Gorgias
And now the combat deepens. In Callicles, far more than in any sophist
or rhetorician, is concentrated the spirit of evil against which
Socrates is contending, the spirit of the world, the spirit of the many
contending against the one wise man, of which the Sophists, as he
describes them in the Republic, are the imitators rather than the
authors, being themselves carried away by the great tide of public
opinion. Socrates approaches his antagonist warily from a distance,
with a sort of irony which touches with a light hand both his personal
vices (probably in allusion to some scandal of the day) and his
servility to the populace. At the same time, he is in most profound
earnest, as Chaerephon remarks. Callicles soon loses his temper, but
the more he is irritated, the more provoking and matter of fact does
Socrates become. A repartee of his which appears to have been really
made to the “omniscient” Hippias, according to the testimony of
Xenophon (Mem.), is introduced. He is called by Callicles a popular
declaimer, and certainly shows that he has the power, in the words of
Gorgias, of being “as long as he pleases,” or “as short as he pleases”
(compare Protag.). Callicles exhibits great ability in defending
himself and attacking Socrates, whom he accuses of trifling and
word-splitting; he is scandalized that the legitimate consequences of
his own argument should be stated in plain terms; after the manner of
men of the world, he wishes to preserve the decencies of life. But he
cannot consistently maintain the bad sense of words; and getting
confused between the abstract notions of better, superior, stronger, he
is easily turned round by Socrates, and only induced to continue the
argument by the authority of Gorgias. Once, when Socrates is describing
the manner in which the ambitious citizen has to identify himself with
the people, he partially recognizes the truth of his words.
The Socrates of the Gorgias may be compared with the Socrates of the
Protagoras and Meno. As in other dialogues, he is the enemy of the
Sophists and rhetoricians; and also of the statesmen, whom he regards
as another variety of the same species. His behaviour is governed by
that of his opponents; the least forwardness or egotism on their part
is met by a corresponding irony on the part of Socrates. He must speak,
for philosophy will not allow him to be silent. He is indeed more
ironical and provoking than in any other of Plato’s writings: for he is
“fooled to the top of his bent” by the worldliness of Callicles. But he
is also more deeply in earnest. He rises higher than even in the Phaedo
and Crito: at first enveloping his moral convictions in a cloud of dust
and dialectics, he ends by losing his method, his life, himself, in
them. As in the Protagoras and Phaedrus, throwing aside the veil of
irony, he makes a speech, but, true to his character, not until his
adversary has refused to answer any more questions. The presentiment of
his own fate is hanging over him. He is aware that Socrates, the single
real teacher of politics, as he ventures to call himself, cannot safely
go to war with the whole world, and that in the courts of earth he will
be condemned. But he will be justified in the world below. Then the
position of Socrates and Callicles will be reversed; all those things
“unfit for ears polite” which Callicles has prophesied as likely to
happen to him in this life, the insulting language, the box on the
ears, will recoil upon his assailant. (Compare Republic, and the
similar reversal of the position of the lawyer and the philosopher in
the Theaetetus).
There is an interesting allusion to his own behaviour at the trial of
the generals after the battle of Arginusae, which he ironically
attributes to his ignorance of the manner in which a vote of the
assembly should be taken. This is said to have happened “last year”
(B.C. 406), and therefore the assumed date of the dialogue has been
fixed at 405 B.C., when Socrates would already have been an old man.
The date is clearly marked, but is scarcely reconcilable with another
indication of time, viz. the “recent” usurpation of Archelaus, which
occurred in the year 413; and still less with the “recent” death of
Pericles, who really died twenty-four years previously (429 B.C.) and
is afterwards reckoned among the statesmen of a past age; or with the
mention of Nicias, who died in 413, and is nevertheless spoken of as a
living witness. But we shall hereafter have reason to observe, that
although there is a general consistency of times and persons in the
Dialogues of Plato, a precise dramatic date is an invention of his
commentators (Preface to Republic).
The conclusion of the Dialogue is remarkable, (1) for the truly
characteristic declaration of Socrates that he is ignorant of the true
nature and bearing of these things, while he affirms at the same time
that no one can maintain any other view without being ridiculous. The
profession of ignorance reminds us of the earlier and more exclusively
Socratic Dialogues. But neither in them, nor in the Apology, nor in the
Memorabilia of Xenophon, does Socrates express any doubt of the
fundamental truths of morality. He evidently regards this “among the
multitude of questions” which agitate human life “as the principle
which alone remains unshaken.” He does not insist here, any more than
in the Phaedo, on the literal truth of the myth, but only on the
soundness of the doctrine which is contained in it, that doing wrong is
worse than suffering, and that a man should be rather than seem; for
the next best thing to a man’s being just is that he should be
corrected and become just; also that he should avoid all flattery,
whether of himself or of others; and that rhetoric should be employed
for the maintenance of the right only. The revelation of another life
is a recapitulation of the argument in a figure.
