Γοργίας = Gorgias (dialogue), Plato, Walter Hamilton (Translator), Chris Emlyn-Jones (Commentary)Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1960 = 1339, In 149 Pages‬Gorgias is a Socratic dialogue written by Plato around 380 BC. The dialogue depicts a conversation between Socrates and a small group of sophists (and other guests) at a dinner gathering. In the Gorgias, Socrates argues that philosophy is an art, whereas rhetoric is a skill based on mere experience. To Socrates, most rhetoric is in practice mere...

A Starker DialogueGorgias 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 Socrate...

The Gorgias is perhaps the dialogue where the talent of Socrates shines with all its brilliance in its confrontations where it defeats and mates its contradictors sophists in particular Calliclès.Socrates lets his interlocutor speak, more or less pretends to abound to give him the leisure to expose himself and, little by little, highlights the contradictions, the faults. And then the theme of exchanges energizes the rhythm: freedom, good or bad, is it better to suffer injustice than to commit it...

Well, if one was to sum up, it would be hard to go past Plato’s own summary: “And of all that has been said, nothing remains unshaken but the saying, that to do injustice is more to be avoided than to suffer injustice, and that the reality and not the appearance of virtue is to be followed above all things, as well in public as in private life; and that when any one has been wrong in anything, he is to be chastised, and that the next best thing to a man being just is that he should become just,

… for philosophy, Socrates, if pursued in moderation and at the proper age, is an elegant accomplishment, but too much philosophy is the ruin of human life. Gorgias is easily one of Plato’s best stand-alone dialogues. Indeed, as others have mentioned, it often reads like a germinal version of the Republic, so closely does it track the same themes. A transitional dialogue, the early know-nothing Socrates of unanswered questions is already gone; instead we get Socrates espousing some of Plato’s

Men do bad when they do what they merely think best, rather than what they most deeply desire. That seems to be the central point of this long dialogue.The age-old question is: how to get men to follow their true Will (i.e. Self, rather than ego). Does the dialogue answer it? The answer it gives appears to be: Engage in the combat of life, live as well as you can, and then, after death, you will attain the Islands of the Blessed, and not the realm of the wretched, Tartarus. But that doesn’t an...

This book is a masterpiece. It includes a critical text, and a line-by-line philological commentary. But even the reader without Greek will learn an enormous amount about Plato and related topics by reading it alongside a translation -- just skip all the entries dealing with purely philological matters.It is often said that the best commentary on Aristotle is Aristotle. Hence, important commentaries on Aristotle spend most of their time quoting (in Greek) other passages from Aristotle. The same

We should devote all our own and our community's energies towards ensuring the presence of justice and self-discipline, and so guaranteeing happiness.So Socrates wanted to make Athens great again and along the way gave the pundits and consultants the what for. His argument is measured and allows the three stooges to defeat their own assertions in fits of bumbling exasperation. The virtues of work and health are explored with nary a word about the lamp above the Golden Door. This notion of modera...

An excellent example of philosophy justifying itself. Everybody has heard the whole cranky, rather arrogant and patronizing remark made when someone who doesn't read very much or doesn't read for pleasure or instruction feels like scoffing a bit: "Why are you reading this boring old stuff? Philosophy's good when you're younger, and you don't know anything, but once you become a real adult you should just let that stuff go..." It's interesting that Socrates calls Gorgias out for basically maki

What I recall about Gorgias - again from my sophomore university philosophy class - was that there was a lengthy discussion of orators and how they are able to dupe audiences - even folks more technical than the orator him/herself. That sounds eerily relevant right now given that 1.7M people voted against the Commander and Thief who in 2012 criticised the very electoral college to which he owes his election. His campaign promises were all smoke and mirrors as Gorgias delightfully admits to in hi...

Ah... idealists. As admirable in their ambitions, they're often far from what reality serves us up. In that regard, this outline of a conversation shows us the faulty thoughts of what steams from people believing in the objective good. Gorgias is an exchange between Socrates and the sophists Gorgias, Polus and Callicles. Each taking their turns, they question each other about politics, the value of rhetoric, the pitfalls of power and the importance of virtue.The most baffling thing about this to...

Plato on the virtuous life7 August 2011 - Athens It is difficult to put a date of composition to such a text, though internal comments can assist us with determining when it was written. While I do not consider myself an expert on Plato, I would consider this text to be one of his earlier writings as he seems to be recording an earlier conversation as opposed to using Socrates to be a mouthpiece for his own philosophy. A lot have been written on Plato's dialogues, which tend to be philosophical

First time reading something for a university discussion! (Meaning my first university discussion, not my first time reading something for that purpose💁)

From the Introduction by Chris Emlyn-Jones:p. xxvii - "For Plato's Socrates, oratory is not an art, since, by his own admission, Gorgias does not aim to produce knowledge of right and wrong, but only to persuade - to produce conviction. Instead of aiming at making people better (he cannot, because his art does not include knowledge of right and wrong), he panders to their desires, like a confectioner tempting children. If you engage in pandering you do not have to know what people really need; a...

