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. Callicles responded once to a question posed by Socrates with a “perhaps,” which Socrates found unacceptable. On numerous occasions, Callicles answered with a “let it stand” response to keep the discussion going, not to indicate his agreement or disagreement which is what Socrates typically required.

How the Socratic method of argumentation is conducive to genuine dialogue is lost on me. Socrates comes across as the Sophist that he so much dislikes. He is a prosecutor who is leading his listener into an intended result. Callicles tells Socrates he doesn’t know what Socrates is saying or where he is going with his questions. And that’s the problem with Gorgias. What is the point of all of these Socratic argument chains? Instead of simply stating his position in a few lines, and then opening it up for discussion, the reader has to endure the Socratic method, wondering with Callicles, what the point is and when this is going to end.

Socrates does not approve of Sophist spin, their lack of substance, their play to common opinion or their mode of pleasing those who pay their fees. Socrates, it is said, wants truth telling, even if he’s a minority of one, but he comes off as a pitchman who is not so honest himself. While it is more implicit than not in this dialogue, Socrates version of the truth is different than what most of us understand. His good is not about our world. It's not to cater to the body and its desires. In fact, these lead us down the wrong path. This is disorder when Socrates wants a soul that is ordered by mind. The standard for what is good and bad lies in a transcendent, eternal and perfect realm, not the life of the flesh. This, not bodily pleasure, is what is best for the soul and Socrates is unvarying in his vision. This all comes to a head at the tail end of the dialogue where Socrates outlines the afterworld where souls go to be assessed and judged good or bad, and assigned eternal life or life in an eternal hell-like world (Socrates is quite explicit in his discussion). This Christian-like afterworld does not exist for many. Once that rug is pulled out from people the age-old questions remain: What is good? Why be good? What is justice? Why be just? For those who do not, or cannot, believe as Socrates does, Plato becomes less relevant, philosophically.

If we had a genuine dialogue on these questions we might progress some, especially if we look at the body that Socrates so disparages. Might soul be the motivational force that drives us to survive and live well? Might this motivation underlie the mind so that the mind does what is best for the body’s interest (i.e., why be good, if it’s not in one’s own interest?), and is the Good and Just the pursuit of one’s interest in ways that are compatible with that of others who pursue their interest? And then, in lieu of Plato’s ordered class society (workers, guardians, philosophers), we throw them all into the same soup and judge them by what they do regarding their respect for the freedom of others. Those that step over the line of respect for others can be, figuratively at least, cast to Hades. Those who respect the freedom of others can live well in this life, if not in an eternal life on the Islands of the Blessed.

"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 effectively with what is also unsaid, and putting his own theories and ethics into a form of writing that shares more similarities to drama than it does to philosophy.

At the beginning of the Republic, Thrasymachus storms away angry after Socrates' relentless probing proves that he has no idea what justice is (he starts with "Justice is the advantage of the stronger", and furiously gives up after he's reduced to "Justice is minding one's own business", hahaha!). This is perhaps only the most famous encounter with Socrates blatantly coming forth with the question "What is justice?" But here, that question is nearly irrelevant, at least to the interlocutors. Justice is spoken of by all as an understood concept, that there is indeed an inherent good and bad. This is almost never the case outright for Socrates!

What Plato is trying to do here is something completely different, he is caught leading with faith. The other moment where faith enters Plato's Socrates is in the Phaedo, during Socrates' soothsaying to his disciples present at his execution, when he talks about the immortality of the soul. What interests me about both of these moments, in the Phaedo and at the end of the Gorgias (which is essentially implying the immortality of the soul through heaven), is the incongruity of faith and untruth (or, maybe more agnostically and realistically, the unknowable), and how they are and are not at odds with Socrates', and likely Plato's, thought. It's the tendency to condemn writing and poets, yet have the most major and extensive parts of your intercourse deal with their written words and myths.

There are a lot of analogues with the Republic here, but there are so many equally interesting comparisons to be made with Phaedo, too! An example I've considered most is the constant invocation of pleasure and pain here. It's almost as if the Phaedo was specifically referencing the Gorgias when Socrates talks about his final moments in the former--here, in the Gorgias, this is explained at length. It's the feeling of satiating a great hunger, where you feel the pain of the emptiness while you feel the pleasure of filling it simultaneously. This can have analogues in the physical realm, appetites, sex, medicine, but most importantly, in the mind. Its what happens when we learn, or when we learn we are wrong.

I treat my Plato reviews more like journal entries, more self-interested than convincing or appealing to read, but one thing I do hope that I can persuade people to ponder are the dialogues first words:

CALLICLES: This, they say, is how you're supposed to do your part in battle, Socrates

WHAT? Just like so many other dialogues we are introduced to the scene at the very end of a conversation, with Callicles, of all people, exampling Socrates with some military advice. The irony is palpable.

In the Jowett translation (the former was Zeyl):

CALLICLES: The wise man, as the proverb says, is late for a fray, but not for a feast.

While Jowett is, as usual, more poetic, I am willing to think Zeyl's is the more accurate here. I think the minor ironic detail adds a lot to how we consider the rest of the piece. However, as the dialogue proves, no one really comes out of here wise, as the feast on Gorgias' words led to a fray--but perhaps it was the fray that provided wisdom, afterall.

I read the book first my philosophy class. It helped me a lot to understand the concept of philosophy and made me think in depth a lot of
things like crime, punishment and freedom...

Did exactly what a philosophy book should do.

Also I'm kinda concerned that my ancestors were sitting around talking about stupid things but I guess they were just chill guys...