to seek out Gorgias and grab his attention. But only in this
passage near the end does Socrates speak directly enough, if still
very briefly, about his own life to provide us with the answer. The
answer is conveyed by Socrates indication of the predicament caused
by his true political art, an art that required that he direct his own
efforts above all to producing perplexity in the young. Socrates may
have regarded the practice of this art, and in particular its emphasis
on bitter speeches designed to produce perplexity in the young, as
incompatible with devoting his own energies to the more flattering
art of rhetoric. The predicament caused by this art, however, explains
Socrates need for an ally with great rhetorical powers and a sympa-
thetic view of his activity and situation. Yet, even at this point, several
questions remain: How exactly could Gorgias help Socrates? How seri-
ously are we to take the possibility of a Gorgias-Socrates alliance? And
more generally, does Socrates really present in the Gorgias an adequate
solution to the problem he reveals? Let us return to these questions,
however, after first considering the final section of the dialogue.
in the city, and who is unable to come to his own aid? (522c46).
Socrates may have emphasized the danger he faces in order to call it
to the attention of Gorgias, but, by doing so, he elicits this predictable
objection from Callicles. Socrates, however, would not want this objec-
tion to be the last word, in part because there may be others in the audi-
ence who are troubled by the same concerns as Callicles, even if they
are more sympathetic to Socrates.
Socrates basic response to Callicles objection is to return, one last
time, to the Socratic thesis and to argue that the most important way
in which one can come to ones own aid is to keep oneself free of
injustice (522c7e3). But he now adds to this position a further reflec-
tion on justice and death that moves in a direction in which he took
only small steps earlier (compare 492e7493d3, 507d6508a8, 512d6
513a7). Far more prominently than he has up to this final moment of
the dialogue, Socrates now seems to rest his confidence in choosing
to lead a dangerous life on thoughts about the gods and the afterlife.
He tells Callicles that the most extreme of all evils is to arrive in Hades
with ones soul full of injustices, and he offers to give an account to
support this claim (522e36).
The most striking thing about the account Socrates gives is simply
that he calls it an account, a logos, rather than a myth (see 522e5
6, 523a12).51 What he means by this, however, is unclear. The most
straightforward explanation, of course, would be that Socrates thinks
the account is true, and that calling it a logos is his way of expressing
his own conviction of its truth. That is certainly the explanation that
Socrates offers to Callicles (see 523a13, 524a8b1, 526d35).52 But
51. For a helpful general discussion of the distinction between muthos and logos
as Plato uses the terms, see Brisson, Plato the Myth Maker, 712. Brisson
discusses the logos of the Gorgias on pages 1089.
52. It is also the explanation accepted by some commentators. See, for instance,
Shorey, What Plato Said, 1524; Brickhouse and Smith, Platos Socrates,
2056; Dilman, Morality and the Inner Life, 17086; Mackenzie, Plato on
Punishment, 2359; Olympiodorus, Commentary on Platos Gorgias, Lecture
47. Consider also the symbolic readings of Voegelin, Plato, 3945, and
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there are difficulties with this explanation. The most obvious is that
the logos Socrates gives depends for its crucial premises on tales about
the gods that Socrates says he has heard from Homer and others,
including some of the very same tales he vehemently criticizes in other
settings (see 523a35, 524a8b2).53 Beyond this difficulty, the logos,
as we will see, presents a view or a doctrine that is not entirely in
harmony with the position that Socrates has defended throughout the
dialogue. And finally, after delivering the logos, Socrates will all but
retract his claim that he thinks it is true (consider 527a58). In the
same context, however, Socrates will also make a remark that may
give us a clue to what he means by calling the account he gives a logos
rather than a myth. Exhorting Callicles to look toward the ultimate
happiness that awaits the just in the afterlife, Socrates tells him that
the account should be accepted as your logos indicates (527c56).54
Perhaps what Socrates means by calling the account he gives a logos
rather than a myth is that such an account follows in a sense from a
certain kind of view, namely, from the view of someone who believes
in virtue but is not convinced that the virtuous always receive the
happiness they deserve in this world. Such a view, as Socrates remark
suggests and as earlier passages in the dialogue have shown, belongs
more to Callicles than to Socrates.