(2) Socrates makes the singular remark, that he is himself the only
true politician of his age. In other passages, especially in the
Apology, he disclaims being a politician at all. There he is convinced
that he or any other good man who attempted to resist the popular will
would be put to death before he had done any good to himself or others.
Here he anticipates such a fate for himself, from the fact that he is
“the only man of the present day who performs his public duties at
all.” The two points of view are not really inconsistent, but the
difference between them is worth noticing: Socrates is and is not a
public man. Not in the ordinary sense, like Alcibiades or Pericles, but
in a higher one; and this will sooner or later entail the same
consequences on him. He cannot be a private man if he would; neither
can he separate morals from politics. Nor is he unwilling to be a
politician, although he foresees the dangers which await him; but he
must first become a better and wiser man, for he as well as Callicles
is in a state of perplexity and uncertainty. And yet there is an
inconsistency: for should not Socrates too have taught the citizens
better than to put him to death?
And now, as he himself says, we will “resume the argument from the
beginning.”
Socrates, who is attended by his inseparable disciple, Chaerephon,
meets Callicles in the streets of Athens. He is informed that he has
just missed an exhibition of Gorgias, which he regrets, because he was
desirous, not of hearing Gorgias display his rhetoric, but of
interrogating him concerning the nature of his art. Callicles proposes
that they shall go with him to his own house, where Gorgias is staying.
There they find the great rhetorician and his younger friend and
disciple Polus.
SOCRATES: Put the question to him, Chaerephon.
CHAEREPHON: What question?
SOCRATES: Who is he?—such a question as would elicit from a man the
answer, “I am a cobbler.”
Polus suggests that Gorgias may be tired, and desires to answer for
him. “Who is Gorgias?” asks Chaerephon, imitating the manner of his
master Socrates. “One of the best of men, and a proficient in the best
and noblest of experimental arts,” etc., replies Polus, in rhetorical
and balanced phrases. Socrates is dissatisfied at the length and
unmeaningness of the answer; he tells the disconcerted volunteer that
he has mistaken the quality for the nature of the art, and remarks to
Gorgias, that Polus has learnt how to make a speech, but not how to
answer a question. He wishes that Gorgias would answer him. Gorgias is
willing enough, and replies to the question asked by Chaerephon,—that
he is a rhetorician, and in Homeric language, “boasts himself to be a
good one.” At the request of Socrates he promises to be brief; for “he
can be as long as he pleases, and as short as he pleases.” Socrates
would have him bestow his length on others, and proceeds to ask him a
number of questions, which are answered by him to his own great
satisfaction, and with a brevity which excites the admiration of
Socrates. The result of the discussion may be summed up as follows:—
Rhetoric treats of discourse; but music and medicine, and other
particular arts, are also concerned with discourse; in what way then
does rhetoric differ from them? Gorgias draws a distinction between the
arts which deal with words, and the arts which have to do with external
actions. Socrates extends this distinction further, and divides all
productive arts into two classes: (1) arts which may be carried on in
silence; and (2) arts which have to do with words, or in which words
are coextensive with action, such as arithmetic, geometry, rhetoric.
But still Gorgias could hardly have meant to say that arithmetic was
the same as rhetoric. Even in the arts which are concerned with words
there are differences. What then distinguishes rhetoric from the other
arts which have to do with words? “The words which rhetoric uses relate
to the best and greatest of human things.” But tell me, Gorgias, what
are the best? “Health first, beauty next, wealth third,” in the words
of the old song, or how would you rank them? The arts will come to you
in a body, each claiming precedence and saying that her own good is
superior to that of the rest—How will you choose between them? “I
should say, Socrates, that the art of persuasion, which gives freedom
to all men, and to individuals power in the state, is the greatest
good.” But what is the exact nature of this persuasion?—is the
persevering retort: You could not describe Zeuxis as a painter, or even
as a painter of figures, if there were other painters of figures;
neither can you define rhetoric simply as an art of persuasion, because
there are other arts which persuade, such as arithmetic, which is an
art of persuasion about odd and even numbers. Gorgias is made to see
the necessity of a further limitation, and he now defines rhetoric as
the art of persuading in the law courts, and in the assembly, about the
just and unjust. But still there are two sorts of persuasion: one which
gives knowledge, and another which gives belief without knowledge; and
knowledge is always true, but belief may be either true or false,—there
is therefore a further question: which of the two sorts of persuasion
does rhetoric effect in courts of law and assemblies? Plainly that
which gives belief and not that which gives knowledge; for no one can
impart a real knowledge of such matters to a crowd of persons in a few
minutes. And there is another point to be considered:—when the assembly
meets to advise about walls or docks or military expeditions, the
rhetorician is not taken into counsel, but the architect, or the
general. How would Gorgias explain this phenomenon? All who intend to
become disciples, of whom there are several in the company, and not
Socrates only, are eagerly asking:—About what then will rhetoric teach
us to persuade or advise the state?