Gorgias (Plato)

Plato (Roman copy of the Greek Plato portrait of Silanion , Glyptothek Munich )

The Gorgias ( Greek Γοργίας Gorgías ) is a dialogue written work by the Greek philosopher Plato , one of whose most extensive writings he is. The content is a fictional, literary conversation. Plato's teacher Socrates discusses with the famous speaker Gorgias von Leontinoi , after whom the dialogue is named, as well as his pupil Polos and the distinguished Athenian Callicles .

After he has given a lecture, Gorgias is available to answer any questions from the audience. Socrates takes the opportunity to talk to him. In the first phase of the dialogue, Gorgias and Polos take turns debating with Socrates. Later, Callicles, challenged by Socrates' attitude, takes on the role of his opponent.

The first issue is the question of what the meaning and purpose of Gorgias' masterfully practiced rhetoric is. It turns out that she aims to use flattery to persuade the audience. It should give the speaker the victory in legal or political disputes. In doing so, he believes that she should do something good for him. But Socrates denies that rhetoric can meet this expectation; he thinks the speaker is just imagining it. In order to check this, one has to clarify what is actually good and desirable. The discussion thus turns to its main topic, the question of the right way of life. Opinions diverge sharply about this. For Callicles, the good is the gain of pleasure, which is therefore to be striven for by all suitable means; ethical and legal concerns are irrelevant. Socrates opposes this with his philosophical conviction, according to which it is better to suffer injustice than to do injustice, since injustice committed causes the greatest psychological damage to the perpetrator. From his point of view, the good and the excellence are based on the correct, natural order, which man has to maintain both in society and in his own soul . The order of the soul requires that chaotic desires be subordinated to the rule of reason. Those who control themselves are virtuous and therefore act correctly and lead a successful life. He has reached the state of eudaimonia ("bliss"). This does not require rhetorical skills, but philosophical insight.

No agreement is reached. Socrates can neither convince his interlocutors, nor do they succeed in refuting his arguments. Gorgias, Polos, and Callicles make some concessions, but essentially everyone sticks to their point of view.

Place, time and participants

Socrates (Roman bust, 1st century, Louvre , Paris)

The debate takes place in Athens in the house of Callicles. A clear dating of the fictional plot is not possible because the chronologically relevant information in the dialogue is contradictory. Obviously Plato made generous use of his literary freedom in this regard. According to one remark, the conversation seems to have taken place in 405 BC. B.C., but other places point to an earlier time. It is mentioned that King Archelaus I has only recently ruled Macedonia . This ruler is no earlier than 414, probably 413 BC. Came to power. On the other hand, Pericles († 429) is described as recently deceased. In any case, the discussion falls during the Peloponnesian War . The conspicuous anachronisms are evidently intentional, they are intended to remind the reader of the fictionality of the text.

Socrates' interlocutors are Gorgias, Polos, Callicles and Chairephon . Gorgias, Polos and Chairephon are certainly historical figures. It was often doubted in the past that Callicles actually lived, but is now considered likely. Gorgias and Polos came from the Greek part of Sicily . The hometown of Gorgias was Leontinoi, today's Lentini , that of Polos was Akragas , today's Agrigento . Gorgias, a celebrated speaker and teacher of rhetoric, came in 427 BC. To Athens. There he caused a sensation with his extraordinary eloquence and his style became trend-setting. Sometimes he is counted among the sophists , the wandering teachers at the time who taught the young people of the upper class a knowledge that was considered useful for a fee. In research, however, it is controversial whether this designation applies to Gorgias. According to Plato's account, his pupil and companion Polos was still young and inexperienced at the time of the dialogue, but had already written a textbook on rhetoric. The textbook really existed; Aristotle quoted from it. Callicles, the host of the Gorgias, was a young, aristocratic-minded Athenian of noble origin with political ambitions. According to Plato's account, he was well educated, appreciated the art of speaking, and had some competence in philosophical discourse; As a sober pragmatist and technician of power, he despised the philosophers as well as the sophists, for he saw in them inefficient talkers. Chairephon was a contemporary, friend and student of Socrates and was enthusiastic about his philosophy.

The views of Plato's dialogue figure Gorgias differ considerably from those of the historical rhetoric teacher. In dialogue, Plato's Gorgias, who is evidently already of an advanced age, willingly accepts the philosophical discourse method of Socrates, which is alien to him. It turns out he's not up to her demands. His young, heated pupil Polos, despite his inexperience, is ready to debate with Socrates in order to relieve the tired Gorgias. Like his teacher, he appears with the pronounced self-assurance that is characteristic of some figures - especially the sophists - in Plato's dialogues and that sometimes appears arrogant. This attitude contrasts with the outwardly modest style of Socrates, who is impartial and willing to learn, but does not hide his disdain for rhetoric and sophistry. Callicles initially held back, but then intervened vigorously and turned out to be the toughest, most consistent opponent of Socratic ethics. In his political views, Plato's Callicles is ambivalent; On the one hand, he despises the moral ideas of the weak and advocates unrestricted rule by the strong, which indicates an oligarchic or tyrannical sentiment; on the other hand, he accepts the democratic system and wants to make a career in it by adapting to the moods of the crowd. Chairephon is a marginal figure, he does not take part in the philosophical debate.

content

Introductory talk and start of the debate

Socrates and Chaerephon have come to hear the Gorgias talk. Because they were late, they missed the experience. As the host of the Gorgias, she draws the attention of Callicles to the fact that his guest is ready to answer any questions. One goes to the house of Callicles, where there is now the opportunity to consult the famous master of rhetoric.

Socrates proposes to Chairephon to open a dialogue with the question of what Gorgias is, that is, what his professional activity consists of. Polos interferes, instead of his teacher, who is a little tired after the lecture, he wants to answer the questions. He feels confident enough to have the necessary competence. To Chairephon's question, however, he did not answer with the requested information, but with a general, rhetorically designed praise of rhetoric, which is the most important of all arts. Socrates intervened and stated disapprovingly that Polos could speak well but did not respond to the question asked. What was asked was a definition of rhetoric, not a judgment about it. Gorgias then spoke up himself.

The debate between Socrates and Gorgias about the function of rhetoric

First of all, Gorgias defined his subject as rhetoric, the art of speaking. However, this provision turns out to be too general, because every specialist is able to judge and speak in his field, but this does not make him a speaker. So what is meant is not the presentation of specialist knowledge, but the speaking as such. In terms of content, what is meant here refers to what is the most important and best of all human concerns for Gorgias. In his view, the greatest goods are not health, beauty or wealth. Rather, the highest attainable good - what rhetoric gives the speaker - is freedom. It enables him to exercise power over others and not to be ruled by anyone himself. He can do this if he knows how to be convincing in court and in political meetings and how to persuade those present. Accordingly, rhetoric is the art of convincing.

But it is not a question of arbitrary conviction, because a math teacher also convinces his students of the correctness of his statements. Rather, the speaker convinces his audience with regard to the question of what is to be regarded as “ just ” and what is to be regarded as “unjust”, what should be done and what should not be done. The Greek word for “just”, díkaios , also generally denotes what is right, appropriate and appropriate. It is therefore a question of correct behavior and, in particular, correct political decisions. A speaker in the democratically organized Athenian state can bring about corresponding decisions by appearing before the people's assembly . However, as Gorgias has to admit, such conviction takes place regardless of the truthfulness of the speaker's assertions. This does not enable its ignorant audience to judge the truth content. So, as Socrates found, rhetoric cannot convey knowledge, but only generate belief. The shortness of the time alone precludes a politician as a speaker from helping his audience gain knowledge. He is also just as technically ignorant as she is. Nevertheless, he brings about the decisions that are then implemented by the specialists - for example builders or military commanders. Socrates finds that astonishing.

Gorgias emphasizes that ultimately in life it is not a question of professional competence, but of persuasiveness. What an expert recommends based on his knowledge is not carried out, but what a politician trained in rhetoric can convince the decision-makers of. Those who have the perspective but not the necessary communication skills will be defeated and achieve nothing.

Socrates now succeeds in showing that his interlocutor has become involved in a contradiction. Gorgias defined the rhetorician as a specialist in what is just or right and appropriate. This presupposes that the rhetorician can correctly assess the correctness of actions. This must also apply to his own behavior. It follows from this that he himself always behaves correctly based on his knowledge. The “right” means both the “just” in the ethical sense and that which is in the correctly understood interests of the state and its citizens. On the other hand, Gorgias has also found that rhetoric can be deliberately misused and then lead to wrong decisions. This would be impossible if the well-trained rhetorician as such actually had a knowledge of right and wrong. His correct understanding would then prevent him from any abuse, because abuse is a mistake that presupposes ignorance of what is just and right.

The sense of rhetoric according to Socrates

Polos intervenes again. He now wants to find out whether Socrates himself can answer the question of what the rhetoric consists of better than the rhetorician Gorgias. Socrates now openly admits that, from his point of view, rhetoric is no art at all, but only a skill acquired through experience in generating pleasure and pleasure. He compares it to the art of cooking, which he also does not consider to be an art, but rather an ability to give pleasure gained through routine. The same applies to the “cleaning art” (cosmetics, jewelry, luxury clothes), which cheat with colors and shapes, and to sophistry. These four skills are manifestations of flattery. What they have in common is that their goal is courtesy, their meaning is exhausted in creating pleasant impressions and there is no reference to higher aspirations. Insights and an understanding of one's own actions are not associated with such activities.

The power of the speaker as impotence

Polos points to the great political influence of the speakers, from which he deduces the rank and value of rhetoric. Socrates contradicts him. According to his understanding, which he now explains, the speakers only appear to have extraordinary power. Apparently, they can get their way at will. Just like tyrants, they are capable of arbitrarily bringing about death sentences, confiscations of property and exile. In reality, however, they are the most powerless people if one understands power to be the ability to achieve something good and something worth striving for for oneself. Since they do not know what is best, they cannot do it for themselves either, but only achieve what they mistakenly believe is best. You can achieve a lot, but you are further removed from any person's goal of achieving the best for yourself than anyone else. This shows their powerlessness. They seek their advantage, but out of ignorance they only harm themselves.

