Gorgias

Peirce’s True Gorgias is a brief dialogue from his essay “Grounds of Validity of the Laws of Logic”, published in 1869. The True Gorgias exposes the fallacy of existential import. It has received no sustained attention in the secondary literature, perhaps because the fallacy is now familiar. Peirce’s assessment of the fallacy involved in the reasoning, however, changes between 1865 and 1869, and he only arrives at the contemporary account of existential import in 1880. Moreover, a careful examination of the (...) context in which the True Gorgias appears reveals it provides an argument in support of Peirce’s early Aristotelian realism about universals in contradistinction to non-Aristotelian varieties of realism advocated by W.T. Harris, editor of the journal in which the True Gorgias was published. (shrink)

This article urges that what distinguishes dialectic from rhetoric in the Gorgias is their differing conceptions of definitions and argues that: (1) Dialectic centers on the nature of things, rhetoric on their qualities. (2) Dialectic is shown to differ from rhetoric in the inquiry through the application of collection and division. (3) Socrates’ definition and criticism of rhetoric flows from his conception of expertise, not his moral outlook.

“Convertir el λóγος más débil en el más fuerte”, no debería limitarse a ser considerada como la definición del arte de la retórica según un Aristóteles profundamente influenciado por la recepción platónica de esta técnica. La filosofía, considerada como una disciplina, innegablemente ha avanzado, a pesar de que muchas veces el objeto de estudio que nos interesa se haya perdido o nos haya llegado fragmentado. En este contexto se levanta el esfuerzo del Dr. Benjamín Ugalde (1981) por convertir la discusión (...) en torno de pensamiento de aquellos pensadores que han sido relegados a una segunda categoría respecto a la filosofía oficialista en un lugar que merece una mayor consideración, que merece un análisis tan profundo como las filosofías que en occidente se han erguido como las más fuertes. (shrink)

The myth of Helen runs through the poetic and philosophical tradition of the ancient world. Her defense is a paradox for legal tradition and the opportunity for a triumph of rhetoric. Through her name Greeks discuss the enchantment of beauty and desire as a driving force, which can have a destructive or constructive effect, or even act as a medium for great ideals. With Helen, a controversial power is at issue, which emanates from beauty and which presents itself differently to (...) the gaze of men and women, raising a “gender” question that has clear traces in ancient texts. All this gives reason to appreciate, once again, the usefulness of intertextual comparison to investigate themes transversally present in poetic, rhetorical, legal, historical and philosophical texts. The revisiting of myths is already an elective place for a consciously intertextual practice on the part of tragic poets, in which Plato finds a model for his philosophical theatre. Among the detectable intersections, it still deserves investigation that precisely the “rewriting (palinodia)” of the myth of Helen offers Plato the opportunity to introduce a decisive turning point in the Phaedrus, where his Socrates deals with the power of eros by dueling with rhetoric: here a poetic quotation becomes a philosophical place, in which the threads of a distant comparison, sometimes explicit, sometimes underground, intertwine between the intellectuals active in the first half of the 4th century. The ambiguity of the myth of Helen is the underlying theme of this essay, which aims to identify connections between the texts and implications that are not always declared. The themes examined are the praise or denigration connected to the image of Helen in Homer, the double rewriting of the myth in Euripides (The Trojan women and Helen), the different virtuosities of its defense in Stesichorus, Gorgias and Isocrates, the philosophical metamorphosis of the myth in Plato’s Phaedrus, where for the first time the quality of desire is questioned together with the type of love that derives from it. This essay is intended to be a tribute to Livio Rossetti, who made intertextual study an indispensable exegetical model for understanding what is talked about in the literature of the ancient world. (shrink)

This paper advances a version of the theory whereby logic had deep origins in democracy, by re-reading Gorgias’ Encomium of Helen. Democracy, ‘the government by debate’, called political (and scientific) attention to the inferential abilities of citizens and to politicians’ ability of taking advantage of them. Sophists, in particular, discovered that people’s inferences follow constant repeatable forms, that these forms have impact on choices and decisions concerning public good, and then by dominating them you dominate politics in democracy. With the (...) Encomium Gorgias launched these ideas, so laying the ground for Aristotle’s science of deduction. (shrink)

