And if he asked again: 'What is the art of calculation?' I should say, That also is one of the arts which is concerned wholly with words. Not for your sake, but in order that the argument may proceed in such a manner as is most likely to set forth the truth. Suppose a man to have been trained in the palestra and to be a skilful boxer,- -he in the fulness of his strength goes and strikes his father or mother or one of his familiars or friends; but that is no reason why the trainers or fencing- masters should be held in detestation or banished from the city; -- surely not. Why, because I cannot help feeling that you are now saying what is not quite consistent or accordant with what you were saying at first about rhetoric. He who has learned anything whatever is that which his knowledge makes him. GORGIAS: Certainly. SOCRATES: And in the same way, he who has learned what is just is just? GORGIAS: To be sure. SOCRATES: And he who is just may be supposed to do what is just? GORGIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: And must not the just man always desire to do what is just? GORGIAS: That is clearly the inference. SOCRATES: Surely, then, the just man will never consent to do injustice? GORGIAS: Certainly not. Gorgias by Plato, part of the Internet Classics Archive. Commentary: Many comments have been posted about Gorgias. Download: A 186k text-only version is available for download. PLATO’S CRITICISM OF EMPIRICISM IN THE GORGIAS AND IN THE PHAEDRUS*. It is possible that this book, rather than Plato’s text. PLATO’S CRITICISM OF EMPIRICISM IN THE GORGIAS 139 6. SOCRATES: And according to the argument the rhetorician must be a just man? GORGIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: And will therefore never be willing to do injustice? GORGIAS: Clearly not. KEY IDEAS OF PLATO ’ GORGIAS . Gorgias says he teaches rhetoric, and is proud of his concise answers. Rhetoric enables you to win over public meetings to your side - the art of. SOCRATES: But do you remember saying just now that the trainer is not to be accused or banished if the pugilist makes a wrong use of his pugilistic art; and in like manner, if the rhetorician makes a bad and unjust use of his rhetoric, that is not to be laid to the charge of his teacher, who is not to be banished, but the wrong- doer himself who made a bad use of his rhetoric- -he is to be banished- -was not that said? GORGIAS: Yes, it was. SOCRATES: But now we are affirming that the aforesaid rhetorician will never have done injustice at all? GORGIAS: True. SOCRATES: And at the very outset, Gorgias, it was said that rhetoric treated of discourse, not (like arithmetic) about odd and even, but about just and unjust? And in the course of our investigations, as you will see yourself, the rhetorician has been acknowledged to be incapable of making an unjust use of rhetoric, or of willingness to do injustice. But I shall not tell him whether rhetoric is a fine thing or not, until I have first answered, 'What is rhetoric?' For that would not be right, Polus; but I shall be happy to answer, if you will ask me, What part of flattery is rhetoric? POLUS: I will ask and do you answer? But I think that I may be excused, because you did not understand me, and could make no use of my answer when I spoke shortly, and therefore I had to enter into an explanation. And as I failed then, you must not ask me to count the suffrages of the company now; but if, as I was saying, you have no better argument than numbers, let me have a turn, and do you make trial of the sort of proof which, as I think, is required; for I shall produce one witness only of the truth of my words, and he is the person with whom I am arguing; his suffrage I know how to take; but with the many I have nothing to do, and do not even address myself to them.
