Misinformation, Rhetoric, and (Post)Modernism, Pt. 2
Some context, and a summary of the Gorgias
In part 1, I developed a critique of what I called fact-driven arguments that builds on the excellent work of
over at , among others. I suggested that an over-reliance on fact-driven arguments and the assumption of an objective reality accessible through universally-shared “reason” are insufficient for addressing the complexities of how people form beliefs. Instead, I suggested that knowledge is inherently mediated by individual and collective contexts—our Umwelten—which shape our perceptions of truth. This mediation means that purely factual arguments often fail to persuade those who inhabit different realities. Recognizing that we have "never been modern" in the sense of having unmediated access to objective truth, I gestured toward the indispensable role of rhetoric in shaping understanding and highlighted the limitations of relying solely on facts and reason to address misinformation.Our temporal and cultural distance from this ancient text allows us to view its arguments with fresh eyes, critically examining how persuasion and rhetoric functioned in a different era—a return to premodern times that produces an estrangement effect. This estrangement can sharpen our focus, revealing both enduring principles and shifts in how we understand truth and persuasion. By exploring the Gorgias, I aim to uncover insights that illuminate our contemporary struggles with misinformation, demonstrating how ancient perspectives on rhetoric can inform and perhaps improve our approach to discerning and communicating truth today.
The dialogue is named after Gorgias of Leontini, possibly a student of Empedocles, who is mentioned in six other dialogues of Plato’s. He is credited with injecting poetic elements into his own speeches as a way of elevating them above ordinary speaking. Surviving fragments of texts attributed to Gorgias show a preoccupation with the deceptive powers of rhetoric, as in his Encomium for Helen, where rhetoric is described as an irresistible power capable of compelling belief, or even action, as though it were a drug acting on the body.
The Gorgias arises out of the question, “what is rhetoric?”, and it gradually becomes clear that finding an answer requires an investigation into “what is the best way to live (eudaimonia)?” But the opening words are literally “war and battle,” in the more flexible Greek syntax, foreshadowing a particularly combative opposition between “rhetoric” and philosophy”:
Callicles: This is how they say you’re supposed to approach a war or a battle, Socrates.
Socrates: What’s that? Are we late for a feast, as the saying goes?1
CAL: You certainly are, and a most elegant feast it was. Gorgias has just finished showing us all kinds of beautiful things.
The Gorgias stands out among all of Plato’s dialogues for its brusque accusations of bad faith. The stereotype of Socrates’ “yes-man,” constantly saying “Yes, Socrates. Certainly, Socrates.” is present, but the normally polite back-and-forth between Socrates and his interlocutors at times degrades to exchanges like this1:
CAL: This man won’t stop talking rubbish. Aren’t you ashamed at your age, Socrates, to be setting verbal traps, and thinking it a godsend when anyone makes a slip of the tongue?
CAL: I don’t understand your subtleties, Socrates.
SOC: Oh yes you do, Callicles; you’re just playing dumb. Take the argument a little further.
CAL: What’s the point of carrying on with this drivel?
SOC: So you may see what a wise teacher you are.
CAL: I don’t know what you’re talking about, Socrates. Ask someone else.
SOC: Here we have a man who can’t bear being improved, by making himself subject to what we’re talking about: discipline.
CAL: I couldn’t care less what you say. I was only answering you to oblige Gorgias […] What a bully you are, Socrates! If you take my advice, you’ll leave this subject alone, or discuss it with someone else.
Socrates takes up the side of “philosophy”, which is to be identified with a dialectical practice of short questions and short answers, or the famous Socratic method, sometimes called the elenchus from the original Greek. Gorgias and his students represent rhetoric, characterized by longer speeches (makrologia) aimed at persuading a crowd. Plato’s contemporaries would have associated rhetoric with political speeches in the forum and democratic politics, and with the speeches of Plato’s opponents, the sophists of ill-fame. The thematic structure of the dialogue can be thought of as a spiral, alternating, at higher levels of analysis, between the themes of rhetoric and eudaimonia. Although I strongly recommend reading any of the various translations for yourself, below is a summary of the major players and events in the Gorgias for those who haven’t read it or would like a refresher.2 Otherwise, the summary is optional and you can head to part 3 for the argument.