No presente ensaio damos continuidade ao artigo “A lógica do Ser de Parmênides: entre a poesia e a Filosofia”, em vias de publicação pela Argumentos (revista do Programa de Pós-Graduação em Filosofia da Universidade Federal do Ceará). Agora pretendemos mostrar que a crítica de Górgias a Parmênides reside na diferença da concepção de ambos a respeito do ser: enquanto o eleata supõe o ser como identificado ao pensar e ao dizer, Górgias o entende como aquilo que nos afeta a partir (...) das coisas que subsistem. Com isto, promove uma inversão dos enunciados centrais do Poema de Parmênides, afirmando que: 1) Nada existe; 2) Se existisse não poderia ser conhecido; 3) Se pudesse ser conhecido não poderia ser comunicado. Tentaremos mostrar que, além de pôr em xeque o projeto essencialista de Parmênides, inaugurando assim a vertente antiessencialista da filosofia, inverte também o movimento do pensamento do eleata: enquanto este se vale do estilo poético para estabelecer as regras lógicas da investigação filosófica, Górgias parte de uma reflexão lógico-filosófica para romper a identidade Φύσις-λόγος, retomando outra postura poética: a visão trágica, segundo a qual aos mortais não é dado conhecer nem controlar os acontecimentos. (shrink)

I argue in this paper that Gorgias’ Helen has a didactic element that has been overlooked by contemporary critique. I show in section I that Gorgias’ presents a commonsensical pattern of argumentation (the Gods and physical violence) to prepare the reader to the following digressions on logos and on love. I analyze in section II the argument on logos and argue that its reasoning structure depends on the two previous arguments, i.e., that Gorgias transforms logos into a sort of violence. (...) I argue in section III that the argument on love depends on the same transformation. In the end, I show that Helen is both a coherent and a didactic speech. (shrink)

Aristotle’s observation that “Plato not wrongly ordered sophistry around non-being” (Metaph. E 2, 1026b14; also in K 8, 1064b29) refers generally to Plato’s Sophist. The admission of non-being (τὸ μὴ ὄν) could be considered as a certain consequence of the Eleatic monism, which gave rise to the Sophistic movement as has been recognized by Plato and Aristotle. In this paper, we try to identify more precisely the context of this setting of non-being of polemical and very particular importance.

El artículo se propone indagar en la concepción de la «realidad» que tiene la sofística, como referente fundamental para entender mejor su propuesta crítica ante el avance que en esa época está teniendo la «filosofía dogmática» de tipo metafísica. En particular centrando el análisis en la invectiva que al respecto realiza Gorgias de Leontinos en los fragmentos conservados de dos de sus obras fundamentales: el tratado De lo que no es o de la naturaleza y el discurso Encomio de Helena. (...) Aquí se considera que esta es una posible ruta que permite reconstruir parte de su sediciosa propuesta filosófica. El núcleo fundamental que impulsa la reflexión gorgiana es la infranqueable distancia que separa la concepción de una supuesta «realidad en sí» del pensamiento y lenguaje; ante esta prerrogativa es factible entender el poder que le atribuye al logos para influir en las almas y acciones de los seres humanos, pero también en la capacidad del discurso para «hacer diciendo»; en este sentido perfila su perspectiva extrema de que las palabras estrictamente humanas en su fuerza performativa hacen factible «crear la realidad». (shrink)

De maneira reconhecida ou não, a presença de Górgias, e suas teses, no corpus platônico transcende os limites da presença da personagem Górgias nos sete diálogos em que este é mencionado por Platão. Diante de uma influência multifacetada – que abarca desde questões relativas à linguagem, passando pela metafísica, política e estatuto da arte – faz-se necessário um recorte para melhor evidenciar a apropriação e reelaboração platônica do quadro conceitual gorgiano. A pretensão é fazer uma releitura de alguns momentos do (...) texto platônico por meio de um destaque às referências, diretas e indiretas, que nele estão contidas, tanto da sofística de um modo geral, como de Górgias de Leontinos de modo específico. A tese que se pretende defender é a de que as principais hipóteses teóricas apresentadas pelos sofistas, e por Górgias de modo proeminente, devem ser consideradas imprescindíveis para a construção da filosofia platônica – ainda que esta constitua-se como reação ou apropriação seletiva daquelas. Assim, a indústria platônica não se constitui apenas em desqualificar o edifício filosófico gorgiano, a fim de erguer suas teses sobre as ruínas deste, mas também utilizar alguns conceitos da empresa filosófica de Górgias como vigas-mestras da nova perspectiva reflexiva que o discípulo de Sócrates comprometeu-se a desenvolver. (shrink)