Wrongs committed and suffered

Based on his reflections on the powerlessness of the apparently powerful, Socrates presents his concept of dealing with injustice. In the dispute with Polos, for whom external power in itself is of the highest order, he justifies his thesis that it is fundamentally less bad to suffer injustice than to do injustice. According to him, injustice is an evil for everyone involved or affected, but the greatest evil is not for the victim, but for the perpetrator. Thus, if someone uses his decision-making power to inflict the greatest evil on himself by doing something wrong, he is not really powerful, but pitiful. Therefore, power of disposal in itself does not represent any value; only the just exercise of power is good.

In Socrates' understanding, injustice inevitably leads to misery. On the other hand, Polos objects that it is obvious that many wrongdoers are happy. One example is King Archelaus I of Macedonia , who unscrupulously gained control by murdering relatives and can now enjoy his happiness. By Socrates' standard, Archelaus would have to be the most unfortunate of all Macedonians. Polos considers this point of view to be absurd. Socrates admits that almost all Athenians think like Polos, but attaches no importance to it.

Meaning and effect of punishments

For polos, the prerequisite for the happiness that the wrongdoers enjoy is that they are not held responsible for their actions. Their power protects them from punishment. On this point too, Socrates takes the opposite view. In his understanding, the wrongdoers who escape punishment are even more unhappy than those who are punished. Polos objects that an undisputed ruling tyrant must be more unhappy than an evildoer who is caught and tortured as a punishment and cruelly executed. Socrates is not deterred by this objection.

To justify his position, Socrates falls back on the terms “beautiful” and “ugly”. In ancient Greek, the words for "beautiful" and "ugly" designate both the honorable and the commendable or the shameful and the shameful. They also stand for what is morally correct or reprehensible in the sense of conventional values. Polos admits that, like Socrates, he finds doing injustice "uglier" (more immoral) than suffering. But he denies that the uglier is the "worse". With "bad" (kakós) is meant that which is not in the interest of the person concerned, but which harms them. For polos, the uglier can be the more beneficial. Socrates disagrees; he wants to show that what is morally reprehensible is necessarily always “worse”, that is, that it must also be repudiated from the point of view of self-interest. His reasoning is that the reason one ugly thing surpasses another in ugliness can only be because it is either worse or causes greater displeasure, or both. So if - as Polos like most people admit - committing is uglier than suffering, but the reason for it is not greater displeasure, then it can only be that committing is worse. It follows that the act must be the greater evil. Polos admits that.

Starting from this result, Socrates turns back to the meaning of punishment. Here his train of thought is: Everyone who suffers suffers exactly what the commander commits. For example, if a hitter hits hard, the hit person will be hit hard. Whoever punishes righteously does something righteous and therefore beautiful, because everything righteous is necessarily beautiful. So something just and beautiful happens to the punished person, something that is also good for him. Punishment improves him, it frees him from the injustice in his soul, the greatest of all evils. He does experience pain, but it is like medical treatment that is painful but restores health. The punishment - Socrates also understands rebuke and rebuke by this - leads to a mental recovery by leading the punished on a better way. However, if an evildoer goes unpunished, he will persist in his injustice and that is the worst that can happen to him. Polos has no objection to this, he again has to agree.

Socrates now applies this finding to rhetoric, which leads to a paradoxical result. Anyone who has committed an injustice would have to be his own accuser if he is to gain an advantage. He would have to bring his act to light in order to be punished for it. Anyone who wants to harm his enemy would have to cover up his wrongdoings and defend him in order to withhold the redeeming punishment. Accordingly, rhetoric in court would only be justified if it aimed at the opposite of what its normal function is. A speaker in politics would have to behave in the same way, for example when it comes to an injustice committed by one's own home country.

Polos is confused. He admits that the train of thought is conclusive, but still considers the result to be absurd.

The order of values ​​of Callicles

Callicles listened in silence, but now he is so angry about the course of the discussion that he interferes vigorously. The rest of the dialogue takes place between him and Socrates. As a pure practitioner, Callicles is not a sophist, he thinks little of tricky arguments, but he completely shares the ideological basic attitude of Gorgias and Polos. According to his assessment, which he expresses bluntly, Socrates has successively lured his two opponents into a trap. Out of consideration for questionable social norms, he got her to make concessions to which he could not force her argumentatively. As a result, they have become inconsistent and run into self-contradictions, which Socrates was then able to prove to them. Both of them did not dare to defy public opinion and so fell victim to their shame. Gorgias should not have accepted the claim that as a rhetoric teacher it is part of his job to know about justice and to impart that knowledge to his students when necessary. Polos should not have agreed to the principle that doing injustice is uglier and more shameful than suffering. With this concession to the Socratic ethics, Polos was only paying homage to a very widespread, but from Kallikles' point of view, fundamentally wrong idea. Like Gorgias, out of inappropriate shame he failed to consistently admit his opinion.

After distancing himself from the indulgence of the two rhetoricians, Kallikles presented his own concept, a consistent, uncompromising alternative to Socrates' understanding of ethics. Like Socrates - and in contrast to Polos - he equates the “beautiful” or morally correct with what is in the self-interest of the agent, but for him the morally correct is something completely different than for Socrates. He starts from a fundamental opposition between nature and "law". By nature or the natural he understands the spontaneous impulses of noble, powerful, power-conscious and assertive personalities that are not hindered by any trained consideration. For Callicles these impulses and their realization represent what is truly just, good and beautiful, which can be unreservedly affirmed. With the "law" he means those human institutions and habits which he considers to be contrary to nature and therefore bad. These are certain social conventions and legislation based on them for the protection and advantage of the weak and inept. In the democratically organized Athenian state, the majority of the weak, incapable and thus bad rulers. This is unnatural, since nature itself prefers the strongest and most assertive individuals, both in the animal kingdom and among humans. It grants them success, possessions and domination. They are therefore entitled to these goods by nature. According to this, the oppression and robbery of the weak is not an injustice, rather it is just in the sense of the natural law. Whoever is able to enforce himself by force is favored by nature, and therefore his action is justified, because nature sets the ethical norms.

From Kallikles' point of view, philosophy is a suitable occupation for the youth, but not for mature men. Those who hold on to it too long become idle talkers, make themselves ridiculous and become unsuitable for male deeds.

The argument about the values ​​of Callicles

Socrates appreciates the opportunity to grapple with such a radical opposing position. He finds a contradiction in Callicles' thesis of the right of the strong: the weak are stronger together than the strong and can therefore impose their rules on him. It follows that their norms are inherently superior to his if assertiveness, as Callicles claims, is the natural criterion for excellence. This argument forces Callicles to base his concept of the superiority and the claim to power of the "better", which he initially equated with the stronger, differently. Now he's trying to redefine what makes them better. He characterizes the better as the nobler and more discerning and also points to their bravery. However, as Socrates shows, these provisions also prove problematic. The most insightful can happen to be the weakest at the same time; What the betterness, which is supposed to make exercising power more legitimate, ultimately consists of, remains unclear.

Socrates draws attention to a further aspect by asking who those who, from Callicles’s point of view, are better and more worthy should rule - only the others or themselves, that is: their desires. Again, the opinions differ diametrically. Socrates advocates self-control, Callicles advocates letting desires become as strong as possible in order to then satisfy them. Callicles wants bravery and cleverness to serve the satisfaction of needs. His ethics are thus hedonistic (based on the pleasure principle).

Socrates criticizes Callicles' plan of life by pointing out the insatiability of needs, which excludes fulfillment. This argument does not impress Kallikles, however, because his concept is fundamentally different in this regard too. For Socrates, a permanently optimized state of mind is desirable, whereas Callicles cannot gain anything from such an objective. Although he pleads for the satisfaction of needs as the highest-ranking goal, he does not expect a lasting state of happiness from it and does not even consider such a state of happiness, because for him everything static is as lifeless as a stone. There is no permanent pleasure, rather pleasure is by its nature dynamic and requires a constant alternation of pleasure and discomfort. In parable terms, existing pleasure has to flow away like liquid from a holey barrel so that new can flow in, and the flow in creates pleasure. From this perspective, the holes in the barrel are not, as Socrates thinks, a misfortune, but the prerequisite for a pleasurable life.

For Socrates, the pleasure-oriented order of values ​​is based on the erroneous equation of the pleasant and the pleasure with the good. He therefore tries to show that what is good and what is worth striving for cannot be identical with what is pleasant or enjoyable. He suggests that a desire is an expression of a lack and therefore unpleasant, while its satisfaction is enjoyable. With the satisfaction, the discomfort associated with the lack ceases, but at the same time the enjoyment also ceases. The good, on the other hand, does not end with the bad, but begins with the end of the bad and vice versa. Thus equating the good with the enjoyment is wrong. In addition, for Callicles, too, goodness is associated with bravery and prudence, and wickedness with cowardice and stupidity. The lust of the figs is no less than that of the brave. Thus there is no connection between pleasure and goodness on the one hand and between displeasure and badness on the other. Pleasure cannot be absolutely good. Now Callicles admits that there is good and bad pleasure and also good and bad displeasure; Bad pleasure should be avoided, because only good can be worth striving for. This is what happens to Callicles what he previously denounced at Gorgias and Polos: his shame becomes his undoing. He cannot keep up his radical hedonistic position consistently without defending lusts that are also shameful from his point of view, such as the lust of child molester cited by Socrates. So he feels compelled to subject pleasure to an ethical evaluation.

