Verbosity and Truth in Plato’s Gorgias

In Plato’s dialogue, the Gorgias, verbosity obfuscates the work’s truth. The dialectical arguments therein develop by means of excessive periphrasis, and the characters seem to be angered with one another for this fact (490d–490e*). Furthermore, Socrates concludes the dialectic by saying that, after what must have been hours of discussion, one argument alone “holds its ground” (527b). Not only, then, are the arguments of the dialectic redundant, but they appear, as Socrates shows, to reach but one conclusion–one that Socrates had already asserted at the beginning of his discourse with Callicles. Such things make the Gorgias appear an exuberant means to a dissatisfying end. However, a deeper examination of the text reveals that Plato may have had a different purpose for his work in mind than to teach Socrates’ conclusions alone. By writing the dialogue in the exorbitant manner that he does, Plato develops the idea that rhetoric is in fact a potent tool that can delude even the most adept audience. 

First, it is important to note that rhetoric is directly disparaged in the dialogue. Socrates notes that assuring that one becomes “as persuasive as possible at speaking,” along with procuring money and friends for one’s self, is “the greatest evil” (479c). Socrates goes on to ask, ironically contemplating the very device that he uses in his question, “what is the great use of rhetoric” (480a)? Thus, Plato shows rhetoric in the negative light of being undefined, though he indeed goes on to show it an effectual tool later in the dialogue and throughout his works. Plato also has Socrates question the meaningfulness of rhetoric in the Protagoras, in which Socrates seeks to find what exactly technical skill a rhetor imparts on a student (Protagoras 329d-334a). Plato portrays that rhetoric is not only a difficult subject to define, but that it can be used to mislead listeners by making them forget about trying to define rhetoric at all. 

In the Protagoras, Protagoras speaks at length on what the subject of rhetoric can bring about, but he fails to truly answer the question of what technical skill it can impart. Instead, Protagoras says that he, as a rhetor, can make his pupil better all his days–the means to this end, as Socrates notes, are not explicitly defined (Protagoras 330d). Agathon’s speech in Plato’s Symposium uses rhetoric in a relatable manner (Symposium 193e–197e). Agathon delivers a beautiful speech praising Eros; however, Socrates notes that the speech lacks in relevant content for its abundance in wordplay (Symposium 198a–c). The others present at the symposium, falling victim to the spell of rhetoric, applaud Agathon, praising his speech as the best of the evening (Symposium 197e–198a). Thus, Plato shows that rhetoric fools the characters of the works themselves. This theme is maintained in the Gorgias, showing an authorial norm. In the Gorgias, the giver of great displays himself, Gorgias, who claims arrogantly that no one has asked him anything new in years (448a), tries unsuccessfully to define his craft of rhetoric (450b–450c). Instead, Socrates uses his words, that which Gorgias claims rhetoric is about, to disprove Gorgias’ theory. The brilliant speaker, Gorgias, is laughingly displayed by the spear of his own craft: foiled by rhetoric, the rhetor submits. Thus, rhetoric is proven particularly powerful at bringing about a desired means insofar as it confounds even a highly esteemed speaker and leaves the verbose Gorgias at a loss for words. Plato, does not stop at conveying the power of rhetoric in the light of his characters, though. Instead, he goes on to show that rhetoric can even stump the reader of the dialogue.

Throughout the dialogue, Socrates leads the dialectical pack through argument after argument. However, Socrates’ principal assertion, with which he concludes the work, is self-contradictory. Socrates concludes that “the best way of life” is “to live and die practicing both justice and the rest of excellence,” a statement which seems trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance (527e). He also notes, however, that one should make his enemies suffer “the greatest and first of all evils” by not bringing them to justice for their wrongdoing, to which ends he follows logic that, at least ostensibly, upholds itself sensibly (479d). Surely, though, making another suffer is not excellent at all, particularly considering that the greek word for “excellence” can also be translated “virtue,” and that causing others to suffer for one’s personal enjoyment is certainly not virtuous (Arieti 223). As Socrates would say, the only way that one can attain to excellence is to help one’s self by doing and saying no unjust thing to either humans or gods (522c). Thus, since correction of wrong is justice, and Socrates suggests keeping one’s enemies from correction of wrong, Socrates is suggesting unjust behavior, namely, preventing justice from prevailing. How then could the conclusion that excellence is the aim of the best life and this urging to cause evil to fall on others coincide? In fact, they cannot. Though the two are both logically reached conclusions, they are, in fact, not compatible conclusions. The reader, then, has been taken for a loop in much the same way that many of Socrates’ dialectical opponents are.  Though Socrates follows a system of logic that seems consummately cogent in order to reach this contradictory conclusion, the readers realize,  upon further examination, that they are victims of rhetorical trickery in much the same matter as Gorgias was. This fact reflects Socrates’ trapping his peers in his logic, causing them to give up on previous assertions, thus proving that even the largest dialectical opponents can be debated into submission using rhetoric: the art of persuasion (489c).

Rhetoric, as Plato shows, is a util tool. It evades its own defining, it brings its opponents to believe what it may, and it can fool even those not engaged first-hand in the dialectic. Deluding famous speakers and their prodigies alike, rhetoric prevails in the hands of a shoeless old man rather than the rhetor and speaker of beautiful speeches. The seemingly chaotic order of the Gorgias, then, serves as a sort of sleight of hand to tire opponents and remove their minds from the fact that they are being tricked into agreeing with any conclusion the rhetorician proposes. As Callicles tires to the point where he gives illogical answers, so the reader tires to the point of submission, thus showing the range of the power of rhetoric (498e, 505d).

* All citations that do not contain a text name are in reference to the Gorgias.