Gorgias Essay Questions

Compare the Socratic method with the method of rhetoric as both appear in the text.

Broadly, rhetoric is concerned exclusively with appearances and effects. The goal of rhetoric is to be able to speak well so as to convince others that one is a good person. This was often used in court to convince people that one's defendant is a just person. It consists of using words, phrases, and modes of speech in such a way as to create pleasant effects for the ear, and to stir the feelings of the person listening to them. Rhetoric claims to do so by systematising the knowledge of these effects and teaching them. The Socratic method, by contrast, doesn't claim to teach anything. It is only a way of asking questions, so that one can shake oneself free of the unchallenged assumptions that one has picked up from others. Eventually, by asking enough questions, one can arrive at stable, indeed eternal definitions. The Socratic method is trying to get at the ultimate meanings of things, rather than to pass along received knowledge.

Why is it better to suffer wrong than to do wrong, according to Socrates? Compare his position with Polus'. Who do you think is right?

Polus argues that it is far better to do wrong than to suffer wrong. He backs this up by saying that it is the widely accepted position, and that obviously someone who has not had wrong done to them is better off than someone who has. Socrates argues that tyrants—people powerful enough to do wrong with impunity—are the most miserable people on earth because they have no sense of justice or goodness, and that that ultimately corrodes their soul, because they are slaves to their desires, and ultimately, to their fears—the fear of retribution. Thus tyrants are in fact the least free people, and though they seem like the happiest, they are in fact the least happy, because they have no way of arriving at happiness; they only know pleasure. Justice is curative because it is true, and the soul strives for truth; to ignore the soul is a painful burden.

Do you agree with Callicles' rejection of Socrates' method?

Callicles' argument is that Socrates's way of looking at things fundamentally reverses the order of things and turns them upside down. He argues that everywhere, people are living their lives, but according to Socrates' philosophy—that evildoers should turn themselves in, together with their family and friends—everyone should actually do the opposite of what they are doing. His first argument is that no one anywhere would agree with Socrates. Here we might agree with Callicles that a philosophy that is not practically useful isn't very much of a philosophy at all, because it gives us no relevant guidance about living our life. Or, we might agree with Socrates that the fact that people do something doesn't mean that it's correct or good—it's only proof that people do it.

Callicles also argues that good and evil are concepts that are defined by custom. Whatever people think is evil is evil, whatever people think is good is good. We might agree by observing that things once considered evil become considered good in time, and vice versa. Homosexuality, for example, was accepted in the Athens of Callicles' time, then considered a sin during medieval times, then considered a psychiatric ailment, until the 1970s, when it began to be considered a normal expression of human sexuality. Fighting duels, once considered honorable, is now considered brutal and violent. To this, we might argue again, that just because people do something does not mean it is good. It's only proof of the fact that people live unconsidered lives and do what is convenient for them. The same might hold of Callicles' argument that nature determines certain people to be strong and intelligent, and that these people should rule. Socrates argues that, if that is the case, then the mass would rule wisely over the individual. Here, too, the reader's sympathies towards democratic politics might make Socrates more or less sympathetic.

Find an instance where Socrates claims to be ignorant. Why is he making this claim? What is it doing for his argument?

There are only two explicit instances where Socrates proclaims his ignorance, and they are both towards the end of the text, in the argument with Callicles. At this point, Socrates has thoroughly demolished most of his other opponents, and the claim is not exactly a trustworthy one. Nonetheless, it is a reminder that Socrates is not simply a philosopher, but that we are watching a dialogue and therefore, in a sense, a performance. Socrates "plays" the fool, which reminds us that knowing and believing things is not a purely rational exercise but also involves embodying our beliefs. At the same time, this reminds us that Socrates practices a method more than he does a systematic philosophy: he does not start with a series of assertions, but rather with questions, assuming he does not know anything.

Plato's other dialogues typically emphasize how hard knowledge is to attain, and how difficult it is to know that one has attained it, and that, in a sense, the only true knowledge is beyond the world. Though Plato evidently felt moved to attack the rhetoricians because of the largely negative effect he felt that they were having on Athenian society, he nonetheless felt compelled to have Socrates emphasize this central aspect of his doctrine at the end.

Why is the story of Jupiter, Neptune and Pluto important to Socrates' argument?

"The Judgment of Naked Souls," as it is sometimes called, emphasizes the thematic importance in Gorgias of essence over reality. Socrates imagines a situation when everyone and everything in the world has finally been stripped of its appearances, and its real nature can be judged. There are no more distractions, and things can finally be seen as they are. It is also significant that Socrates uses a religious image, or allegory, to illustrate this point. Socrates uses an image that he acknowledges that the other men will reject as superstitious, just as they've been mocking his arguments for being 'upside down'; he does this to emphasize the distance between his rational thinking and the other men's uncritical assumptions. Something of the pleasure that Socrates feels in taking down his opponents is certainly present in this last judgment, and the eternal punishment for those found wanting. But it is also important to recognize that Socrates does not say that the judgment is literally true, or that it is certain to happen. Rather, it is a kind of thought exercise. Socrates is claiming that the best way to live would be to imagine that this were true and to act as if it were going to happen: in effect, that one stand judge over one's own self.