After Socrates has shown that pleasure and good do not coincide but are different, he illustrates this with various activities that are aimed exclusively at enjoyment and not at making people better. He counts these occupations as flattery. He cites music, theater, poetry and rhetoric as examples. In his criticism of rhetoric, he even includes the most famous statesmen of Athens who have directed the state as speakers: Themistocles , Kimon , Miltiades and Pericles . These were oriented towards their unpleasant desires and the wishes of the crowd instead of the actual requirements of the government. They did not try to bring order into the souls of their fellow citizens. However, that is the task of those who exercise steering functions as speakers.

Socrates tried to conduct the conversation interactively with numerous questions to Callicles and thus to draw his attention to the weaknesses of hedonism. Finally, Callicles refuses to be cornered with any further questions. He accuses Socrates, who persistently bores, to be intrusive and no longer wants to take part in the debate. But Gorgias would like to find out more about the alternative that Socrates opposes to the worldview of his adversary. Socrates agrees to present his concept coherently.

The order of values ​​of Socrates

Socrates sums up his train of thought. The starting point is the insight, already accepted by Kallikles, that the good and the pleasant are not identical. Then the pleasant must be subordinate to the good, not the other way around. Every thing is good through the presence of its specific “goodness” or excellence, the aretḗ . It is based on the appropriate order that is characteristic of the object or living being in question. This also applies to the soul. It has an order which is inherent in it by nature and which defines its goodness, but which is not preserved in every soul. Ordered souls are characterized by prudence and self-discipline, bad souls are rampant and immoderate. The prudent one is necessarily brave, just and pious. He leads a life in eudaimonia. The bad, however, is miserable. The bad can be friends neither with humans nor with gods, because because of his excessiveness he is not capable of community. He falls outside the world order based on community. The cosmos as a whole, like its individual parts, is sensibly ordered; each of its parts plays its assigned role in harmony with the others.

Against this background, Socrates reaffirms his theory of committing and suffering injustice. Suffering is to be avoided as far as possible, and walking under all circumstances. One is protected from suffering if one exercises power in the state or is in agreement with the ruling powers. But such a position does not protect against the far greater evil, the commission of injustice. To avoid this, mere will is not enough; A special competence is required, which one has to acquire through study and practice. The greater evil threatens when one has escaped the lesser one: If the ruler, whose partisans one belongs to, is an unjust ruler, one inevitably gets into an entanglement that causes serious damage to the soul. Anyone who evades participation in injustice by refusing to accept the ruling system is in mortal danger.

In such a dilemma one has to orient oneself to the objective order of values ​​in which not one's own survival, but the integrity of the soul is the overriding value. Hence, in such situations, it would be a mistake to hang on to life. Death is preferable to life as a bad person. Avoiding injustice has absolute priority over all other goals.

Socrates sees the task of the statesman in making the citizens better people. Those who are unable to do so because they lack the qualifications or because the existing conditions do not allow it should not strive for political power. The four famous statesmen, Themistocles, Kimon, Miltiades and Pericles, criticized by Socrates, have not proven themselves by this standard. They have all fallen out of favor with the people of Athens, have been tried or exiled. Her much-vaunted eloquence did not protect her from that. So the rhetoric ultimately proved ineffective. If the four statesmen had made the Athenians better people, they would not have shown themselves ungrateful and would not have acted against their benefactors. In reality, the four of them have only sought to please the people. Therefore, they did not prevent social decline, but promoted it. Current politicians are just as unsuitable in this regard and, moreover, lack the energy of their predecessors. Socrates opposes this mistaken path with his ideal of a politician, although he does suggest that there will be someone who can make it a reality. Anyone who wants to be a good adviser to the people behaves to them like a doctor who prescribes a required therapy, whether the patient welcomes it or not. Socrates himself is active in this sense. Because of his open criticism of his fellow citizens, however, he must expect that they will accuse him and seek his life. He accepts that.

The illustration of Socrates' concept through a myth

In conclusion, Socrates tells a myth of the hereafter, with which he illustrates his understanding of justice. According to the myth, after death, souls are rewarded or punished by the gods for their deeds. Those who have lived righteously come to the “ islands of the blessed ”, where existence is perfectly blissful and there are no evils. Evil doers, on the other hand, come to Tartaros , the underworld, where they get bad.

In the past, on the day of death, before death occurred, souls came before the judges who had to decide their future fate. Since they were still in their bodies, wrong judgments occurred as the judges were influenced by the appearance of the bodies, which led to bias. Those who had a beautiful body and relatives to act as their advocates were preferred. In addition, the judges have been hindered by their own bodies, because when a soul is covered with the body, its perception is less reliable. When the consequences of the wrong judgments led to complaints , the god father Zeus decided to remedy the problem. He ordered that in future the souls should only appear before the court after death, in a "naked" state - that is, without their bodies - and without an advocate. The judges too should be naked souls.

Since the reform of Zeus, every soul stands bare before its judge, who sees it directly as it is. The judge does not know which person he is looking at, but only judges according to his perception. Just as a corpse retains the appearance that the body took on during the lifetime of the deceased, for example large, fat and long-haired, the soul also retains the texture that it received in the body during its life. If she has committed misdeeds, these now appear as visible blemishes on her, analogous to the scars and deformations of the body. The ethical inadequacy manifests itself aesthetically as ugliness. Hence it is impossible to deceive the judge. The judgments of the judgment of the dead are based on direct inspection and are therefore just. The punishment of the condemned in the underworld is intended to improve them; its purpose is healing. However, some particularly criminal souls are excluded from this because they are incurable. They therefore remain in the underworld forever. Above all, they include tyrants and other unjust rulers, whose power has given them the opportunity to commit the most serious crimes.

Finally, Socrates calls for the conclusion to be drawn from this and to live in such a way that one can appear before the judge as intact as possible. He declares legitimate rhetoric that serves this purpose and is free from flattery.

The conversation

In the Gorgias Plato introduces the Socratic way of conducting a conversation, which is closely linked to the corresponding worldview and way of life. The Socratic dialogue should be a joint effort of those involved to gain knowledge, combined with the constant readiness to be instructed and corrected. Uninhibitedness, constructive goal setting, philosophical insight and a good lifestyle form a unit. Behind this is the persistent will to improve yourself and others. However, what is also striking is the harshness and severity with which Plato's Socrates condemns and opposes the opinions, attitudes and activities that he considers harmful. In doing so, it contributes significantly to a confrontational mood.

Despite his impressive remarks, Socrates appears to be ultimately unsuccessful. His interlocutors may bow to the logic of his conclusions, which they can hardly oppose, but refuse to accept the consequences that arise for everyday life. You listen to him out of courtesy or curiosity, not out of a genuine interest in seeking the truth. Callicles, who made the most fruitful contributions to the formulation and justification of an antisocratic position, hardly participates in the content of the discourse in the final phase, although he continues to hold on to his opinion. He has withdrawn from the argument in disgust and lets Socrates talk so that the conversation, of which he no longer expects anything more, comes to an end as soon as possible. He no longer reacts to the last remarks by Socrates - the myth and the associated appeal.

As in other works by Plato, Socrates appears in the Gorgias as a resolute advocate of factual arguments aimed only at knowledge and ethical improvement. He criticizes the habit of suspecting and insulting people who think differently because of personal sensitivities. Nevertheless, Polos and Callicles accuse him of precisely the unobjective behavior that he so emphatically rejects. Polos accuses him of striving, for the joy of refuting, to prove Gorgias a contradiction to which he had led him himself. Callicles accuses him of subtlety and righteousness. So Socrates cannot convince the two of the honesty of his intentions. A common philosophical effort does not materialize.

Philosophical balance sheet

As with other dialogues of Plato, the modern philosophical discussion revolves around the conclusiveness of the arguments of Socrates. Logical shortcomings have been pointed out on various occasions. These include incorrect application of a general principle to an individual case, circular reasoning and the erroneous assumption that the logical validity of the statement results from a linguistic form.

The quality of the arguments with which Plato's Socrates tries to refute the assumptions of his three interlocutors is assessed differently in research. The question is whether or to what extent there are unrecognized fallacies in Gorgias and whether Socrates' opponents in the debate could have escaped refutation if they had failed to make certain assertions or refused to agree to certain theses of Socrates.

With Gorgias it is debatable whether he could have maintained a consistent position with a waiver of the claim that he was also a teacher of justice, or even without this waiver. One of the hypotheses discussed is that the fatal mistake that led him to contradict himself was his exaggerated portrayal of the power of rhetoric. James Doyle attributes Gorgias' failure to the fact that he entered into the debate without having a clear idea of ​​the relationship between rhetoric and ethics. Brad Levett thinks that Plato's Socrates outwitted the rhetoric teacher. To do this, he used a rhetorical strategy that was part of Gorgias' own repertoire. The dialogue thus offers a parody of Gorgias' art of persuasion.

Gregory Vlastos , Gerasimos Xenophon Santas and Peter Stemmer do not consider the refutation of polo to be mandatory. They claim that Polos was able to admit that committing injustice was uglier than suffering, and at the same time was able to hold on to his statement that it was preferable to suffering without thereby falling into the self-contradiction that Socrates imputed to him. The analysis by Vlastos has provoked a number of partly positive and partly negative reactions. Mary Margaret Mackenzie, Joseph Patrick Archie and Rebecca Bensen Cain reject Vlastos' argument, but also come to the conclusion that the refutation of polo is inconclusive. Curtis N. Johnson says Polos made four unnecessary concessions, all four of which were necessary to refute his position. Charles H. Kahn defends the refutation, although he admits weaknesses. He believes that Socrates was able to prove the opposing side's position to be untenable - albeit only in the version represented by Polos - but he did not succeed in proving the correctness of his own view. Scott Berman and Marcel van Ackeren argue for the soundness of Socrates' argument .

