Persuasion in Ancient Greece

Andrew Scholtz, Instructor

Course Readings. . .

Plato Gorgias

GORGIAS

By Plato

Translated by Benjamin Jowett (revised and with notes by A. Scholtz)

PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE:

• Callicles (an up and coming politician)
• Socrates (a philosopher)
• Chaerephon (Socrates' good friend)
• Gorgias (a sophist, or professional teacher to young men)
• Polus (another sophist)

SCENE: Athens, Greece, 427 BCE. The house of Callicles, where Gorgias, a foreigner visiting Athens on embassy, has just been lecturing on, and demonstrating, the art of rhetoric. Indeed, while in Athens, he has been enthralling Athenians with the power and novelty of his eloquence, and is in fact a renowned author and teacher of rhetoric, besides being a skilled speaker. Socrates and his good friend Chaerephon did not, however, make it on time for the show, and have only just arrived as the dialogue starts.

---Plato's text begins here---

[447a] CALLICLES: The wise man, as the proverb says, is late for a fray, but not for a feast.

SOCRATES: And are we late for a feast?

CALLICLES: Yes, and a delightful feast. For Gorgias has just been exhibiting to us many fine things.

SOCRATES: It is not my fault, Callicles; our friend Chaerephon is to blame. For he would keep us loitering in the Agora.*

* The agora was the marketplace and political and judicial hub of Athens. As such it was also a hangout, particularly for the city's wealthy youth. [All notes, marked with asterisk (*), by AS.]

[447b] CHAEREPHON: Never mind, Socrates; the misfortune of which I have been the cause I will also repair. For Gorgias is a friend of mine, and I will make him give the exhibition again either now, or, if you prefer, at some other time.

CALLICLES: What is the matter, Chaerephon — does Socrates want to hear Gorgias?

CHAEREPHON: Yes, that was our intention in coming.

CALLICLES: Come into my house, then. For Gorgias is staying with me, and he will exhibit to you.

SOCRATES: Very good, Callicles. But will he answer our questions? [447c] For I want to hear from him what is the nature of his art,* and what it is which he professes and teaches; he may, as you, Chaerephon, suggest, put off the exhibition to some other time.

* Greek tekhnē.

CALLICLES: There is nothing like asking him, Socrates. And indeed to answer questions is a part of his exhibition, for he was saying only just now, that any one in my house might put any question to him, and that he would answer.

SOCRATES: How fortunate! Will you ask him, Chaerephon?

CHAEREPHON: What will I ask him?

[447d] SOCRATES: Ask him who he is.

CHAEREPHON: What do you mean?

SOCRATES: I mean the kind of question that would elicit from him, if he had been a crafter of shoes, the answer that he is a shoemaker. Do you understand?

CHAEREPHON: I understand, and will ask him: Tell me, Gorgias, is our friend Callicles right in saying that you undertake to answer any questions which you are asked?

[448a] GORGIAS: Quite right, Chaerephon: I was saying as much only just now. And I may add, that many years have elapsed since any one has asked me a new one.

CHAEREPHON: Then you must be very ready, Gorgias.

GORGIAS: Of that, Chaerephon, you can make trial.

POLUS: Yes, indeed, and if you like, Chaerephon, you may make trial of me too, for I think that Gorgias, who has been talking a long time, is tired.

CHAEREPHON: And do you, Polus, think that you can answer better than Gorgias?

[448b] POLUS: What does that matter if I answer well enough for you?

CHAEREPHON: Not at all, and you will answer if you like.

POLUS: Ask.

CHAEREPHON: My question is this: If Gorgias had the skill of his brother Herodicus, what should we call him? Should we not call him what we call his brother?

POLUS: Certainly.

CHAEREPHON: Then we would be right in calling him a physician?

POLUS: Yes.

CHAEREPHON: And if he had the skill of Aristophon the son of Aglaophon, or of his brother Polygnotus, what should we call him?

[448c] POLUS: Clearly, a painter.

CHAEREPHON: But now what will we call Gorgias — what is the art in which he is skilled?

POLUS: O Chaerephon, there are many arts among humankind which are experiential, and have their origin in experience, for experience makes the days of human beings to proceed according to art, and inexperience according to chance, and different persons in different ways are proficient in different arts, and the best persons in the best arts. And our friend Gorgias is one of the best, and the art in which he is proficient is the noblest.

[448d] SOCRATES: Polus has been taught how to make a capital speech,* Gorgias. But he is not fulfilling the promise which he made to Chaerephon.

*In Greek, logos: "speech," "oration," "argument," "discourse" generally. From Greek logos come words like "logic" (logikē tekhnē, the art of fashioning well-reasoned arguments) and "psychology" (reasoned discourse pertaining to soul or mind, psukhē).

GORGIAS: What do you mean, Socrates?

SOCRATES: I mean that he has not exactly answered the question which he was asked.

GORGIAS: Then why not ask him yourself?

SOCRATES: But I would much rather ask you, if you are disposed to answer. For I see, from the few words which Polus has uttered, that he has attended more to the art which is called rhetoric than to dialectic.*

* The Greek for "rhetoric" is rhētorikē, the "art (tekhnē) of speaking." The Greek for "dialectic," (the art of analyzing and exploring a question through reasoned argument — Socrates means to contrast that with rhetoric) is dialektikē.

[448e] POLUS: What makes you say so, Socrates?

SOCRATES: Because, Polus, when Chaerephon asked you what was the art which Gorgias knows, you praised it as if you were answering someone who found fault with it, but you never said what the art was.

POLUS: Why, did I not say that it was the noblest of arts?

SOCRATES: Yes, indeed, but that was no answer to the question: nobody asked what was the quality, but what was the nature, of the art, and by what name we were to describe Gorgias. [449a] And I would still beg you briefly and clearly, as you answered Chaerephon when he asked you at first, to say what this art is, and what we ought to call Gorgias. Or rather, Gorgias, let me turn to you, and ask the same question: What are we to call you, and what is the art which you profess?

GORGIAS: Rhetoric,* Socrates, is my art.

* rhētorikē.

SOCRATES: Then I am to call you a rhetorician?*

* Greek rhētōr: "speaker," "orator."

GORGIAS: Yes, Socrates, and a good one too, if you would call me that which, in Homeric language, "I boast myself to be."

SOCRATES: I would wish to do so.

GORGIAS: Then pray do.

[449b] SOCRATES: And are we to say that you are able to make other men rhetoricians?

GORGIAS: Yes, that is exactly what I profess to make them, not only at Athens, but in all places.

SOCRATES: And will you continue to ask and answer questions, Gorgias, as we are at present doing, and reserve for another occasion the longer mode of speech* which Polus was attempting? Will you keep your promise, and answer briefly the questions which are asked of you?

* logos.

GORGIAS: Some answers, Socrates, are of necessity longer; [449c] but I will do my best to make them as short as possible. For a part of my profession is that I can be as brief as any one.

SOCRATES: That is what is wanted, Gorgias; exhibit the shorter method now, and the longer one at some other time.

GORGIAS: Well, I will. And you will certainly say that you never heard anyone use fewer words.

SOCRATES: Very good then. As you profess to be a rhetorician, and a crafter of rhetoricians,*

* That is, a teacher of rhetoric.

let me ask you, [449d] with what is rhetoric concerned? I might ask with what is weaving concerned, and you would reply, would you not, with the making of garments?

GORGIAS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And music is concerned with the composition of melodies?

GORGIAS: It is.

SOCRATES: By Hera,* Gorgias, I admire the surpassing brevity of your answers!

* Hera was one of the ancient Greek gods. Wife of Zeus, she was the chief female god.

GORGIAS: Yes, Socrates, I do think myself good at that.

SOCRATES: I am glad to hear it; answer me in like manner about rhetoric. With what is rhetoric concerned?

[449e] GORGIAS: With discourse.*

* logos.

SOCRATES: What sort of discourse, Gorgias? Such discourse as would teach the sick under what treatment they might get well?

GORGIAS: No.

SOCRATES: Then rhetoric does not deal with all kinds of discourse?

GORGIAS: Certainly not.

SOCRATES: And yet rhetoric makes men able to speak?

GORGIAS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And to understand that about which they speak?

GORGIAS: Of course.

[450a] SOCRATES: But does not the art of medicine, which we were just now mentioning, also make men able to understand and speak about the sick?

GORGIAS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: Then medicine also deals with discourse?*

* Medicine deals with logos not simply in the sense of "words" but in the sense of "knowledge and inquiry expressed through reasoned discourse." Biology is "reasoned discourse" (logos) addressing the life (bios) sciences. All disciplines have a discourse (logos) appropriate to them, but Gorgias wants to focus just on the words (logos) part, to treat that as its own, specialized area of study: rhetoric.

GORGIAS: Yes.

SOCRATES: With discourse concerning diseases?

GORGIAS: Just so.

SOCRATES: And does not gymnastic also deal with discourse concerning the good or evil condition of the body?

GORGIAS: Very true.

[450b] SOCRATES: And the same, Gorgias, is true of the other arts: all of them deal with discourse concerning the subjects with which they severally have to do.

GORGIAS: Clearly.

SOCRATES: Then why, if you call rhetoric the art which deals with discourse, and all the other arts deal with discourse, do you not also call those other arts, arts of rhetoric?

GORGIAS: Because, Socrates, the knowledge of the other arts has only to do with some sort of external action, as of the hand. But there is no such action of the hand in rhetoric, which works and takes effect only through the medium of discourse. [450c] I am, therefore, justified in saying that rhetoric deals with discourse.

SOCRATES: I am not sure whether I entirely understand you, but I dare say I will soon know better. Please answer me a question: Would you admit that there are arts?*

* "Arts" translates Greek tekhnai, plural of tekhnē, "art," "skill."

GORGIAS: Yes.

SOCRATES: As to the arts generally, they are for the most part concerned with doing, and require little or no speaking; in painting, and statuary, and many other arts, the work may proceed in silence; [450d] and of such arts I suppose you would say that they do not fall within the realm of rhetoric.

GORGIAS: You perfectly understand my meaning, Socrates.

SOCRATES: But there are other arts which work wholly through the medium of language, and require either no action or very little, as, for example, the arts of mathematics, of calculation, of geometry, and of playing checkers; in some of these there is pretty nearly as much speech involved as action, but in most of them the speech element is greater — [450e] they depend wholly on words for their efficacy and power, and I take your meaning to be that rhetoric is an art of this latter sort?

GORGIAS: Exactly.

SOCRATES: And yet I do not believe that you really mean to call any of these arts rhetoric, although the precise expression which you used was that rhetoric is an art which works and takes effect only through the medium of words. And if someone wanted to pick an argument with you, he might say "And so, Gorgias, you call mathematics rhetoric." But I do not think that you really call mathematics rhetoric any more than geometry would be so called by you.

[451a] GORGIAS: You are quite right, Socrates, in your apprehension of my meaning.

SOCRATES: Well, then, let me now have the rest of my answer. Seeing that rhetoric is one of those arts which works mainly by the use of words, and there are other arts which also use words, tell me what is that quality in words with which rhetoric is concerned. Suppose that a person asks me about some of the arts which I was mentioning just now; he might say, "Socrates, what is mathematics?" [451b] and I would reply to him, as you replied to me, that mathematics is one of those arts which take effect through words. And then he would proceed to ask: "Words about what?" and I would reply, "Words about odd and even numbers, and how many there are of each." And if he asked again: "What is the art of calculation?" I would say, "That also is one of the arts which is concerned wholly with words." And if he further said, [450c] "Concerned with what?" I would say, like the clerks in the assembly, "as aforesaid" of mathematics, but with a difference, the difference being that the art of calculation considers not only the quantities of odd and even numbers, but also their numerical relations to themselves and to one another. And suppose, again, were I to say that astronomy is only words — he would ask, "Words about what, Socrates?" and I would answer that astronomy tells us about the motions of the stars and sun and moon, and their relative swiftness.

GORGIAS: You would be quite right, Socrates.

[451d] SOCRATES: And now let us have from you, Gorgias, the truth about rhetoric, which you surely would admit to be one of those arts which act always and fulfill all their ends through the medium of words?*

* "Words" = logos.

GORGIAS: True.

SOCRATES: Words which do what? I would ask. To what class of things do the words which rhetoric uses relate?

GORGIAS: To the greatest, Socrates, and the best of human things.

SOCRATES: That again, Gorgias is ambiguous; I am still in the dark. For which are the greatest and best of human things? [451e] I dare say that you have heard men singing at drinking parties* the old drinking song, in which the singers enumerate the goods of life, first health, beauty next, thirdly, as the writer of the song says, wealth honestly obtained.

* The sumposion or "drinking party" (the Greek word gives us "symposium") involved eating followed by moderate to heavy drinking. It could also involve singing, story telling, and clever, sometimes philosophical, conversation.

GORGIAS: Yes, I know the song, but what is your drift?

