Week One

GORGIAS: The problem of Rhetoric and its relation to Justice

February 20, 7 PM -8:30 pm

In the Gorgias, an unusually belligerent Socrates gives his most extreme defense of justice, even foreshadowing Christian rhetoric. His rhetoric, along with his execution and martyrdom, succeeded in winning a degree of toleration and even respect for philosophy and natural science. Socratic rhetoric claims to be an attack on rhetoric, at least on a rhetoric divorced from truth and justice. Does Gorgias, a famous teacher of rhetoric, know justice (455a, 459d-e)? Is it possible to have a true art or knowledge of rhetoric (as opposed to skilled guessing, 463a) without understanding justice and the true causes of its power in the human soul (465a)? Socrates claims that rhetoric flatters us (463b), but how do (political or courtroom) speeches on justice flatter? What moves Gorgias himself? Would he be flattered by speeches on justice? What does he think rhetoric offers him, as a teacher, and what does it promise his students (452e, 456c)? Is (the art of) rhetoric itself about the “greatest good for human beings” (452d-e), or is that instead what its speeches are about (e.g., freedom and political rule)? Is Gorgias a just and principled man? or a lover of truth (449e, 454d)? or a dubious, even amoral, “gun for hire” who teaches young men how to rise in power? Though the dialogue is named after Gorgias, he is silent for the bulk of it, and it is his students or followers, Polus and Callicles, who continue the conversation. Does Gorgias bear any responsibility for their politically radical views (456d-457a)? Was he even aware of their views? What does Socrates know that Gorgias does not?

Reading: p. 25-49, 447a-466a

(The translation we are using is by James H. Nichols (Agora Editions, Cornell Univ. Press, 1998).)