[Authors and titles are listed at the end of the review]
David Machek and Vladimír Mikeš have collected papers, originating from the Twelfth Symposium Platonicum Pragense, that employ a variety of methods and distinct perspectives to address the question of the unity and persuasiveness of Plato’s Gorgias. The eleven essays are arranged in three parts, which cover: 1) rhetoric and speech; 2) psychology and virtue; and 3) politics and way of life. Bibliography accompanies each essay. There is an index of primary passages cited, but no general or topical index. Of special note, the entire volume is available on open access here. Its greatest strength is the breadth of topics covered and the variety of methods employed by the contributors. There are studies on the moral value of rhetoric and Socratic philosophy; rhetorical aspects of Socratic philosophizing; the moral psychology implied in the Gorgias; the use of tragic material drawn from Euripides; and the significance of the dialogue’s concluding myth. The contributions consistently uphold high standards of scholarly engagement and argumentation. The physical book is sturdy and attractive.
Part 1 introduces the basic theme of the moral value of rhetoric, with two essays on the question of the moral neutrality of rhetorical art and another two on the possibility of its combination with the practice of philosophy and the relation between philosophy and political action or politics. Part 2 considers the moral psychology and motivation implied at different points of the Gorgias, including studies on different aspects of Socratic “intellectualism” and the theory of virtue implied in the dialogue. Part 3 rounds out the collection with essays on Plato’s integration of features of tragedy into a new ideal of philosophical heroism; his use of the concluding myth of post-mortem judgement to reinforce the preceding arguments, specifically “to visualize the inner dynamics of the soul” (198); and on the Gorgias as an extended polemic against populism.
Mikeš’s opening chapter shows how the initial conversation between Socrates and Gorgias reveals two distinct concepts or “two legitimate ways of seeing rhetoric; namely, as a craft intrinsically related to a subject and as a skill that is subject-free” (13). The essay helpfully summarizes the various ways scholars have understood the contradiction (or apparent contradiction) in Gorgias’s account of rhetoric and his refutation by Socrates. The key takeaway from the whole discussion is that “speaking for Plato cannot but be structured by its subject in the sense that one is obliged to say something about it. … if one speaks about something one must have at least an opinion about the thing. … [Plato] does not admit a possibility to step out of the intentional relation between speaking and its subject. He does not admit a rhetoric as a discipline concerned with mere form” (18).
Frisbee Sheffield, in Chapter 2, further demonstrates the significance of the act of speaking as a relation between individual persons and within entire social groups. She sees within Socratic conversation the enactment or realization of five values which Socrates highlights in his conversation with Callicles: koinonia, philia, orderliness, moderation, and justice. These values or principles, at least according to “the wise” whom Socrates quotes (507e), are constitutive not only of any instance of effective speech, but are in fact the fundamental principles of both cosmic and social order. They are also the principles that constitute a well-ordered individual soul, the production and preservation of which is the outcome (and the essence) of the practice of dialogue, at least in the Socratic mode.
One shortcoming of the collection is a terminological one. The authors variously refer to the “craft of speaking” (Sheffield), “philosophical conversation” (Dow), “conventional rhetoric” (Dow), “public advocacy” (Dow), “speechmaking” (Dow and Irani), and “rhetorical form” (Irani). Erler’s chapter makes similar use of the term “intellectual”—taken as roughly equivalent to philosopher in the context of the dialogue. Such terms are confusing because they have no obvious counterpart in the Greek of the Gorgias. “Craft of speaking,” for example, which Sheffield often applies to Socrates’s own practice of philosophical conversation appears nowhere in the dialogue with that significance. When referring to his own distinctive practice of speech, Socrates simply calls it “conversing” (dialegesthai, 448d10, 458b) or describes his particular manner of “refutation” (elenchos, 458a, 472c). The Greek word that corresponds to “craft of speaking” is rhetorike, which is what Gorgias says that his own craft should be called (449a).
The problem with such terminological imprecision is most evident in the juxtaposition of the essays by Dow and Irani (Chapters 3 and 4). The basic claim of Dow’s essay is that Socrates wholly rejects anything that would be “ordinarily recognized as rhetoric or political activity” and upholds in its place his own kind of “philosophical conversation” as “the best civic contribution a person can make, and the best deployment of speeches (λόγοι)” (75). Irani, in contrast, argues that “Socrates has nothing in principle against the use of a long speech as part of the practice of philosophical inquiry and argument” (77). There is in fact a “sort of rhetoric that Socrates licenses in the dialogue.”