[452a] SOCRATES: I mean to say, that the producers of those things which the author of the song praises, that is to say, the physician, the physical trainer, the money-maker, will at once come to you, and first the physician will say: "O Socrates, Gorgias is deceiving you, for my art is concerned with the greatest good of human beings and not his." And when I ask, "Who are you?" he will reply, "I am a physician." "What do you mean?" I will say. "Do you mean that your art produces the greatest good?" "Certainly," he will answer, "for is not health the greatest good? What greater good can human beings have, Socrates?" [452b] And after him the trainer will come and say, "I too, Socrates, will be greatly surprised if Gorgias can show more good of his art than I can show of mine." To him again I will say, "Who are you, honest friend, and what is your business?" "I am a trainer," he will reply, "and my business is to make men beautiful and strong in body." When I have done with the trainer, there arrives the money-maker, and he, as I expect, will utterly despise them all. [452c] "Consider Socrates," he will say, "whether Gorgias or any one else can produce any greater good than wealth." "Well," you and I say to him, "and are you a creator of wealth?" "Yes," he replies. "And who are you?" "A money-maker." "And do you consider wealth to be the greatest good of man?" "Of course," will be his reply. And we will respond: "Yes. But our friend Gorgias contends that his art produces a greater good than yours." And then he will be sure to go on and ask, "What good? Let Gorgias answer." [452d] Now, I want you, Gorgias, to imagine that this question is asked of you by them and by me: "What is that which, as you say, is the greatest good of man, and of which you are the creator?" Answer us.

GORGIAS: That good, Socrates, which is truly the greatest, being that which gives to people freedom in their own persons, and to individuals the power of ruling over others in their several city states.*

* In what follows, "city" translates the Greek word polis in the sense of "city state," that is, a sovereign political entity centered around a single urban center like Athens. The territory, called "Attica" ("Shorełand"), controlled by Athens was about the size of the state of Rhode Island. Singapore could be said to be a modern version of a city state. Polis, the root of the word "politics," thus can mean:

• "City" in the sense of urban center
• "City state" in the above sense
• "State" in the abstract sense of the political structures governing a territory and its people — "the State"
• A city state's citizens as a collective
  • Note that ancient Greece was not yet a single, unified country in the political sense. An independent and more or less unified Greek state would not be recognized internationally until 1832 CE. It was, rather, a collection of poleis ("city states") and larger-scale ethnic "leagues" or collectives of Greeks with a shared sense of identity.

SOCRATES: And what would you consider this to be?

[452e] GORGIAS: It's the ability to use words to persuade the judges in the courts,* or the council members in the council, or the citizens in the assembly, or at any other political meeting. If you have the power of uttering this word, you will have the physician as your slave, and the trainer as your slave, and the money-maker of whom you talk will be found to gather treasures, not for himself, but for you who are able to speak and to persuade the multitude.

* "words to persuade" — the Greek uses a form of the noun logos for "words" and a form of the verb peithō for "to persuade."

SOCRATES: Now I think, Gorgias, that you have very accurately explained what you conceive to be the art of rhetoric. [453a] And you mean to say, if I am not mistaken, that rhetoric is the crafter of persuasion,* having this and no other business, and that this is her crown and end. Do you know any other effect of rhetoric over and above that of producing persuasion?

* "Crafter of persuasion" — here, "persuasion" translates a noun form, peithō, similar in meaning to the verb peithō "persuade," but accented differently (noun pay-THŌ, verb PAY-thō).

GORGIAS: No: the definition seems to me very fair, Socrates. For persuasion is the chief end of rhetoric.

SOCRATES: Then hear me, Gorgias, for I am quite sure that [453b] if there ever was anyone who entered on the discussion of a matter because he wants to know the truth, I am such a one, and I would say the same of you.

GORGIAS: What is coming, Socrates?

SOCRATES: I will tell you. I am very well aware that I do not know what, according to you, is the exact nature, or what are the topics, of that persuasion about which you speak, and which is given by rhetoric. I do, though, have a suspicion about both its nature and its topics. And I am going to ask: What is this power of persuasion which is given by rhetoric, and about what? But why, if I have a suspicion, do I ask instead of telling you? Not for your sake, but in order that the argument may proceed in such a manner as is most likely to set forth the truth. And I would have you observe that I am right in asking this further question: If I asked, "What sort of a painter is Zeuxis?" and you said, "The painter of figures," would I not be right in asking, "What kind of figures, and where do you find them?"

GORGIAS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And the reason for asking this second question would be, that there are other painters besides, who paint many other figures?

GORGIAS: True.

SOCRATES: But if there had been no one but Zeuxis who painted them, then would you have answered very well.

GORGIAS: Quite so.

SOCRATES: Now I want to know about rhetoric in the same way. Is rhetoric the only art which brings persuasion, or do other arts have the same effect? I mean to say, does the one who teaches anything persuade people of that which he teaches, or not?

GORGIAS: He persuades, Socrates, there can be no mistake about that.

SOCRATES: Again, if we take the arts of which we were just now speaking, do not mathematics and the mathematicians teach us the properties of number?

GORGIAS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And therefore persuade us of them?

GORGIAS: Yes.

SOCRATES: Then mathematics as well as rhetoric is a crafter of persuasion?

GORGIAS: Clearly.

SOCRATES: And if any one asks us what sort of persuasion, and about what, we will answer, persuasion which teaches [454a] the quantity of odd and even. And we will be able to show that all the other arts of which we were just now speaking are makers of persuasion, and of what sort, and about what.

GORGIAS: Very true.

SOCRATES: Then rhetoric is not the only crafter of persuasion.

GORGIAS: True.

SOCRATES: Seeing, then, that not only rhetoric works by persuasion, but that other arts do the same, as in the case of the painter, it's fair to ask: Of what kind of persuasion is rhetoric the crafter, and about what? [454b] Is not that a fair way of putting the question?

GORGIAS: I think so.

SOCRATES: Then, if you approve the question, Gorgias, what is the answer?

GORGIAS: I answer, Socrates, that rhetoric is the art of persuasion in courts of law and other assemblies, as I was just now saying, and about the just and unjust.

SOCRATES: And that, Gorgias, was what I was suspecting to be your notion. Yet I would not have you wonder if just now I asked you a seemingly plain question. For I ask not in order to confute you, [454c] but, as I was saying, so that the argument may proceed consecutively, and that we may not get the habit of anticipating and suspecting the meaning of one another"s words. I would have you develop your own views in your own way, whatever may be your hypothesis.

GORGIAS: I think that you are quite right, Socrates.

SOCRATES: Then let me raise another question. Is there such a thing as "having learned"?

GORGIAS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And is there also "having believed"?

[454d] GORGIAS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And is "having learned" the same as "having believed," and are learning and belief the same things?

GORGIAS: In my judgment, Socrates, they are not the same.

SOCRATES: And your judgment is right, as you'll see from the following. If a person were to say to you, "Is there, Gorgias, a false belief* as well as true?" you would reply, if I am not mistaken, that there is.

* The Greek for belief is pistis, a noun related to persuasion (peithō). Persuading and believing are closely related activities.

GORGIAS: Yes.

SOCRATES: Well, but is there false knowledge as well as true?

GORGIAS: No.

SOCRATES: No, indeed, and this again proves that knowledge and belief differ.

GORGIAS: Very true.

[454e] SOCRATES: And yet those who have learned as well as those who have believed are persuaded?

GORGIAS: Just so.

SOCRATES: Shall we then assume two sorts of persuasion, one which is the source of belief without knowledge, as the other is of knowledge?

GORGIAS: By all means.

SOCRATES: And which sort of persuasion does rhetoric create in courts of law and other assemblies about the just and unjust? The sort of persuasion which gives belief without knowledge, or that which gives knowledge?

GORGIAS: Clearly, Socrates, that which only gives belief.

[455a] SOCRATES: Then rhetoric, it seems, is the crafter of a persuasion which creates belief about the just and unjust, but gives no instruction about them?

GORGIAS: True.

SOCRATES: And the rhetorician does not instruct the courts of law or other assemblies about things just and unjust. Rather, he creates belief about them. For no one can be supposed to instruct such a vast multitude about such high matters in a short time.

GORGIAS: Certainly not.

SOCRATES: Come, then, and let us see what we really mean about rhetoric. For I do not know what my own meaning is as yet. [455b] When the assembly meets to elect a physician or a shipwright or any other craftsman, will the rhetorician be consulted? Surely not. For at every election the one who ought to be chosen is the one who is most skilled. And, again, when walls have to be built or harbors or docks to be constructed, not the rhetorician but the master workman will advise. Or when generals have to be chosen and an order of battle arranged, or a position taken, [455c] then the military will advise and not the rhetoricians. What do you say, Gorgias? Since you profess to be a rhetorician and a crafter of rhetoricians, I cannot do better than learn the nature of your art from you. And here, let me assure you that I have your interest in view as well as my own. For likely enough some one or other of the young men present might desire to become your pupil, and in fact I see some, and a good many too, who have this wish, but they would be too modest to question you. [455d] And therefore when you are interrogated by me, I would have you imagine that you are interrogated by them. "What is the use of coming to you, Gorgias?" they will say — "about what will you teach us to advise the city? About the just and unjust only, or about those other things also which Socrates has just mentioned?" How will you answer them?

GORGIAS: I will try, then, to reveal the whole nature of rhetoric. [455e] You must have heard, I think, that the docks and the walls of the Athenians and the plan of the harbor were devised in accordance with the advice, partly of Themistocles, and partly of Pericles, and not at the suggestion of the builders.

SOCRATES: Such is the tradition, Gorgias, about Themistocles. And I myself heard the speech of Pericles when he advised us about the middle wall.*

* A protective wall guarding the road from the city of Athens to its harbor.

[456a] GORGIAS: And you will observe, Socrates, that when a decision has to be given in such matters the rhetoricians are the advisers; they are the men who win their point.

SOCRATES: I had that in my admiring mind, Gorgias, when I asked what is the nature of rhetoric, which, when I look at the matter in this way, always appears to me to be a marvel of greatness.

GORGIAS: A marvel, indeed, Socrates, if you only knew how rhetoric comprehends and holds under its sway all the inferior arts. [456b] Let me offer you a striking example of this. On several occasions I have been with my brother Herodicus or some other physician to see one of his patients, who would not allow the physician to give him medicine, or apply the knife or hot iron to him. And I have persuaded the patient to do for me what he would not do for the physician, just by the use of rhetoric. And I say that if a rhetorician and a physician were to go to any city, and had there to argue in the popular assembly or any other political body as to which of them should be elected state-physician, [456c] the physician would have no chance. But whoever could speak would be chosen if he wished, and in a contest with a man of any other profession, the rhetorician more than any one would have the power of getting himself chosen. For he can speak more persuasively to the multitude than any of them, and on any subject. Such is the nature and power of the art of rhetoric. [456d] And yet, Socrates, rhetoric should be used like any other competitive art, though not against everybody. The rhetorician ought not to abuse his strength any more than a boxer or pancratiast*

* A sport combining boxing, wrestling, kicking, and all other kinds of hand-to-hand fighting, except no biting or eye-gouging.

or other master of martial arts, just because he has powers which are more than a match either for friend or foe. He ought not, therefore, to strike, stab, or slay his friends. Suppose a man to have been trained in the gymnasium and to be a skilful boxer. He, in the fullness of his strength, goes and strikes his father or mother or one of his familiars or friends. [456e] But that is no reason why the trainers or sword-masters should be held in detestation or banished from the city; surely not. For they taught their art for a good purpose, to be used against enemies and evil-doers, [457a] in self defence, not in aggression, whereas others have perverted their instructions, and turned to a bad use their own strength and skill. But not on this account are the teachers bad, nor is the art in fault, or bad in itself. I would rather say that those who make a bad use of the art are to blame.

And the same argument holds good of rhetoric. For the rhetorician can speak against all men and upon any subject, in short, he can persuade the multitude better than any other man of anything which he pleases. [457b] But he should not therefore seek to defraud the physician or any other artist of his reputation merely because he has the power. He ought instead to use rhetoric fairly, as he would also use his athletic powers. And if after having become a rhetorician he makes a bad use of his strength and skill, his instructor surely ought not on that account to be held in detestation or banished. [457c] For he was intended by his teacher to make a good use of his instructions, but he abuses them. And therefore he is the person who ought to be held in detestation, banished, and put to death, and not his instructor.

SOCRATES: You, Gorgias, like myself, have had great experience in debating, and you must have observed, I think, [457d] that debates do not always terminate in mutual edification, or in the definition by either party of the subjects which they are discussing. But disagreements are apt to arise: somebody says that another has not spoken truly or clearly. And then they get into a passion and begin to quarrel, both parties conceiving that their opponents are arguing from personal feeling only and jealousy, not from any interest in the question at issue. And sometimes they will go on abusing one another until the company at last is quite upset with themselves for ever having listened to such fellows.

[457e] Why do I say this? Why, because I cannot help feeling that you are now saying what is not quite consistent or in accord with what you were saying at first about rhetoric. And I am afraid to point this out to you, in case you think that I have some animosity against you, and that I speak, not for the sake of discovering the truth, but to attack you. [458a] Now, if you are one of my sort, I would like to cross-examine you, but if not I will let you alone. "And what is my sort?" you will ask. I am one of those who are very willing to be refuted if I say anything which is not true, and very willing to prove any one else wrong who says what is not true, and quite as ready to be refuted as to refute. For I hold that this is the greater gain of the two, just as the gain of being cured of a very great evil is greater than that of curing someone else. For I imagine that there is no evil which a man can endure so great as an erroneous opinion about [458b] the matters of which we are speaking. And if you claim to be one of my sort, let us have the discussion out, but if you would rather have done, no matter; let us make an end of it.

GORGIAS: I would say, Socrates, that I am quite the man whom you have in mind. But, perhaps, we ought to consider the audience, for, before you came, I had already given a long exhibition, [458c] and if we proceed, the argument may run on to a great length. And therefore I think that we should consider whether we may not be detaining some part of the company when they are wanting to do something else.

CHAEREPHON: You hear the audience cheering, Gorgias and Socrates, which shows their desire to listen to you. As for myself, heaven forbid that I should have any business on hand that would take me away from a discussion so interesting and so ably managed.