Summary of the Gorgias
The Gorgias has five characters: Socrates, his friend Chaerephon, Gorgias the orator and his student Polus, and Callicles, the young politician. There is also the crowd who had gathered to hear Gorgias speak. The dialogue begins in media res, with Socrates and Chaerepon arriving at Callicles' house just as Gorgias has finished giving a speech. Socrates, having missed the orator in action, says that he wants to have a discussion with Gorgias to ask him what he is. What is his profession and what does it accomplish? Does Gorgias have a craft (techne)? Is he a craftsman, like a cobbler, who makes things for some purpose?
Socrates sets some ground rules. He wants to have a discussion based on short questions and answers, not long speeches. At first, Polus takes up the discussion with Socrates. Polus could just say that Gorgias is an orator, who practices and teaches rhetoric. But rather than saying what rhetoric is, or what it makes, Polus says it is "the best" craft, describing it in terms of its quality. Socrates objects that this hardly answers the question, and Gorgias joins the discussion, agreeing not to give lengthy speeches, as an orator might want to do. Gorgias clarifies that rhetoric concerns speaking well. Doctors and shipwrights may speak about their own crafts, but rhetoric is, again, the greatest craft because it is concerned with "the source of freedom for mankind" and "the source of rule over others," "encompassing and subordinating to itself just about every other power all at once." It teaches how to persuade others concerning what is good and what is bad, or what is just and what is unjust.
Socrates is suspicious of persuasion, but he doesn't want to offend Gorgias, and asks whether Gorgias wants him to continue the discussion with him as a friend. Gorgias agrees they should continue, and through further questioning, Socrates makes a distinction between having learned something, or gaining knowledge (episteme) and being convinced of something, or having belief (pistis). They agree that rhetoric produces "belief without knowedge," and Gorgias, having been backed into a corner, makes a lengthy speech praising rhetoric's power to persuade, saying that it can be used for both good and evil ends. Socrates points out, however, that an orator might only persuade those who lack knowledge—an orator who did not know anything about medicine, could not, for example, persuade a doctor who knew better. Are orators just deceiving the ignorant by appearing to have knowledge that they do not really have? How could an orator persuade their audience to do what is just without knowledge of justice? Quite right, says Gorgias, orators must know what is just, and if a student came to me wanting to learn rhetoric they would either have to know good from bad already or I would also teach them that. Socrates, sensing a contradiction, says, if a man who has learned medicine is a doctor, isn't one who has learned what is just a just man? And by this reasoning isn't an orator necessarily just? Then how could an orator ever want to do what is unjust? Doesn't that contradict what you, Gorgias, said just a moment ago?
Polus jumps back into the discussion to defend Gorgias, saying, "Really, Socrates? Why don't you tell us what you think about rhetoric then," going so far as to call him rude. Again, Socrates says that he only wants to talk among friends, and that if Polus can refute what he has said without resorting to long speeches he would be happy to be refuted, otherwise the conversation is finished. Polus agrees to continue the elenchus. Socrates at this point says that rhetoric is not a craft (techne) at all, it is rather a kind of experience or "knack" that he identifies with flattery. In a long speech he says that the orator is like a baker of sweets who knows nothing of medicine. An orator flatters the appetites of his audience by giving them pleasure. The pastry maker provides pleasure for the body and the orator provides pleasure for the soul, neither caring for what is ultimately good. Further, having the power to persuade is no real power at all, because it is bad for the one who wields it. Orators may be able to rule like tyrants, because they can persuade the court to put to death anyone they want, but this is not real power according to Socrates.
To explain why foolishly using power to act unjustly is no power at all, Socrates inverts the usual meaning of "doing whatever one wants." Polus says, "Don't orators, like tyrants, put to death anyone they want, and confiscate the property and banish from their cities anyone they see fit?" In reply, Socrates denies that doing those things is what one (really) wants. They may "do whatever they see most fit to do" but they can't possibly want to do those things, because it is a contradiction to say that one wants to do things that harm oneself. Polus is flabbergasted that Socrates would deny that tyrants have great power, taking the position that being able to do whatever one would like to do is obviously better than being subject to such power.
The questioning eventually sets up one of the key questions of the dialogue: whether it is worse to commit injustice or to suffer it. Is it worse to kill unjustly or to be killed unjustly? Socrates insists that it is much worse to kill unjustly. Being able to "do what one wills" by killing unjustly may be immediately gratifying, but it is corrupting and is bad for the soul. And, key to the argument, only a just man can truly be happy, because his soul is in good health. To have a corrupt, sickly soul is obviously to be unhappy. Polus tries to dissuade Socrates of this position with a lengthy speech about the greatness of kings like Archelaus in Macedon and Pericles in Athens, who achieved great feats and did what they willed, but Socrates refuses to budge, saying that such speeches could not persuade him. Instead he must be refuted directly through dialectical arguments that could point out a contradiction in what is he saying.