George Klosko examines the position of Callicles. He comes to the conclusion that it has considerable weaknesses and that Callicles could have defended his immoralism better if he had not linked it to an extreme hedonism. Charles H. Kahn shares this view, but he points out that a selective hedonism, which establishes and justifies a hierarchy of lusts, in combination with the worldview of Callicles would also be problematic and vulnerable.

It is also disputed whether Socrates' paradoxical thesis that the mighty are in reality powerless because of their ignorance is well founded.

Richard McKim points out that, according to Plato's Socrates, the correct understanding of committing and suffering injustice is already latent in every human being. The philosophical dialogue has the purpose of bringing this latent knowledge into consciousness. This happens when Socrates demonstrates to his interlocutors that their shame prevents them from consistently advocating their positions. This shame reveals the real attitude of the soul. It is not, as Callicles believes, the result of a social conditioning contrary to nature, but an indication of the knowledge hidden in the soul. It shows an ethical orientation that exists from the start. Recognizing this in the course of the discussion is more important than the stringency of the arguments.

A controversial topic in research is the assessment of irrational factors by Plato's Socrates in Gorgias . In Plato's early dialogues, his Socrates represented an “ intellectualistic ” ethic that was also clearly expressed in the Gorgias . This concept states that everyone wants what is good and no one acts badly at will. Those who understand what is good inevitably behave well. Ethically wrong behavior can only be the result of ignorance of the good. Acting against your better judgment ( akrasía ) is impossible. On the other hand, some passages in the Gorgias suggest the existence of an autonomous irrational realm in the soul, whereby the possibility of akrasia seems to come into consideration. John M. Cooper assumes that Socrates' argument in the Gorgias is fraught with certain weaknesses and ambiguities which Plato deliberately put into his mouth. In doing so, Plato wanted to draw attention to deficiencies in the Socratic theory of action, which he only tackled later - in the Politeia Dialogue . Therefore one could not simply regard the Socrates of Gorgias - as it usually happens - as Plato's "mouthpiece". The shortcomings Cooper thinks relate in particular to the denial of the possibility of akrasia and irrational motives.

Time of origin and historical background

Usually the Gorgias is counted among Plato's early works. Within the group of early dialogues, he seems to belong to the later ones. In any case, it was created after the trial of Socrates, which took place in the spring of 399 BC. Took place. The dating around 390/387 is considered plausible. It is disputed in research whether Plato wrote the Gorgias before he wrote about 388 BC. Began his first trip to Sicily, or only after his return from this trip. In contrast to earlier dialogues, in which Socrates does not present his own answers to the questions discussed and the conversation ends in - at least for the time being - perplexity ( aporia ), Plato in Gorgias lets his Socrates take a resolute position.

The real background of the dialogue is formed by Plato's examination of contemporary politics in Athens, which were largely shaped by speakers, his renunciation of political activity in his hometown and the controversies surrounding the execution of his teacher Socrates. In the Gorgias , Plato's Socrates foresees his trial and the death sentence, he offers an explanation for it and is already justifying himself, although the charges against him have not yet been brought at the time of the dialogue. Thus, the Gorgias is one of the polemical texts that were circulated in the context of disputes between supporters and opponents of Socrates. The devastating judgments that Socrates made in the dialogue about the Athenian state and its four most famous representatives as well as about the bulk of its fellow citizens reflect Plato's deep disappointment with the politics of Athens. In the Gorgias , among other things, he wants to make his decision to stay out of politics plausible by presenting political engagement as hopeless. He suggests that under the prevailing conditions one cannot intervene in politics without sacrificing one's own integrity.

Many readers have noticed the passionate vehemence with which the Gorgias condemns the rhetoric and the role of politicians acting as speakers. Olof Gigon explains this polemic of Plato with the contrast between the life plan of the speaker and politician and that of the adherent of Platonic philosophy. Plato recognized the dangers of the alternative model: “One understands that Plato did everything in his power to render this rival harmless.” Therefore, he resorted to simplifications, distortions and malicious assumptions.

In the context of current conflicts, the polemic presented in Gorgias against sophistic virtue teachers, who charge a fee for their lessons and complain about the ingratitude of their students when they owe them the remuneration , also belongs . Plato's Socrates argues that the ingratitude of the students proves the failure of the virtue lesson and thus its worthlessness. If the lessons were valuable and successful, the student would be grateful on their own initiative. It is shameful to ask for money for virtue lessons. Here a fundamental difference of opinion between Plato and the rhetoric teacher Isocrates on the question of fees forms the background. Isocrates also recognized the contradiction denounced by Plato, but drew the opposite conclusion from it. He did not see the mistake in the fee claim, but turned against the claim that virtue can be taught.

reception

Antiquity

The aftermath of the Gorgias in antiquity was strong, both because of the provocative criticism of the rhetoric, widely popular among Greeks and Romans, and because of the widespread interest in ethical issues. The deep impression made by the dialogue is indicative of an anecdote according to which a Corinthian peasant gave up his profession after reading the Gorgias and became a philosopher.

Athenaios reports anecdotal material from an antiplatonic source. According to him, Gorgias has read the dialogue named after him and said: “How ironic Plato can write!” Gorgias is also said to have read the dialogue to his circle of acquaintances, as Atheneus tells us, and remarked that in reality he had not said anything about it or heard.

Plato's contemporary Isocrates , who as a rhetoric teacher belonged to a group of people strongly attacked in the Gorgias , turned against the blanket criticism of the Athenians put forward there. Without explicitly referring to Plato's work, he pointed out that he and many of his fellow citizens did not view the relationship between possession of power and happiness in the superficial and wrong way criticized in the Gorgias .

For Roman rhetoricians, Plato's condemnation of their activity was a challenge that they grappled with. Cicero commented extensively on the delicate subject . In its designed in dialogue form Font De Oratore ( "Over the speakers") he let the speaker and politician Lucius Licinius Crassus († 91 BC..) Indicate the widespread criticism of the philosophical schools - the Academy , the Stoa and Peripatos - to the eloquence goes back to the Gorgias . He - Crassus - had read Gorgias attentively in the Academy in Athens . It had struck him that Plato, the originator of the philosophical disdain for rhetoric, shows in his mockery of the speakers that he himself is a very important speaker. It is wrong to claim that the speakers lack expertise in the issues they deal with. Only those who are familiar with the content can be successful as a speaker. Anyone who does not have a good general education should not be called a speaker. Another argument put forward in Cicero's De oratore is that if the historical Socrates did indeed debate with Gorgias, he could only prevail against him if he himself was the better speaker.

Quintilian also commented in detail on the assessment of the rhetoric in the Gorgias . He claimed that Plato's criticism was only directed against the misuse of the art of speaking, not against good speech itself. This can be seen, among other things, from the fact that Plato himself wrote the defensive speech of Socrates in front of the court as well as (in the Menexenos dialogue ) an eulogy for those who died for the fatherland. Opponents of the rhetoric who invoked the Gorgias misunderstood the dialogue.

In the tetralogical order of the works of Plato, which apparently in the 1st century BC Was introduced, the Gorgias belongs to the sixth tetralogy. The history writer of philosophy, Diogenes Laertios , counted him among the "refuting" writings and gave "About rhetoric" as an alternative title. In doing so, he referred to a now-lost script by the Middle Platonist Thrasyllos .

The famous Stoic Epictetus was heavily influenced by Gorgias . He valued not only the ethical principles advocated by Plato's Socrates, but also his philosophical method of investigation . The Gorgias probably played an important role in Epictetus' teaching . The Middle Platonist Lukios Kalbenos Tauros also placed special emphasis on the treatment of this dialogue in his school, as can be seen from the information given by his student Gellius . Tauros wrote an apparently detailed Gorgias commentary, which is lost except for the quotations handed down by Gellius. In his work Noctes Atticae, Gellius went into the criticism of Callicles of philosophy presented in Gorgias , quoting extensively from the dialogue. He said that the criticism was not entirely wrong, but had a certain justification, because it was directed against alleged philosophers who only dealt with quibbles instead of devoting themselves to a philosophical lifestyle. Plato wanted to warn against this through the mouth of Callicles.

The rhetorician and sophist Aelius Aristides wrote three speeches in which he dealt with the Gorgias . He wrote the first in the 140s; it served to defend rhetoric against Plato's criticism. The second, written soon after, is a response to attacks on the first speech. In the third speech, written in the 160s, Aelius Aristides defended the four Athenian statesmen, portrayed in the Gorgias as incompetent. He mentioned that the condemnation of rhetoric in Gorgias was in some circles considered to be the most admirable part of Plato's oeuvre. According to his own interpretation, however, Plato's attack on rhetoric was not meant seriously, but a literary artifact for the delight of the public; the philosopher himself was a master of the art of language which he accused others of.

The anti-philosophical scholar Athenaios pointed out the chronological discrepancies in the Gorgias in a polemic against Plato . He utilized considerations that probably ultimately go back to a lost work by the grammarist Herodicus of Seleukia.

The sophist Flavius ​​Philostratos expressed himself in a letter to the Empress Julia Domna about Plato's relation to sophistic rhetoric, which he described as positive in the sense of the usual defusing of the contradiction in order to defend the rhetoric; the literary design of the Gorgias shows what the philosopher learned from the sophists.

In the 3rd century a Middle Platonist named Eubulus who lived in Athens wrote a now-lost work in which he treated the Gorgias .

Among the neo-Platonists of late antiquity , the Gorgias was part of the curriculum in the philosophy schools. The influential Neo-Platonist Iamblichus († around 320/325) assigned it to the political virtues and stipulated in the reading canon of his school that after the great Alcibiades , with whom the study of the dialogues had to begin, the Gorgias should be treated as the second dialogue . In his Protreptikos Iamblichus quoted the Gorgias extensively. Presumably Plutarch of Athens († around 432), the founder of the Neoplatonic school of philosophy in Athens, wrote a comment on Gorgias . Also Hierocles of Alexandria took the Gorgias through in his teaching. The famous Neo-Platonist Proklos († 485) wrote a Gorgias commentary that is lost today; perhaps it was only dealing with the final myth of the dialogue. In addition, Proclus interpreted the myth in his Platonic theology . The detailed Gorgias commentary on Olympiodoros the Younger , a neo-Platonist who was active in the 6th century, is preserved - as a postwriting by a pupil . His work is the only ancient commentary on the Gorgias that is not lost. Olympiodoros softened the very negative assessment of the rhetoric in Gorgias and partially rehabilitated the four statesmen attacked by Plato, especially Pericles.

