ΓΟΡΓΙΑΣ
Thomas Taylor (1804)
Plato · Thomas Taylor (1804)
The Gorgias pits Socrates against teachers and admirers of rhetoric, and rises into a passionate debate about how one ought to live. Socrates argues the great Platonic paradoxes: that doing injustice is worse than suffering it, that the wrongdoer is better off being punished, and that a life of unchecked pleasure and power is in truth the most wretched.
Rhetoric, he contends, is no true art but a 'knack' of flattery, as cookery is to medicine — persuasion without knowledge of the good. The dialogue closes with a myth of the judgment of souls after death.
From the Plato Scroll Encyclopedia · open this entry in the reader
Callicles: In this manner, Socrates, they say it is requisite to engage in war and contention.
Socrates: But have we not, according to the proverb, come after the festival? and are we not late?
Callicles: And, indeed, after a very elegant festival. For Gorgias, a little before, exhibited to us many and beautiful things.
Socrates: But Chærepho, O Callicles, was the cause of our being so late: for he compelled us to waste our time in the forum.
Chærepho: It is, however, of no consequence, Socrates: for I can apply a remedy, as Gorgias is my friend, who either now, or at some future time, will, if you please, exhibit the same things to us.
Callicles: But what, Chærepho, does Socrates desire to hear Gorgias?
Chærepho: We are certainly come hither for this very purpose.
Callicles: Whenever, therefore, you please, come to me at my house: for Gorgias resides with me, and will exhibit to you whatever you desire.
Socrates: You speak well, Callicles. But will he be willing to discourse with us now? For I wish to inquire of the man what the power of his art is, and what it is he professes and teaches. But the other things which you speak of, he may show us some other time.
Callicles: There is nothing like asking him, Socrates: for this is one of the things which he exhibited. He, therefore, just now promised all that are in the house, that he would answer any question that might be asked him.
Socrates: You certainly speak well. Ask him, therefore, Chærepho.
Chærepho: What must I ask him?
Socrates: What he is.
Chærepho: How do you say?
Socrates: Just as, if he should happen to be an artificer of shoes, he would answer you that he was a shoemaker. Or do you not understand what I say?
Chærepho: I do; and I will ask him. Tell me, O Gorgias, did Callicles here say true, that you promised to answer whatever should be asked you?
Gorgias: He spoke the truth, Chærepho: for I just now made this promise: and I say that no one has asked me any thing new for many years.
Chærepho: You will, therefore, answer easily, Gorgias.
Gorgias: We shall make trial of this, Chærepho.
Polus: Do so, by Jupiter: but if you please, Chærepho, discourse with me: for Gorgias appears to me to be weary; as he has just now discussed many particulars.
Chærepho: But what, Polus, do you think that you can answer better than Gorgias?
Polus: Of what consequence is it, if you are answered sufficiently?
Chærepho: It is of no consequence: but, since you are willing, answer me.
Polus: Ask.
Continue reading in Plato Scroll →
The Athenian who turned Socratic conversation into a written philosophy and founded the Academy.
Plato was born around 428 BCE into a wealthy and politically prominent Athenian family; through his mother Perictione the family traced kinship to the lawgiver Solon, and his relatives Critias and Charmides were among the oligarchs of the Thirty. A late tradition says his given name was Aristocles and that 'Plato' — from the word for 'broad' — was a nickname. He grew up during the long agony of the Peloponnesian War and came of age amid the violence and disillusion that followed Athens' defeat.
Plato · Thomas Taylor (1804). Each edition has its page, the reader and a plain-text file:
PLATO SCROLL