Plato's Gorgias -- Brief Introduction

[@plumpedalpaca]

Is it weird that I hear this in order to fall asleep? I love the topic and his voice!

[@katywinchester2459]

The cinematography on this video is amazinggg

[@katywinchester2459]

I like your double chin dad

[@sabreammar8610]

thank you for this nice introduction sir, it is deeply appreciated!

[@danixxx3440]

my mans speaking straight 🔥

[@thattimestampguy]

*The Gorgias- On Rhetoric* Rhetoric - the art of persuasion (it’s an art? What’s art?) 1:17 The most famous teacher of Greek Rhetoric 2:23 Socrates Rhetoric pursues flattery Cooking, Poetry, Music - Heals souls Silencing people Good? Bad? 4:46 Conventional Convention vs Nature Love ❤️ for wisdom and people 6:09 Real Men do not back down Love what one has Love what one does not have 8:17 Not deeply

[@sadie9530]

Much appreciation!

[@platosworld]

Glad to help!

[@SgtScaryGary]

savin' my ass in philosophy class, thanks.

[@actualideas8078]

Philosophize on this: why do you pay for school when you can learn it better online for free?

[@inelhuayocan_aci]

@@actualideas8078 He sounds like a bad student, which has nothing to do with the quality of the education he was receiving. I taught undergraduates, and was once one myself.

[@counterstriving]

Excellent, as always.

[@platosworld]

Thank you--much appreciated

[@YoavSorek]

Thank you !

[@bigbeefscorcho]

Great video. Not reading Gorgias for a class or anything, but nonetheless, very enlightening video to buttress the reading. Subscribed for all the other great content, many thanks!

[@johnharvey3748]

Great stuff. Thank you 😊

[@platosworld]

You're welcome! Glad you found it helpful.

[@jurgenblick5491]

Enlightening

[@platosworld]

Thanks!

[@kennethjoseph8360]

finally someone going straight to point

[@platosworld]

That's what Platosworld's all about

[@gerardox92]

Wait.... Wait i completely got somewhat of a different understanding from the dialogue😅😅

[@andycastro1014]

Some have accused Socrates' own rhetoric as failing with Callicles but after I read it for myself I see Callicles being rather difficult himself at the outset of his part of the dialogue. He doesn't seem to welcome his assumptions to be poked at.

[@platosworld]

Callicles is certainly difficult. But he and Socrates share some common ground, in love and nature. In the end, however, Callicles thinks real men should grow up and move from philosophy to more serious (political) matters. He has a point, when it comes to self-protection. But his love of his own also decisively limits him.

[@cacadores3955]

Remember, Socretes had already lost the debate with Gorgias, resorting to such absurdities as oratory is "dishonourable", and "true beauty...is the product of training".

[@cacadores3955]

"They give to Socretes" and Gorgias shows "shame" and lacks "seriousness"? Eh? Not once does Gorgias show shame or lack serious or give in. What an odd and strangely prejudicial comment. Gorgias tells Socretes the nature of his art: "the greatest and the best" and Socretes deliberately ignores that statement of "becoming" because he doesn't know how to deal with it.

[@platosworld]

Gorgias wants to withdraw at 458e but shame in the face of the crowd keeps him from retreating. Soc. reduces him to silence quickly, but G. still sticks around to listen and pays att'n. Polus, "the Colt," needs harsher treatment. Soc. shows how he fundamentally misunderstands himself (his attachment to what's noble). None of this is prejudicial: Soc. chooses this dialogue. He wants to learn from Gorgias, and does learn the limits of Gorgias' rhetoric ("an image of the art of politics") and his own, which fails to win over even the somewhat friendly Callicles.

[@cacadores3955]

@@platosworld Thank you. The only delineation of the "limits of Gorgias' rhetoric" in this dialogue was put by Gorgias himself in 457, that the skill can be mis-used, but that that is no reason to "banish the teacher". So I am sorry but nowhere do you provide evidence that Gorgias felt "shame in the face of the crowd". And Gorgias "sticks around", obviously, because he's staying at the house! Instead you make a newly derogatory assertion, that "Soc. reduces him to silence quickly". Er, no he doesn't. Gorgias had explained at length since 448 at Socretes's prompting the power of oratory even though one observer, Polis, points out that "Gorgias is worn out". Socretes responded by being deliberately insulting, putting forward bad-faith assertions he explains away with childish semantic concurrences, saying that Gorgias' skill is a "spurious counterfeit", "dishonourable","pandering" and "merely a knack". These are clearly crafted, ugly insults directed at Gorgias but Socretes gets away with them because they are not actually ad hominem. Even so, Gorgias answers like a gentleman, saying in 458, ".... but perhaps we ought to consider the rest of the company. Before your arrival I had already given them a long demonstration". This is an older man who is very tired. Even so, Gorgias continues, "if our friends approve, go on with the conversation and ask me anything you like". So why would you even use the pejorative phrase "reduces him to silence" when he does no such thing? The boorish Socretes cannot justify the insults he made early in 463, and when he again resorts to the same childish semantic categorisations about what an "art" is to justify himself, he forgets Gorgias' already undermined his point in 456. Socretes appears to realise that he is losing his audience and all he has left is to double down on the insults - exemplifying what I would say was his own staged admission by denial, when he said in 457, a propos of absolutely nothing, that "you may suppose that my purpose is not so much to elucidate the subject as to win a verbal victory over you". Socretes wants the debate to end in disarray because any audience can see he's lost the argument. So when Gorgias fails to take the bait and instead politely demands in 463 that Socretes "tell me what you mean when you call oratory a spurious counterfeit of a branch of the art of government", look how Socretes cannot answer him directly, abandons the dialectic method completely, and goes back on, again, an improvised conjuncture of spurious verbal categories full of desperate outliers, like "an unreal appearence of health" (for goodness' sake) and patent absurdities, like "true beauty.... is the product of training". How can anyone take the person who says such things seriously? Unable to win a debate with Gorgias, Socretes switches his attention to the inexperienced Polis because he makes for a protagonist better matched to his skills. It's interesting that at no point in your response can you justify saying Gorgias shows "shame" and "lacks seriousness" when Socretes is clearly playing a verbal game and doing it poorly. Perhaps you simply made a mistake.

[@platosworld]

@@cacadores3955 I've made many mistakes, and no doubt some mistakes in this introduction too. Whether I'm mistaken on the points you raise about Gorgias, I'm not sure. It will take me a few days to return to the dialogue and review your objections--I'll be back. Thanks

[@cacadores3955]

@@platosworld Thanks. And I don't claim I'm right - like Protagoras, I can only claim there is at least another way of looking at this dialogue since all we have are our impressions and all appearences are particular to the one who experiences it.