Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Gorgias, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The Practice and Goal of Oratory
Justice, Injustice, and the Treatment of the Soul
The Pleasant Life vs. the Good Life
Philosophy vs. Politics
Summary
Analysis
Gorgias says that his craft is oratory. He also confirms that this makes him an orator. He agrees with Socrates that part of his craft is to make others orators, too. Socrates approves of these brief answers and asks Gorgias if he’s willing to continue discussing in this manner, instead of resorting to long speeches like Polus did. Gorgias agrees, adding that nobody is better at brevity than he is.
The Greek term for oratory is rhetorike, or “rhetoric.” Oratory occupied a very important role in Athens in the fifth century B.C.E., as even ordinary citizens could use such persuasive speech to try to influence outcomes in Athens’s political institutions. This also meant that oratory was a key to personal advancement in career and society. Orators often took on students, too.
Themes
Socrates asks what things oratory is concerned with. For example, weaving is concerned with producing clothes; music is concerned with composing tunes. What, then, is the purpose of oratory? Gorgias answers that oratory is concerned with speeches. It also makes other people capable of speaking and of being wise in doing so.
Both of Socrates’s examples name crafts that produce something specific—things that benefit others in some concrete way. Along these lines, he’s trying to understand what oratory produces and how it benefits society.
Themes
Socrates continues his questioning. Doesn’t the medical craft, for example, also make others able to both have wisdom and to speak about those who are sick? Since that’s the case, the medical craft is concerned about speeches, too. The same can be said of other crafts—so why aren’t these referred to as “oratory”? Gorgias says it’s because these other crafts are mostly concerned with various types of manual labor. Oratory, on the other hand, depends entirely on speeches.
Socrates’s point is that other crafts are also concerned with speaking and wisdom, not just oratory. In other words, what makes oratory’s speaking different from that in the medical field or in other crafts? His questions and answers are meant to lead Gorgias deeper into the subject and arrive at an understanding of oratory’s nature.
Themes
Socrates presses Gorgias further. Precisely what is it that distinguishes oratory from other crafts—such as arithmetic—that exercise influence through speech? For example, the speeches of arithmetic are about numbers, and the speeches of astronomy are about the sun, moon, and stars. Gorgias replies that oratory’s speeches are concerned with “the greatest of human concerns.” Socrates argues that this is debatable—after all, a doctor, a physical trainer, and a financial expert would all assert the same thing about their respective crafts: each would respectively see health, strength, or wealth as the greatest good.
Socrates’s process is called dialectic—Socrates’s favored method of seeking wisdom through asking questions, leading his discussion partner step by step through a problem. In this case, Socrates is still trying to help Gorgias specify what makes oratory distinct. Gorgias is still using vague, extravagant language—“the greatest of human concerns”—that doesn’t communicate anything precise about the nature of oratory.
Themes
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Gorgias replies that this “greatest good” is humankind’s source of freedom—namely, the ability to persuade through speeches in a public setting, such as a court, council meeting, or other political assembly. Socrates agrees that Gorgias has concisely defined oratory: its goal is to produce persuasion in its audience.
Gorgias finally identifies exactly what oratory does to Socrates’s satisfaction: much like weaving produces clothing, oratory produces persuasion in those who hear it. However, it remains to be seen whether Socrates agrees that the ability to persuade is humanity’s “greatest good.”
Themes
Socrates wants to be perfectly clear what this sort of persuasion is about. After all, if he were inquiring about a particular painter, it wouldn’t be enough to identify that painter as someone who creates pictures—he’d want to know what sort of pictures. So does oratory alone create persuasion, or do people who teach various subjects also persuade people? Gorgias grants that other crafts, like arithmetic, do persuade people about their subjects. What then, Socrates asks, is oratory’s persuasion about? Gorgias replies that oratory is concerned with determining what’s just and what’s unjust.
Socrates resumes his questioning, this time focusing on the idea of persuasion. Namely, don’t other crafts involve persuasion, too? Again, what makes oratory different? Gorgias confirms that oratory doesn’t just persuade about any subject, but is concerned with specific matters: what’s just and unjust.
Themes
Socrates shifts to examining another point. He asks Gorgias if having learned and having been convinced are the same or different. Gorgias grants that they’re different, because there’s such a thing as true and false conviction, but no such thing as true and false knowledge. It follows, then, that there are two types of persuasion—one that asserts of sense of conviction without real expertise, and one that provides others with genuine knowledge on a topic. Which type is oratory? Gorgias concedes that oratory results in persuasion without knowledge, meaning that orators don’t teach about what’s just and unjust, but rather persuade.