[458d] CALLICLES: By the gods, Chaerephon, although I have been present at many discussions, I doubt whether I was ever so much delighted before, and therefore if you go on discoursing all day I will be the better pleased.

SOCRATES: I may truly say, Callicles, that I am willing, if Gorgias is.

GORGIAS: After all this, Socrates, I would be disgraced if I refused, especially as I have promised to answer all comers. [458e] In accordance with the wishes of the company, then, do you begin, and ask of me any question which you like.

SOCRATES: Let me tell you then, Gorgias, what surprises me in your words. Though I dare say that you may be right, and I may have misunderstood your meaning. Do you say that you can make any man, who will learn from you, a rhetorician?

GORGIAS: Yes.

SOCRATES: Do you mean that you will teach him to gain the ears of the multitude on any subject, [459a] and this not by instruction but by persuasion?

GORGIAS: Quite so.

SOCRATES: You were saying, in fact, that the rhetorician will have greater powers of persuasion than the physician even in a matter of health, right?

GORGIAS: Yes, with the multitude, that is.

SOCRATES: You mean to say, with the ignorant. For with those who know, he cannot be supposed to have greater powers of persuasion.*

* Crucial point: knowledge of the subject matter at hand inoculates us against the efforts of others to sway us any way they want. It sort of suggests that rhetoric can operate as a kind of deception, or at least partly derives its power from the ignorance of the audience. The same idea is developed in surprising ways in the Gorgias readings (works written by the historical Gorgias).

GORGIAS: Very true.

SOCRATES: But if he is to have more power of persuasion than the physician, he will have greater power than one who knows?

GORGIAS: Certainly.

[459b] SOCRATES: Although he is not a physician, right?

GORGIAS: Right.

SOCRATES: And whoever is not a physician must, obviously, be ignorant of what the physician knows.

GORGIAS: Clearly.

SOCRATES: So, when the rhetorician is more persuasive than the physician, it's a case of the ignorant being more persuasive with the ignorant — more persuasive than the one who has knowledge. Is that not the inference?

GORGIAS: In that case, yes.

SOCRATES: And the same holds of the relation of rhetoric to all the other arts. The rhetorician need not know the truth about things. [459c] He has only to discover some way of persuading the ignorant that he has more knowledge than those who know.

GORGIAS: Yes, Socrates, and is not this a great comfort? Not to have learned the other arts, but the art of rhetoric only, and yet to be in no way inferior to the professors of those other arts?

SOCRATES: Whether the rhetorician is or is not inferior on this account is a question which we will hereafter examine if the inquiry is likely to be of any service to us. [459d] But I would rather begin by asking whether the rhetorician is or is not ignorant of the just and unjust, of the base and the beautiful,*

* "Beautiful," which here translates kalon, is the basic meaning of that word. The "call-" in "calligraphy" or "Callicles" comes from the same root. But kalon could also mean "good" or "fine" or "honorable": honor is a beautiful thing. To the ancient Greek way of thinking, honor and beauty are much the same.

of good and evil, to the same degree that he is of medicine and the other arts. I mean, does he really know anything of what is good and evil, base or beautiful, just or unjust in them? Or has he only a way with the ignorant, persuading them that he is to be esteemed for knowing more about these things than someone else who knows? [459e] For remember: he does not know. Or must the pupil know these things and come to you knowing them before he can acquire the art of rhetoric? If he is ignorant, you who are the teacher of rhetoric will not teach him those things: it is not your business. But you will make him seem to the multitude to know them, when he does not know them. And seem to be a good man, when he is not.* Or will you be unable to teach him rhetoric at all, unless he knows the truth of these things first? What is to be said about all this? [460a] By Zeus, Gorgias, I wish that you would reveal to me the power of rhetoric, as you were saying you would.

* This idea that the art of persuasion — Socrates Gorgias are calling it rhetoric — is concerned with managing appearances is crucial. It will come back again and again in this course.

GORGIAS: Well, Socrates, I suppose that if the pupil does chance not to know them, he will have to learn these things from me as well.

SOCRATES: Say no more, for there you are right. And so whomever you make a rhetorician must either know the nature of the just and unjust already, or he must be taught those things by you.

[460b] GORGIAS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: Well, and is not whoever has learned carpentering a carpenter?

GORGIAS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And whoever has learned music a musician?

GORGIAS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And is whoever has learned medicine a physician, in like manner? Whoever has learned anything whatever is that which his knowledge makes him.

GORGIAS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And in the same way, is he just, who has learned what is just?

GORGIAS: To be sure.

SOCRATES: And whoever is just may be supposed to do what is just?

GORGIAS: Yes.

[460c] SOCRATES: And must not the rhetorician be a just man, and must not just man always desire to do what is just?

GORGIAS: That is clearly the inference.

SOCRATES: Surely, then, the just man will never consent to do injustice?

GORGIAS: Certainly not.

SOCRATES: And according to the argument, the rhetorician must be a just man?

GORGIAS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And will therefore never be willing to do injustice?

GORGIAS: Clearly not.

SOCRATES: But do you remember saying just now that the trainer is not to be accused or banished if the boxer makes a wrong use of his boxer's art. [460d] And in like manner, if the rhetorician makes a bad and unjust use of his rhetoric, that is not to be laid to the charge of his teacher, who is not to be banished, but the wrongdoer himself who made a bad use of his rhetoric — he is to be banished — was that not said?

GORGIAS: Yes, it was.

[460e] SOCRATES: But now we are affirming that the aforesaid rhetorician will never have done injustice at all, true?

GORGIAS: True.

SOCRATES: And at the very outset, Gorgias, it was said that rhetoric dealt with discourse, not about odd and even number (mathematics deals with that), but about just and unjust? Was that not said?

GORGIAS: Yes.

SOCRATES: I was thinking at the time, when I heard you saying so, that rhetoric, which is always discoursing about justice, could not possibly be an unjust thing. But when you added, shortly afterwards, that the rhetorician might make a bad use of rhetoric [461a] I noted with surprise the inconsistency into which you had fallen. And I said that if you thought, as I did, that there was a gain in being refuted, there would be an advantage in going on with the question, but if not, I would leave off. And in the course of our investigations, as you will see yourself, the rhetorician has been acknowledged to be incapable of making an unjust use of rhetoric, or of consenting to do injustice. [461b] By the dog,* Gorgias, there will be a great deal of discussion, before we get at the truth of all this.

* Socrates was fond of the expression, "By the dog." We learn later that this dog is the Egyptian god Anubis, possibly a jackal or a species of wolf.

POLUS: And do even you, Socrates, seriously believe what you are now saying about rhetoric? What! Because Gorgias was ashamed to deny that the rhetorician knew the just and the beautiful and the good, and admitted that, if any one ignorant of those subjects came to him, he could teach them those subjects, and then out of this admission there arose a contradiction — [461c] the thing which you dearly love, and to which not he, but you, brought the argument by such questions — do you seriously believe that there is any truth in all this? For will any one ever acknowledge that he does not know, or cannot teach, the nature of justice? The truth is that it is truly boorish to bring the argument to such a pass.

SOCRATES: O most excellent Polus,*

* Note how Socrates plays with Polus. Polus, whose name means "colt," is young, impetuous, and ambitious. Socrates' "O most excellent Polus" treats the young man as an outstanding figure. But in what follows, Socrates is patronizing toward Polus, who is being more than a little rude. Polus is, like Gorgias, a teacher of rhetoric.

the reason why we provide ourselves with friends and children is that when we get old and stumble, a younger generation may be at hand to set us on our legs again in our words and in our actions. And now, if I and Gorgias are stumbling, [461d] here are you who should raise us up. And I for my part am determined to retract any error into which you may think that I have fallen, though only upon one condition.

POLUS: What condition?

SOCRATES: That you abbreviate, Polus, the excessive length of speech, in which you indulged at first.

POLUS: What! Do you mean that I may not use as many words as I please?

[461e] SOCRATES: Only to think, my friend, that having come on a visit to Athens, which values free speech more any other city in Greece, you, when you got here, and you alone, should be deprived of the power of speech — that would be hard indeed. But then consider my case: shall not I be very roughly used if, when you are making a long oration, and refusing to answer what you are asked, I am compelled to stay and listen to you, [462a] and may not go away? I say, rather, if you have a real interest in the argument, or, to repeat my former expression, have any desire to set it on its legs, take back any statement which you please. And in your turn ask and answer, like myself and Gorgias — refute and be refuted. For I suppose that you would claim to know what Gorgias knows, would you not?

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And you, like him, invite any one to ask you about anything which he pleases, and you will know how to answer him?

POLUS: To be sure.

[462b] SOCRATES: And now, which will you do, ask or answer?

POLUS: I will ask. And do you answer me, Socrates, the same question which Gorgias, as you suppose, is unable to answer. What is rhetoric?

SOCRATES: Do you mean what sort of an art?

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: To say the truth, Polus, it is not an art at all, in my opinion.

POLUS: Then what, in your opinion, is rhetoric?

SOCRATES: A thing which, as I was lately reading in a book of yours, [462c] you say that you have made an art.

POLUS: What thing?

SOCRATES: I would say a sort of knack.

* The Greek is empeiria, "experience." Rhetoric is something that you pick up incidentally, not a proper art to be studied and learned. Note that earlier (448c), Polus was praising experience (empeiria) as the basis for art or skill (tekhnē). Socrates is, in other words, putting Polus and his "art" down.

POLUS: Does rhetoric seem to you to be a knack?

SOCRATES: That is my view, but you may be of another mind.

POLUS: A knack for what?

SOCRATES: A knack for producing a sort of delight and gratification.

POLUS: And if able to gratify others, must not rhetoric be a fine thing?

SOCRATES: What are you saying, Polus? [462d] Why do you ask me whether rhetoric is a fine thing or not, when I have not as yet told you what rhetoric is?

POLUS: Did I not hear you say that rhetoric was a sort of knack?

SOCRATES: Will you, who are so desirous to gratify others, afford a slight gratification to me?

POLUS: I will.

SOCRATES: Will you ask me, what sort of an art is cookery?

POLUS: What sort of an art is cookery?

SOCRATES: Not an art at all, Polus.

POLUS: What then?

SOCRATES: I would say a knack.

POLUS: In what? I wish that you would explain to me.

[462e] SOCRATES: A knack for producing a sort of delight and gratification, Polus.

POLUS: Then are cookery and rhetoric the same?

SOCRATES: No, they are only different parts of the same profession.

POLUS: Of what profession?

SOCRATES: I am afraid that the truth may seem discourteous, and I hesitate to answer, lest Gorgias imagine that I am making fun of his own profession. [463a] For whether or not this is that art of rhetoric which Gorgias practices I really cannot tell. From what he was just now saying, nothing appeared of what he thought of his art, but the rhetoric which I mean is a part of a not very creditable whole.*

* Socrates' beef is not that Gorgias failed to clarify how rhetoric had to do with verbal persuasion (peithō logois, "persuasion through speeches"); on that Gorgias was clear. It's that Gorgias failed to convince Socrates that rhetoric is an "art," a tekhē, something that requires time and intellectual effort to study, to understand, and to practice properly. Note that tekhnē is the root of English "technology." In a way, rhetoric looks to Socrates not like a technology but just something you pick up or even have a natural knack for, as pointed out in an earlier note.

GORGIAS: A part of what, Socrates? Say what you mean, and never mind me.

SOCRATES: In my opinion then, Gorgias, the whole of which rhetoric forms a part is not an art at all, but the habit of a bold and ready intelligence, which knows how to manage humankind. [463b] That habit I sum up under the word "flattery,"

* Socrates uses the word kolakeia, which will be a buzz word for this course. It means "flattery," the process not simply of praising someone else but of doing so mostly to gratify the person. Thus it could mean insincere praise motivated chiefly to gratify, or to win favor from, another. The idea that kolakeia ("flattery") is a form of gratification also leads to the idea that anything intended to gratify or to coddle or to pander to is a form of kolakeia. But kolakeia also implies the inferiority of the kolax, the "flatterer." For to gratify another is to place yourself at the disposal of another.

What that means is that words like kolakeia and kolax imply some combination (two or more) of the following items:

• Praise
• Falsehood or insincerity
• Ulterior motives
• Gratification
• Inferiority of the flatterer

Put differently, Socrates, by grouping rhetoric with flattery, denigrates it and, in the process, risks offending Gorgias and Polus.

and it appears to me to have many other parts, one of which is cookery, which may seem to be an art, but, as I maintain, is only a knack or routine and not an art at all. Another part is rhetoric, and personal adornment and sophistry are two others.

* Socrates uses the Greek sophistikē, short for sophistikē tekhnē, the "sophistic art," what sophists (see above) practice and teach. Note how Polus and Gorgias want to call it an "art" (tekhnē), though Socrates resists.

Thus there are four branches, and four different things answering to them. And Polus may ask, if he likes, [463c] for he has not as yet been informed, what part of flattery is rhetoric. He did not see that I had not yet answered him when he proceeded to ask a further question, whether or not I think rhetoric a fine thing. But I will not tell him whether rhetoric is a fine thing or not, until I have first answered, "What is rhetoric?" For that would not be right, Polus. But I shall be happy to answer, if you will ask me, what part of flattery rhetoric is.

POLUS: I will ask and do answer. What part of flattery is rhetoric?

[463d] SOCRATES: Will you understand my answer? Rhetoric, according to my view, is the ghost or counterfeit of a part of politics.

POLUS: And noble or ignoble?