My aim is to investigate the link between Plato’s Sophist and Gorgias’s treatise On What Is Not. This relationship is worth examining because Gorgias’s treatise constitutes an essential, but insufficiently studied stage in the intellectual journey leading from Parmenides to the Sophist. My claims are that 1) Plato’s agenda in the Sophist perfectly meets the challenges Gorgias raises in the first thesis of his treatise, that 2) this becomes clear once we focus on Gorgias’s and Plato’s respective use of the (...) verb ‘to be’ and, finally, that 3) Plato is able to overcome Parmenides’s impasse precisely because he deals with Gorgias’s treatise. (shrink)

Traducción al español y edición del griego de los textos del orador y filósofo presocrático Gorgias de Leontini.

Centré sur le Gorgias de Platon, cet article vise à montrer que la critique platonicienne de la rhétorique ne s’élabore pas sur la base d’une hostilité de principe à l’égard du rhéteur, mais se développe au contraire à partir du discours rhétorique lui-même. Nous analysons d’abord les difficultés de l’analogie posant la rhétorique comme un simulacre de la justice : cette analogie révèle en fait la façon dont Gorgias cherche à manifester la singularité et la valeur de son enseignement. Nous (...) examinons ensuite les principales étapes de la discussion entre Socrate et Gorgias, qui se focalise progressivement sur l’usage spécifiquement judiciaire de la rhétorique, pour montrer, dans un dernier temps, en quoi l’interrogation platonicienne sur la justice reprend la réflexion de Gorgias sur le sujet, en la radicalisant. (shrink)

Both Michel Foucault and Barbara Cassin address Aristotle’s thought and the 5th century BCE sources attributed to the rhetorician Gorgias in order to reconstruct the history of the strategic exclusion of the Sophistics from the Western philosophical tradition. They retrace the scene of the rhetoric agon that Aristotle engaged with Gorgias. Both theorists’ arguments illuminate that the sophist has formulated an original account of political theatricality by talking about the scenes of the logos.

What does Gorgias has to say about religious speech considered as a form of rhetorical speech directed at persuasion? Or more precisely, what does his rhetoric teach us about the nature and origin of the persuasiveness of religious speech? Now, to properly understand how, according to Gorgias, from a rhetorical perspective religious beliefs arise, this article shall first deal with his conception of the connection between language, thinking and being. And for this purpose, it will consider his treatise On the (...) Non-Existent or On Nature—after which it shall engage with his rhetorical interpretation of religious speech in the Helen. In this way it becomes clear wherein lies the power of religious speech and what it means for the way in which people are religiously convinced and come to religious faith. (shrink)

This paper deals with an important strand of nihilistic arguments to be found in the works of two philosophers who have so far never been studied comparatively: the sophist Gorgias and the Buddhist monk Nāgārjuna. After having reconstructed Gorgias' moves in the first section of On What is Not (Sections 1-4), the paper shows how the nihilist arguments Gorgias uses mostly feature, under a new light, in the philosophy of emptiness developed by Nāgārjuna (Sections 5-8). The paper ends with a (...) hermeneutical suggestion: that is, to replace traditional ‘sceptical’ interpretations of Gorgias and Nāgārjuna with an alternative one, which takes them as possibly committed to nihilism. (shrink)

This paper argues that the Encomium of Helen must be seen as a speech about the value and importance of wisdom in human life and not as much as one as about logos. Gorgias sustains his vision based on a certain intellectualism which reduces moral faults to intellectual errors. This intellectualist program comprises a rationalization of emotions and a commitment with a certain tradition that discriminates between a minority with knowledge and a majority with only opinion. The consequence for Helen (...) is that she can be excused from her action at the expense of being reproached for her lack of wisdom and is thus relegated to the ignorant majority. Therefore, what is initially praise and an apology turns into severe blame. For this, I argue, the encomium can be qualified as an amusement (paignion). For the Encomium’s listeners the amusement becomes a challenge that demands they decipher the speech’s paradoxical character and appeal to their own wisdom to not be reproached like Helen. Thus the Encomium cannot be seen as a treaty nor as mere joke but rather as an intellectual agôn between the speech and the listener, which serves them “to arm the soul for contests of excellence”, as the epigram dedicated to Gorgias in Delfos says. (shrink)

