Gorgias Book

A Starker Dialogue

Gorgias is very similar in structure, content, focus and argument with the Republic. In fact, it comes across almost a half-formed version of it, and scholars argue that it is in many ways like an early sketch for Republic. But unlike the Republic, which forays into metaphysics and utopias, the argument in Gorgias is anchored very much in this world, and, again in contrast to Republic where everyone seems persuaded in the end, Gorgias leaves us in the dark as to whether Socrates has really persuaded his audience of what he values most.

Another significant difference with Republic is the absence of a narrator. Commentators argue that that the stark, uncompromising ‘frame’ this forces on the dialogue suggests that this absence of narrator may be an important factor in Plato's design; he may wish to avoid the softening effect of narrative mediation in dramatizing Socrates' lack of success in creating empathy with his interlocutors, his inability to teach them about goodness and justice, which, ironically enough, seems in danger of putting him in the same camp as all the failed statesmen he criticizes.

Gorgias concludes awkwardly and abruptly, almost painfully aware of the deficiencies in the method employed; and we just have Socrates' last words (527e): 'let us follow that way [practicing righteousness and virtue] and urge others to follow it, instead of the way which you in mistaken confidence are urging upon me; for that way is worthless, Callicles.'

What has Callicles (or the others, for that matter) to say in reply to the myth and the long argument that conclude the dialogue? We are not informed. The dialogue trails off inconclusively like one of the ‘aporetics’.

Another marked parallel with Republic is how Gorgias too concludes with an eschatological myth, affirming the soul’s survival after our death and its punishment or reward in the afterlife for a life lived unjustly or the reverse.

Just like in Republic, the trial and the execution is hinted at… but in Gorgias, they loom large and threatening, Plato callously converting hindsight into foresight and charging Socrates’ sentences with prophetic doom and an early condemnation of the system that precipitates his own death in the near future. Socrates is made to relive a prophetic version of the trial and speaks as though it was all but inevitable in such a corrupt system that a man like him has an ending like that. It remind’s one of Jesus’s early (or similarly hindsight-foresight inversion) exhortations to his disciples about how the cross was waiting at the end of the road.

A Deeper Glance

Event though Gorgias is an earlier work (allegedly) and is sketchy in comparison to republic, it also allows us a closer look at one aspect of Plato’s concern: on Oratory. The method employed to condemn Oratory, by using the distinction between ‘art’ and ‘knack’ gives important clues on why Plato goes on to condemn all of Poetry in Republic. The reason, I feel, is that Poetry, like Oratory was a public art in Plato’s time - both intended to pursued without ‘true knowledge’. Hence the same method when extended to Poetry would allow Plato to conclude that Poetry and storytelling too are ‘knacks’ developed from experience and hence less than the ‘genuine arts’.



Here is a dose of the brilliant exposition:

Pastry baking has put on the mask of medicine, and pretends to know the foods that are best for the body, so that if a pastry baker and a doctor had to compete in front of children, or in front of men just as foolish as children, to determine which of the two, the doctor or the pastry baker, had expert knowledge of good food and bad, the doctor would die of starvation. I call this flattery, and I say that such a thing is shameful, Polus—it’s you I’m saying this to—because it guesses at what’s pleasant with no consideration for what’s best. And I say that it isn’t a craft, but a knack, because it has no account of the nature of whatever things it applies by which it applies them, so that it’s unable to state the cause of each thing. And I refuse to call anything that lacks such an account a craft. If you have any quarrel with these claims, I’m willing to submit them for discussion.

So pastry baking, as I say, is the flattery that wears the mask of medicine. Cosmetics is the one that wears that of gymnastics in the same way; a mischievous, deceptive, disgraceful and ill-bred thing, one that perpetrates deception by means of shaping and coloring, smoothing out and dressing up, so as to make people assume an alien beauty and neglect their own, which comes through gymnastics. So that I won’t make a long-style speech, I’m willing to put it to you the way the geometers do—for perhaps you follow me now—that what cosmetics is to gymnastics, pastry baking is to medicine; or rather, like this: what cosmetics is to gymnastics, sophistry is to legislation, and what pastry baking is to medicine, oratory is to justice.



While this (the argument-from-analogy with Doctors is a favorite of Socrates) may be true to an extent, Plato does not give consideration to the possibility that the story-tellers (or, substitute Chefs/Docs, if you really want to!) might actually have a greater understanding than the philosophers about the mysterious workings of the human soul. It is blasphemy to conclude on this note but it is an exciting thread to pursue further in the reading of Plato.

A Note on the Translation

This translation gets the right mix of ponderous phrasing, elegance and readability - conveying the ancient mystique and the modern relevance. Also, it is broken up well into small parts, each with an introductory passage always initiating the reader into what is about to transpire in the dialogue. This might be irritating to the seasoned reader but is a pleasant respite for the novice and functions like the small interludes that Plato himself likes to inject into his dialogues.

It is also true that this acts like a spoiler and takes away from the thrill of the argument being developed by Socrates. I personally started coming back to the introductory passage after reading the actual text so as to reinforce instead of foreshadow the argument. I would advice the same course for future readers as well.

Disclaimer



As is evident from the review itself, this reviewer is still too much under the influence of Republic and this reading was conducted almost entirely in its shadow. Hence, the review is a biased and incomplete one that does no justice to Gorgias. Gorgias is a complex and lengthy dialogue that deserves independent study and cannot be treated as a mere appendix to Republic as this review may seem to suggest. That was not the intent.

This reviewer found the parallels and contrasts with Republic very fascinating and spent most time debating that, but the ideas expressed in Gorgias are as stunning and intellectually engaging and forays into territory left unexplored in Republic. The elaboration on techne might just be one of the centerpieces of Platonic thought. Gorgias is a must read among the ‘later Early period’ dialogues of Plato - an important step towards the 'middle-period' dialogues such as Meno, almost a point of transition. In fact, Gorgias is necessary reading for any serious reader of Republic. No excuses.

Postscript: I would love a T-shirt like that. Anybody?