SOCRATES: Ignoble, I would say, if I am compelled to answer, for I call what is bad ignoble, though I doubt whether you understand what I was saying before.

GORGIAS: By Zeus, Socrates, I cannot say that even I understand.

[463e] SOCRATES: I do not wonder, Gorgias, for I have not as yet explained myself, and our friend Polus, colt by name and colt by nature, is apt to run away.*

* Again, the name "Polus" means "colt."

GORGIAS: Never mind him, but explain to me what you mean by saying that rhetoric is the counterfeit of a part of politics.

SOCRATES: I will try, then, to explain my notion of rhetoric, [464a] and if I am mistaken, my friend Polus will refute me. We may assume the existence of bodies and of souls?

GORGIAS: Of course.

SOCRATES: You would further admit that there is a good condition for each of them?

GORGIAS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And is there something that may not be good in reality, but good only in appearance? I mean to say, that there are many persons who appear to be in good health, and whom only a physician or trainer will discern at first sight not to be in good health.

GORGIAS: True.

SOCRATES: And this applies not only to the body, but also to the soul. In either there may be that which gives the appearance of health, [464b] but not the reality.

GORGIAS: Yes, certainly.

SOCRATES: And now I will endeavor to explain to you more clearly what I mean.*

* This gets intricate; I have supplied a diagram below.

The soul and body are two different things. And each has its own two arts corresponding to each. There is the art of politics that has to do with the soul, and another art that has to do with the body. I do not know the name of this last art, but it can be described as having two parts. One of them is gymnastic, and the other is medicine. [464c] And in politics there is a legislative part, which answers to gymnastic, just as justice does to medicine. And the two parts run into one another: justice has to do with the same subject as legislation, and medicine with the same subject as gymnastic, but with a difference. So, there are these four arts, two attending on the body and two on the soul. All four aim at the highest good.

As for flattery, it knows, or rather guesses the natures of those arts. Thus it has distributed itself into four sham versions or simulations of them. [464d] Flattery puts on the likeness of some one or other of them, and pretends to be that which it simulates, and having no regard for people's highest interests, is always making pleasure the bait of the unwary, and deceiving them into the belief that it, flattery, is of the highest value to them. Cookery simulates the disguise of medicine, and pretends to know what food is the best for the body.*

* Note that ancient doctors were deeply concerned with diet. Thus the physician recommends foods based on their healthiness, the cook based only on their tastiness.

And if the physician and the cook had to enter into a competition in which children were the judges, or people who had no more sense than children, as to which of them best understands the goodness or badness of food, [464e] the physician would be starved to death. [465a] I deem cookery to be a kind of flattery and of an ignoble sort, Polus. For it's you I am now addressing. And I say this because flattery aims at pleasure without any thought of what is best. I do not call it an art, but only a knack, because it is unable to explain or to give a reason for the nature of its own uses.*

* It has no theoretical component; it's not a systematic field of knowledge.

And I do not call any irrational thing an art, but if you dispute my words, I am prepared to argue in defense of them.

[465b] Cookery, then, I maintain to be a flattery which takes only the shape of medicine. And cosmetics, in like manner, is a flattery which takes the form of gymnastic, and is harmful, false, ignoble, and unbefitting a free man. For it works deceitfully by the help of lines, and colors, and enamels, and garments, and making people affect a bogus beauty to the neglect of the true beauty which is given by gymnastic.

I would rather not be tedious, and therefore I will only say, [465c] after the manner of the logicians (for I think that by this time you will be able to follow):

As cosmetics are to gymnastic, so cookery is to medicine.

Or rather,

As cosmetics are to gymnastic, so sophistry is legislation.

And:

As cookery is to medicine, so rhetoric is to justice.*

*A diagram may help:

Sophistic and rhetoric are fake versions (knacks, forms of flattery) of legislation and of justice, these last being the real deal and worthy of study and mastery. The same goes for cosmetics and cooking in relation to gymnastic and medicine.

And this, I say, is the natural difference between the rhetorician and the sophist, but by reason of their near connection, they are apt to be jumbled up together.*

* Socrates makes sophistic and rhetoric out to be different, but only a little different: sophistic as tricky reasoning and rhetoric as tricky speaking. But both seem at home in either courts or legislature. Gorgias' surviving works seem to illustrate both kinds of trickiness.

Neither do they know what to make of themselves, nor do other people know what to make of them. [465d] For if the body governed itself, and were not under the guidance of the soul, and the soul did not make the effort to discern and discriminate between cookery and medicine, but allowed the body to be the judge of them, and if the standard of judgment was whether cookery or medicine provided bodily pleasure, then what Anaxagoras said, a saying with which you, my friend Polus, are well acquainted, would prevail far and wide: everything would be all mixed up together, and cookery, health, and medicine would mingle in an indiscriminate mass.

[466a] And now I have told you my notion of rhetoric, which is, in relation to the soul, what cookery is to the body. Now, I may have done something unexpected in making a long speech, seeing as I would not allow you to speak at length. But I think that I may be excused, because you did not understand me, and could make no use of my answer when I spoke shortly, and therefore I had to enter into an explanation. And if I likewise show myself unable to make use of your answer, I hope that you will speak at equal length. But if I am able to understand you, then let me have the benefit of your brevity, as is only fair. And now you may do what you please with my answer.

POLUS: What do you mean? Do you think that rhetoric is flattery?

SOCRATES: No, I said that it is a part of flattery. If at your age, Polus, you cannot remember, what will you do later, when you get older?

POLUS: And are the good rhetoricians regarded with contempt in cities, under the idea that they are flatterers?

[466b] SOCRATES: Is that a question or the beginning of a speech?

POLUS: I am asking a question.

SOCRATES: Then my answer is, that they are not regarded at all.

POLUS: How not regarded? Have they not very great power in cities?

* For Polus, skill in rhetoric can be a path to political influence and thus to power. Even in a democracy, persuasive politicians rule the people the way a king rules subjects — so Polus thinks. Remember how Gorgias said that with rhetoric, you could "rule others," and even make physicians and physical trainers your slave (425d-e)? It's that kind of power that Polus (and, later, Callicles) would exploit.

SOCRATES: Not if you mean to say that power is a good for the possessor.

POLUS: And that is what I do mean to say.*

* We are already at a key point of the argument, namely, the idea that power is for the benefit of the powerful. For Polus and Callicles (next and final interlocutor), the purpose of power is to aid the powerful in the realization of their ambitions and bodily desires, pleasure and so on. "It's good to be king," says the king in Mel Brooks' History of the World Part 1. For Socrates, power has only one purpose: to aid in achieving the good and the just.

SOCRATES: Then, if so, I think that they have the least power of all the citizens.

[466c] POLUS: What! Are they not like tyrants? They kill and despoil and exile anyone whom they please.*

* Tyrants, i.e., absolute monarchs and dictators, were often thought to be the happiest of people because their power freed them from the usual constraints and allowed them to achieve their every whim.

SOCRATES: By the dog, Polus, I cannot make out at each expostulation of yours, whether you are giving an opinion of your own, or asking a question of me.

POLUS: I am asking a question of you.

SOCRATES: Yes, my friend, but you ask two questions at once.

POLUS: How two questions?

SOCRATES: Why, did you not say just now that rhetoricians are like tyrants, [466d] and that they kill and despoil or exile any one whom they please?

POLUS: I did.

SOCRATES: Well then, I say to you that here are two questions in one, and I will answer both of them. And I tell you, Polus, that rhetoricians and tyrants have the least possible power in cities, [466e] as I was just now saying. For they do literally nothing that they want, but only what they think best.

POLUS: And is that not a great power?

SOCRATES: Polus has already said the reverse.

POLUS: Said the reverse! No, that is what I assert.

SOCRATES: No, by ――* no, that is not what you assert. For you say that power is a good to him who has the power.

* It looks as if Socrates is about to say something like "by Zeus" or "by the dog," but stops short. The conversation is getting intense, and Socrates may not want to invoke divinity as a kind of swear word. (That is more or less the ancient commentator's explanation.) Socrates and Polus are at loggerheads because Socrates thinks that power is bad for people who misuse it. Polus thinks that power is its own justification, no matter how it is used.

POLUS: I do.

SOCRATES: And would you maintain that if a fool does what he thinks best, this is a good, and would you call this great power?

POLUS: I would not.

[467a] SOCRATES: Then you must prove that the rhetorician is not a fool, and that rhetoric is an art and not a form of flattery — and that way you will have refuted me. But if you leave me unrefuted, why, the rhetoricians who do what they think best in cities, and the tyrants, will have nothing upon which to congratulate themselves, if as you say, power is indeed a good, admitting at the same time that what is done without sense is an evil.

POLUS: Yes; I admit that.

SOCRATES: How then can rhetoricians or tyrants have great power in cities, unless Polus can refute Socrates, and prove to him that they do as they will?

[467b] POLUS: This man ――*

* Polus is either so stunned that he cannot finish what he started to say (maybe, "This man is nuts!"), or perhaps Socrates interrupts before Polus can finish. Either way, Polus thinks Socrates is a bit daft not to acknowledge that power is a self-justifying good.

SOCRATES: I say that they do not do as they want; now refute me.

POLUS: Why, have you not already said that they do as they think best?

SOCRATES: And I say so still.

POLUS: Then surely they do as they want?

SOCRATES: I deny it.

POLUS: But they do what they think best?

SOCRATES: Yes.

POLUS: That, Socrates, is monstrous and absurd.

SOCRATES: Enough with the insults, peerless Polus, as I may say in your own peculiar style. [467c] But if you have any questions to ask me, either prove that I am in error or give the answer yourself.

POLUS: Very well, I am willing to answer that I may know what you mean.

SOCRATES: Do people appear to you to want that which they are doing? Or do they want some other, further end, for the sake of which they do a thing? When they take medicine, for example, at the bidding of a physician, do they want the drinking of the medicine, which is painful, or the health part, for the sake of which they drink the medicine?

[467e] POLUS: Clearly, the health part.

SOCRATES: And when people go on a voyage or engage in business, they do not want that which they are doing at the time. For who would desire to take the risk of a voyage or the trouble of business? But they want to have the wealth for the sake of which they go on a voyage.

POLUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And is this not universally true? If someone does something for the sake of something else, that person wants not that which he or she does, but that for the sake of which he or she does it.

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And are not all things either good or evil, or in between?

POLUS: To be sure, Socrates.

SOCRATES: Wisdom and health and wealth and the like you would call goods, and their opposites evils?

POLUS: I would.

SOCRATES: And the things which are neither good nor evil, [468a] and which partake sometimes of the nature of good and at other times of evil, or of neither, things like sitting, walking, running, sailing; or, again, wood, stones, and the like — these are the things which you call neither good nor evil?

POLUS: Exactly so.

SOCRATES: Are these in-between things done for the sake of the good, or the good for the sake of the in-between?

[468b] POLUS: Clearly, the in-between for the sake of the good.

SOCRATES: When we walk we walk for the sake of the good, and under the idea that it is better to walk, and when we stand we stand equally for the sake of the good?

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And when we kill a man we kill him or exile him or confiscate his goods, because, as we think, it will conduce to our good?

POLUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: People who do any of these things do them for the sake of the good?

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And did we not admit that in doing something for the sake of something else, we do not want those things which we do, [468c] but that other thing for the sake of which we do them?

POLUS: Most true.

SOCRATES: Then we do not want simply to kill a man or to exile him or to despoil him of his goods, but we want to do that which conduces to our good, and if the act is not conducive to our good, we do not want it. For we want, as you say, that which is our good, but that which is neither good nor evil, or simply evil, we do not want. Why are you silent, Polus? Am I not right?

POLUS: You are right.

[468d] SOCRATES: Hence we may conclude that if any one, whether a tyrant or a rhetorician, kills another or exiles another or deprives another of his property, under the idea that the act is for his own interests, when really it does not serve his interests, that person may be said to do what seems best to that person?

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: But does he do what he wants if he does what is bad for him? Why do you not answer?

POLUS: Well, I suppose not.

[468e] SOCRATES: Then if great power is a good as you allow, will such a one have great power in a city?

POLUS: He will not.

SOCRATES: Then I was right in saying that a man may do what seems good to him in a city, but not have great power, nor do what he wants.

POLUS: As if you, Socrates, would not like to have the power of doing what seemed good to you in the city, rather than not! No, you would not be jealous when you saw any one killing or robbing or imprisoning whomsoever he pleased. Oh, no, not you!

SOCRATES: Do you mean justly or unjustly?

[469a] POLUS: In either case, is the powerful man not equally to be envied?

SOCRATES: Please, stop, Polus!

POLUS: Why "Please, stop!"?

SOCRATES: Because you ought not to envy wretches who are not to be envied, but only to pity them.

POLUS: And are those of whom I spoke wretches?

SOCRATES: Yes, certainly they are.

POLUS: And so you think that whoever slays any one whom he pleases, and justly slays him, is pitiable and wretched?

[469b] SOCRATES: No, I do not say that about him. But neither do I think that he is to be envied.

POLUS: Were you not saying just now that he is wretched?

SOCRATES: Yes, my friend, if he killed another unjustly, in which case he is also to be pitied. But even if he killed him justly he is not to be envied.

POLUS: At any rate you will allow that whoever is unjustly put to death is wretched, and to be pitied?

SOCRATES: Not so much, Polus, as anyone who kills him, and not so much as the one who is justly killed.

POLUS: How can that be, Socrates?

SOCRATES: It may be because doing injustice is the greatest of evils.

POLUS: But is it the greatest? Is not suffering injustice a greater evil?

