Eins meiner Lieblingszitate aus einem Platondialog:

KALLIKLES: Auch, und ebenso alle andern Begierden soll man haben und befriedigen können, und so Lust gewinnen und glückselig leben.
SOKRATES: Wohl, Bester. Bleibe nur dabei, wie du angefangen hast, und dass du ja nicht aus Scham abspringst. Wie es aber scheint, muss auch ich mich nicht schämen. Und so sage mir nur zuerst, ob krätzig sein und das Jucken haben, wenn man sich nur genug schaben kann, und so gekitzelt sein Leben hinbringen, ob das auch heißt glückselig leben?
KALLIKLES: Wie abgeschmackt du immer bist, Sokrates.

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 moderation was embraced during the Enlightenment but has recently fell from grace Quoting The Tick, Evil wears every possible mitten. That said the argument of the good, the moral hinges here on a tiny necessity, the afterworld , a world of never ending happiness, you can always see the sun, day or night.

Well the current corruption of these words Good and Great have launched their own raid on the Dialogues. Plato asserts most of politics is flattery and power. Socrates knew that and wound up on a state sponsored trip across the Styx.

All we can do is resist. Resist.

It really is all in Plato to echo C.S. Lewis’s Digory Kirk. Socrates here deals with three interlocutors who each obstinately oppose him, particularly Callicles. The distinction he makes between true oratory and pandering is particularly helpful for our current context.

Overall, the Gorgias reads like a miniature version of the first two books of the Republic with a Socratic myth given at the end for good measure.

Nothing personal. I just detest this type of literature and don't understand why anyone would read it outside of a required reading list for school.

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 his dialog. Perhaps, along with The Republic, a critical read in our troubled times.

Es peor cometer una injusticia que soportarla

Maybe my favorite dialogue.

I think this is one of his most immediately accessible. Discusses the nature and value of rhetoric,whether it is worse to perpetrate or to suffer injustice, and briefly the afterlife. There’s more dialogue than usual here, even if his opponents get really disinterested and he gets very sassy.

While the Gorgias gets off to a dull start, it turns out to be one of the best—and by far the funniest—of Plato’s dialogues. Socrates takes on a party of sophistic rhetoricians, demonstrating that the “discipline” of rhetoric, when used for any purpose but to identify and advance the good, is no discipline at all, but only a form of flattery—analogous to “cookery” and “ornamentation”—which corrupts the life of the city. True statesmanship is not about persuasion, flowery speeches, or getting one’s way, but is fundamentally concerned with the moral rectitude and self-discipline of one’s people, and seeks above all else to protect them from the immorality that threatens their happiness. Since he alone recognizes that statecraft is soulcraft, Socrates proves to be the only true statesman that Athens has ever had; and this, ironically, is what will inevitably make him a target of state persecution. “My trial”, he says, “will be equivalent to a doctor being prosecuted by a cook before a jury of young children.” The bitter, effervescent medicine will be scorned in favor of the savory, corrosive dessert. But this is of little concern to one intent on happiness—in this life and the next.


SOCRATES: I’ll review the whole argument so far. Is the pleasant the same as the good? No, they’re different. Callicles and I agreed on that.

Should the good be the reason we do pleasant things, or the pleasant be the reason we do good things? The good should be the reason we do pleasant things.

Isn’t it the quality of being pleasant which makes us enjoy things, and the quality of being good which makes us good? Yes.

Now, what does it take to be a good human being? What does it take to be a good anything, in fact? It always takes a specific state of goodness, doesn’t it? I don’t see how we can deny that, Callicles.

And whether we’re talking about a good artefact, a good body, a good mind for that matter, or a good creature, what it takes for these states of goodness to occur in an ideal form is not chaos, but organization and perfection and the particular branch of expertise whose province the object in question is. Right? I agree.

In every case, then, a good state is an organized and orderly state, isn’t it? I’d say so. So a thing has to be informed by a particular orderly structure—the structure appropriate to it—to be good, doesn’t it? I think so.

Doesn’t it follow that a mind possessed of its proper structure is better than a disordered mind? It’s bound to be.

But a ‘mind possessed of orderly structure’ is an orderly mind, isn’t it? Naturally.

And an orderly mind is a self-disciplined mind? Absolutely.

From which it follows that a self-disciplined mind is a good mind. Now, I can’t see anything wrong with this argument, Callicles, but if you can, please tell me what it is.

CALLICLES: Just get on with it, Socrates.

SOCRATES: All right. If a self-disciplined mind is good, then a mind in the opposite state is bad. In other words, an undisciplined and self-indulgent mind is bad. Yes.

