To begin my response for this week, I would fist like to turn to the final sentences of the “Gorgias”: “So let’s use the account that has now been disclosed to use as our guide, one that indicates to us that this way of life is the best, to practice justice and the rest of excellence both in life and in death. Let us follow it, then, and call on others to do so, too, and let’s not follow the one that you believe in and call on me to follow. For that one is worthless, Callicles” (869). The reason I want to begin at the end is because these few poignant lines really seem to illustrate to me one of the major themes of the entire text, which is the argument over the value and purpose of rhetoric. Throughout the entire dialogue we find Socrates attempting to demonstrate that people should follow the “way of life” dedicated to discovering truths. As Socrates points out, he is “one of those people who in a discussion with someone else really want to have knowledge of the subject the discussion’s about” (798). In other words, the “good life” deals with dialectical philosophy and narrowing the point under discussion to reach a state of agreement and essentially find truth when there is nothing left to refute.
To understand the point Socrates is trying to make in the finally lines of the dialogue, I think, first requires the establishment of a definition of oratory, or the “way of life” one should not follow according to Socrates. Socrates begins, in the first argument, by examining Gorgias’ claim of being “knowledgeable in the craft of oratory and to be able to make someone else an orator, too” and attempts to discover what exactly Gorgias is claiming he can teach (795). Gorgias finally claims oratory is concerned with persuasion “the kind that takes place in law courts and in those other large gatherings […] it’s concerned with those matters that are just and unjust” (799). By the end of the first argument Socrates has reduced oratory to a contradiction, at least in Socrates’ own view, because it is an agent of power with the possibility of immorality being its motivation. Socrates also seems to be making the argument that an orator cannot know what is definitively just or unjust, which means an orator is incapable of teaching someone else a definitive idea of what just and unjust are and instead claims that what is actually being taught is a way to win an argument by persuading shifting audiences. As Socrates claims, “Oratory doesn’t need to have any knowledge of […] subject matters; it only needs to have discovered some device to produce persuasion in order to make itself appear to those who don’t have knowledge that it knows more than those who actually do have it” (804). What Socrates is beginning to establish is a binary relationship between oratory and philosophy as outlined earlier and in the second argument Socrates furthers this binary by establishing isolating, and arguing against what he considers to be the negative aspects of oratory. Socrates claims that there is no expertise in oratory and that it is instead a type of “knack” on the part of the orator and its goal is the production of “a certain gratification and pleasure” (806). Next Socrates makes the argument that oratory is really flattery, because it can persuade the foolish people into immediate pleasure by making a certain point appear better than its alternative (807).
Before the third argument begins, Socrates has established the principles he needs to have in place in order to build the true point of his argument, which is the issue of how one should live their life. Callicles, at the start of the third argument, seems to introduce the concept that a person should study oratory instead of philosophy in order to be able to make a defense for themselves in the courts. In summary, Callicles’ main point is that philosophy has a place, but it is only good for the young and oratory is superior because it is used to help the masses. Socrates counters all of Callicles’ arguments, and instead makes the case that people should always show self-restraint, be concerned with morality, and always act in a morally appropriate way so they are prepared for the afterlife. According to Socrates, “if I came to my end because of a deficiency in flattering oratory, I know that you’d see me bear my death with ease. For no one who isn’t totally bereft of reason and courage is afraid to die; going what’s unjust is what he’s afraid of. For to arrive in Hades with one’s soul stuffed full of unjust action is the ultimate of all bad things” (865). In other words, according to Socrates, a person should spend their lives in the pursuit of truth by acting justly and should not spend their days perfecting the “knack” they may have for persuading audiences through flattery which could lead to unjust actions and essentially leave a person’s soul on the path to hell.