SOCRATES: Certainly not.

POLUS: Then would you rather suffer wrong than do wrong?

[469c] SOCRATES: I would not like either, but if I must choose between them, I would rather suffer than do wrong.

POLUS: Then you would not wish to be a tyrant?

SOCRATES: Not if you mean by tyranny what I mean.

POLUS: I mean, as I said before, the power of doing whatever seems good to you in a city: killing, banishing, doing in all things as you like.

SOCRATES: Well then, illustrious friend, when I have said my say, do you reply to me. [469d] Suppose that I go into a crowded public square, and take a dagger under my arm. "Polus," I say to you, "I have just acquired rare power," and I become a tyrant. For if I think that any of these men whom you see ought to be put to death, the man whom I have a mind to kill is as good as dead. And if I am disposed to break his head or tear his garment, he will have his head broken or his garment torn in an instant. [469e] Such is my great power in this city. And if you do not believe me, and I show you the dagger, you would probably say, "Socrates, in that sort of way any one may have great power — he may burn any house which he pleases, and the docks and war ships of the Athenians, and all their other vessels, whether public or private. But can you believe that this mere doing as you think best is great power?"

POLUS: Certainly not such doing as this.

[470a] SOCRATES: But can you tell me why you disapprove of such a power?

POLUS: I can.

SOCRATES: Why then?

POLUS: Why, because whoever did as you say would be certain to be punished.

SOCRATES: And punishment is an evil?

POLUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And you would admit once more, my good sir, that great power is a benefit to a man if his actions turn out to his advantage, and that this is the meaning of great power. And if not, then his power is an evil and is no power. [470b] But let us look at the matter in another way. Do we not acknowledge that the things of which we were speaking, the infliction of death, and exile, and the deprivation of property, are sometimes a good and sometimes not a good?

POLUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: About that you and I may be supposed to agree?

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: Tell me, then, when do you say that they are good and when evil — what principle do you lay down?

POLUS: I would rather, Socrates, that you answer as well as ask that question.

[470c] SOCRATES: Well, Polus, since you would rather have the answer from me, I say that they are good when they are just, and evil when they are unjust.

POLUS: You are hard to refute, Socrates, but might not a child disprove that statement?

SOCRATES: Then I will be very grateful to the child, and equally grateful to you if you will refute me and deliver me from my foolishness. And I hope that you will refute me, and will not get tired of doing good to a friend.

POLUS: Yes, Socrates, and I need draw my examples from long ago. [470d] Events which happened only a few days ago are enough to refute you, and to prove that many people who do wrong are happy.

SOCRATES: What events?

POLUS: You see, I presume, that Archelaus the son of Perdiccas is now the ruler of Macedonia?*

* A kingdom to the north of Athens.

SOCRATES: At any rate I hear that he is.

POLUS: And do you think that he is happy or miserable?

SOCRATES: I cannot say, Polus, for I have never had any acquaintance with him.

[470e] POLUS: And you cannot tell at once, and without having an acquaintance with him, whether a man is happy?

SOCRATES: Most certainly not.

POLUS: Then clearly, Socrates, you would say that you did not even know whether the king of Persia* was a happy man?

* Proverbial for his immense power.

SOCRATES: And I would speak the truth. For I do not know how he stands in the matter of education and justice.

POLUS: What! Does all happiness consist of that?

SOCRATES: Yes, indeed, Polus, that is what I believe. The men and women who are gentle and good are also happy, as I maintain, and the unjust and evil are miserable.

[471a] POLUS: Then, according to your doctrine, the aforementioned Archelaus is miserable?

SOCRATES: Yes, my friend, if he is wicked.

POLUS: That he is wicked I cannot deny. For he had no title at all to the throne which he now occupies, he being only the son of a woman who was the slave of Alcetas the brother of Perdiccas. He himself therefore was, strictly speaking, the slave of Alcetas.*

* It is true that Archelaus murdered rivals to the throne, but the Macedonian monarchy had no law of succession and it was common to do so. Otherwise, Socrates' portrait of the king seems harsh. There is evidence that he was legitimate and fully royal. He was pro-Athenian and was a patron of Athenian poets. He was deeply committed to bringing Macedonia into the mainstream of Greek culture. Still, in Plato's time (post-Archelaus), Athens had a really fraught relationship with the kingdom to the north.

And if he had meant to do rightly he would have remained his slave, and then, according to your doctrine, he would have been happy. But now he is unspeakably miserable, for he has been guilty of the greatest crimes. [471b] In the first place he invited his uncle and master, Alcetas, to come to him, under the pretence that he would restore to him the throne which Perdiccas has usurped, and after entertaining him and his son Alexander,*

* Not Alexander the Great, who lived almost a century later. But both Alexanders were of the Macedonian royal family.

who was his own cousin, and nearly the same age as he. And making them drunk, he threw them into a wagon and carried them off by night, and killed them, and got both of them out of the way. And when he had done all this wickedness, he never discovered that he was the most miserable of all people, and was very far from repenting. Shall I tell you how he showed his remorse? [471c] He had a younger brother, a child of seven, who was the legitimate son of Perdiccas, and to him the kingdom rightfully belonged. Archelaus, however, had no mind to bring him up as he ought, or to restore the kingdom to him. That was not his notion of happiness. But not long afterwards, he threw him into a well and drowned him, and declared to his mother Cleopatra*

* Not the later Cleopatra, queen of Egypt.

that he had fallen in while running after a goose, and had been killed. And now as he is the greatest criminal of all the Macedonians, he may be supposed to be the most miserable and not the happiest of them. And I dare say that there are many Athenians, and you would be at the head of them, [471d] you who would rather be any Macedonian than other Archelaus!*

* Polus is again being sarcastic. He means that anyone would love to trade places with this Archelaus fellow, a king who does anything he wants with impunity. Anyone, that is, but crazy Socrates. . . .

SOCRATES: I praised you at first, Polus, for being a rhetorician rather than a reasoner. And this, as I suppose, is the sort of argument with which you fancy that a child might refute me, and by which I stand refuted when I say that the unjust man is not happy. But, my good friend, where is the refutation? I cannot admit a word which you have been saying.

[471e] POLUS: That is because you will not. For you surely must agree with me.

SOCRATES: Not so, my simple friend. I do not agree with you because you want refute me in the way that rhetoricians go about it in courts of law. For there the one side thinks that they refute the other when they bring forward a number of witnesses of good reputation as proof of their allegations, and their adversary has only a single witness or none at all. [472a] But that kind of proof is of no value where truth is the aim. A man may often be sworn down by a multitude of false witnesses who have a great air of respectability. And in this argument nearly every one, Athenian and foreigner alike, would be on your side, if you would bring witnesses to disprove my statement. You may, if you will, summon Nicias the son of Niceratus,*

* We will meet the famous general Nicias later in the course.

and let his brothers, who gave the row of tripods which stand in the sanctuary of Dionysus, come with him. [472b] Or you may summon Aristocrates, the son of Scellias, who is the giver of that famous offering which is at Delphi. Summon, if you will, the whole house of Pericles,*

* Pericles, the most famous of all Athenian statesman. More about him later.

or any other great Athenian family whom you choose. They will all agree with you. Only I am left alone and cannot agree, for you do not convince me. Although you produce many false witnesses against me, in the hope of depriving me of my inheritance, which is the truth.*

* Socrates imagines a court case in which clever lawyer Polus sues Socrates to deprive him of his inheritance. In the image, Socrates' "inheritance" is the Truth. And Polus would gladly rob Socrates of the Truth, Socrates' most precious possession.

[472c] But I consider that nothing worth speaking of will have been effected by me unless I make you the one witness of my words. Nor by you, unless you make me the one witness of yours.*

* Socrates means that the winner of this argument will be the one who gets the other to change his mind — to agree finally to be a "witness" for the other side.

No matter about the rest of the world. For there are two ways of refutation, one which is yours and that of the world in general. But mine is of another sort — let us compare them, and see how they differ. For indeed, we disagree over matters about which it is honorable to have knowledge, but disgraceful not to have knowledge. To know or not to know happiness and misery — that is the chief of them. And what knowledge can be nobler? Or what ignorance more disgraceful than this? [472d] And therefore I will begin by asking you if it is not the case that you think a man who is unjust, and is doing injustice, can be happy, seeing as you take Archelaus to be unjust yet happy. May I assume that that is how you think of these things?

POLUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: But I say that that is an impossible state of affairs; here is one point about which we disagree. Well, do do you also mean to say also that if he meets with retribution and punishment he will still be happy?

POLUS: Certainly not. In that case he will be most miserable.

[472e] SOCRATES: On the other hand, if the unjust man is not punished, then, according to you, he will be happy?

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: But in my opinion, Polus, the unjust man or the doer of unjust actions is miserable in any case, more miserable, however, if he is not punished and does not meet with retribution, and less miserable if he is punished and meets with retribution at the hands of gods and human beings.*

* On the face of it, both Socrates and Polus hold positions consistent with the broader outlook of each. Polus would rather enjoy rewards sooner than later; he would rather spend than invest. The more power you have, the more you have to invest. Consistent with that, he is more interested in avoiding unpleasantness for the short term, and does not worry about whether that is good in the long term. Socrates is playing a long game. Holding off on enjoying immediate rewards often enhances the reward long-term; he would rather invest and collect interest. So, too, enduring unpleasantness — punishment, medicine, sort of the same thing — now may bring a better future. For even harsh punishment offers one a chance at correction, the chance to be better, which always is better. In theory, that could be said to apply even in the case of capital punishment. Cut short an evil life now and you save the subject from continuing to collect bad karma. That matters in the afterlife, as we shall see in the myth at the end of the dialogue.

[473a] POLUS: You are maintaining a strange doctrine, Socrates.

SOCRATES: I will try to make you agree with me, O my friend, for as a friend I regard you. Then these are the points at issue between us, are they not? I was saying that to do wrong is worse than to suffer wrong, right?

POLUS: Exactly so.

SOCRATES: And you said the opposite?

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: I said also that the wicked are miserable, and you refuted me?

POLUS: By Zeus, I did.

[473b] SOCRATES: Or so you think, Polus.

POLUS: Yes, and I rather suspect that I was right.

SOCRATES: You further said that the wrongdoer is happy if he is unpunished?

POLUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And I affirm that he is most miserable, and that those who are punished are less miserable — are you going to disprove this proposition also?

[473b] POLUS: A proposition which is harder to disprove than that other one, Socrates!*

* Polus is being sarcastic. He thinks it will be a piece of cake.

SOCRATES: Say rather, Polus, impossible. For who can disprove the truth?

POLUS: What do you mean? If a man is detected in an unjust attempt to make himself a tyrant, [473c] and when detected is put to the rack, mutilated, has his eyes burned out, and after having had all sorts of great injuries inflicted on him, and having seen his wife and children suffer the like, is at last impaled or tarred and burned alive, will he be happier than if he escapes and becomes a tyrant, and continues all through life doing what he likes and holding the reins of government, [473d] the envy and admiration both of citizens and strangers? Is that the paradox which, as you say, cannot be refuted?

SOCRATES: There again, noble Polus, you are raising hobgoblins instead of refuting me. Just now you were calling witnesses against me. But please refresh my memory a little. Did you say, "In an unjust attempt to make himself a tyrant"?

POLUS: Yes, I did.

SOCRATES: Then I say that neither of them will be happier than the other, neither the one who unjustly acquires a tyranny, nor whoever suffers in the attempt, [473e] for each of the two would be equally unhappy. Rather, I maintain that whoever escapes and becomes a tyrant is the more miserable of the two. Do you laugh, Polus? Well, this is a new kind of refutation, laughing rather than disproving when someone says something.

POLUS: But do you not think, Socrates, that you have been refuted enough when you say that which no human being will agree with? Ask the company.

SOCRATES: O Polus, I am not a political man, and only last year, when my tribe held the presidency in the council, and it became my duty as to put a question to the vote, [474a] there was a laugh at me, because I did not know the procedure for doing so.*

* The council (boulē) mostly had the job of drawing up the agenda for meetings of the assembly (ekklesia, dēmos). The assembly debated and voted on legislation. Membership in the council was mostly by lottery; each of the ten tribes traded of the presidency. All adult male citizens of Athens were members of the assembly by default. Socrates is trying to look as if he is politically inexperienced.

And as I failed then, you must not ask me to count the votes of those present. But if, as I was saying, you have no better argument than numbers, let me have a turn. As for you, try to disprove me in the way that, I think, is called for here. For I will produce one witness only of the truth of my words, and he is the person with whom I am arguing. [474b] His vote I know how to take, and I reject the great mass of people. I do not even address myself to them. May I ask, then, whether you will answer in turn and have your words put to the proof? For I certainly think that I and you and everyone really do believe that to do wrong is a greater evil than to suffer wrong, and not to be punished than to be punished.

POLUS: And I would say neither I, nor anyone subscribes to any such thing. Would you yourself, for example, suffer rather than do wrong?

SOCRATES: Yes, and so would you. Anyone would.

POLUS: Quite the reverse: neither you, nor I, nor anyone.

[474c] SOCRATES: So will you answer my questions?

POLUS: To be sure, I will. For I am curious to hear what you can have to say.

SOCRATES: Tell me, then, and just so you can be clear on it all, let us suppose that I am beginning at the beginning. Which of the two, Polus, in your opinion, is worse? To do wrong or to suffer it?

POLUS: I would say that suffering it is worse.

SOCRATES: And which is the greater disgrace? Answer.