Polus on the other hand clings to his position that he would rather commit injustice than suffer it at the hands of another. Socrates changes tack a bit, getting him to admit that killing another unjustly is more shameful than being killed unjustly. The latter might be more painful, but that does not it make worse. Surely the more shameful act is worse because it is the greater evil. In fact, someone who has committed an injustice should willingly submit to punishment, experience pain, and be cleansed of their corruption, just as a person with a sick body would drink a bitter medicine to regain their health. A man should be willing to accuse himself as soon as possible, no matter if the punishment is a fine, imprisonment, exile, or death. Socrates examples grow ever more counter-intuitive, even parodic. At one point he says that if a man most wished to harm someone else, perhaps someone that had committed an injustice against him, then he should scheme to keep him from suffering any punishment at all, so that he will suffer the worst fate—living with a corrupted soul.
At this point Callicles, the politician, asks Chaerephon if Socrates is joking, because he appears to be talking about a world where everything is upside down, and people do the opposite of what they actually do here in the real world. Socrates points out that the only reason communication is possible is because we share common experiences. Both Callicles and Socrates know what it is to love another. Callicles loves Demos, son of Pyrilampes, as well as the demos, or people, of Athenes, and Socrates has two loves, Alcibiades and philosophy. A lover cannot deny the one he loves, and just as Callicles cannot deny saying what the people of Athens want to hear, so Socrates cannot deny what his beloved philosophy is saying, unless Callicles can stop philosophy from saying it by refuting him. So Callicles launches into a long diatribe arguing essentially that might makes right. He accuses Socrates of playing on Gorgias' and Polus' unwillingness to say that unlawful actions are good, and further accuses him of behaving like a mob orator. But Callicles is not afraid to say that law and nature are two entirely different things, and that, by the law of nature, suffering injustice is much more shameful than committing injustice. Philosophy is fine for adolescents, but men should give it up to pursue more important things. It cannot protect the weak from the those who seek advantage over them.
Socrates claims to recognize a friend in Callicles, someone with knowledge, who has good will towards Socrates, and is willing to tell him the truth. He asks for Callicles' leave to let him test the position that "the superior should take by force what belongs to the inferior, that the better should rule the worse and the more worthy have a greater share than the less worthy" so that they might find the truth. Socrates wants to know what Callicles means by "better" or "superior." Is it the strongest? The most intelligent? Are not the many superior by nature to one man? And is not law the rule of the many, so that what is good by nature is also good by the law that the many make? As expected, the questions lead to apparent contradictions. When Callicles says "those who are intelligent in the affairs of the city, and brave, too" are most fitting to rule, Socrates asks whether the rulers should also rule themselves.
This sets up another key question in the dialogue: whether it is better to be able do whatever one desires or to exercise self-control. Callicles takes the position that the superior man is most excellent and happy when free to pursue his appetites to the extreme, without being constrained. Those who have no desires are no better than stones and corpses. An active life, especially one in politics, is to be preferred. Socrates on the other hand claims that the happiest man orders and disciplines his soul, preferring satiety to unbounded appetite. Philosophy, as both Callicles and Socrates understand it, is something that one does, a way of life, and is to be opposed to the active life of the politician and orator.
Rather than trying to directly refute this position, Socrates offers an analogy or metaphor for the undisciplined man, comparing him to a leaking jar that is unable to retain anything, and so is at constant risk of being empty. He asks whether a man who cannot satisfy an itch is happy. Callicles remains obstinately unpersuaded by these images, so Socrates resumes the elenchus, getting Callicles to agree that whether something is pleasant or painful is not the same as whether it is good. It is indeed possible to enjoy drinking water when thirsty, and so to experience both pain (thirst) and pleasure (drinking) at the same time. Further the brave and intelligent suffer pain just as fools experience pleasure. Callicles resists the elenchus, calling Socrates' conclusions nonsense, saying that he is only going along with all this talk in order to please Gorgias, but that he does not really believe anything Socrates is saying. Socrates expresses some disappointment, saying that he thought Callicles was a friend who was participating in good will, provoking Callicles into accusing Socrates of lacking common sense, that we all know some pleasures are good and some pleasures are bad.