This is one of Plato's more interesting dialogues, if only because in this case the dialogue breaks down. Callicles just cannot seem to accept Socrates's notion that it is better to have evil done to oneself than to commit evil. He agrees with the questions which are put to him, but then he keeps going back to the notion that hedonism is really preferable to morality.Socrates even looks forward to his own trial and death. At one point, he says:You've already told me often enough that anyone who

I throw my token in with Callicles when he said"By the gods, Chaerephon, I too have been present at many discussions, but I don't believe that any has ever given me so much pleasure as this. If you like to go on talking all day, you are doing me a favor". I simply can't get enough of these dialogues! I know there are flaws in them, I know that sometimes as (especially in the one on oratory) the protagonist (Socrates) gets all the words in edgewise and our dear antagonists do not make a fun enoug...

If you need a good dialogue about rhetoric, morality, duty and philosophy this is it. If The Republic was your jam, don’t miss this prequel!

I think the most interesting idea explored in this book is Socrates' contention that it is better to be wronged by others than to do wrong to others.

Socrates goes though a mind-numbing series of overly-long questions about some issues of philosophical import. While in the Protagoras Socrates complains about long-winded statements, he states in this dialogue that a four sentence response by Polus was “a lengthy exposition.” Unlike Polus, who Socrates treats unfairly, Socrates meets his intellectual match with Callicles. Callicles is not bullied into simplistic yes or no answers to questions and to a logic that he finds difficult to follow. Ca...

This is about Rhetoric and to what purposes it can be put: making a person better, more just or only for one’s gratifications. The dialogue is structured around 3 conversations of socrates with gorgias, polus and calicles. Certainly the last one is very long (half the book) and very winding and repetitive.But this last conversation is compensated and followed by the beautiful myth about the judgement of souls by 3 judges who look at the soul and can see how ugly or beautiful the soul is. Based o...

What they neglect to tell you in school is that Plato is straight up funny. Example: Callicles (to Socrates): By the gods! You simply don't let up on your continual talk of shoemakers and cleaners, cooks and doctors, as if our discussion were about them!Also if you haven't read this and you have a test on it tomorrow, here's the summary: Socrates: ...a person who wants to be happy must evidently pursue and practice self-control (507d).

Gorgias is another Sophist (after Protagoras) with who Socrates interacts along with Callicles. The dialogue is interesting in its premise: Plato essentially says that morality is greatly tied with afterlife - a reward for being 'good' in this life. This is essentially the root of the argument or what Socrates tries to qualify it as one while Callicles comes after him viciously.While Protagoras retires from the argument (which goes nowhere), Gorgias simply doesn't participate. Gorgias being the

Too old to rate. Reading this in a yellowed library book, with edges of the pages flaking off and falling into my lap as I read, Gorgias made a strong argument, more unintentionally than intentionally, for the uselessness of rhetoric. Time has turned Plato's wisdom into despotism and Socrates' humility into a shield to hide his philosophy's flaws behind. Does Plato still offer anything to teach us today, not merely as history but as genuine philosophy? A lot of what he says are certainly good po...

"Who do you think would deny that he himself knows what's just?" This is Polus' question, not Socrates'. And it's a great question! One of a few questions put forth by him and Callicles that Socrates never really answers. One of the most notable things here is that Socrates does not ask any questions pertaining to the veracity of any of his interlocutors conceptions of justice, and nobody questions Socrates' conception of soul. This dialogue is Plato himself emphatically learning how to write ef...

Rhetoric is realm of arbitrary willing yadda yadda which is false appearance of will yadda yadda in the aimless pursuit of gratification in body and mind yadda yaddaHowever rhetoric can be used for good yadda yadda if it is used in the aim of justice yadda yadda in other words, discipline and punishment of wrong doing yadda yaddaEvil is a correlate of ignorance yadda yadda because knowledge in plato is NOT merely self attributed judgment but practical certainty in an goal directed craft that ser...

If leaders and politicians and all those other orators and sophists claim to be caretakers of men, and to cultivate justice and goodness in them, it is a hypocrisy then for those leaders to bemoan and decry how men act unjustly towards themselves, each other, or towards the leaders in questions; for this represents a failure on the part of the leaders, and indicates their own lack of justice. In truth, even the most powerful of leaders and politicians will be found to have only really fulfilled

The Greek edition with commentaries by E. R. Dodds is the must-have for any student of Plato who would like to take the dialogue to the sheer extreme, even though you are just a dilettante of the Attic Greek language.

The aristocrat Callicles is not at all impressed or convinced by Socrates's sophistry; and this is probably a first in Plato's dialogues. Socrates ends his arguments and the dialogue by threatening Callicles with the eternal judgment and hell. I suspect that Nietzsche loved this dialogue – as Callicles is prefiguring his philosophy and moreover directly dismisses Socrates and everything that the Corrupter of the Greek's Youth stood for.

the book was incredible. it is so so complex and wonderful and yes. the summary mr. dickerson made us write, on the other hand, was a 13th reason if i’ve ever heard one.

review for l'éloge d'hélène only :')i paid 17 euros for 5 pages of analysis that i could have easily found online for free. and that's on bad decision making!! ;)gorgias' essay was definitely interesting -- the arguments were well organised and the writing was convincing -- but i personally did not find his ideas to be groundbreaking in any sort of way. so it was good while it lasted but since i've been reading a significant amount of philosophy-typed-nonfiction for school in the past fews weeks...