POLUS: To do wrong.*

* Socrates has just got Polus to admit that it is at least shameful to do injustice/wrong, more shameful to do it than to suffer it.

SOCRATES: And the greater disgrace is the greater evil?

POLUS: Certainly not.

[474d] SOCRATES: I understand you to say, if I am not mistaken, that the beautiful is not the same as the good, or the disgraceful as the evil?

POLUS: Certainly not.

SOCRATES: Let me ask a question of you: When you speak of beautiful things, such as bodies, colors, figures, sounds, institutions, do you not call them beautiful in reference to some standard? Bodies, for example, are beautiful in proportion as they are useful, or as the sight of them gives pleasure to the spectators. Can you give any other account of personal beauty?

[474e] POLUS: I cannot.

SOCRATES: And you would say of figures or colors generally that they were beautiful, either by reason of the pleasure which they give, or of their use, or of both?

POLUS: Yes, I would.

SOCRATES: And you would call sounds and music beautiful for the same reason?

[475a] POLUS: I would.

SOCRATES: Laws and institutions also have no beauty in them except in so far as they are useful or pleasant or both?

POLUS: That is right.

SOCRATES: And may not the same be said of the beauty of knowledge?

POLUS: To be sure, Socrates, and I very much approve of your measuring beauty by the standard of pleasure and utility.

[475b] SOCRATES: And deformity or disgrace may be equally measured by the opposite standard of pain and evil?*

* In ancient Athenian culture there was a tendency to associate the good with physical beauty and bad with the shameful and the ugly. In fact, the same word, aiskhros, means both "shameful" and "ugly" in ancient Greek. That is not to say that ancient Athenians regarded the ugly as morally inferior; still, by modern standards, it is not an enlightened view. Interestingly, Socrates was often described as physically unattractive, but beautiful on the inside. Here and elsewhere, beauty, usefulness, and goodness could be conflated.

POLUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: Then, is it not the case that, when of two beautiful things one thing exceeds in beauty, the measure of the excess is to be taken in one or both of these, that is to say, in pleasure or utility or both?

POLUS: Very true.

SOCRATES: And of two deformed things, that which exceeds in deformity or disgrace exceeds either in pain or evil — must it not be so?

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: But then again, what was the observation that you just now made, about doing and suffering wrong? Did you not say that suffering wrong was more evil, and doing wrong more disgraceful?

POLUS: I did.

SOCRATES: So if doing wrong is more disgraceful than suffering wrong, then doing wrong is painful and indeed more disgraceful than suffering it because: (a) of the pain involved, (b) because of the evil involved, or (c) because of both pain and evil. Is that not so?

POLUS: Yes, of course.*

* Socrates wants to get Polus to admit he is wrong, to admit that doing wrong is evil. But the process is tricky. Polus has denied x (wrongdoing is evil). Socrates gets Polus to accept y (wrongdoing is shameful). Socrates must then get Polus to accept z (the shameful is evil), and that z implies x (wrongdoing as shameful implies wrongdoing as evil). He wants to defeat Polus with logic. Polus wants to defeat Socrates with the force of common opinion. But Socrates does not like to crowd-source questions. . . .

[475c] SOCRATES: First, then, let us consider whether doing wrong is worse than suffering it as far as pain is concerned. Do those who do wrong suffer more than the victims of wrong?

POLUS: No, Socrates, certainly not.

SOCRATES: Then the doers do not feel more pain than the victims?

POLUS: No.

SOCRATES: But if doing wrong does not exceed enduring wrong as far as pain is concerned, then neither does it as far as both pain and evil as a group are concerned?

POLUS: Certainly not.

SOCRATES: Then doing wrong can only exceed suffering wrong in the other way?

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: That is to say, in evil?

POLUS: True.

SOCRATES: Then doing wrong will have an excess of evil, and will therefore be a greater evil than suffering wrong?

POLUS: Clearly.

[475d] SOCRATES: But have not you and the world already agreed that to do wrong is more disgraceful than to suffer?

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And just now, did it not become clear that to do wrong is more evil than to suffer it?

POLUS: True.

SOCRATES: And would you prefer a greater evil or a greater dishonor to a lesser one? Answer, Polus, and fear not; for you will come to no harm if you nobly resign yourself into the healing hand of the argument [475e] as to a physician, without hesitating, and either say "yes" or "no" to me.

POLUS: I would say "No."

SOCRATES: Would any other man prefer a greater to a lesser evil?

POLUS: No, not according to this way of putting the case, Socrates.

SOCRATES: Then I said truly, Polus, that neither you, nor I, nor anyone, would rather do than suffer wrong. For to do wrong is the greater evil of the two.

POLUS: That is the conclusion.

SOCRATES: You see, Polus, when you compare the two kinds of refutations, you see how unlike they are. Everyone, with the exception of myself, are of your way of thinking. But your single assent and witness are enough for me, [476a] and I need no other. I accept your vote, and ignore the rest. Enough of this, and now let us proceed to the next question, which is whether the greatest of evils to a guilty man is to suffer punishment, as you supposed, or whether to escape punishment is not a greater evil, as I supposed. Consider: You would say that to suffer punishment is another name for being justly corrected when you do wrong?

POLUS: I would.

[476b] SOCRATES: And would you not allow that all just things are beautiful in so far as they are just? Please do reflect, and tell me your opinion.

POLUS: Yes, Socrates, I think that they are.

SOCRATES: Consider again: Where there is an doer, must there not also be a target of the doer's action?

POLUS: I would say so.

SOCRATES: And will not the target of the action suffer that which the doer does, and will not the suffering have the quality of the action? I mean, for example, that if a man strikes, there must be something which is struck?

POLUS: Yes.

[476c] SOCRATES: And if the striker strikes violently or quickly, that which is struck will be struck violently or quickly?

POLUS: True.

SOCRATES: And what is suffered by him who is struck is of the same nature as the act of him who strikes?

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And if a man burns, there is something which is burned?

POLUS: Certainly.

[476d] SOCRATES: And if he burns in excess or in a way that causes pain, the thing burned will be burned in the same way?

POLUS: Truly.

SOCRATES: And if he cuts, the same argument holds — there will be something cut?

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And if the cutting is great or deep or such as will cause pain, [476d] the cut will be of the same nature?

POLUS: That is evident.

SOCRATES: Then you would agree generally to the universal proposition that I was just now asserting: that the thing that the doer does is of the same nature as the thing that target of the action experiences?

POLUS: I agree.

SOCRATES: Then, as this is admitted, let me ask whether being punished is suffering or acting?

POLUS: Suffering, Socrates; there can be no doubt of that.

SOCRATES: And suffering implies someone inflicting the suffering?

POLUS: Certainly, Socrates, and he is the punisher.

[476e] SOCRATES: And whoever punishes rightly, punishes justly?

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And therefore he acts justly?

POLUS: Justly.

SOCRATES: Then whoever is punished and suffers retribution, suffers justly?

POLUS: That is evident.

SOCRATES: And that which is just has been admitted to be beautiful?

POLUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: Then the punisher does what is beautiful, and the punished suffers what is beautiful?

POLUS: True.

[477a] SOCRATES: And if he suffers what is beautiful, then he suffers what is good, for the beautiful is either pleasant or useful?

POLUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: Then whoever is punished suffers what is good?

POLUS: That is true.

SOCRATES: Then he is benefited?

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: Do I understand you to mean what I mean by the term "benefited"? I mean that if he is justly punished his soul is improved.

POLUS: Surely.

SOCRATES: Then whoever is punished is delivered from the evil of his soul?

POLUS: Yes.

[477b] SOCRATES: And is he not then delivered from the greatest evil? Look at the matter this way: With respect of a man's property, do you see any greater evil than poverty?

POLUS: There is no greater evil.

SOCRATES: Again, in a man's bodily frame, would you say that the evil is weakness and disease and deformity?

POLUS: I would.

SOCRATES: And do you not imagine that the soul likewise has some evil of its own?

POLUS: Of course.

SOCRATES: And this you would call injustice and ignorance and cowardice, and the like?

POLUS: Certainly.

[477c] SOCRATES: So then, in mind, body, and property, which are three, you have pointed out three corresponding evils: injustice, disease, poverty?

POLUS: True.

SOCRATES: And which of the evils is the most disgraceful? Is not the most disgraceful of them injustice, and in general the evil of the soul?

POLUS: By far the most.

SOCRATES: And if the most disgraceful, then also the worst?

POLUS: What do you mean, Socrates?

SOCRATES: I mean to say that the thing that is most disgraceful has been already admitted to be most painful or hurtful, or both.

POLUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And just now injustice and all evil in the soul [477d] were admitted by us to be most disgraceful?

POLUS: It has been admitted.

SOCRATES: And most disgraceful either because most painful and causing excessive pain, or most hurtful, or both?

POLUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And therefore to be unjust and self-indulgent, and cowardly and ignorant, is more painful than to be poor and sick?

POLUS: No, Socrates; the painfulness does not appear to me to follow from your premises.

SOCRATES: Then, if, as you would argue, it is not more painful, the evil of the soul is of all evils the most disgraceful. [477e] And the excess of disgrace must be caused by some preternatural greatness, or extraordinary hurtfulness of the evil.

POLUS: Clearly.

SOCRATES: And that which exceeds most in hurtfulness will be the greatest of evils?

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: Then injustice and self-indulgence, and in general the depravity of the soul, are the greatest of evils?

POLUS: That is evident.

SOCRATES: Now, what art is there which delivers us from poverty? Does not the art of making money?

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And what art frees us from disease? Does not the art of medicine?

[478a] POLUS: Very true.

SOCRATES: And what art from vice and injustice? If you are not able to answer at once, ask yourself where we go with the sick, and to whom we take them.

POLUS: To the physicians, Socrates.

SOCRATES: And to whom do we go with the unjust and self-indulgent?

POLUS: To the judges, you mean.

SOCRATES: Who are to punish them?

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And do not those who rightly punish others, punish them in accordance with a certain rule of justice?

POLUS: Clearly.

[478b] SOCRATES: Then the art of money-making frees a man from poverty; medicine from disease. And justice from self-indulgence and injustice?

POLUS: That is evident.

SOCRATES: Which, then, is the best of these three?

POLUS: Will you enumerate them?

SOCRATES: Money-making, medicine, and justice.

POLUS: Justice, Socrates, far excels the two others.

SOCRATES: And justice, if the best, gives the greatest pleasure or advantage or both?

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: But is the process of being healed a pleasant thing, and are those who are being healed pleased?

POLUS: I think not.

SOCRATES: A useful thing, then?

[478c] POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: Yes, because the patient is delivered from a great evil. And this is the advantage of enduring the pain — that you get well?

POLUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And who would be happier in his bodily condition: the one who is healed, or who never was sick?

POLUS: Clearly whoever was never sick.

SOCRATES: Yes, for happiness surely does not consist in being delivered from evils, but in never having had them.

POLUS: True.

[478d] SOCRATES: And suppose that two persons have some evil in their bodies, and that one of them is healed and delivered from evil, and the other is not healed, but retains the evil: which of them is the most miserable?

POLUS: Clearly the one who is not healed.

SOCRATES: And was not punishment said by us to be a deliverance from the greatest of evils, which is vice?

POLUS: True.

SOCRATES: And justice punishes us, and makes us more just, and is the medicine of our vice?

POLUS: True.

SOCRATES: Thus whoever has the first place in the scale of happiness is the one [478e] whose soul has never known vice. For this has been shown to be the greatest of evils.

POLUS: Clearly.

SOCRATES: And second place goes to the one who is delivered from vice?

POLUS: True.

SOCRATES: That is to say, whoever receives admonition and rebuke and punishment?

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: Then that one lives worst, who, having been unjust, has no deliverance from injustice?

POLUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: That is, whoever commits the greatest crimes lives worst, and being supremely unjust, succeeds in escaping rebuke or correction or punishment. [479a] And this has, as you say, been accomplished by Archelaus and other tyrants and rhetoricians and potentates?

POLUS: True.

SOCRATES: Might we not, my friend, compare their way to the conduct of a person who is afflicted with the worst of diseases, yet manages not to pay the penalty to the physician for his sins against his physique, and will not be cured, because, [479b] like a child, he is afraid of the pain of being burned or cut? Is not that a parallel case?

POLUS: Yes, truly.

SOCRATES: He would seem as if he did not know the nature of health and bodily vigor. And if we are right, Polus, in our previous conclusions, they who strive to evade justice are in a similar situation, which they see to be painful, but are blind to the advantage which ensues from it, not knowing [479c] how much more miserable a companion a diseased soul is than a diseased body; a soul, I say, which is corrupt and unrighteous and unholy. And so they do all that they can to avoid punishment and to avoid being released from the greatest of evils. They provide themselves with money and friends, and cultivate to the utmost their powers of persuasion.* But if we, Polus, are right, do you see what follows, or will we draw out the consequences in form?

* Note, though, that Archelaus is not a politician using rhetoric to gain influence and power. He is a king who probably does not need rhetoric.

POLUS: If you please.

SOCRATES: Is it not a fact that wrong, [479d] and the doing of wrong, is the greatest of evils?

POLUS: That is quite clear.

SOCRATES: And further, that to suffer punishment is the way to be released from this evil?

POLUS: True.

SOCRATES: And not to suffer it is to perpetuate the evil?

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: To do wrong, then, is second only in the scale of evils. But to do wrong and not to be punished, is first and greatest of all?

POLUS: That is true.