However this may be, the logos, as Socrates presents it, has two
main parts: Socrates first presents a set of tales that he claims to have
heard, and then he draws a series of conclusions from these tales (see
55. On the importance of this division, see Alexandra Fussi, The Myth of the
Last Judgment in the Gorgias, 52930; Benardete, The Rhetoric of Morality
and Philosophy, 98.
56. See Iliad 15.18793; cf. Hesiod, Theogony 453506, 617819. Although
Socrates begins from a Homeric tale, he adds to this tale or extends it in
directions not found in Homer. He claims that he has heard the further
tales he reports, without indicating from whom he has heard them. This
has led to much speculation on Socrates (or Platos) sources in this part
of the logos. For a helpful summary and analysis of the different views,
see Dodds, Gorgias, 3736; see also Fussi, The Myth of the Last Judg-
ment in the Gorgias, 540. Also worth considering is Olympiodorus con-
tention that the logos should be read as a philosophical myth, as distin-
guished from a poetic one (see Commentary on Platos Gorgias, Lectures
47 and 48).
57. The whole account of this change and of Zeus new system runs from 523a3
to 524a7.
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58. The most likely meaning of Zeus order to Prometheus is that he was to
prevent people from knowing when they will die, and the most likely pur-
pose of this order would be to obstruct deathbed conversions. See Dodds,
Gorgias, 378. Another possible meaning, however, is that Zeus intended
for Prometheus to stop all foreknowledge of death, including even human
beings awareness of their mortality. This interpretation has the prob-
lem, however, that it would seem to require the further suggestion that
Prometheus did not carry out the order. Or is there some sense in which
human beings are not aware of death? Compare Aeschylus, Prometheus
Bound, 24853.
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The second part begins with the claim that death is merely the sepa-
ration of the body and the soul, after which each retains its character
at least for some time (524b2d4). According to Socrates, far from
dying when it is stripped naked of the body, the soul then displays
itself more clearly, since its natural traits and the effects of the expe-
riences it has endured from its different pursuits can be seen more
clearly when the screen of the body is removed (524d37). This would
seem to be in keeping with Socrates earlier description of Zeus sys-
tem, which requires such nakedness for the judges to do their judging
well. But Socrates explanation in this part of the account also raises
questions about that system: Is it entirely just for souls to be judged
and sometimes punished for qualities that they have received at least
in part from nature (see 524d56; consider also 524b67 and c1)? And
shouldnt the circumstances in which one lived ones life have at least
some bearing on the judgment of ones ultimate fate (consider 524d7
525a8, 525d2526b3)? More broadly, can the eternal punishments of
which Socrates speaks (see, e.g., 525c6, e1) ever be truly warranted as
retribution for the brief lives lived by embodied souls?59 We should
also recall Socrates suggestions earlier in the dialogue that pity is
due to the unjust, since they are already suffering from the greatest
evil, and that punishment is a benefit to the unjust which one should
wish upon ones unjust friends but not upon ones unjust enemies (see
again 468e6469b11 and 479d7481b1). Can those earlier suggestions,
which were presented as conclusions following from a rigorous adher-
ence to the Socratic thesis, be squared with Socrates present account?
If Socrates raises questions like these, however, he does so quietly. The
main impression conveyed by his account is that the unjust will receive
what Socrates speaks of as the fitting sufferings a phrase that
reflects Socrates allowance of the retributive spirit into the account
(525a67; see also 526b8c1 and consider the formulation at 523b24).
59. For a line of reflection that raises similar questions, see Fussi, The Myth of
the Last Judgment in the Gorgias, 5435.