The beginning of the Gorgias in the oldest surviving medieval manuscript, the Codex Clarkianus written in 895

The author of the anonymously handed down late antique "Prolegomena to the Philosophy of Plato" emphasized that Plato's actual intention in the Gorgias was not to reject the wrong concept of rhetoric of Gorgias and Polos, but rather wanted to make the reader understand what an authentic rhetoric consists of. A side effect of this is the exposure of the sophistic rhetoric.

The Gorgias was also noticed by Christian authors . The late antique church father Eusebius of Caesarea quoted a long passage in his Praeparatio evangelica .

The ancient text tradition is limited to a few papyrus fragments from the Roman Empire .

middle Ages

The oldest surviving medieval Gorgias manuscript was made in the year 895 in the Byzantine Empire . The interest of individual scholars in the Gorgias is reflected in the numerous scholias (explanatory notes) that were entered in copies of the text in the Middle Ages - in some cases even in late antiquity.

In the Latin- speaking world of scholars of the West, the Gorgias was unknown in the Middle Ages. However, some of the ideas presented in the dialogue were known from ancient Latin works in which they are referred to. These included the relationship between righteousness and happiness on the one hand, injustice and misery on the other, and the claim that evildoers never get what they want. The works that conveyed ideas from the Gorgias to the Middle Ages included the Tusculanae disputationes Ciceros, the commentary on the Somnium Scipionis of Macrobius , the writing De Platone et eius dogmate of Apuleius , the Noctes Atticae of Gellius and the Consolatio philosophiae of Boethius .

Early modern age

In the west, the Gorgias was rediscovered in the age of Renaissance humanism after the Byzantine scholar Manuel Chrysoloras brought a manuscript of the original Greek text to Italy in the 1390s.

The first Latin translation was done by the Italian humanist and statesman Leonardo Bruni . It was completed in the autumn of 1409 and in 1411 the antipope John XXIII. dedicated. In the dedication letter, Bruni emphasized that Plato's teaching agrees with the Christian teaching in fundamental statements. In doing so, he wanted to make plausible to the Pope that humanistic studies were justified and to confront the opponents of humanism at the papal court. However, as a humanist, Bruni himself was an avid supporter of the rhetoric, which was sharply criticized in the Gorgias . Neither the polemic against the rhetoricians nor the derogatory judgment of Plato's Socrates about the famous statesmen Themistocles, Kimon, Miltiades and Pericles could find approval in the circle of humanists around Bruni. Bruni's discomfort can be seen from the fact that in his Latin version of the Gorgias he endeavored to soften the sharpness of the opposites clashing in the dialogue and to give the text a more harmless, more edifying form.

The beginning of Gorgias in the first edition, Venice 1513

The sharply anti-Platonic humanist Georgios Trapezuntios came to a completely different conclusion . He wrote a pamphlet in 1458, in which he as Aristotelian Plato , Aristotle compared. There he reported that he had already hated Plato in his youth because he had attacked the four most famous and successful statesmen of Athens and rhetoric in the Gorgias . Plato has proven to be the enemy of all good. The Aristotelian-minded Byzantine humanist Theodoros Gazes , who taught at the University of Ferrara from 1446–1449 and dealt with the Gorgias among others , was critical of the dialogue; he attributed the attack on Pericles to a personal antipathy of Plato.

In 1469 Cardinal Bessarion , a Platonic-minded scholar, published a response to the polemics of Georgios Trapezuntios, the text In calumniatorem Platonis ("Against the slanderer of Plato"). In it he justified, among other things, Plato's criticism of the four statesmen in the Gorgias .

In the 1570s, Bruni's Latin Gorgias was printed in Bologna.

Another translation into Latin is by Marsilio Ficino . He published it in Florence in 1484 in the complete edition of his Plato translations. In his introduction (argumentum) to his Latin Gorgias , Ficino, like Bruni, tried to play down the deep contrasts that broke out in the dialogue.

The first edition of the Greek text was published in Venice by Aldo Manuzio in September 1513 as part of the complete edition of Plato's works published by Markos Musuros .

Modern

Literary aspects

The judgments about the literary quality have turned out differently. Friedrich Nietzsche described the dialogue as “strange because the conception is totally inartistic”. Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff did not consider the Gorgias a masterpiece; He said that the structure of the material was still incomplete and that the book had become too long, that the discussion with Callicles seemed dragging and tiring; Only after the Menon dialogue did Plato achieve mastery. Even Alfred Edward Taylor found the Gorgias slow and too long, which he attributed to the inexperience of the author; it is a youth work.

In 1959, Eric Robertson Dodds published a critical edition of the Gorgias with an introduction and commentary. His comment has often been recognized as an exemplary achievement in later research literature.

Paul Shorey sees the statements of Callicles as the most impressive formulation of the immoralistic attitude in European literary history. For Olof Gigon , the “unusually clear structure” is a major advantage of the Gorgias . The differentiation of the figures was an excellent success, the radicality of the questions was impressive. Charles H. Kahn praises the liveliness and "unforgettable intensity" of the presentation, which results from the dramatic design and its impressive link with the author's philosophical concerns.

Philosophical and political aspects

John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) described the Gorgias as one of the finest examples of Plato's dialectical skills and dramatic talent. However, he did not find Socrates' arguments convincing. Mill thought that Socrates' arguments were almost all fallacies; From this point of view, Gorgias is one of the weakest works of Plato. The assertion that virtue is the path to happiness is not correct; rather, it contradicts the entire experience of humanity. The explanations of Plato's Socrates could only impress those who already shared his convictions. The love of virtue is a matter of feeling that one cannot be converted to it with arguments. Although the Gorgias can promote this love, this does not happen for plausible reasons, but by addressing the reader who is receptive to it emotionally. Mill considered the latter a very meritorious achievement; he believed that the Gorgias represented one of the most significant steps in the history of ethics.

A connection between Nietzsche's concept of the superman and the immoralist image of man by Callicles in Plato's Gorgias has often been suspected. However, there is no evidence of this and, in addition to some similarities, there are also fundamental differences. Nietzsche admired Pericles; He sharply disapproved of Plato's derogatory judgment of this statesman and of Athens in pericle, he viewed it as a symptom of decline.

According to Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff's assessment, the conviction that Socrates advocates in Gorgias is not part of philosophy, but is "the truth of faith"; It should be noted that "here religion is preached", although not in the usual sense of the term, but religion as that which "determines the position of man towards the task of his life". The great attraction of the Gorgias for Wilamowitz lies in the fact that Socrates “takes moral principles to extremes”.

As in antiquity, Plato's attack on Themistocles, Kimon, Miltiades and Pericles has also caused astonishment among modern readers. Joachim Dalfen describes the criticism of the four statesmen as irrelevant and historically flawed, Olof Gigon sees it as an “almost absurd malice”. However, in the research literature opinions are divided about the historical picture presented in the Gorgias . William KC Guthrie approves of Plato's very unfavorable overall record of Pericles' work. Eric Robertson Dodds also shows understanding for the philosopher's criticism of the Athenian state and its past heyday. He holds the view that the course of history has proven the philosopher right.

Karl Popper takes the side of Pericles and against Plato, but sees the Gorgias as mostly positive. He believes that at the time Plato wrote the Gorgias , he was still influenced by the teaching of Socrates, from which he turned away only later. The principle that it is worse to do injustice than to suffer can be traced back to the historical Socrates and is an expression of his individualistic attitude, which is very closely related to Christian teaching.

The timeless topicality of the topic is often pointed out and its philosophical significance is appreciated. For Eric Robertson Dodds the Gorgias is the most modern dialogue of Plato. His themes - the power of propaganda in the democratic state and the re-establishment of ethical norms after the decline of conventional values ​​- are also the central problems of the 20th century. Michael Erler thinks that the subject of the Gorgias is "of timeless importance". Ernst Heitsch considers Plato's text to be “revolutionary in several respects, then as now”. Theo Kobusch judges that the Gorgias is one of the most philosophically rich and at the same time one of the most artistic Platonic dialogues. Franz von Kutschera stated that the dialogue was “brilliantly written” and that its central theme was “the most important question there is, the question of how one should live”; Socrates' reasoning is flawed, however, and it draws on concessions from the interlocutors. This is due to the fact that Plato's concepts were not yet fully developed at the time.

The philosopher Hannah Arendt deals in her posthumously published work The Thinking with Socrates, in whom she sees an exemplary thinker, and with his assessment of the perpetration and suffering of injustice. She examines the meaning of the view expressed by Plato's Socrates in Gorgias that an inner conflict in man is worse than contradiction from the outside world. According to Arendt's understanding, the spiritual I only exists in the duality that shows itself in the inner dialogue of thought. The inner interlocutors cannot separate as long as the person is thinking. Therefore, Socrates made it very important that they remain friends, that the harmony of the individual with himself is preserved. Suffering injustice is better than doing injustice, because as a victim one can remain a friend of the sufferer, but not as a perpetrator friend of a murderer.