SOCRATES: Well, and was this not the point in dispute, my friend? You Archelaus deemed happy, because he was a very great criminal and unpunished. [479e] I, on the other hand, maintained that he or any other who like him has done wrong and has not been punished, is, and ought to be, the most miserable of all human beings. And that the doer of wrong is more miserable than the sufferer. And whoever escapes punishment, more miserable than whoever suffers. Was not that what I said?

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And it has been proved to be true?

POLUS: Certainly.

[480a] SOCRATES: Well, Polus, but if this is true, where is the great use of rhetoric? If we admit what has been said just now, every man ought in every way to guard himself against doing wrong, for he will thereby suffer great evil?

POLUS: True.

SOCRATES: And if he, or any one about whom he cares, does wrong, he ought of his own accord to go where he will be immediately punished; he will run to the judge, as he would to the physician, in order that the disease of injustice [480b] may not be rendered chronic and become the incurable cancer of the soul. Must we not allow this consequence, Polus, if our former admissions are to stand. Is any other inference consistent with them?

POLUS: To that, Socrates, there can be but one answer.

SOCRATES: Then rhetoric is of no use to us, Polus, in helping a man to excuse his own injustice, that of his parents or friends, or children or country. But it may be of use to any one who holds that instead of excusing the guilty [480c] he ought to accuse, himself above all, and in the next degree his family or any of his friends who may be doing wrong. He should bring to light the injustice and not conceal it, that so the wrongdoer may suffer and be made whole. And he should even force himself and others not to resist, but with closed eyes like brave men to let the physician operate with knife or searing iron, not regarding the pain, in the hope of attaining the good and the beautiful. [480d] Let him who has done things worthy of a whipping allow himself to be whipped, if worthy of being bound, to be bound, if worthy of a fine, to be fined, if of exile, to be exiled, if of death, to die, himself being the first to accuse himself and his own relations, and using rhetoric to this end, that his and their unjust actions may be made manifest, and that they themselves may be delivered from injustice, which is the greatest evil. Then, Polus, rhetoric would indeed be useful. Do you say "Yes" or "No" to that?

[480e] POLUS: To me, Socrates, what you are saying appears very strange, though probably in agreement with your premises.

SOCRATES: Is this not the conclusion, if the premises are not disproved?

POLUS: Yes, it certainly is.

SOCRATES: And from the opposite point of view, if indeed it be our duty to harm another, whether an enemy or not — I except the case of self defence; then, I have to be upon my guard — but if my enemy injures a third person, [481a] then in every sort of way, by word as well as deed, I would try to prevent his being punished, or appearing before the judge. And if he appears, I would contrive that he escape, and not suffer punishment. If he has stolen a sum of money, let him keep what he has stolen and spend it on himself and his family, regardless of religion and justice. And if he has done things worthy of death, let him not die, but rather be immortal in his wickedness. Or, if this is not possible, [481b] let him at any rate be allowed to live as long as he can. For such purposes, Polus, rhetoric may be useful, but is of small if any use to anyone who is not intending to commit injustice. At least, there was no such use discovered by us in the previous discussion.*

* The ancient Greeks had a notion that justice consisted of helping friends and harming enemies. This takes that notion to an absurd extreme, and mocks Polus' idea of rhetoric. If rhetoric is of any use at all, it is to hurt enemies by helping them escape punishment. Friends and family, if guilty, must be allowed to be punished with no recourse to tricky rhetoric to defend them. The whole idea seems intended to provoke. At the same time, Polus, tail between his legs, has in effect conceded defeat. Callicles is not impressed. . . .

CALLICLES: Tell me, Chaerephon, is Socrates in earnest, or is he joking?

CHAEREPHON: I would say, Callicles, that he is in most profound earnest, but you may well ask him.

CALLICLES: By the gods, and I will. Tell me, Socrates, are you in earnest, or only in jest? [481c] For if you are in earnest, and what you say is true, is not the whole of human life turned upside down? And are we not doing, so it would appear, everything the opposite of what we ought to be doing?

SOCRATES: O Callicles, if there were not some community of feelings among humankind, however varying in different persons — I mean to say, if everyone's feelings were peculiar to oneself and were not shared by the rest of his species — [481d] I do not see how we could easily communicate our impressions to one another. I make this remark because I perceive that you and I have a common feeling.*

* Socrates is enunciating a crucial point regarding communication and persuasion, too. Communication is fundamentally a social act. Not just shared language but shared ideas and shared values are needed if we want to get others to see things as we do. This will come up doon enough in the course in connection with speech-based democracy at Athens and with speech-acts.

For we are both lovers, and both of us have two loves apiece. I am the lover of Alcibiades, the son of Cleinias, and of philosophy. And you are lover of the Athenian dēmos, and of Dēmos the son of Pyrilampes.*

* Also crucial stuff. Socrates was famously the lover (erastēs) of the handsome, talented, and corrupt youth Alcibiades, later, an important military and political figure. He also is the "lover" (metaphorically) of Philosophy (philosophia, "love of wisdom"), his teacher and guide. Callicles also has two loves, one literal and the other metaphorical. Dēmos was a rich, handsome, and popular youth in late 400s BCE Athens. The Athenian dēmos was the city's citizens. As a collective, they were the sovereigns of the city: dēmokratia, "democracy," means "rule by the people."

Socrates is thus using an elaborate pun to label Callicles a demagogue (dēmagōgos), a politician who leads by coddling and flattering (rhetoric!) his constituents.

The image of politician as lover and the People as beloved lies at the heart of Aristophanes' Knights.

Now, I observe that you, with all your cleverness, do not venture to contradict your favorites in any word or opinion of theirs. But as they change you change, [481e] backwards and forwards. When the Athenian dēmos*

* Dēmos = "people" ("We the People"), i.e., the citizens as a collective. Also, the popular assembly, insofar as the assembly's membership consisted of the dēmos.

denies anything that you are saying in the assembly, you go over to his opinion. And you do the same with Dēmos, the fair young son of Pyrilampes. For you have not the power to resist the words and ideas of your loves. And if a person were to express surprise at the strangeness of what you say from time to time when under their influence, you would probably reply to him, if you were honest, [482a] that you cannot help saying what your loves say unless they are prevented from saying it. And that you can only be silent when they are.

Now you must understand that my words are an echo, too, and therefore you need not wonder at me. But if you want to silence me, silence Philosophy, who is my love,

* Socrates personifies philosophy as female because the Greek noun is feminine. Broken down, philosophia means "love of wisdom." Socrates is in love with a very noble kind of love. (Puns are all over the place here.)

for she is always telling me what I am now telling you, my friend; neither is she capricious like my other love, for the son of Cleinias says one thing today and another thing tomorrow, but philosophy is always true. [482b] She is the teacher at whose words you are now wondering, and you have heard her yourself. Her you must disprove, and either show, as I was saying, that to do wrong and to escape punishment is not the worst of all evils; or, if you leave her word unrefuted, by the dog the god of Egypt, I declare, O Callicles, that Callicles will never be at one with himself, but that his whole life will be a discord. And yet, my friend, I would rather that my lyre be inharmonious, and that there be no music in the chorus which I provided; [482c] aye, or that the whole world be at odds with me, and oppose me, rather than that I myself should be at odds with myself, and contradict myself.

CALLICLES: O Socrates, you are a regular hothead with your speeches, like a bona fide demagogue.*

* Let us not ignore the irony. Callicles is accusing Socrates of behaving like a demagogic rhetorician. We are moving uncomfortably in the direction of name calling.

And now you are orating in this way because Polus has fallen into the same error himself of which he accused Gorgias. For he said that when Gorgias was asked by you whether, should someone come to him who wanted to learn rhetoric, but did not know justice, he would teach that person justice, [482d] Gorgias in his modesty replied that he would, because he thought that humankind in general would be displeased if he answered "No." And then in consequence of this admission, Gorgias was compelled to contradict himself, that being just the sort of thing in which you delight. Whereupon Polus laughed at you deservedly, as I think. But now he has himself fallen into the same trap. I cannot say very much for his wit when he conceded to you that to do wrong is more dishonorable than to suffer wrong. [482e] For this was the admission which led to his being entangled by you. And because he was too modest to say what he thought, he had his mouth stopped.

For the truth is, Socrates, that you, who pretend to be engaged in the pursuit of truth, are appealing now to the popular and vulgar notions of right, which are not natural, but only conventional.*

* That's why, according to Callicles, Socrates is a "demagogue": Socrates appeals to the frequently claimed superiority of convention (law, society's norms, etc.) over nature (might as right and so on). But Callicles also regards it as hypocritical to make that claim. That is how the inferior (poor folk, the masses) gang up on the superior (the "better" elements of society). They sort of shame the others into conformity.

Convention and nature are generally at variance with one another. [483a] And so, if a person is too modest to say what he thinks, he is compelled to contradict himself. And you, in your ingenuity perceiving the advantage to be thereby gained, slyly ask someone who is arguing conventionally a question which is to be determined by the rule of nature. And if that person is talking about how there is a kind of natural law that rules in society, you slip away to human custom as the source of law.*

* Also important for this course is the late 400s BCE idea that "natural" law trumps human custom. Callicles does not so much have in mind our scientific idea of natural law guiding biological, chemical, and similar processes. He means human nature (phusis), which always looks out for itself. Convention (nomos) seeks to restrain nature. Under natural law, might is right and ends justify means. In contrast to Gorgias and Polus, Callicles is charting out a more sophisticated framework within which to defend rhetoric as a tool for the ambitious.

For instance, you did so in this very discussion about doing and suffering wrong. When Polus was speaking of conventionally dishonorable things, you attacked him from the point of view of nature. For by the rule of nature, to suffer wrong is the greater disgrace because the greater evil. But conventionally, to do evil is the more disgraceful. [483b] For to suffer wrong is not for men but for slaves, who indeed are better dead than alive. For whoever is wronged and trampled upon, that person is incapable of self-help, or of helping anyone dear. The reason, as I conceive it, is that the makers of laws are the majority who are weak. And they make laws and distribute praises and censures with a view to themselves and to their own interests. [483c] And they terrify the stronger sort of men, and those who are able to get the better of them, in order that they may not get the better of them. And they say that dishonesty is shameful and unjust, meaning by the word injustice the desire of a man to have more than his neighbors. For knowing their own inferiority, I suspect that they are too glad of equality.*

* The weak use "justice" to restrain the strong. By "the weak" he means the poor and the masses, who seek their own good at the expense of their betters. They call it "justice" but it is really just self-interest. (But is not that the mirror image of how the rich and powerful think and act?)

And therefore the effort to have more than the masses is conventionally said to be shameful and unjust, and is called injustice, whereas nature itself intimates that it is just for the better kind of people to have more than the worse, and for the more powerful to have more than the than the weaker. [483d] And in many ways nature shows, among human beings as well as among animals, and indeed among whole cities and races, that justice consists of the superior ruling over and having more than the inferior. For on what principle of justice did Xerxes invade Greece, or his father the Scythians, [483e] not to mention countless other examples. No, but these are the people who act according to nature. Yes, by Zeus, and according to the law of nature: not, perhaps, according to that artificial law, which we invent and impose upon our fellows, of whom we take the best and strongest from their youth upwards, and tame them like young lions, charming them with the sound of the voice, [484a] and saying to them that they must be content with equality, and that the equal is the beautiful and the just.*

* Callicles means not just political equality, the foundation of Athenian democracy, but wealth equality, too.

But if there were a man who had sufficient force, he would shake off and break through, and escape from all this. He would trample under foot all our formulas and spells and charms, and all our laws which are against nature. The slave would rise in rebellion [484b] and be lord over us, and the light of natural justice would shine forth. And this I take to be the sentiment of Pindar, when he says in his poem that

"Law is the king of all, of mortals as well as of immortals"

and that,

"law brings extreme violence in its train, yet justifies its rule with unsurpassed force. For me, the deeds of Heracles stand as proof. Unbought. . ."

I do not remember the exact words, but the meaning is that without buying them, and without their being given to him, [484c] he carried off the oxen of Geryon, according to the law of natural right, and that the oxen and other possessions of weaker and inferior folks properly belong to the stronger and superior.*

* The poem goes on: "Unbought and unwon were the cattle that Heracles took from Geryones ('Gher-EYE-o-nees") and then drove to the mighty gates of Eurystheus' palace" (Pindar fragment 169). In the myth, Zeus punishes the great hero Heracles (aka "Hercules") by making him perform taxing feats for the unheroic and unworthy Eurystheus. Thus Pindar's point may differ from that of Callicles. Pindar means that law rules all, even the mighty Heracles, with an invincible hand. Callicles means that Might makes Right, and that Heracles has every right to the cattle just because he is so strong.

And this is true, as you may learn, should you leave philosophy and go on to higher things. For philosophy, Socrates, if pursued in moderation and at the proper age, is an elegant accomplishment. But too much philosophy is the ruin of human life. Even if a man has developed into a fine fellow, still, if he carries philosophy into later life, [484d] he is necessarily ignorant of all those things which a gentleman and a person of honor ought to know. He is inexperienced in the laws of the city, and in the language which ought to be used in the dealings of man with man,*

* Here is where rhetoric comes in, as indispensable in court and in political assemblies.

whether private or public, and utterly ignorant of the pleasures and desires of humankind and of human character in general. And people of this sort, [484e] when they venture into politics or business, are as ridiculous as I imagine the politicians are, when they make their appearance in the arena of philosophy. For, as Euripides says,

"Everyone shines in that and pursues that, and devotes the greatest portion of the day to that, in which one most excels,"

[485a] but anything in which he is inferior, he avoids and depreciates, and praises the opposite from bias favoring himself, and because he thinks that he will thus praise himself. The true principle is to unite them. Philosophy, as a part of education, is an excellent thing, and there is no disgrace to a man while he is young in pursuing such a study. But when he is more advanced in years, the thing becomes ridiculous, and I feel towards philosophers [485b] as I do towards adults who talk baby talk and play like children. For I love to see a little child, who is not of an age to speak plainly, prattling while playing; there is an appearance of grace and freedom in his utterance, which is natural to his childish years. But when I hear some small creature carefully articulating its words, I am offended; the sound is disagreeable, and has to my ears the twang of slavery.