Now, a disciplined person must act in an appropriate manner towards both gods and his fellow human beings, because inappropriate behaviour indicates lack of self-discipline. Yes, that’s bound to be so.

Well, when ‘appropriate’ is used of the way we relate to our fellow human beings, it means ‘just’; and when it's applied to the way we relate to the gods, it means ‘religious'. And, of course, anyone who acts justly and religiously is a just and religious person. True.

He's also bound to have courage, because a disciplined person doesn’t choose inappropriate objects to seek out or avoid. No, he turns towards or away from events, people, pleasures, and irritations as and when he should, and steadily endures what he should endure. It follows, Callicles, that because a self-disciplined person is just, brave, and religious, as we’ve explained, he’s a paradigm of goodness. Now, a good person is bound to do whatever he does well and successfully, and success brings fulfillment and happiness, whereas a bad man does badly and is therefore unhappy. Unhappiness, then, is the lot of someone who’s the opposite of self-disciplined—in other words, the kind of self-indulgent person you were championing.

That’s my position, and I believe it to be true. If it really is true, it looks as though anyone who wants to be happy must seek out and practice self-discipline, and beat as hasty a retreat as possible away from self-indulgence. The best course would be for him to see to it that he never has to be restrained, but if he or anyone close to him…does ever need it, then he must let justice and restraint be imposed, or else forfeit happiness.

I’ll tell you what the ideal is that we should set ourselves to live by, in my opinion. We should devote all our own and our community’s energies towards ensuring the presence of justice and self-discipline, and so guaranteeing happiness. That’s what should guide our actions. We shouldn’t refuse to restrain our desires, because that condemns us to a life of endlessly trying to satisfy them. And this is the life of a predatory outlaw, in the sense that anyone who lives like that will never be on good terms with anyone else—any other human being, let alone a god—since he’s incapable of co-operation, and co-operation is a prerequisite for friendship. In fact, Callicles, the experts’ opinion is that co-operation, love, order, discipline, and justice bind heaven and earth, gods and men. That’s why they call the universe an ordered whole, my friend, rather than a disorderly mess or an unruly shambles. . . . [We] should denounce any wrongs committed not only by ourselves, but even by our family and friends…this is what rhetoric should be used for.

Oh Plato, my silly little edge lord, perhaps you should not be yapping so prescriptively hard about things whilst living at a time when the scientific method was fantasizing about being chained in a cave all while fucking your much younger femboy student.
God, I hate virtue ethics so much. Pleasure is good! Art is good! Humour is good! Lying is sometimes good, truth is probably relative, and it's pretty fucking convenient (gay) that a muscular body acquired through gymnastics is the height of virtue and good for the soul, while story-telling, pastry-making, and painting are manipulative "knacks". Yes, Socrates, certainly so!
Also, not Plato writing fanfiction about how a just man does not need rhetoric for logic will prevail over everything, and making the protagonist his teacher crush who is about to be executed by the city of Athens for being too much of a "facts don't care about your feelings" debate bro. Idk, perhaps a bit of flattery and a well-timed joke could have saved Socrates and call me crazy but hot take, that would have been good actually.
No amount of post-nut clarity could make this man acquire nuance or a sliver of self-awareness.

Socrates at his finest.

This is my introduction to ancient literature, and a spectacular one at that. I did not expect to be engaged in Socrates’ flawless arguments, repetitive yet ingenious questioning, and shockingly relevant message about the duty of the authentic rhetorician and politician- to make people better and lead communities with virtue and self-discipline instead of indulging their audience in flattery. Although that is the main thread of the dialogue, the “rabbit trail” arguments about justice, self-restraint, and the definition of rhetoric were fascinating, as well. Every person who aspires to become proficient in rhetoric or who wishes to run for public office needs to read this. And although I don’t want to get into politics here, by considering Plato’s definition of a good politician, it really shouldn’t require deep thinking to know that, ahem… today’s politicians across all spectrums don’t meet that definition.

Ik hebben deze tekst gelezen voor een filosofiecursus. Ten eerste vond ik de tekst een stuk humoristischer dan ik had verwacht, het is geschreven als een gesprek tussen verschillende mannen, waaronder Socrates. Dit was mijn eerste ervaring met een socratisch gesprek en ik vond dat erg interessant, ook omdat de docent vaak de rol van Socrates aannam, waardoor we allemaal snel leerden onze antwoorden duidelijk en compleet te verwoorden. Er staan veel wijsheden over het goede doen in het leven, die waren deels erg leerzaam en deels ook heel achterhaald naar mijn mening (wat ook wel klopt gezien de tijd waarin het is geschreven.)