In his Encomium of Helen and On Not Being, Gorgias of Leontinoi discusses the nature and function of speech more extensively than any other surviving author before Plato. His discussions are not only surprising in the way they characterize the power of logos and its effects on a listener but also in how the two descriptions of speech seem to contradict one another. In the Helen, Gorgias claims that logos is a very powerful entity, capable of affecting a listener in (...) whatever way it wants. In On Not-Being, he makes the very different (but no less exaggerated) claim that logos is a non-entity, incapable of referring to anything other than itself. In this essay I show how these apparently contradictory accounts might be brought into harmony with one another.2 In the first part I address some of the interpretive difficulties with the text of Gorgias’s On Not Being (henceforth ONB) and the role that irony plays in the work. In particular I argue (as others have before) that Gorgias’s remarks about the impotency of speech are not meant to be taken seriously. Instead, they are aimed more squarely at raising questions about how exactly speech is thought to function and, more specifically, how linguistic reference works—i.e., how words somehow correspond to things, on one level, and to our ideas about things, on another. In the second and third parts of this paper, I illustrate how Gorgias’s concern with linguistic reference in ONB goes on to inform his notion of logos in the Encomium of Helen. I point specifically to evidence found in an important and often overlooked exit clause at the close of ONB regarding the difference between words and things. There, Gorgias insists that if words manifest meaning at all, they must appeal to their own sort of sense organ. In the Helen, he draws on the concepts of soul (psychē) and opinion (doxa) in order to construct this alternative, psychagogic account in which utterances are actually apprehended in ways akin to sense perception. Whether or not one is convinced by Gorgias’s alternative account of how speech works, the description he gives of logos does notionally circumvent the problem of linguistic reference and, in doing so, pushes one to think beyond the potentially constrictive framework of nomen et nominatum. I argue that, when read in this way, these two early discussions of logos represent a unified progression of serious thought about how speech works. (shrink)

Gorgias's Thought: An Epistemological Reading is the first monograph published in English entirely devoted to Gorgias's epistemological thought and provides a new perspective on Gorgias's thought more broadly. The book aims to undermine the common idea that Gorgias is either an orator uncommitted to any conception of truth, or a thinker whose interest is confined to the philosophy of language. It considers his major texts - On what is not or on nature, the Apology of Palamedes and the Encomium of (...) Helen - emphasising the originality and specificity of Gorgias' thought. In combining a philological analysis with substantive use of contemporary epistemological approaches, Di Iulio shows that Gorgias is to be considered first and foremost an epistemologist. Gorgias's Thought: An Epistemological Reading is of interest to students, scholars, and specialists in ancient thought, epistemology, history of philosophy, and rhetoric. (shrink)

It is often assumed that the concept of 'alētheia', or ‘truth’, in Gorgias of Leontini belongs to the art of rhetoric. Along these lines, it is usually understood as an aesthetic concept or even a mere ‘adornment’ of speech. In this paper, it is argued, by contrast, that Gorgianic alētheia is a definable criterion of speech figuring in the practice of moral educa­tion. While the ‘truth’ of a logos indeed has to be assessed on aesthetic grounds, the underlying concept of (...) alētheia is predominantly ethical. For Gorgias, speech is ‘true’ when it promotes virtue (aretē) by being expressive of virtue. The principle stated in the opening passage of the Encomium of Helen, that a speaker has ‘to praise what is praiseworthy and to blame what is blameworthy’, explains precisely this understand­ing of alētheia. (shrink)

In this essay I use Socrates’s aside to Callicles at Gorgias 481c5-482b1 to argue that love is essential to philosophy on Plato’s conception. On my reading, Plato uses the drama of the dialogue to critique the discussion therein, against a standard for philosophy which is implicit in Socrates’s remarks. Plato suggests that Socrates’s exchange with Gorgias is the best of the three, since it best realizes the inseparable goals of pursuing truth and becoming more persuadable by reason. What makes it (...) so is that between Socrates and Gorgias alone does there seem to be a genuine good will and love leading to an effective partnership in the social activity which is philosophy. (shrink)

Lógos é termo grego central para a construção do movimento sofístico. Górgias de Leontinos, um dos principais representantes da primeira geração desse movimento, propôs-se a refletir, em Elogio de Helena, sobre o discurso como um grande e soberano senhor, capaz de ao mesmo tempo produzir persuasão em Helena e denunciar esse poder persuasivo. Na primeira parte deste estudo, pretendemos situar o lógos como fabricador de vivências em seu ouvinte, o que sugere a compreensão do poder persuasivo. Na segunda parte, a (...) fabricação de vivências, diferente da persuasão, se identificará com uma realidade fictícia produzida devido ao engano voluntário. Por ser voluntária essa experiência do engano, o motivo da soberania do lógos está para Górgias, em que o discurso, além de persuadir, pode servir como instrumento possível para a fabricação de aprendizados, cuja experiência artística o seu próprio texto exemplifica. (shrink)