Editions and translations

• Otto Apelt (translator): Plato's Dialogue Gorgias . In: Otto Apelt (Ed.): Platon: Complete Dialogues , Vol. 1, Meiner, Hamburg 2004, ISBN 3-7873-1156-4 (translation with introduction and explanations; reprint of the 2nd, reviewed edition, Leipzig 1922).
• Winfried Czapiewski (translator): Plato: Gorgias. 2nd edition, Laufen, Oberhausen 2017, ISBN 978-3-87468-261-9
• Joachim Dalfen (translator): Platon: Gorgias (= Ernst Heitsch, Carl Werner Müller (Hrsg.): Platon: Werke. Translation and commentary , Vol. VI 3). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2004, ISBN 3-525-30422-6 .
• Julius Deuschle (translator): Gorgias . In: Erich Loewenthal (Ed.): Platon: All works in three volumes , Vol. 1, unchanged reprint of the 8th, revised edition, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 2004, ISBN 3-534-17918-8 , pp. 301–409 .
• Gunther Eigler (Ed.): Platon: Works in eight volumes , Volume 2, 5th edition, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 2005, ISBN 3-534-19095-5 , pp. 269-503 (reprint of the critical edition by Maurice Croiset , 13th edition, Paris 1968, with the German translation by Friedrich Schleiermacher , 2nd, improved edition, Berlin 1818).
• Michael Erler, Theo Kobusch (Eds.): Plato: Gorgias . Reclam, Stuttgart 2011, ISBN 978-3-15-018896-5 (uncritical edition with translation by Erler; commentary and afterword by Kobusch).
• Kurt Hildebrandt (translator): Plato: Gorgias or about eloquence . Reclam, Stuttgart 1989, ISBN 3-15-002046-8 .
• Rudolf Rufener (translator): Plato: Die Werke des Aufstiegs (= anniversary edition of all works , vol. 2). Artemis, Zurich / Munich 1974, ISBN 3-7608-3640-2 , pp. 269–400 (with introduction by Olof Gigon pp. 87–159).
• Ramón Serrano Cantarín, Mercedes Díaz de Cerio Díez (ed.): Platón: Gorgias . Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Madrid 2000, ISBN 84-00-07972-8 (critical edition with introduction and Spanish translation).

Latin (humanistic)

• Matteo Venier (Ed.): Platonis Gorgias Leonardo Aretino interprete . Società Internazionale per lo Studio del Medioevo Latino, Firenze 2011, ISBN 978-88-8450-408-1 (critical edition by Brunis Gorgias - translation).

literature

Overview representations

• Louis-André Dorion: Gorgias . In: Richard Goulet (ed.): Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques. Volume 5, Part 1, CNRS Éditions, Paris 2012, ISBN 978-2-271-07335-8 , pp. 771-780.
• Michael Erler: Platon ( Outline of the history of philosophy . The philosophy of antiquity , edited by Hellmut Flashar , volume 2/2). Schwabe, Basel 2007, ISBN 978-3-7965-2237-6 , pp. 132-141, 596-598.

Investigations and Comments

• Marcel van Ackeren : Knowledge of the good. Significance and continuity of virtuous knowledge in Plato's dialogues . Grüner, Amsterdam 2003, ISBN 90-6032-368-8 , pp. 64-75, 96-122.
• Joachim Dalfen: Plato: Gorgias. Translation and commentary (= Ernst Heitsch, Carl Werner Müller (Hrsg.): Platon: Werke. Translation and commentary , Vol. VI 3). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2004, ISBN 3-525-30422-6 .
• Michael Erler, Luc Brisson (eds.): Gorgias - Menon. Selected Papers from the Seventh Symposium Platonicum . Academia Verlag, Sankt Augustin 2007, ISBN 978-3-89665-357-4 (numerous articles)
• Charles H. Kahn: Drama and Dialectic in Plato's Gorgias . In: Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy. Vol. 1, 1983, pp. 75-121.
• Richard McKim: Shame and Truth in Plato's Gorgias . In: Charles J. Griswold (Ed.): Platonic Writings, Platonic Readings . Routledge, New York 1988, ISBN 0-415-00187-0 , pp. 34-48.
• Thomas Alexander Szlezák : Plato and the written form of philosophy. Interpretations of the early and middle dialogues . De Gruyter, Berlin 1985, ISBN 3-11-010272-2 , pp. 191-207.

Web links

• Gorgias , Greek text after the edition by John Burnet , 1903
• Gorgias (PDF), German translation after Friedrich Schleiermacher, edited
• Gorgias , German translation by Julius Deuschle (1859)
• Robin Waterfield: Commentary