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While some of the details may call the reasonableness of that spirit into
question, the more obvious thrust of the account is to make room for
it.60
Yet Socrates does make some efforts to hide or disguise the fact
that he is allowing a place for retribution. He claims that it is fit-
ting for all who are punished either to become better and thereby to
be benefited or else to serve as useful paradigms for others (525b1
4). In other words, he suggests that the only legitimate purposes of
punishment are rehabilitation and deterrence. But Socrates descrip-
tion of the punishments in Hades strays from this suggestion. In his
description of the souls in Hades, Socrates speaks of two groups who
receive punishment. Those who benefit from the punishments they
receive are the curables, who can be released from injustice by endur-
ing pain and grief (525b4c1). But those souls that arrive in Hades
having done the most extreme injustices are incurable. These lat-
ter souls cannot themselves be benefited by punishment because they
are beyond rehabilitation. Their eternal punishment, Socrates says,
serves as a warning to other souls as they arrive in Hades and wit-
ness the spectacle of eternal suffering (525c18). There is a problem,
however, with this suggestion about the deterrent effect of the pun-
ishment of the incurables. Havent the souls for whom they are sup-
posedly to provide deterrent examples already lived their mortal lives,
such that they will witness the punishment of the incurables only
after they have already made their crucial choices? The punishment
of the incurables is hard to explain as an effective deterrent. Their
punishment, which would seem on Socratic grounds to be point-
less, makes more sense as a concession to non-Socratic grounds, or,
more specifically, to the view that calls for eternal punishment as
fitting even in cases in which it benefits no one. Perhaps indicat-
ing his attitude toward the concession he is making, Socrates speaks
60. Mackenzie, Plato on Punishment, 2339, stresses this feature of what she
calls the retributive eschatology of the Gorgias.
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Sometimes, when [Rhadamanthus] sees a soul that has lived piously and
with truth the soul of a private man or of someone else, but above all,
as I at least claim, Callicles, the soul of a philosopher who has minded his
own business and not been a busybody in his life he admires it and sends
it off to the Isles of the Blessed. And Aeacus, too, does these same things
each of them holding a staff. But Minos sits supervising, he alone holding
the golden scepter, as Homers Odysseus says he saw him: holding the
golden specter, passing his judgments on the dead. (526c1d2)
In accord with the general character of the logos, Socrates here weaves
a Homeric passage together with a view of the afterlife that casts a
favorable light on the philosophic life. In this presentation, the philo-
sophic life also comes to sight as directed toward death. It is the life
that is guided, more than any other, by the need to prepare for the
ultimate judgment that will be passed by gods rather than by men
(526d3527a3). Socrates presents philosophy, in other words, as a way
of life whose goodness lies above all in another, far greater world. And
in keeping with this presentation, he exhorts not only Callicles but all
other human beings as well to follow the path that leads towards this
life and this contest (526e13).
Once he has completed his account of the afterlife, Socrates predicts
that Callicles will probably regard the account he has just heard as a
myth and despise it as he would an old wives tale (527a56). Socrates
then says, more surprisingly, that it would be nothing amazing to
despise these things, if we were able, by searching somewhere, to find
better and truer things (527a68). In addition, Socrates, in a striking
and important remark, offers as evidence in support of the account
he has just delivered the fact that his interlocutors have not been able
to show that one ought to live a life other than the one that appears
to be beneficial in Hades (see 527a8b2). So long as the Socratic the-
sis remains unrefuted, he suggests, one ought to acknowledge it and
live by its principles (see 527b2c4). Socrates even gives Callicles a
final command: Having been persuaded, then, follow me to the place
where, having arrived, you will be happy both when you are alive and
when you have come to your end, as your logos indicates (527c5
6). Socrates exhorts Callicles to live by the implications of the logos,
which would seem to mean here to live by the implications of his unac-
knowledged but nonetheless deep attachment to the view expressed
by the Socratic thesis. Yet Socrates also points toward an alternative
that remains open to some, if not to Callicles. This alternative is to
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1. See, e.g., Friedlander, Plato, 2:272; Taylor, Plato, 128; Brisson, Plato the
Myth Maker, 108, 143; Kastely, In Defense of Platos Gorgias, 99; Arieti,
Platos Philosophic Antiope, 202; Nightingale, Platos Gorgias and Euripi-
des Antiope, 1323.
177
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178 Conclusion
2. That Socrates doctrine of virtue and his account of order make a deeper
impact than the account of the afterlife can be seen by considering Jaeger,
Paideia, 2:1467; Shorey, What Plato Said, 148; Voegelin, Plato, 367; Seung,
Plato Rediscovered, 312; Kahn, Plato and the Socratic Dialogue, 1407,
Drama and Dialectic in Platos Gorgias, 11621.