Assuming that a nihilist reading of Gorgias’ thought is to be ruled out, the issue of ‘not being’ remains one of the thorniest in his philosophy; indeed, it is fair to conclude that Gorgias is deeply concerned with ‘not being’. But what, after all, is Gorgias’ ‘not being’? This paper aims to answer this crucial question, by taking into consideration Gorgias’ main texts. Each of them provides a serious – although not always explicit – account of ‘not being’. Overall, the (...) aim is to show that Gorgias’ account of ‘not being’ is not concerned with ‘non-existence’ at all. It is deeply concerned, however, with falsehood and language. The paper will, therefore, be structured as follows: in part 1, the Treatise and specifically the the first section of the Particular Proof will be addressed and its ‘linguistic’ conception of ‘not-being’ fully exploited; in part 2, the Apology of Palamedes will be taken into account, in order to enucleate its ‘not-being-as-falsehood’ argument; the results from part 1 and part 2 will allow us, in part 3, to provide an analysis of the Encomium of Helen which points at its underlying conception of ‘not-being’. (shrink)

This essay seeks to understand Gorgias’ reflections upon language and perception in the Encomium of Helen through the threefold vocabularies of medicine, enchantment, and oratory that were often taken together in the fifth century. I demonstrate that the two modes of sorcery to which Gorgias refers have to do with language and its effect on opinion, on the one hand, and perception and its effect upon one’s affective bearing, on the other. Both effects, I claim, are grasped through their forceful (...) means of physically impressing and deforming the soul such that its reliance upon memory and habitual forms of dwelling in the world are subject to oblivion. Further, such conceptual and practical unmooring can be understood as forms of disease that rob an individual of her agency, either temporarily or permanently, and therefore reflect the problematic status of language in early democratic Greece. (shrink)

Gorgias certainly is a triumph in linguistic rhetoric: he portraits the ambiguous relationship between human beings and the knowledge of reality. Following his works, the Logos does not produce any objective or absolute, but obscure knowledge. The Logos is not characterized by truth, but rather by the ability to persuade and deceive others, to convince others using the art of rhetoric. This fact composes the core of the metalinguistic attitude, which characterizes Gorgias’ texts. Since the Logos in Gorgias does not (...) seek absolute truth, it creates different truths, such as illusions for platonians, skeptic material, rhetoric or similar exercises. The analysis of the three main Gorgian works on Helen, Palamede and PTMO, are read and observed prevalently through language; they are discussed not just in a rhetorical or logical sense, but are anatomized in search for continuity in a bigger project: the “Gorgian Pragmatism”. This Pragmatism is a philosophy which advises us to embrace those beliefs we find most functional for us. While knowledge cannot be an agreement between the external world and human perception, Gorgias lays out another way to conceive this problem, which lies inside language. In fact, language in itself is considered as the main subject for its power and use. We could say that the reality of language is the only reality we might talk about, as the nucleus of substance which characterizes human beings. Many philosophers have tried to approach the problem of Sophists, and rehabilitated them after a long history of discredit, maintaining the purpose of the research searching for a peculiar philosophical content and a contribution for the posterity. I believe Gorgias can reveal, at each level of his discourse, a theory of rhetorical arrangement aimed at clarification of the problem of language in human activity. (shrink)

The aim of my paper is to investigate Gorgias’ argument against motion, which is found in his Peri tou mē ontos and preserved only in MXG 980a1˗8. I tried to shed new light both on this specific reflection and on the reliability of Pseudo-Aristotle’s version. By exploring the so called “change argument” and the “argument from divisibility", I focused on the particular strategy used by the Sophist in his synthetikē apodeixis, which should be investigated in relation to the dispute between (...) monistic and pluralistic ontology. In this regard, the puzzle from “divisibility everywhere” and its connection with the void as not-being can provide new elements to grasp the philosophical background in which the Sophist moves. On the one hand, Gorgias’ argument against motion is part of a broader dispute on the divisibility/indivisibility of being; on the other, his original elaboration of this puzzle seems to be perfectly understandable within the controversy between Eleatics and Atomists, and coherent with the argumentative style of the Sophist. (shrink)