I mean, that if he be justly punished his soul is improved. POLUS: Surely. SOCRATES: Then he who is punished is delivered from the evil of his soul? POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: And is he not then delivered from the greatest evil? Then, Polus, rhetoric would indeed be useful. For you have not the power to resist the words and ideas of your loves; and if a person were to express surprise at the strangeness of what you say from time to time when under their influence, you would probably reply to him, if you were honest, that you cannot help saying what your loves say unless they are prevented; and that you can only be silent when they are. Now you must understand that my words are an echo too, and therefore you need not wonder at me; but if you want to silence me, silence philosophy, who is my love, for she is always telling me what I am now telling you, my friend; neither is she capricious like my other love, for the son of Cleinias says one thing to- day and another thing to- morrow, but philosophy is always true. For on what principle of justice did Xerxes invade Hellas, or his father the Scythians? Bockh).)- -I do not remember the exact words, but the meaning is, that without buying them, and without their being given to him, he carried off the oxen of Geryon, according to the law of natural right, and that the oxen and other possessions of the weaker and inferior properly belong to the stronger and superior. Dindorf).)but anything in which he is inferior, he avoids and depreciates, and praises the opposite from partiality to himself, and because he thinks that he will thus praise himself. Philosophy, as a part of education, is an excellent thing, and there is no disgrace to a man while he is young in pursuing such a study; but when he is more advanced in years, the thing becomes ridiculous, and I feel towards philosophers as I do towards those who lisp and imitate children. But leave to others these niceties,'whether they are to be described as follies or absurdities: 'For they will only Give you poverty for the inmate of your dwelling.'Cease, then, emulating these paltry splitters of words, and emulate only the man of substance and honour, who is well to do. Plato's Gorgias Item Preview. Plato's Republic : the Greek text.SOCRATES: If my soul, Callicles, were made of gold, should I not rejoice to discover one of those stones with which they test gold, and the very best possible one to which I might bring my soul; and if the stone and I agreed in approving of her training, then I should know that I was in a satisfactory state, and that no other test was needed by me. CALLICLES: What is your meaning, Socrates? SOCRATES: I will tell you; I think that I have found in you the desired touchstone. CALLICLES: Why? SOCRATES: Because I am sure that if you agree with me in any of the opinions which my soul forms, I have at last found the truth indeed. But you have all the qualities in which these others are deficient, having received an excellent education; to this many Athenians can testify. You were cautioning one another not to be overwise; you were afraid that too much wisdom might unconsciously to yourselves be the ruin of you. Well then, the inference in the present case clearly is, that if you agree with me in an argument about any point, that point will have been sufficiently tested by us, and will not require to be submitted to any further test. He is not of your way of thinking, Callicles, for he declares, that of all the souls in Hades, meaning the invisible world (aeides), these uninitiated or leaky persons are the most miserable, and that they pour water into a vessel which is full of holes out of a colander which is similarly perforated. The other, in like manner, can procure streams, though not without difficulty; but his vessels are leaky and unsound, and night and day he is compelled to be filling them, and if he pauses for a moment, he is in an agony of pain. And I would have you look at the matter in another light, which could hardly, I think, have been considered by you when you identified them: Are not the good good because they have good present with them, as the beautiful are those who have beauty present with them? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: And do you call the fools and cowards good men? And now, by the god of friendship, I must beg you, Callicles, not to jest, or to imagine that I am jesting with you; do not answer at random and contrary to your real opinion- -for you will observe that we are arguing about the way of human life; and to a man who has any sense at all, what question can be more serious than this?- -whether he should follow after that way of life to which you exhort me, and act what you call the manly part of speaking in the assembly, and cultivating rhetoric, and engaging in public affairs, according to the principles now in vogue; or whether he should pursue the life of philosophy; -- and in what the latter way differs from the former. Suppose that we just calmly consider whether any of these was such as I have described. While she is in a bad state and is senseless and intemperate and unjust and unholy, her desires ought to be controlled, and she ought to be prevented from doing anything which does not tend to her own improvement. CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: Such treatment will be better for the soul herself? CALLICLES: To be sure. SOCRATES: And to restrain her from her appetites is to chastise her? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: Then restraint or chastisement is better for the soul than intemperance or the absence of control, which you were just now preferring? CALLICLES: I do not understand you, Socrates, and I wish that you would ask some one who does. SOCRATES: Here is a gentleman who cannot endure to be improved or to subject himself to that very chastisement of which the argument speaks! CALLICLES: I do not heed a word of what you are saying, and have only answered hitherto out of civility to Gorgias. SOCRATES: What are we to do, then? And now I will proceed to argue according to my own notion. And is not the soul which has an order of her own better than that which has no order?
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