Key Lessons from Plato’s Gorgias
This dialogue depicts a conversation between Socrates and a small group of sophists. Socrates debates with the sophist seeking the true definition of rhetoric, attempting to pinpoint the essence of rhetoric and unveil the flaws of the sophistic oratory popular in Athens at the time. The art of persuasion was widely considered necessary for political and legal advantage in classical Athens, and rhetoricians promoted themselves as teachers of this fundamental skill. Socrates suggests that he is one of the few Athenians to practice true politics.
Socrates argues in this dialogue that rhetoric is not an art, but merely a knack that “guesses at what’s pleasant with no consideration for what’s best.”
For example, a doctor cannot just know the technical aspects of replacing a heart or lungs or prescribing a sort of medicine, they must also know the optimal state of health, the other types of procedures, what procedures are necessary for which patients, how it can go wrong, what else needs to be accounted for with regards to the other parts of the body and much, much more.
Another example can be a martial arts teacher, who cannot just know the technicality of punches, kicks, grapples and blocks, but they must also know and teach their students how to develop mental strength, when to fight, who to fight and the knowledge of their own technical, physical and mental capacities.
Socrates believes that rhetoric alone is not a moral endeavor. Gorgias is criticized because “he would teach anyone who came to him wanting to learn oratory but without expertise in what’s just…”. Socrates believes that people need philosophy to teach them what is right, and that oratory cannot be righteous without philosophy.
Rhetoric and Knowledge
Socrates expresses that persuasion is necessary and maintains that many professions, such as teaching, also involve some form of persuasion. For a student of any trade or profession to believe, or become convinced of, or learn the practice in question, their teacher must persuade them somehow through reason that the proposed information is knowledge (justified true belief).
Therefore a teacher of math must persuade his students that a given equation is true through examples of its operation, and a purveyor of philosophy such as Plato must persuade recipients of his ideas (Socrates’s listeners) of the truth of his ideas through writing and dialogue.
In the above example, we can clearly that knowledge is different from belief. Belief can be true or false, but knowledge by definition must be true.
From there, we can see how mob ignorance is construed, and how false narratives can become “true”, as the ignorant or ignorance is more convincing among the ignorant (a crowd) than among an expert.
Herein lies the crucial difference of how a routine such as rhetoric appeals to the excitation of pleasure, and to create the impression of a “Good” and therefore appear desirable. The true arts forsake all (including quick gratification of the mind and body) in favor of the good. Thus, Socrates says, rhetoric is “not an art, but the occupation of a shrewd and enterprising spirit, and one naturally skilled in its dealings with men.
Thus, “Sophistic is to legislation what beautification is to gymnastics, and rhetoric is to justice what cookery is to medicine.”
To go back to the “Mob Ignorance”. The basic thrust of this claim is that within a crowd, an average person (as most people are since this is why it is ‘average’) is apt to listen to others (including the rest of the crowd as well as anyone authoritative speaker) only in a cursory way when deciding what to think, do and believe in any given situation or decision (they even listen to themselves in a cursory way). This fundamental irrationality comes as opposed to using reasoned introspection and thought employed to gain insight into the truth of any given situation, which truth itself will dictate its actions for the circumstances in consideration. One consequently should note that exactly this existence of public and courtroom ignorance was responsible for the wrongful execution of Socrates.
Actions and Outcomes
In the dialogue, the conversation moves further to discuss the nature of power. An Interlocutor declares that power is something “Good” for its possessor, an argument that occurs as equal to that Power is the ability
of its creator by their acts to attain the end of The Good.
In turn, this argument causes Socrates to argue that if this description is correct, then in a given state, tyrants have the least control of all. In essence, individuals appear not to want the action of their own, but rather to “do it for which they behave as they do.” This concept can be generalized to serve as a driving principle in all human action.
For example, for medicine, one does not take a specific medication for his own sake but instead does so to maximize his / her health.
The same holds for any other art, for this is just what it is to be a true art: an action which is good not on its own but in terms of the good which results from its performance, whether under the category justice, temperance, medicine, gymnastics, or any other one.
Therefore, to emphasize, that every such action is not carried out for the sake of itself and its own success, but rather for the very sake of the satisfaction that comes with its performance. It would not be done (without any other justification for the action) if the act were not somehow pleasurable. Also, acts whose primary usefulness is enjoyment are carried out not by themselves, but for their corresponding pleasure and once again making a distinction between the pleasurable and The Good. To connect this definition to “Mob Ignorance”, for an individual, even though it is pleasurable for them to side with the majority as it reduces scrutiny, it cannot be deemed “Right” or “Good” to do so without careful examination of the end goal to that which is “Right” or “Good”.
The Wrong within Rhetoric
Rhetoric is only helpful for a man who intends to do wrong since its only possible operation is that of persuasion by verbal trickery and a false appeal to the pleasant to deceive about what is good in any specific set of circumstances. For rhetoric does not aim at truth, nor does it target virtue.
How Should Justice Be Served?
Amidst his discussion with an interlocutor named “Polus”, another interlocutor by the name of “Callicles” steps in and replies angrily to Socrates’s teachings of philosophy and the Socratic dialogue.
Callicles thinks that Socrates uses dialogue to set traps, twist concepts, and apply importance to the words of individuals where they did not want such meaning themselves. In comparison, Callicles claims that by human convention, Socrates wants the positive as opposed to the more precise instructor, nature. Ultimately, Callicles calls it disgraceful to follow philosophy through adulthood, and he claims that the crazy use of other people’s vocabulary by Socrates is absurd and humiliating.
For Callicles, fairness is natural justice: the less strong rule by coercion, and the greater control over the bad. He considers that the strong and the better are comparable, but he also agrees with Socrates that fairness means equal shares for all the majority of people believe. This requires, for example, equal opportunities, protection, and punishment. All to which the noble and strong are entitled is often entitled, in a just scheme, to the base and poor.
Callicles defines natural justice, namely that the better and wiser rule over and possess more than the inferior. This inquiry introduces the concept of temperance; “mastering one’s pleasures and appetites.” Callicles subsequently states his distaste for temperance, choosing instead to maintain that happiness and power result from ridding one’s desires of all restraint, and allowing them to grow without limitation. He sees temperance as a sign of weakness. Socrates immediately responds with the metaphor of a leaky jar, which illustrates that a soul with unrestrained desires will always require more and more (and thus never be complete), just as a jar with large holes could never remain full. For Socrates, justice equals the temperance of the soul and its desires.
Callicles, however, remains unconvinced. He declares that a full jar allows no room for more pleasure, and therefore that temperance and restraint are undesirable.
Once again, we as readers can have serious doubts about this equation of the good with pleasure.
The corrupt government in power itself serves as a model of the strong and aggressively dominating the weak. Though this may be pleasurable for the strong, it is not good for the state/country at large.
Order and discipline of the body lead to its health and strength. Order and regularity of the soul mean justice and temperance. Health, strength, justice, and temperance constitute proper existence of the soul and the state as defined by Socrates.
