Gorgias (dialogue)

Gorgias refers to the last dialogue that Plato wrote before leaving Athens. It features Socrates debating Gorgias, Polus, and Callicles in a microcosm of the sophist-philosopher debate that raged throughout ancient Athens. Whereas the sophists were relativists who believed that rhetoric was a useful tool that could exploit the imperfection of human knowledge, Plato and the philosophers proposed the existence of a transcendental, perfect knowledge. In order to access this higher truth, philosophers utilized the practice of dialectic. Rhetoric, Plato asserted, was a perversion of dialectic that harmed the soul by creating false belief.

Socrates first discusses with Gorgias and then Polus about the nature of rhetoric. It is in this section that Plato offers one of the most famous critiques of rhetoric, calling it a form of flattery, a "ghost or counterfeit of a part of politics", and compares it to cookery. In making this comparison, Plato draws an analogy between care for the human body and the management of politics in a society. There are arts which serve a useful purpose, such as the art of medicine which cares for and protects the human body. Cookery however gives only the illusion of caring for the body. It is not what is best for the body, as the purpose is simply to provide pleasure. In the same way, rhetoric gives a false illusion of justice. Like a tasty but unhealthy dish, rhetoric leads the common people (or demos) astray into pursuing short-term desires at the expense of long-term justice. On the other hand, philosophers can utilize dialectical reasoning to arrive at just decisions that benefit the entire polis.

The purpose of politics being to establish justice and virtue throughout the whole of society, Plato believed that rhetoric, through its creation of falsehoods, was the root of evil in the Athenian state. His opinion of rhetoric was the logical corollary of his belief that ordinary people did not have the aptitude to govern wisely. This sentiment also formed the basis for his masterpiece The Republic.

The next part of the conversation moves to the topics of power, justice, happiness, and good and evil. Polus believes that rhetoricians and tyrants have a great power over others, and this makes them happy. Socrates argues that they do not have power, as their actions are not what they want, but are what is necessary for the good of the state. He goes on to argue that those who behave unjustly and do evil are less happy than those who have evil done on to them, and an unpunished evil-doer is less happy than a punished one. Again he makes a comparison to medicine: the physician cures the body of disease just as justice cures the soul of injustice and intemperance.

Callicles then takes over the argument for Polus in a very harsh and defiant manner, uncharacteristic for an opponent of Socrates in Plato's dialogues. He provides a foil to the role of the professional philosopher, asserting that the business of serious adults consists of real-world affairs, not the idle discussion of philosophers. Happy to find a worthy challenger, Socrates sets out to refute his argument. Callicles' quotes Pindar that "might makes right", and grows increasingly frustrated as Socrates questions exactly what he means by this. The dialogue soon regresses back to the original argument, elaborating further on the difference between pleasure and good, pain and evil. The common confusion being determined as the cause of how rhetoric is often mistaken for true justice.

The dialogue ends in a similar way to book X of The Republic, with a tale of judgment in the afterlife. The story mentions that Aeacus, Rhadamanthus, and Minos are judges in the afterlife. Based on the quality of the soul, they determine if the deceased will go to Islands of the Blessed or be punished in Tartarus. Socrates describes it as merely a fable, however it helps to illustrate his reasoning, albeit in a non-philosophical way, for leading a just life.

Also noteworthy about the dialogue is that it mentions and quotes Epicharmus of Kos, one of the first comedic poets .¹ This is significant because it is one of the very few extant references in greater antiquity (Fourth century BC) to Epicharmus and his work, and who is considered to be the Homer of comedic poetry by Plato, in the Theaetetus dialogue.