Plato vs. Sophists

Plato wrote Gorgias in approximately 387 BCE, during an unstable period in the Athenian democracy. The work, written in the form of conversation between well-known scholars of the time, contains three characters. These rhetors, who believe that rhetoric is a good and noble practice, are each defending their ideas to Socrates. Gorgias, the teacher of Polus, believes in rhetoric and proclaims that when one has the ability to sway an audience one can not only alter the appearance of things but also can achieve power and success for himself. Socrates, who represents Platonic ideas in this work, sets out to defeat the ideas that the men set before

Platos’ Gorgias concedes in this argument that his techne merely creates belief, without provocation of knowledge of right and wrong. Now Socrates is able to claim that Gorgianic rhetoric is irrational and doesn’t create a sufficient argument against the immutable truth. This is, of course, Platos’ Gorgias. For the actual philosopher the possibility of rational and irrational do not exist, since all human beliefs and communicative situations are relative to kairos.

The Gorgias is grouped into what is called Plato’s Socratic dialogues. The Socratic dialogues are dominated by the figure of Socrates. Socrates spent his time talking to people about ethical topics. He sought by this means to discover definitions of the virtues, thinking that in learning what virtue is, he would become virtuous, and that this would make his life a happy one. He also sought to expose other people's false conceit of knowledge about ethical matters, thinking that such conceit prevented them from becoming virtuous and happy. Socrates appealed to some people, but he repelled many others; he also came to be associated in the public mind with anti-democratic factions in Athens (Burnet).

Finally there are those historians who believe that Plato was particularly unfair in his treatment of rhetoric and rhetoricians in his dialogue, Gorgias. Bruce McComiskey engages in an interpretation of the Gorgias that varies from Plato’s own version. McComiskey states that Plato misrepresents the ideas of the sophists’ and writes his text in a manner that presents Gorgias’ as contradictory and illogical. McComiskey continues to further evaluate this analysis and traces back the reasons that Plato might take this attitude toward rhetoric. McComiskey finds that economical, political, and social pressures are some of the driving forces behind Plato’s’ treatment of rhetoric in the Gorgias.

Gorgianic rhetoric takes place in two steps. First, a process called terpsis, a passive aesthetic sensory response to a stimulus. This action leads to, and must precede, Ananke, the active, psyche-based force that motivates the desired physical action in the audience (McComiskey 28). The passive response is followed by the active step in Gorgianic rhetoric, and causes a lack of consistency, which, Gorgias believed, leads to the desired physical action of the audience. So Plato’s claim that Gorgias is interested in pleasure is true in one aspect, however Gorgias main goal of techne created a satisfactory action by the audience, which was only achieved by maintaining an initial response in the audience. Gorgias called on techne when designing his oratory. Techne is the concept of creating an aesthetically pleasing oratory. Techne is the formation of any oratory in which the auditory and visual senses are stimulated in a positive direction toward the speaker and his message. The stimulation of the senses creates a positive reaction, which is Gorgias main goal: to elicit a response from his audience. This creates the pleasure for which his oratorical performances are designed. Unfortunately most Greeks misunderstand Gorgias’ use of techne in the fourth century B.C.E. The Athenians audience for Plato’s Gorgias believed strongly in the power of logos. Platonic logos, the nature of immutable truth and its effects on the negative-dialectal instruction, create a knowledge based on techne. This however was an advanced ruling which only the few oligarchic social and political structures would be able to achieve it. If Plato had presented Gorgias’ techne based on the effects that the distorting process of sensory perception has on human communication, then the audience of the time may have judged the argument between Gorgias and Socrates in favor of Gorgias. Plato knew that it would not advocate his cause to represent his work as such, and Plato misrepresented Gorgias as having a foundational idea of knowledge (McComiskey 29).

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Some topics in this essay:
Gorgias Socrates, Sophists Sophists, Sophistic Plato, Plato Greeks, Plato Socrates, Adversely Gorgias’, Platos’ Gorgias, Paul Friedlander, Socrates Plato, Edwin Black, sophistic rhetoric, gorgias socrates, immutable truth, knowledge belief, gorgianic rhetoric, gorgias sophistic rhetoric, action audience, socrates gorgias, plato’s gorgias, treatment rhetoric, word knowledge, desired physical action, happy doing wrong, exists prior situation, gorgias main goal,