After briefly considering Plato’s objections to rhetoric—it disregards the truth, aiming only to persuade, and it manipulates our emotions rather than instructing us—I turn to the historical Gorgias. The ‘Encomium of Helen’ ascribes to logos virtually all-powerful capacities for persuasion, seduction, and even bewitchment. Here Gorgias celebrates the very things Plato rejects. Yet in the ‘Defense of Palamedes’ considerable anxieties about whether logos actually does possess such strength are voiced: the weakness, not the power, of logos comes to occupy center (...) stage. Gorgias’ own views thus are likely more complex than Plato allows. (shrink)

Durante il V secolo AC Parmenide ebbe molti e qualificati lettori, tra cui Zenone, Empedocle, Anassagora, Leucippo, Melisso, Protagora, Gorgia, Ippia. Tre di loro hanno cercato di fare molto di più di quello che è stato in grado di fare lui con l' ‘esercizio deduttivo’ che incontriamo in 28B8.1-33, e ci sono riusciti. In effetti, che si siano sforzati di superare l'elevato standard già raggiunto da Parmenide nell'invenzione dei passaggi strettamente deduttivi è sostanzialmente fuori discussione. Il mio articolo è dedicato (...) a rendere conto degli ambiziosi obiettivi che Zenone, Melisso e Gorgia raggiunsero, ciascuno in modi molto differenti. (shrink)

El artículo pretende mostrar la importancia que reviste el tratamiento ofrecido por Gorgias en torno a la sensación y su relación con el pensamiento y el lenguaje en los dos resúmenes conservados del Peri tou me ontos. Sostengo queallí se postula una fragmentación radical del hombre como polo unificado de la sensación, así como también del objeto en una multiplicidad de aristas que no encuentran momento sintético alguno. El paradigma de la sensibilidad fragmentada es el fundamento central, incuestionado en el (...) tratado que se proyectará a las relaciones entre ser, pensamiento y discurso para abonar la tesis de la imposibilidad del conocimiento y de la comunicación. Más allá de las intenciones gorgianas, se subraya el valor aporético de tales planteos y se sugieren importantes proyecciones de tales aporías en las propuestas de Platón y Aristóteles en torno a la sensibilidad. (shrink)

The philosophical nature of the two versions of paraphrasing the Gorgias’ treatise On Non-Being — the skeptical version by Sextus Empiricus and the peripatetic version by an anonymous author — are discussed. The paper gives a comparative analysis of the arguments upheld by the informants enunciating Gorgias’ thoughts, demonstrates the range of philosophical problems, which Gorgias considered, judging by the reports of his speech, and shows how both versions add to and clarify each other in terms of philosophical issues. The (...) work provides insights as to how Gorgias modernizes and transforms the initial attitudes of Parmenides, shifting the reasoning plan: from how thought can be directed to an object and the qualities of this object to how thought can be directed to the non-existent. Accordingly, the problems of intentionality in the Gorgias’ teaching are considered as well as the privileged status of any of mental states, the nature of word or speech as an autonomous way to develop knowledge about external objects, the issue of meaning as a reference, and inter-subjectivity in cognition. A conclusion is reached that giving preference to one of the paraphrasing versions impoverishes our understanding of the Gorgias’ teaching considerably, while the joint analysis of both versions demonstrates the engagement of the sophistic issues raised by Gorgias, in the philosophical and, particularly, the epistemological paradigm of the ancient as well as modern philosophy. (shrink)

Plato’s Gorgias concerns the tension between political and philosophical power. In it, Socrates and Gorgias discuss rhetoric’s power, which Gorgias claims is universal, containing all powers, enabling the rhetorician to rule over others politically. Polus and Callicles develop Gorgias’s understanding of rhetoric’s universal power. Scholars addressing power’s central focus rightly distinguish Socrates’ notion of philosophical power from Gorgias’s. However, these authors make this distinction too severe, overlooking the kinship between philosophy and politics. This paper argues that Socrates’ notion of power (...) has its origins in Gorgias’s, but instead of seeking to persuade others, philosophy primarily concerns self-persuasion. (shrink)

