callicles just keeps talking

Gorgias is structured in three sections, each section consists of a dialectic argument in dramatic form. The main focus is rhetoric and its uses. What is rhetoric? Is the purpose of rhetoric to win an argument or get to the 'truth'?

Historical context: The 5th century saw the spread of Sophistry and the professional use of rhetoric. Law courts were public occasions, Sophists went around giving lessons in law court rhetoric with an end to instructing others on how to get power and hold onto it. Rhetoric was less important in Sparta where military power was paramount. Aristocrats, tyrants and monarchs didn't use rhetoric to get power they used it when in power. Socrates criticises Pericles and says that he didn't improve the citizens of Athens he just satisfied his own desires. Those desires was mainly that of material satisfaction. The long walls are mentioned and of course the Acropolis was constructed during Pericles time in power. Demosthenes is seen as the only real politician trying to improve matters.

The first part of Gorgias is the most interesting. “Speech is a powerful master and achieves the most divine feats with the smallest and least evident body. It can stop fear, relieve pain, create joy, and increase pity” - Gorgias. (Gorgias 31). Plato refutes this and says rhetoric is a vice, and uses the skill of lying to acquire money. Socrates says that rhetoric is not an art but flattery.

Part one deals with the question of whether or not the job of the teacher is to teach the pupil right and wrong? Or just to teach oratory and give the pupil an instrument. Are they or are they not responsible if the pupil goes out and use it in a criminal way? Is the teacher responsible? Is a system of professional ethics needed for arts, law and medicine?

Part two questions how and why oratory should be used. Should you use oratory in order to advance your objectives at the expense of others? Socrates discusses whether it is worse to do or suffer injustice. What is the good life? What is shameful (Aischron) and what is noble (Kalon). There is still the difficulty of language for the modern reader. There is no ancient Greek word for morality so we have to be careful with applying definitions to morality. There is a Greek word for ethics (ethos) meaning character.

Important questions concerning justice, good, pleasure and pain are discussed. Socrates is a slippery character and a pedant, you can almost hear the frustration in the replies of his fellow philosophers. Highly entertaining. This made me think about the way politicians use language to persuade citizens of the waging of 'just' wars and employ reprehensible terms such as 'collateral damage'.

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.

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.

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.

Is it better to commit evil or to have evil done to you?

Is temperance silly and hedonism sensible?

Does Socrates convince his listeners?

I was very intrigued by the idea of an afterlife. Socrates was close to the Christian view.

And much much more.

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.

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.)

“what a bully you are socrates… argue with someone else”

"It is better to suffer injustice than to be unjust" - a moving exploration of rhetoric and persuasion, the nature of governance, and the goal of human action.

Besides the philosophy, which has been much discussed, I also found interesting Socrates's unusual tone in this dialogue. He is much fiercer and more opinionated than in others, and the whole discussion itself seems more like a heated argument than the typical philosophical debate. Callicles even goes as far as to say Socrates is on the level of an annoying child for studying philosophy at his age.

Five stars due to the number of times I said WOW out loud while reading this dialogue.