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180 Conclusion
rhetoric with much closer ties to Socrates and a much deeper appreci-
ation of his life and activity. For didnt Plato himself accomplish what
Socrates had in mind? It is true that Plato did not protect Socrates
while he was alive, and thus he did not accomplish the most basic task
that Gorgias might have been able to accomplish. But Plato certainly
succeeded indeed he succeeded tremendously in winning a place
of place of high esteem for Socrates and for Socratic philosophy in
the hearts and minds of future generations. It is primarily through
the writings of Plato, through his presentation of a Socrates who has
become beautiful and young,5 that Socrates has come down to us as
one of the heroes of Western civilization, and as a man whose life has
long inspired respect and reverence. One of the signs of Platos success
is the difficulty many readers of his dialogues have in even grasping
why Socrates was ever the target of contempt and hostility.
The Gorgias, then, can provide a window on the aims of Platos
literary-rhetorical project as a whole. In a word, Gorgias gives us rea-
son to believe that Plato in fact had a literary-rhetorical project in his
presentation of Socratic philosophy, a project that was guided by his
appreciation of the problem that the Gorgias the brings to light. After
all, it is Plato, the author of the Gorgias, who helps us to understand
the need for rhetoric, and who, by presenting Socrates unsuccessful
pursuit of a solution to his dilemma, points to the need for a better
solution. In this sense, the very failure presented in the Gorgias may
be seen as Platos way of revealing the problem to which his writ-
ings respond and of indicating the role he plays in defending Socratic
philosophy. In keeping with this suggestion, we can find in Platos cor-
pus a picture of the philosophic life and of the views of philosophy
that expands and completes the picture he has Socrates merely begin
to sketch in the Gorgias. Platos dialogues are famous for their many
beautiful passages defending the unity of virtue, describing the order-
liness of nature and the divine, and praising the high aspirations and
noble resolve of the philosophic life. The Gorgias, however, gives us
182 Conclusion
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Index
189
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190 Index
Index 191
Protagoras, 16, 21, 23, 32, 38, 39, Seung, T. K., 4, 18, 87, 128, 152,
101, 113, 135, 152 153, 158, 178
Republic, 26, 29, 48, 57, 63, 65, 69, Shorey, Paul, 3, 4, 33, 36, 38, 43, 94,
79, 87, 112, 119, 136, 141, 159, 98, 144, 159, 168, 178
161, 164, 165, 169, 174, 179 Smith, Nicholas, 65, 67, 140, 165,
Second Alcibiades, 55 168
Second Letter, 9, 181 Strauss, Leo, 7, 13
Seventh Letter, 9
Statesman, 29 Taylor, A. E., 3, 4, 15, 17, 48, 72, 83,
Symposium, 9, 83, 179 86, 88, 159, 177
Theaetetus, 113 Themistius, 3
Plochmann, George, 5 Themistocles, 30, 89, 116, 127, 128,
Protagoras, 16, 32, 38 152, 153, 157
Pythagoras, 105, 137 Thompson, W. H., 78
Thucydides, 28, 61, 87, 128, 129,
Rankin, H. D., 16, 27, 83 153, 158
Renehan, R., 42
Robinson, Franklin, 5 Vickers, Brian, 159
Romilly, Jacqueline de, 4, 16, 23, 24, Villa, Dana, 158, 165
27, 29, 33, 37, 83, 88, 90, 147 Vlastos, Gregory, 8, 71, 72, 73,
Rorty, Richard, 1 140
Rosen, Stanley, 9 Voegelin, Eric, 4, 15, 63, 83, 137,
138, 159, 168, 169, 178
Sallis, John, 7
Santas, Gerasimos, 4, 54, 56, 63, 71, Weiss, Roslyn, 27, 29, 32, 38
73, 76, 98, 113, 136 Williams, Bernard, 3
Saxonhouse, Arlene, 17, 18, 28, 61,
63, 88, 89, 158 Xenophon, 18, 135
Schleiermacher, Friedrich, 7, 8 Xerxes, 87, 89, 128