Remarks

1. ^ Joachim Dalfen: Plato: Gorgias. Translation and commentary , Göttingen 2004, p. 123 f. According to another interpretation, it is a public building; see Theo Kobusch: Comment . In: Michael Erler (Ed.): Platon: Gorgias , Stuttgart 2011, pp. 253–295, here: 253.
2. ^ Eugene N. Borza: In the Shadow of Olympus , Princeton 1990, p. 162.
3. ↑ Michael Erler: Platon , Basel 2007, p. 133; Joachim Dalfen: Plato: Gorgias. Translation and Commentary , Göttingen 2004, pp. 118–122; Monique Canto: Plato: Gorgias , 2nd, revised edition, Paris 1993, pp. 49-54; Michael Vickers : Alcibiades and Critias in the Gorgias: Plato's “Fine Satire” . In: Dialogues d'Histoire Ancienne 20/2, 1994, pp. 85–112, here: 87 f.
4. ^ Joachim Dalfen: Plato: Gorgias. Translation and Commentary , Göttingen 2004, pp. 132-136.
5. ↑ On the historical Gorgias see George B. Kerferd, Hellmut Flashar: Die Sophistik . In: Hellmut Flashar (ed.): Sophistik, Sokrates, Sokratik, Mathematik, Medizin (= Outline of the History of Philosophy. The Philosophy of Antiquity , Volume 2/1), Basel 1998, pp. 1–137, here: 44– 51; Michel Narcy, Marie-Christine Hellmann : Gorgias de Leontinoi . In: Richard Goulet (ed.): Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques , Volume 3, Paris 2000, pp. 486–491; Joachim Dalfen: Plato: Gorgias. Translation and Commentary , Göttingen 2004, pp. 125–129.
6. ↑ Monique Canto: Platon: Gorgias , 2nd, revised edition, Paris 1993, pp. 27-30.
7. ↑ Aristotle, Metaphysics 981a. For historical polo, see Pierre Chiron: Pôlos d'Agrigente . In: Richard Goulet (ed.): Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques , Volume 5, Part 2 (= V b), Paris 2012, pp. 1218–1221.
8. ↑ On historical Callicles see George B. Kerferd, Hellmut Flashar: Die Sophistik . In: Hellmut Flashar (ed.): Sophistik, Sokrates, Sokratik, Mathematik, Medizin (= Outline of the history of philosophy. The philosophy of antiquity , Volume 2/1), Basel 1998, pp. 1–137, here: 85 f .; Michel Narcy: Calliclès . In: Richard Goulet (ed.): Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques , Volume 2, Paris 1994, p. 168 f.
9. ↑ See also François Renaud: La rhetorique socratico-platonicienne dans le Gorgias (447a – 461b) . In: Philosophy antique 1, 2001, pp. 65–86, here: 70–72.
10. ↑ For the dialogue figure Polos see Joachim Dalfen: Plato: Gorgias. Translation and Commentary , Göttingen 2004, pp. 130 f .; Monique Canto: Plato: Gorgias , 2nd, revised edition, Paris 1993, pp. 36-38.
11. ↑ On the dialogue figure Callicles see Joachim Dalfen: Plato: Gorgias. Translation and commentary , Göttingen 2004, p. 136 f.
12. ^ Charles H. Kahn: Drama and Dialectic in Plato's Gorgias . In: Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 1, 1983, pp. 75–121, here: 100. Raphael Woolf examines the ambivalence or split in Kallikles' worldview in detail: Callicles and Socrates: Psychic (Dis) harmony in the Gorgias . In: Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 18, 2000, pp. 1–40, here: 1–17, 25–29. For an understanding of the political stance of Plato's Callicles, see George B. Kerferd: Plato's treatment of Callicles in the 'Gorgias' . In: Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society , New Series 20, 1974, pp. 48-52; Ernst Kapp : Selected Writings , Berlin 1968, p. 99 f.
13. ↑ Plato, Gorgias 447a-c.
14. ↑ Plato, Gorgias 447c-449a.
15. ↑ Plato, Gorgias 449a-453a.
16. ↑ Plato, Gorgias 453b-456a.
17. ^ Plato, Gorgias 456a – c.
18. ↑ Plato, Gorgias 456c-461b.
19. ↑ Plato, Gorgias 461b-465E.
20. ^ Plato, Gorgias 466a-468e.
21. ↑ Plato, Gorgias 468e – 470c.
22. ↑ Plato, Gorgias 470c-472c.
23. ^ Plato, Gorgias 472c-474c.
24. ↑ On the terminology of the ugly and shameful and the shame in Gorgias see William H. Race: Shame in Plato's Gorgias . In: The Classical Journal 74, 1978-79, pp. 197-202. Cf. Peter Stemmer: Doing wrong is worse than suffering wrong. To justify moral action in the Platonic "Gorgias" . In: Journal for philosophical research 39, 1985, pp. 501-522, here: 501-503.
25. ↑ Plato, Gorgias 474c-476a.
26. ↑ Plato, Gorgias 476a-479e. On Plato's understanding of punishment in the Gorgias, see Christopher Rowe: A Problem in the Gorgias: How is Punishment Supposed to Help with Intellectual Error? In: Christopher Bobonich , Pierre Destrée (Ed.): Akrasia in Greek Philosophy , Leiden 2007, pp. 19–40, here: 27–36; Christopher Rowe: Plato and the Art of Philosophical Writing , Cambridge 2007, pp. 147-152; David Sedley: Myth, punishment and politics in the Gorgias . In: Catalin Partenie (ed.): Plato's Myths , Cambridge 2009, pp. 51–76, here: 59–65; Mary Margaret Mackenzie: Plato on Punishment , Berkeley 1981, pp. 179-188.
27. ^ Plato, Gorgias 480a-481b.
28. ↑ Plato, Gorgias 480e.
29. ↑ On the meaning of shame in Gorgias see Charles H. Kahn: Plato and the Socratic dialogue , Cambridge 1996, pp. 134–141; Christina H. Tarnopolsky: Prudes, Perverts, and Tyrants. Plato's Gorgias and the Politics of Shame , Princeton 2010, pp. 56-88.
30. ↑ Plato, Gorgias 481b-482e.
31. ↑ Plato, Gorgias 482e-484c. Cf. Kristian Østergaard: The antithesis Physis / Nomos as a rhetorical problem in Gorgia's dialogue . In: Classica et Mediaevalia 50, 1999, pp. 81-96.
32. ↑ Plato, Gorgias 484c-486d.
33. ↑ Plato, Gorgias 486d-491d.
34. ↑ Plato, Gorgias 491d – 492e.
35. ↑ Plato, Gorgias 492e-494C. See Scott Berman: Socrates and Callicles on Pleasure . In: Phronesis 36, 1991, pp. 117-140, here: 124-127.
36. ↑ Plato, Gorgias 494C-500a. See Theo Kobusch: Speaking and Moral . In: Philosophisches Jahrbuch 85, 1978, pp. 87-108, here: 90.
37. ↑ Plato, Gorgias 500a-505b.
38. ↑ Plato, Gorgias 505c-506c.
39. ↑ Plato, Gorgias 506c-508a.
40. ↑ Plato, Gorgias 508b-511b.
41. ^ Plato, Gorgias 511b-512e.
42. ↑ On the doubt ( Gorgias 520d) see Joachim Dalfen: Can you make people really good? On a neglected subordinate clause in Plato's Gorgias . In: Józef Korpanty, Jerzy Styka (Ed.): Freedom and Democracy in Greek Literature , Krakau 2001, pp. 129–143.
43. ^ Plato, Gorgias 512e-522e.
44. ↑ Plato, Gorgias 523a-b.
45. ↑ Plato, Gorgias 523b – 524a.
46. ↑ Plato, Gorgias 524a-526d. On the myth of Alessandra Fussi: The Myth of the Last Judgment in the Gorgias . In: The Review of Metaphysics 54, 2000/2001, pp. 529-552; Christopher Rowe: The Status of the Myth of the Gorgias, or: Taking Plato Seriously . In: Catherine Collobert et al. (Ed.): Plato and Myth , Leiden 2012, pp. 187–198.
47. ↑ Plato, Gorgias 526d-527e.
48. ↑ Michael Erler: Platon , Basel 2007, p. 135; Theo Kobusch: Speaking and Morals. Reflections on the Platonic "Gorgias" . In: Philosophisches Jahrbuch 85, 1978, pp. 87-108, here: 93-108.
49. ^ Joachim Dalfen: Plato: Gorgias. Translation and Commentary , Göttingen 2004, pp. 139–141.
50. ↑ Plato, Gorgias 457c-458b.
51. ↑ Plato, Gorgias 461b-c.
52. ↑ Plato, Gorgias 497a-c, 499b.
53. ↑ See also Ramón Serrano Cantarín, Mercedes Díaz de Cerio Díez (ed.): Platón: Gorgias , Madrid 2000, pp. LXXV – LXXVIII.
54. ↑ Alessandra Fussi: Socrates' Refutation of Gorgias . In: Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy 17 (2001), 2002, pp. 123-145, here: 123-139. Mark L. McPherran turns against Fussi's hypothesis that the decisive mistake of Gorgias was a claim to omnipotence he made for rhetoric: Commentary on Fussi . In: Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy 17 (2001), 2002, pp. 146-154, here: 146-150.
55. ↑ James Doyle: Socrates and Gorgias . In: Phronesis 55, 2010, pp. 1-25.
56. ^ Brad Levett: Platonic Parody in the Gorgias . In: Phoenix 59, 2005, pp. 210-227.
57. ↑ Gregory Vlastos: Was Polus Refuted? In: American Journal of Philology 88, 1967, pp. 454-460; Gregory Vlastos: Socrates, ironist and moral philosopher , Cambridge 1991, pp. 139-148; Gerasimos Xenophon Santas: Socrates. Philosophy in Plato's Early Dialogues , London 1979, pp. 218-253; Peter Stemmer: Doing injustice is worse than suffering injustice. To justify moral action in the Platonic "Gorgias" . In: Journal for philosophical research 39, 1985, pp. 501-522.
58. ^ Mary Margaret Mackenzie: A Pyrrhic victory: Gorgias 474b-477a . In: The Classical Quarterly , New Series, 32, 1982, pp. 84-88; Joseph Patrick Archie: Callicles' Redoubtable Critique of the Polus Argument in Plato's' Gorgias' . In: Hermes 112, 1984, pp. 167-176, here: 172-174; Rebecca Bensen Cain: Shame and Ambiguity in Plato's Gorgias . In: Philosophy and Rhetoric 41, 2008, pp. 212-237, here: 222-224.
59. ^ Curtis N. Johnson: Socrates' Encounter with Polus in Plato's Gorgias . In: Phoenix 43, 1989, pp. 196-216, here: 213 f.
60. ^ Charles H. Kahn: Drama and Dialectic in Plato's Gorgias . In: Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 1, 1983, pp. 75–121, here: 84–97.
61. ^ Scott Berman: How Polus Was Refuted: Reconsidering Plato's Gorgias 474c – 475c. In: Ancient Philosophy 11, 1991, pp. 265-284; Marcel van Ackeren: The knowledge of the good , Amsterdam 2003, p. 69 and note 278.
62. ↑ George Klosko: The Refutation of Callicles in Plato's Gorgias . In: Greece & Rome 31, 1984, pp. 126-139.
63. ^ Charles H. Kahn: Drama and Dialectic in Plato's Gorgias . In: Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 1, 1983, pp. 75–121, here: 104–107, 108–110. See Theo Kobusch: Speaking and Moral. Reflections on the Platonic "Gorgias" . In: Philosophisches Jahrbuch 85, 1978, pp. 87-108, here: 90 f.
64. ↑ See Terry Penner: Desire and Power in Socrates: The Argument of Gorgias 466A-468E that Orators and Tyrants Have No Power in the City . In: Apeiron 24, 1991, pp. 147-202; Erik Nis Ostenfeld: The Meaning and Justification of a Paradox: Wrongdoing is Involuntary. The Refutation of Polus. In: Michael Erler, Luc Brisson (eds.): Gorgias - Menon , Sankt Augustin 2007, pp. 108–115; Gregory Vlastos: Socrates, ironist and moral philosopher , Cambridge 1991, pp. 148-154; Kevin McTighe: Socrates on Desire for the Good and the Involuntariness of Wrongdoing: Gorgias 466a-468e . In: Hugh H. Benson (Ed.): Essays on the Philosophy of Socrates , New York 1992, pp. 263-297. See Roslyn Weiss: Killing, Confiscating, and Banishing at Gorgias 466-468 . In: Ancient Philosophy 12, 1992, pp. 299-315.