At this point, Callicles adopts the role of the yes-man, letting Socrates finish the argument to the satisfaction of Gorgias and the others, occasionally interjecting with "yes, Socrates" and "certainly, Socrates." Socrates starts to speak in longer paragraphs, and sets out the position that a craftsman is needed in order to distinguish between good pleasures and bad pleasures. One skilled in medicine is concerned with health, while a pastry maker is concerned only with giving (bad, undirected) pleasure. Knacks (empeiria), like sweets, music, and poetry, are mere experiences, pure means, undirected towards good ends. Crafts (techne), on the contrary, are means that are directed towards the goal of living well. They have a telos, an ultimate end that goes beyond pleasure. And for anything to be good, it has to have a telos directed towards the best kind of life. Socrates eventually brings the discussion back around to rhetoric. Are there good and bad kinds of speech-making? He claims that he has never heard an orator who spoke except to please his audience. For rhetoric to really be a craft (techne) it would have to improve its listeners' souls, to order souls like a house-builder brings order to a good house.
Callicles refuses to budge, and threatens to quit the conversation entirely. At Gorgias' pleading, Socrates carries out the elenchus entirely by himself, performing the role of both questioner and answerer. The disciplined, orderly man is just, brave, and pious—therefore he is good, blessed, and happy. The converse is bad. The order of the cosmos and knowledge of geometry back this up, and therefore natural fact and law refute, through "arguments of iron and adamant" Callicles' position. It is better to suffer injustice than to commit it, and we should endeavor to secure both the power and the wish to do what's just and avoid what is unjust. Even if an unjust man threatens to kill the just, or take his property, the preservation of life and power alone is not the most important thing. Socrates exhorts Callicles to be persuaded of this, arguing that even Callicles does not honor the ship captain who preserves life more than he does the politician who rules, despite the fact that the ship captain preserves many lives while the politician might not save even one.
Moreover, Socrates claims that many politicians considered great, like Pericles, did not make their cities better, and in fact made them worse. Callicles resists, saying that nonetheless Socrates should be ready to flatter the city, otherwise someone might do him harm. Socrates retorts, saying Callicles is like a sweets dealer accusing a doctor in front of a crowd of children and saying that he is working great evils on them by forcing them to drink bitter potions and deny their appetites. Socrates is one the few to "take up the true political craft and practice the true politics" by seeking what's best through philosophy rather than rhetoric. Callicles replies, "Do you think, Socrates, that a man in such a position in his city, a man who's unable to protect himself (from the accusations of others), is to be admired?"
At the conclusion of the Gorgias, by way of reply, Socrates asserts that what matters is that the just man protects himself against committing injustice, because protecting the soul from evil is more important than protecting the body. In order to prove this, he offers the longest speech yet, what he calls an "account", rather than a myth or fable, that will illustrate the truth of things. According to Homer, people have been judged when they die, since time immemorial, and those who are adjudged just passed into the Isles of the Blest and those who are unjust passed into Tartarus. But Pluto reported to Zeus that that some people were not being judged fairly. Some of the wicked appeared before the judges in fine clothes, looking beautiful and wealthy, deceiving the judges into thinking they were blessed, while others were being condemned on the basis of appearance. At the time, humans had foreknowledge of their death, and could prepare for it. Zeus put a stop to this and decreed that humans were to be judged naked, by three newly appointed judges, and would no longer know the hour of their death. In this way, people began to appear before the judges, unable to hide the state of their soul. Even the richest and most powerful of kings cannot avoid being sent away to Tartarus if they are wicked with a corrupted soul. Therefore everyone should strive not to seem good, but to actually be good, both in private and public, and if someone commits injustice they should seek out correction and punishment in order to cleanse their soul. Rhetoric should only be used to to point to what is just, so that everyone can be happy both in this life and the next
In part 3 I will build on the challenges outlined in part 1 regarding the limitations of fact-driven arguments and the mediated nature of knowledge. Part 3 delves deeper into Plato's Gorgias to examine the interplay between rhetoric and philosophy in the pursuit of truth, and examines parallels in the elenctic mode of argument and the fact-based mode of argumentation dominant today.
I mostly use the vocabulary from the Hackett translation by Donald J. Zeyl.