The paper examines whether Gorgias’ On What Is Not should be considered an instance of skepticism. It begins with an analysis of the work as reported by the two sources, Sextus Empiricus and the anonymous author of On Melissus, Xenophanes and Gorgias. It is then argued that the Pyrrhonian skeptics did not regard On What Is Not as skeptical. Nonetheless, it is possible to read the work as offering counter-arguments to Parmenides, with a view to inducing suspension of judgment in (...) Pyrrhonian fashion. However, it is also possible to regard it as skeptical in a sense current in modern philosophy: that is, as posing challenges to our understanding of things with a view to forcing philosophers to come up with better theories. In this light, it can be seen as an important stimulus to the philosophical breakthroughs apparent in Plato’s Sophist. (shrink)

This chapter focuses on Gorgias' suriviving works: esp. Palamedes, but also On Nature, Helen, and the Funeral Oration. While I'm at pains to bring out the diversity of interpretive traditions currently co-existing, I aim to offer a substantially new reading of what these works offer our reflection on the nature of ethical truth.

This chapter focuses on Gorgias' suriviving works: esp. Palamedes, but also On Nature, Helen, and the Funeral Oration. While I'm at pains to bring out the diversity of interpretive traditions currently co-existing, I aim to offer a substantially new reading of what these works offer our reflection on the nature of ethical truth.

Gorgias’ Lobrede auf Helena gehört zu den wichtigsten Texten der Sophistik. Im Zentrum der Helena steht der Grundsatz, dass die Rede ein „großer Herrscher" ist und dass stets derjenige im Rededuell – in der Volksversammlung, vor Gericht oder in privaten Auseinandersetzungen – den Sieg davonträgt, der sich auf die Redekunst versteht, unabhängig davon, ob die Rede wahr ist oder nicht. Für diese Schrift wird hier der erste umfassende Kommentar vorgelegt, der die philologischen, literaturwissenschaftlichen, philosophischen und historischen Fragestellungen, die in der (...) Helena eng zusammenhängen, gleichermaßen beachtet. Bedingung hierfür ist, dass die Gorgias-Forschung insgesamt auf eine breitere Grundlage gestellt wird. In der Einleitung werden einige grundsätzliche Fragen neu erörtert: Wann lebte Gorgias? Was schrieb er? Wer las seine Schriften? Wann sind diese Schriften entstanden? Welchen Einfluss hatte er auf seine Nachfolger? Zur Beantwortung dieser Fragen werden auch solche antiken Zeugnisse zu Leben, Werk und Wirkung des Gorgias herangezogen, die bislang in den maßgeblichen Testimoniensammlungen fehlen. (shrink)

The case of Gorgias’ profession has been an object of ongoing dispute among scholars. This is mainly because in some dialogues Plato calls Gorgias a rhetorician, in others a sophist. The purpose of this article is to show that a solution only emerges in the Gorgias, where Plato presents Gorgias’ goals as a rhetorician and its associated arts. On this basis, Plato introduces a systematic division between genuine arts and fake arts, including rhetoric and sophistry, thereby identifying their conceptual differences (...) and similarities. The paper concludes by arguing that Gorgias can be called both a rhetorician and a sophist, provided that the labeling is done from different perspectives. (shrink)

Cet article examine l’influence sur la première hypothèse du Parménide de deux penseurs dont l’importance a été négligée par les critiques : Mélissos et Gorgias. Après avoir observé que les prédicats attribués à l’un ainsi que la forme démonstrative sont plus représentatifs de l’éléatisme de Mélissos que de celui de Parménide, nous expliquons ce constat par le fait que Platon reprenne une partie du Traité du Non-être de Gorgias qui vise elle-même essentiellement Mélissos. Nous démontrons alors que la première hypothèse, (...) et même l’ensemble de la seconde partie du Parménide, est un pastiche du Traité du Non-être, et nous en tirons des conclusions sur le statut de l’exercice dialectique mis en œuvre dans le Parménide. (shrink)

David Furley has suggested that we think of Callicles’ immoralism as attacking a thick concept. I take up this suggestion and apply it to the argument of Plato’s Gorgias more generally. I show that the discussion between Socrates, Gorgias and Polus, which prepares the ground for Callicles, is precisely addressing the thickness of the concept of justice: it reveals that this concept is both descriptive and evaluative and that formulating a revisionist position about justice is therefore extremely difficult. Callicles’ strategy (...) is best read as a response to this difficulty, which sets the stage for Socrates’ revisionist account of justice. (shrink)

