Gorgias

c. 483 - c. 376 BCE · Greek (Sicilian, of Leontini) · Sophistic philosophy, rhetoric, philosophy of language, epistemology, ethics of persuasion

Speech is a powerful lord, which by means of the finest and most invisible body effects the divinest works.

When Gorgias arrived in Athens in 427 BCE as ambassador for his Sicilian city, he left without resolving the crisis but having ignited an intellectual one. His speech — antitheses with surgical precision, clauses chiming against each other, rhyming endings turning argument into incantation — was unlike anything the Athenians had heard. He spent the next half-century teaching, living, the tradition said, to one hundred and eight.

Topics Gorgias addresses

• logos as dynamis
• the three theses of On Non-Being
• the Encomium of Helen
• the Defense of Palamedes
• the pharmakon comparison
• apate and willing deception
• kairos
• to prepon
• eikos
• the four-cause defense structure
• doxa and the limits of episteme
• rhetoric as techne
• thelxis and goeteia
• the soul-affect doctrine
• antithesis and isocolon
• homoioteleuton
• response to Parmenidean monism
• the relation of logos to pragmata
• Palamedes as the wrongly-accused
• rhetorical realism on truth
• the Plutarch tragedy fragment
• Plato's critique of rhetoric
• the pedagogical lineage to Isocrates
• relation to Empedocles

Questions to put to Gorgias

Logos as Dynamis — The Power of Speech

• What do you mean when you say speech is a great potentate?
• How does logos work on the soul the way drugs work on the body?
• What's the difference between persuasion and compulsion in your view?
• Why do you use magical vocabulary like thelxis and goeteia to describe rhetoric?
• Can you explain the soul-affect doctrine from the Encomium of Helen?
• If logos has this power over the soul, how is anyone responsible for being persuaded?

The Encomium of Helen and the Four-Cause Defense

• Why did you choose to defend Helen of Troy?
• How do the four causes in the Encomium absolve Helen of blame?
• What's the argument that persuasion by logos removes Helen's responsibility?
• How does the willing submission to apate in tragedy relate to Helen's case?
• What's at stake for you in proving Helen blameless?

On Non-Being and the Response to Parmenides

• What are the three theses of On Non-Being?
• Are you serious in arguing that nothing exists, or is this rhetorical display?
• How does On Non-Being respond to Parmenides on his own ground?
• What's the relation between logos and pragmata in your view?
• Why use Eleatic dialectical technique to argue against Eleatic conclusions?

Rhetoric as Techne — Kairos, To Prepon, and Eikos

• What makes rhetoric a real techne and not just a knack?
• What do you mean by kairos — the opportune moment?
• How does to prepon guide the fitting adjustment of speech to audience?
• What is eikos-argument and why does it matter in forensic speech?
• How do you respond to Plato's charge that rhetoric is just flattery?
• What teachable principles do you pass on to your students?

The Defense of Palamedes and the Wrongly-Accused

• Why did you choose Palamedes as the subject of a model defense speech?
• What's the four-part structure of forensic defense in the Palamedes?
• How does the Defense demonstrate argument from impossibility and probability?
• Is Palamedes just a pedagogical example or does the choice carry ethical weight?
• What's the relation between the techne of logos and justice for the innocent?

Truth, Doxa, and the Rhetorical Realist Position

• Do you deny that there's such a thing as truth?
• What's the difference between doxa and episteme in your teaching?
• How do truth-claims get made when direct knowledge isn't available?
• What do you mean when you say the deceiver in tragedy is more just than the non-deceiver?
• How is your position different from saying anything goes as long as you argue it well?

Converse with Gorgias on Simposeum. Replies are grounded in Gorgias's own writing, cited to the page.