On the surface, it appears that Dow and Irani simply disagree—each defending one of two contrary opinions about Socrates’s attitude towards rhetoric: Dow that Socrates rejects everything rhetorical; Irani that he incorporates many rhetorical elements into his practice of philosophy. The truth is that they are working with fundamentally different understandings of the meaning of the word rhetoric. And while each essay is strong and insightful on its own terms, there is no direct engagement between the authors. The terminological tension remains unresolved, which seems like a missed opportunity, because the dialogue itself continually urges us to consider how exactly to draw the line dividing philosophos and rhetor. (See in particular 500d.)
It would be fascinating, for example, to discover what Dow thinks of the excellent point made by Irani regarding Callicles’s long oration in criticism of Socrates’s attachment to philosophy and disregard of rhetoric (p. 80, on 482c–486d). Even though the entire speech pours ridicule upon the practice philosophy into adulthood, Socrates surprisingly praises Callicles for his efforts. Instead of seeing this as irony, Irani takes Socrates to be sincerely praising Callicles for “a finely wrought and well-thought-out case for choosing the rhetorical life over the philosophical” (81). Because the speech is based on reasoned argument and oriented towards greater understanding, it contributes towards the fundamentally philosophical project he and Socrates together pursue.
A highlight of the middle part of the collection is Naly Thaler’s essay, which addresses the apparent inconsistency or lack of unity between an “intellectualistic” theory of moral motivation upheld by Socrates in his conversation with Polus, and his recognition later in the dialogue of mental conflict and so apparently also of irrational (or non-good-oriented) desires. Thaler argues convincingly that mental conflict, instead of arising from a tension between our judgement about the good and conflicting irrational desires, is the result of contingent circumstances that prevent the simultaneous satisfaction of desires for different goods—in his example, desires for wealth and for preserving one’s physical health (107). But the greatest strength of the essay is Thaler’s application of this theory to Socrates’s dialectical practice with regard to Callicles. Because Callicles holds that the only virtues are wisdom and courage, “he cannot see [as Socrates can] the principled incongruity between these latter virtues and the desire for pleasure” even when presented with the case of cowards who experience greater pleasure than the courageous (113, referring to 497e–499b). But instead of “vainly forcing” Callicles to accept temperance as intrinsically valuable and that pleasure is not a good at all, Socrates proceeds by stages, getting Callicles to admit first that he would recognize certain constraints on the pursuit of pleasure.
E. R. Dodds wrote in the preface to his 1959 edition of Plato’s Gorgias: “The notion of producing a commentary on the Gorgias took root in my mind when at the outbreak of the last war I found myself lecturing on it to undergraduates who were soon to be soldiers. The circumstances of the time brought sharply home both to me and to my audience the relevance of this dialogue to the central issues, moral and political, of our own day …” Anyone who reads Plato’s Gorgias and perceives the same relevance that Dodds did to the issues of the day will find ample resources, support, and impetus to further study in the varied essays collected here by David Machek and Vladimír Mikeš.
Authors and Titles
Part 1, Rhetoric and Speech
- Vladimír Mikeš, “Is Ethically Neutral Rhetoric a Real Option for Plato”
- Frisbee C.C. Sheffield, “The Value of Communication in the Gorgias: Modelling Value in Speech”
- Jamie Dow, “What Is True Rhetoric in Plato’s Gorgias?”
- Tushar Irani, “The Purpose of Rhetorical Form in Plato”
Part 2, Psychology and Virtue
- Naly Thaler, “Psychic Conflict and Intrinsic Value in the Gorgias”
- Louis-André Dorion, “Se délivrer du plus grand mal: elenchos et châtiment dans le Gorgias”
- Emilia Cucinotta, “The Perils of Phronesis: Socrates’ Understanding of Excellence in Plato’s Gorgias”
- David Machek, “Warum ist Unrechttun schlimmer als Unrechtleiden?”
Part 3, Politics and Way of Life
- Marie-Pierre Noël, “De l’Amphion d’Euripide au Socrate de Platon: héroïsme tragique et héroïsme philosophique dans le Gorgias”
- Veronika Konrádová, “Judicial Reform and the Meaning of the Eschatological Myth in the Gorgias”
- Michael Erler, “Socrates and the Weakness of the Strong Man: Plato’s Polemic against Populisms in the Gorgias”