65. ↑ Richard McKim: Shame and Truth in Plato's Gorgias . In: Charles J. Griswold (Ed.): Platonic Writings, Platonic Readings , New York 1988, pp. 34-48. See Harald Seubert : Polis and Nomos , Berlin 2005, pp. 235–241; Charles H. Kahn: Drama and Dialectic in Plato's Gorgias . In: Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 1, 1983, pp. 75–121, here: 115 f .; Jessica Moss: Shame, Pleasure, and the Divided Soul . In: Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 29, 2005, pp. 137–170, here: 139–152, 159–169; Theo Kobusch: How to Live: Gorgias . In: Theo Kobusch, Burkhard Mojsisch (Ed.): Platon. His dialogues in the view of new research , Darmstadt 1996, pp. 47–63, here: 50–53.
66. ↑ Gabriela Roxana Carone: Calculating Machines or Leaky Jars? The Moral Psychology of Plato's Gorgias . In: Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 26, 2004, pp. 55–96. See Raphael Woolf: Callicles and Socrates: Psychic (Dis) harmony in the Gorgias . In: Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 18, 2000, pp. 1–40, here: 24–40; Michael Erler: "Socrates in the cave". Arguments as affect therapy in Gorgias and Phaedo . In: Marcel van Ackeren (Ed.): Understanding Platon , Darmstadt 2004, pp. 57–68, here: 59–61.
67. ↑ John M. Cooper: Reason and Emotion , Princeton 1999, pp. 29-75. Cf. Alessandra Fussi: Socrates' Refutation of Gorgias . In: Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy 17 (2001), 2002, pp. 123-145, here: 142-145; Mark L. McPherran: Commentary on Fussi . In: Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy 17 (2001), 2002, pp. 146-154, here: 151 f.
68. ↑ Michael Erler: Platon , Basel 2007, p. 132 f .; Joachim Dalfen: Plato: Gorgias. Translation and Commentary , Göttingen 2004, pp. 114–118; Ramón Serrano Cantarín, Mercedes Díaz de Cerio Díez (ed.): Platón: Gorgias , Madrid 2000, pp. LXXXIII – XCI; Theo Kobusch: Epilogue . In: Michael Erler (Ed.): Platon: Gorgias , Stuttgart 2011, pp. 307–341, here: 307–310.
69. ^ Jacqueline Duchemin: Remarques on the composition of "Gorgias" . In: Revue des Études grecques 56, 1943, pp. 265–286, here: 275–280, 283–286.
70. ↑ Eric Robertson Dodds: Plato: Gorgias , Oxford 1959, p. 31; Ernst Kapp: Selected Writings , Berlin 1968, p. 101 f.
71. ↑ Olof Gigon: Gorgias with Plato . In: Luciano Montoneri, Francesco Romano (ed.): Gorgia e la Sofistica , Catania / Lentini 1986, pp. 567-593, here: 593.
72. ↑ Plato, GORGIAS 519c-d, 520b-e.
73. ↑ Christoph Eucken : Isokrates , Berlin 1983, pp. 39–41.
74. ↑ Themistios, Speech 23,295. Cf. Alice Swift Riginos: Platonica , Leiden 1976, p. 184 f.
75. ↑ Athenaios 11,505d – e. Cf. Alice Swift Riginos: Platonica , Leiden 1976, p. 93 f.
76. ↑ Christoph Eucken: Isokrates , Berlin 1983, pp. 221–223.
77. ↑ Cicero, De oratore 1.45-47. See Heinrich Dörrie , Matthias Baltes : Der Platonismus in der Antike , Volume 1, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt 1987, pp. 433-435 and Volume 3, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt 1993, p. 195.
78. ↑ Cicero, De oratore 1.48-73.
79. ↑ Cicero, De oratore 3,129.
80. ↑ Quintilian, Institutio oratoria 2.15.
81. ↑ Diogenes Laertios 3: 57-59.
82. ^ Anthony Arthur Long: Epictetus. A Stoic and Socratic Guide to Life , Oxford 2002, pp. 70-74.
83. ↑ Gellius, Noctes Atticae 7:14. Cf. Marie-Luise Lakmann: The Platonist Tauros in the depiction of Aulus Gellius , Leiden 1995, pp. 88–94.
84. ↑ Gellius, Noctes Atticae 10:22.
85. ↑ Aelius Aristides, Speeches 2-4. See the study by Antonino M. Milazzo: Un dialogo difficile: la retorica in conflitto nei Discorsi Platonici di Elio Aristide , Hildesheim 2002.
86. ↑ Aelius Aristides, To Plato on Rhetoric 6; see the edition by Charles A. Behr: Aristides in Four Volumes , Vol. 1, London 1973, p. 290.
87. ^ František Novotný: The Posthumous Life of Plato , Den Haag 1977, pp. 249-252.
88. ↑ Athenaios 5,217c-218a.
89. ^ Philostratus, Letter 73.
90. ↑ Porphyrios , Vita Plotini 20: 41-43. See Heinrich Dörrie, Matthias Baltes: The Platonism in antiquity , Volume 3, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt 1993, p. 195, note 4.
91. ↑ On the Neoplatonic interpretation of the Gorgias see Harold Tarrant: Plato's First Interpreters , Ithaca 2000, pp. 124–126, 135–139.
92. ↑ Prolegomena to the Philosophy of Plato 26, ed. von Leendert G. Westerink: Prolégomènes à la philosophie de Platon , Paris 1990, p. 39. See Heinrich Dörrie, Matthias Baltes: Der Platonismus in der Antike , Volume 1, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt 1987, pp. 106-109, 367 -369; Eric Robertson Dodds: Plato: Gorgias , Oxford 1959, p. 58.
93. ^ Heinrich Dörrie, Matthias Baltes: The Platonism in antiquity , Volume 3, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt 1993, p. 195 and note 6.
94. ↑ Damaskios , Philosophical History 45A, ed. by Polymnia Athanassiadi : Damascius: The Philosophical History , Athens 1999, p. 132 f.
95. ↑ Heinrich Dörrie, Matthias Baltes: The Platonism in antiquity , Volume 3, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt 1993, p. 196 and note 2.
96. ↑ Harold Tarrant: Plato's First Interpreters , Ithaca 2000, pp. 135 f.
97. ^ Edited critically by Leendert G. Westerink: Olympiodori in Platonis Gorgiam commentaria , Leipzig 1970.
98. ^ Harold Tarrant: Introduction . In: Robin Jackson, Kimon Lycos (translator): Olympiodorus: Commentary on Plato's Gorgias , Leiden 1998, pp. 1–52, here: 17–20, 47.
99. ↑ Prolegomena to the Philosophy of Plato 22, ed. von Leendert G. Westerink: Prolégomènes à la philosophie de Platon , Paris 1990, p. 34.
100. ↑ See on this quote Eric Robertson Dodds: Plato: Gorgias , Oxford 1959, p. 64 f.
101. ↑ Corpus dei Papiri Filosofici Greci e Latini (CPF) , Part 1, Vol. 1 ***, Firenze 1999, pp. 66-90. Cf. Ramón Serrano Cantarín, Mercedes Díaz de Cerio Díez (ed.): Platón: Gorgias , Madrid 2000, pp. CXV – CXIX.
102. ↑ Oxford, Bodleian Library , Clarke 39 (= "Codex B" of the Plato textual tradition). For the text transmission, see Ramón Serrano Cantarín, Mercedes Díaz de Cerio Díez (ed.): Platón: Gorgias , Madrid 2000, pp. XCIII – CXIV.
103. ↑ Ramón Serrano Cantarín, Mercedes Díaz de Cerio Díez (ed.): Platón: Gorgias , Madrid 2000, pp. CXX f .; Eric Robertson Dodds: Plato: Gorgias , Oxford 1959, pp. 60-62. Mirella Carbonara Naddei offers a critical edition of the Scholia with an Italian translation and commentary: Gli scoli greci al Gorgia di Platone , Bologna 1976.
104. ↑ Matteo Venier (Ed.): Platonis Gorgias Leonardo Aretino interprete , Firenze 2011, p. 3 f.
105. ^ Matteo Venier (Ed.): Platonis Gorgias Leonardo Aretino interprete , Firenze 2011, pp. 3, 6-8.
106. ↑ On this translation and its dating see James Hankins: Plato in the Italian Renaissance , 3rd edition, Leiden 1994, pp. 53–58, 379–383; Matteo Venier (ed.): Platonis Gorgias Leonardo Aretino interprete , Firenze 2011, pp. 12-14.
107. ↑ James Hankins: Plato in the Italian Renaissance , 3rd edition, Leiden 1994, pp. 53-58, 394-396.
108. ↑ See on Georgios' assessment of Gorgias James Hankins: Plato in the Italian Renaissance , 3rd edition, Leiden 1994, pp. 168–170; Matteo Venier (Ed.): Platonis Gorgias Leonardo Aretino interprete , Firenze 2011, p. 24 f.
109. ↑ Matteo Venier (ed.): Platonis Gorgias Leonardo Aretino interprete , Firenze 2011, p. 25.
110. ↑ See James Hankins: Plato in the Italian Renaissance , 3rd edition, Leiden 1994, p. 230.
111. ↑ See on this edition James Hankins: Plato in the Italian Renaissance , 3rd edition, Leiden 1994, p. 739.
112. ↑ James Hankins: Plato in the Italian Renaissance , 3rd edition, Leiden 1994, pp. 326–328, 468.
113. ^ Lecture recording in: Friedrich Nietzsche: Werke. Critical Complete Edition , Department 2, Vol. 4, Berlin 1995, p. 118.
114. ^ Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff: Platon. His life and works , 5th edition, Berlin 1959 (1st edition Berlin 1919), p. 161.
115. ^ Alfred Edward Taylor: Plato. The man and his work , 5th edition, London 1948, p. 103.
116. ^ Eric Robertson Dodds: Plato: Gorgias , Oxford 1959.
117. ^ Paul Shorey: What Plato Said , 2nd, abridged edition, Chicago 1965 (1st edition 1933), p. 106.
118. ↑ Olof Gigon: Introduction . In: Plato: Die Werke des Aufstiegs (= anniversary edition of all works , vol. 2), Zurich / Munich 1974, pp. 87–159, here: 89 f.
119. ^ Charles H. Kahn: Plato and the Socratic dialogue , Cambridge 1996, p. 125.
120. ↑ John Stuart Mill: Essays on Philosophy and the Classics (= The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill , Vol. 11), Toronto 1978, pp. 97, 149 f., 415 f.
121. ↑ The relevant statements by Eric Robertson Dodds in particular received a lot of attention: Plato: Gorgias , Oxford 1959, pp. 387–391.
122. ^ Friedrich Nietzsche: Postponed fragments . In: Critical Study Edition , ed. by Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari , 2nd, reviewed edition, Munich 1988, vol. 12, p. 560 and vol. 13, p. 168; Peter von Kloch-Kornitz: Plato's "Gorgias" and Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophy . In: Journal for philosophical research 17, 1963, pp. 586–603.
123. ^ Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff: Platon. His life and his works , 5th edition, Berlin 1959 (1st edition Berlin 1919), pp. 162 f., 179.
124. ^ Joachim Dalfen: Plato: Gorgias. Translation and commentary , Göttingen 2004, p. 109.
125. ↑ Olof Gigon: Gorgias with Plato . In: Luciano Montoneri, Francesco Romano (ed.): Gorgia e la Sofistica , Catania / Lentini 1986, pp. 567-593, here: 585.
126. ^ William KC Guthrie: A History of Greek Philosophy , Vol. 4, Cambridge 1975, pp. 294 f.
127. ↑ Eric Robertson Dodds: Plato: Gorgias , Oxford 1959, pp. 32-34.
128. ^ Karl Popper: The open society and their enemies , 6th edition, Vol. 1, Tübingen 1980, p. 149 f.
129. ^ Eric Robertson Dodds: Plato: Gorgias , Oxford 1959, p. 387.
130. ↑ Michael Erler: Platon , Basel 2007, p. 135.
131. ↑ Ernst Heitsch: Plato and the beginnings of his dialectical philosophizing , Göttingen 2004, p. 48.
132. ↑ Theo Kobusch: Speaking and Morals. Reflections on the Platonic "Gorgias" . In: Philosophisches Jahrbuch 85, 1978, pp. 87-108, here: 87.
133. ^ Franz von Kutschera: Platon's Philosophy , Vol. 1, Paderborn 2002, pp. 109, 116.
134. ↑ Plato, Gorgias 482b-c.
135. ↑ Hannah Arendt: Vom Leben des Geistes , Volume 1: Das Denk , Munich 1979, pp. 179–187.

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