Socrates now focuses on what distinction there is, if any, between learning and being convinced of something. Gorgias’s reply is that, basically, knowledge is objective—one either knows something or doesn’t—but conviction has a subjective aspect. In other words, someone can be wrongly convinced of something. Orators, then, don’t teach something objective, imparting knowledge; they seek to convince without necessarily imparting knowledge.
Themes
Gorgias goes on to argue that oratory subordinates just about everything else to itself. For example, he’s sometimes accompanied his brother, a doctor, to a patient’s sickbed and successfully persuaded the patient to take medicine or undergo surgery when the doctor’s advice had gone unheeded. In fact, he thinks that if an orator and a doctor spoke before any assembly regarding which of them should be appointed doctor, the orator would win the audience’s approval every time.
Gorgias champions oratory in this section. In his view, oratory can persuade a person where mere knowledge has failed to move them to action. He even says that an orator, lacking expertise in the field, could persuade people to award him a medical position—that’s how powerful oratory is. Gorgias sees this as a point in oratory’s favor, but Socrates will likely attack this perspective due to the dishonesty and artificiality it rests upon.
Themes
Gorgias gives a caveat, however. He says that just because someone trained in boxing or other martial arts might attack his family or friends, that’s no reason to hate and exile teachers of these skills. In the same way, just because a student of oratory might go on to use his skill in an unjust manner, that’s no reason to blame the orator who trained him, with the intention that the imparted skill be used justly.
Gorgias anticipates a possible critique of oratory. He knows that an orator getting a doctor’s job would be unjust, and that orators have been accused of acting unjustly in other ways. He argues that such behavior shouldn’t be blamed on oratory or its teachers themselves, any more than a boxing trainer would be blamed for the crimes of a student who goes rogue.
Themes
Socrates replies that he thinks Gorgias is contradicting himself. He wants to pursue this discussion further, but only if Gorgias understands that Socrates isn’t attacking him personally and shares Socrates’s commitment to arriving at the truth. Socrates points out that it's better to be refuted than to persist in arguing something that’s untrue. Chaerephon, Callicles, and other onlookers are eager to hear more, so Gorgias agrees to keep going with the discussion.
With his point about the goodness of being refuted, Socrates is anticipating a point he’ll make later about the goodness of discipline, which purges evil from a person. It’s more important, in other words, to be corrected than to persist in a wrong belief. Truth is more important than the discomfort of being refuted.
Themes
Socrates clarifies the points Gorgias has made so far, concluding that, according to Gorgias, oratory doesn’t need to have expertise about the subjects being spoken about—it only needs to persuade non-experts of its expertise. So, for example, if an orator lacks knowledge about health, then presumably he’s in the same position regarding what is just and unjust. The important thing is that he seems to be knowledgeable about it. Socrates then asks Gorgias if this means that, when a prospective student of oratory comes to him for instruction, that student must already possess knowledge about justice and injustice—or will Gorgias teach him these things? Gorgias says that he will.
Socrates focuses on the point that, according to Gorgias, oratory doesn’t have to communicate accurate knowledge about its subject—an outward appearance of expertise is enough. This suggests that oratory isn’t inherently concerned about the truth (significantly, something Socrates has just identified as being of primary importance to himself). Socrates focuses on the implications of Gorgias’s beliefs for what’s just and unjust—which Gorgias said is oratory’s chief concern.
Themes
Socrates focuses on this point. He asks whether a person who has learned a particular subject is defined by his expertise” For example, a person who’s learned carpentry is a carpenter, and a person who’s learned medicine is a doctor. Therefore, doesn’t someone who has learned what become a just person? This would mean that an orator is necessarily just and wants to do what’s just, not what’s unjust. Following this line of reasoning, an orator wouldn’t have done what’s unjust, like Gorgias’s earlier example of one who uses his oratorical skill unjustly. Since Gorgias defined oratory as persuasion regarding what’s just and unjust, Socrates had taken it for granted that oratory wouldn’t concern itself with injustice.
Socrates’s point is that someone is a reflection of their training—someone who’s studied medicine is a doctor, etc. If it’s true that one becomes what they’ve studied, and Gorgias maintains that learning what’s just and unjust is key to becoming an orator, then how can an orator not be a just person? How is it possible to be an unjust orator, like the example Gorgias gave (which suggested that someone who’s trained in oratory might very well behave unjustly)? With these questions, Socrates suggests that there’s a flaw built into Gorgias’s claim that oratory is concerned with what’s just and unjust, but that oratory also doesn’t require expertise in these matters. How can both be true?
Themes