Si pubblica qui il testo di un teatro-reading sull’Encomio di Elena di Gorgia da Leontini, scritto e diretto da Rosario Diana. Il lavoro è stato eseguito due volte presso la sede napoletana dell’Istituto italiano per gli studi filosofici : il 30 maggio 2017, nella Sala degli Specchi, e il 23 maggio 2018, nel Teatro della Filosofia e delle Arti. La partitura lettoriale viene introdotta da un saggio dell’autore in cui si esamina la funzione del leggio, mostrando come la presenza in (...) scena di questo utile strumento consenta di aprire nuovi orizzonti comunicativi ed espressivi. (shrink)

Two versions of Peri tou mē ontos ptmo by Gorgias, related by an Anonymous Author MXG and by Sextus Empiricus SE, have been alternatively accredited by scholars according to their disposition to seek a doctrine or a rhetorical- communicational dimension respectively with the first tendency prevailing. Comparing the ptmo to the rest of Gorgiasʼ works, we verify and clearly demonstrate how SE manages to convey a precise modus argumentandi. In effect, SE shows Gorgias’ demonstrative reasoning as employing: 1 the application (...) of demonstrandum and quod erat demonstrandum typical of Gorgiasʼ speeches, reinforced by a substantial and abundant use of verbs of explanation and demonstration, especially in comparison to the rest of the same Against the Logicians’ section. Otherwise, MXG reduces this lexicon to the more generic phēmi; 2 the continuous employment of the reductio ad absurdum, like in all of Gorgias’ works; 3 a very refined formulation of the principle of non-contradiction §67, similar to the one seen in Pal. 25. In addition, MXG is accurate in the discussion of some arguments as in the third kephalaion, however, presents as an overcorrected interpreter, more interested in questioning Gorgias than reporting his original text, also directly referring to Zeno, Melissus, and Leucippus. The context of the ptmo in SE’s work the structure presented leads us to believe that SE had the text or at least an accurate summary of the ptmo different from MXG. The aims of this paper are: 1 to demonstrate that SE shows well the Gorgianic demonstrative reasoning and, for this specific reason, he is reliable and valuable resource for us; 2 to hypothesise that SE’s version is based on and independent as yet unknown source. (shrink)

Gorgias’ On Not-Being survives only in two divergent summaries. Diels–Kranz's classic edition prints the better-preserved version that appears in Sextus’ Aduersus Mathematicos. Yet, in recent years there has been rising interest in a second summary that survives as part of the anonymous De Melisso, Xenophane, Gorgia. The text of MXG is more difficult; it contains substantial lacunae that often make it much harder to make grammatical let alone philosophical sense of. As Alexander Mourelatos reports, one manuscript has a scribal note (...) that reads: "The original contains many errors; no one should blame me; I just copy what I see.". The treatise's state of preservation has aptly prompted Michael Gagarin to liken it to a black hole: "something we cannot see directly but know must exist because of certain effects it has on other objects.". (shrink)

It can be thought that Gorgias’ argument on the non-existence consists of three sentences, the first one being an asseveration and the other two being conditionals. However, this paper is intended to show that there is no conditional in the argument, and that the second and third sentences only appear to be so. To do that, a methodology drawn from the framework of the mental models theory is used, which seems to lead to the true logical forms of these last (...) sentences as well. (shrink)

Evenus of Parus plays a surprisingly important role in Plato’s account of the life and death of Socrates: in both the Apology and the Phaedo he works as a negative foil for the philosopher at two key moments, namely when he converts, respectively, to the practice of elenchus and to the composition of poetry. Evenus’ importance in Socrates’ life, I argue, reflects Plato’s appropriation of a number of his poems, which Plato reshapes so as to adapt the sophist’s relativism and (...) values, arguably modelled on Protagoras’, to his own truth-oriented agenda. Plato’s Phaedrus echoes Gorgias’ Encomium of Helen along similar lines, that is by replacing doxa with aletheia. A pattern emerges: Plato appropriates the writings of the sophists by placing them in a markedly truth-oriented context. This helps explain a discussed piece of information, according to which Protagoras’ Antilogiai was a major influence on Plato’s Republic. (shrink)

Pretende-se aqui uma apresentação da paráfrase de Sexto Empírico do Sobre o não-ser ou sobre a natureza de Górgias e de certas leituras e problemas suscitados acerca da crítica gorgiana à identificação imediata entre ser, pensar e dizer. Cremos que, o esforço de Górgias nesse texto se trata menos de tentar estabelecer novos paradigmas sobre a relação existente entre realidade, conhecimento e discurso, do que de simplesmente problematizar o caráter absolutista de certas “filosofias” que pretendem falar de modo seguro sobre (...) a verdade acerca da realidade. (shrink)