Open Philosophy Library
Open Philosophy LibraryGorgiasPlato

Gorgias

By Plato

Plato's Gorgias begins with Socrates asking the famous rhetorician to define his art and develops into a searching debate about persuasion, power and the good life. Through exchanges with Gorgias, Polus and Callicles, Socrates argues that rhetoric without knowledge becomes flattery, committing injustice is worse than suffering it, pleasure is not identical with goodness and genuine politics must improve the souls of citizens.

Translator or editor
Benjamin Jowett
Publication
c. 380 BCE
Genre
Socratic dialogue; ethics; political philosophy; rhetoric
Era
Ancient Philosophy

About this work

Gorgias is Plato's major dialogue about rhetoric, justice, political power and the value of living rightly. Socrates questions Gorgias about an art capable of persuading courts and assemblies even when the speaker lacks expert knowledge. When Polus defends rhetoric for its power, Socrates compares it to cookery: both can produce pleasure while lacking a reasoned understanding of what is genuinely good. Power is not simply the ability to kill, exile or seize property, because actions that damage the agent's soul fail to secure the good ultimately desired. The dialogue develops the paradox that doing injustice is worse than suffering it and that just punishment can benefit a wrongdoer by correcting moral disorder. Callicles offers the strongest opposition. He claims that conventional morality protects the weak, while nature supports superior people who rule others and satisfy great desires. Socrates distinguishes pleasure from goodness and defends temperance as the order of the soul. The final sections contrast flattering politicians with a true political art directed towards improvement. A myth of judgement after death reinforces the claim that wealth, reputation and persuasive appearances cannot conceal the moral condition of a life.

Contents

Related Books

Back to top of page ↑