* Maybe because Callicles associates the effort of trying to learn correct Greek with the effort of foreign-born slaves trying to fit in with Greek society. But the ancient Greeks tended to view slaves as little better than children or even things. Learning good Greek is no business of theirs — maybe that's what he means.

[485c] So when I hear a man talking baby talk, or see him playing like a child, his behavior appears to me ridiculous and unmanly and worthy of a whipping. And I have the same feeling about students of philosophy. When I see a mere lad thus engaged, the study of philosophy appears to me to be in character, and becoming of a man with a good education education, and anyone who neglects philosophy I regard as inferior, [485d] who will never aspire to anything great or noble. But if I see him continuing the study in later life, and not giving it up, I would like to beat him, Socrates. For, as I was saying, such a one, even though he may be possessed a good physique, becomes unmanly. He flies from the busy center and the market-place, in which, as the poet says, men become distinguished; he creeps into a corner for the rest of his life, [485e] and talks in a whisper with three or four admiring youths, but never speaks out like a free man in a satisfactory manner.*

* What is interesting here is that Callicles regards philosophy and sophistry as basically the same thing. Socrates, by contrast, regards rhetoric and sophistry as, if not the same, then similar. So neither man trusts sophistry, which both regard as the art of tricky reasoning. For Callicles, Socrates' philosophy is little different from sophistry: sophists and philosophers both indulge in pointless and childish verbal sparring (so Callicles). There is actually evidence in support of that as a common view. Other evidence strongly suggests that Socrates was popularly viewed as a sophist. Yet Socrates sees his philosophy as anything but sophistry. The truth is, however, that philosophy, sophistry, politics, and rhetoric are deeply connected, as I hope to show in this course.

Now I, Socrates, really like you as a friend, and my feeling may be compared with that of Zethus towards Amphion, in the play of Euripides, whom I was mentioning just now. For I am disposed to say to you much what Zethus said to his brother: "You, Socrates, are careless about the things of which you ought to be careful. And you, who have a soul so noble, are remarkable for a teenage-like exterior. [486a] Neither in a court of justice could you state a case, or give any reason or proof, or offer valiant counsel on another's behalf."

And you must not be offended, my dear Socrates, for I am speaking out of good will towards you, if I ask whether you are not ashamed of being so defenseless; which I affirm to be the condition not of you only but of all those who will carry the study of philosophy too far. For suppose that someone were to take you, or any one of your sort, off to prison, declaring that you had done wrong when you had done no wrong, you must allow that you would not know what to do. [486b] There you would stand giddy and gaping, and without a word to say. And when you went up before the Court, even if the accuser were a poor creature and not good for much, you would die if he were disposed to claim the penalty of death. And yet, Socrates, what is the value of

"An art which converts a man of sense into a fool"

who is helpless, and has no power to save either himself or others, when he is in the greatest danger [486c] and is going to be stripped by his enemies of all his goods, and has to live, simply deprived of his rights of citizenship? He being a man who, if I may use the expression, may be boxed on the ears with impunity. Then, my good friend, take my advice, and disprove no more:

"Learn the philosophy of business, and acquire the reputation of wisdom. But leave to others these niceties,"

whether they are to be described as follies or absurdities:

"For they will only give you an empty house to live in."

Cease, then, imitating these paltry splitters of words, and emulate only the man of substance and honor, who is well off.*

* Several things. First, this is a clear nod toward the fact that, in 399 BCE, Socrates was tried, condemned, and executed on charges of impiety. At his trial, Socrates did little to defend himself. Second, Callicles is almost begging Socrates to give up unpragmatic philosophy (= sophistry for Callicles), which he sees as child's play, and to take up rhetoric, crucial to being able to defend oneself in court as well as to being successful in politics.

SOCRATES: If my soul, Callicles, were made of gold, I would certainly rejoice to discover one of those stones with which they test gold, and the very best possible one to to test my soul with. And if the stone and I agreed in approving the training that my soul has received, then I would know that I was in a satisfactory state, and that no other test was needed by me.*

* Socrates is talking about a "touchstone" of the soul. A literal touchstone is a stone that, when you rub gold on it, shows a streak of metal. From that you can estimate the purity of the gold. You might say that Socrates has in mind a "litmus test" for the purity of the well-taught soul.

Greek also uses "touchstone" (basanos) as a metaphor for torture, regarded as the "litmus test" for the truth of someone's testimony.

CALLICLES: What is your meaning, Socrates?

SOCRATES: I will tell you; I think that I have found in you the desired touchstone.

CALLICLES: Why?

SOCRATES: Because I am sure that if you agree with me in any of the opinions which my soul forms, I have at last found the truth indeed. [487a] For I consider that if a man is to make a complete trial of the good or evil of the soul, he ought to have three qualities: knowledge, good will, outspokenness, which are all possessed by you. Many whom I meet are unable to make trial of me, because they are not wise as you are; others are wise, but they will not tell me the truth, because they have not the same interest in me which you have. And these two strangers, Gorgias and Polus, are undoubtedly wise men and my very good friends, [487b] but they are not outspoken enough, and they are too modest. Why, their modesty is so great that they are driven to contradict themselves, first one and then the other of them, in the face of a large company, on matters of the highest moment.*

* Socrates generously, perhaps facetiously, implies that Gorgias and Polus were too polite to put up a vigorous defense of their ideas. Socrates also implies, just as generously, that Callicles, of superior intellect, is too good a friend not to be frank with him. If Socrates can persuade Callicles, then he knows he must be right. Socrates in antiquity confusingly gets classed as socially adroit and socially awkward. In this dialogue he is both.

But you have all the qualities in which these others are deficient, having received an excellent education; to this many Athenians can testify. And you are my friend. [487c] Shall I tell you why I think so? I know that you, Callicles, and Tisander of Aphidnae, and Andron the son of Androtion, and Nausicydes of the deme of Cholarges, studied together. There were four of you, and I once heard you discussing with one another the extent to which philosophy should be pursued, and, as I know, you came to the conclusion that the study should not be pushed too much into detail. [487d] You were cautioning one another not to be over-wise; you were afraid that too much wisdom might ruin you before you knew it. And now when I hear you giving the same advice to me which you then gave to your most intimate friends, I have sufficient evidence of your real good will to me. And I am assured by you yourself of the frankness of your nature and freedom from modesty, and the assurance is confirmed by your last speech.

Well then, the inference in the present case clearly is that [487e] if you agree with me in an argument about any point, that point will have been sufficiently tested by us, and will not need to be submitted to any further test. For you could not have agreed with me, either from lack of knowledge or from too much modesty, nor yet from a desire to deceive me, for you are my friend, as you tell me yourself. And therefore when you and I agree, the result will be the attainment of perfect truth. Now, there is no nobler enquiry, Callicles, than that which you censure me for making. [488a] What ought the character of a man be, and what should his pursuits be, and how far should he go, both as an adult and in youth? For be assured that if I err in my own conduct I do not err intentionally, but from ignorance. Do not then desist from advising me, now that you have begun, until I have learned clearly what this is which I am to practice, and how I may acquire it. And if you find me agreeing with your words, and hereafter not doing that to which I agreed, call me "dolt," [488b] and deem me unworthy of receiving further instruction. Once more, then, tell me what you and Pindar mean by natural justice. Do you not mean that the superior should take the property of the inferior by force; that the better should rule the worse, the noble have more than the mean? Am I not right in my recollection?

CALLICLES: Yes, that is what I was saying, and still affirm.

SOCRATES: And do you mean by the better the same as the superior? [488c] For I could not make out what you were saying at the time, whether you meant by the superior the stronger, and that the weaker must obey the stronger, as you seemed to imply when you said that great cities attack small ones in accordance with natural right, because they are superior and stronger, as though the superior and stronger and better were the same; or whether the better may be also the inferior and weaker, and the superior the worse, [488d] or whether better is to be defined in the same way as superior: this is the point which I want to have cleared up. Are the superior and better and stronger the same or different?*

* Socrates is right. Callicles was unclear about whether "better" and "stronger" mean exactly the same thing, so that even the poor (whom Callicles despises) could band together and become "better = stronger" than the rich. Elsewhere, we see an elitist perspective that, even if it uses ambiguous language as just noted, still has in mind the idea that there is a "better" class of folks who wield, or should wield, power over the "worse," i.e., the poor. But that still is not a fully self-consistent use of the terms "better" and "stronger." It looks more like a rhetorical equation: it spins amoral strength as moral superiority. Because rhetorical, it does not necessarily have to be logically self-consistent. It only has to sound good.

CALLICLES: I say unequivocally that they are the same.

SOCRATES: Then the many are by nature superior to the one, against whom, as you were saying, they make the laws?*

* By the "many" Socrates means the masses, few of whom will be rich. They are the ones — here I have in mind the poor and the non-elite — that democracy ("people power") most favors. That was a commonplace idea.

CALLICLES: Certainly.

[488e] SOCRATES: Then the laws of the many are the laws of the superior?

CALLICLES: Very true.

SOCRATES: Then they are the laws of the better. For the superior class are far better, as you were saying?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: And since they are superior, the laws which are made by them are by nature good?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: And are not the many of the opinion, as you were lately saying, that justice is equality, and that to do wrong is more disgraceful than to suffer wrong? Is that so or not? Answer, Callicles, [489a] and let no modesty be found to come in the way. Do the many think, or do they not think thus? I must beg you to answer, so that if you agree with me I may fortify myself by the assent of so competent an authority.

CALLICLES: Yes; the opinion of the many is what you say.

SOCRATES: Then not only custom but nature also affirms that to do wrong is more disgraceful than to suffer wrong, [489b] and that justice is equality; so that you seem to have been wrong in your former assertion, when accusing me you said that nature and custom are opposed, and that I, knowing this, was dishonestly playing between them, appealing to custom when the argument is about nature, and to nature when the argument is about custom?*

* The many think that "to do wrong is more disgraceful than to suffer wrong, and that justice is equality." There is power in numbers. So nature (= power) and convention (common agreement) are on the same side on the question of justice, contrary to the tenor of Callicles' earlier claims.

CALLICLES: This man will never cease talking nonsense! At your age, Socrates, are you not ashamed to be catching at words and [489c] chuckling over some verbal slip? Do you not see — have I not told you already, that by superior I mean better? Do you imagine me to say that if a rabble of slaves and nobodies, who are of no use except perhaps for their physical strength, get together, whatever they say becomes law?

SOCRATES: Ho! my philosopher, is that your line?

CALLICLES: Certainly.

[489d] SOCRATES: I was thinking, Callicles, that something of the kind must have been in your mind, and that is why I repeated the question. What is the superior? I wanted to know clearly what you meant. For you surely do not think that two men are better than one, or that your slaves are better than you because they are stronger? Then please begin again, and tell me who the better are, if they are not the stronger? And I will ask you, great Sir, to be a little milder in your instructions, or I will have to run away from you.

[489e] CALLICLES: You are being sarcastic, Socrates.

SOCRATES: No, by the hero Zethus, Callicles, by whose aid you were just now saying many sarcastic things against me, I am not. Tell me, then, whom you mean, by the better?

CALLICLES: I mean the more excellent.

SOCRATES: Do you not see that you are yourself using words that have no meaning and that you are explaining nothing? Will you tell me whether you mean that the better and superior are the wiser, or if not, who they are?

CALLICLES: Most assuredly, I do mean the wiser.

[490a] SOCRATES: Then according to you, one wise man may often be superior to ten thousand fools, and he ought to rule them, and they ought to be his subjects, and he ought to have more than they. This is what I believe that you mean (and you must not suppose that I am on some sort of verbal goose-chase), if you allow that the one is superior to the ten thousand?

CALLICLES: Yes; that is what I mean, and that is what I conceive to be natural justice — that the better and wiser should rule and have more than the inferior.

[490b] SOCRATES: Stop there, and let me ask you what you would say in the following case. Let us suppose that we are all together as we are now; there are several of us, and we have a large common store of foods and drinks, and there are all sorts of persons in our company having various degrees of strength and weakness, and one of us, being a physician, is wiser in the matter of food than all the rest, and he is probably stronger than some and not as strong as others of us — will he not, being wiser, be also better than we are, and be our superior in this matter of food?

CALLICLES: Certainly.

[490c] SOCRATES: Either, then, he will have a larger share of the foods and drinks, because he is better, or he will oversee the distribution of all of them by reason of his authority, but he will not expend or make use of a larger share of them on his own person, or if he does, he will be punished. His share will exceed that of some, and be less than that of others. And if he is the weakest of all, though being the best of all, he will have the smallest share of all, Callicles. Am I not right, my friend?

[490d] CALLICLES: You talk about foods and drinks and physicians and other nonsense. I am not speaking of them.

SOCRATES: Well, but do you admit that the wiser is the better? Answer "yes" or "no."

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: And ought not the better to have a larger share?

CALLICLES: Not of foods and drinks.

SOCRATES: I understand. Then, perhaps, of coats — the most skillful weaver ought to have the largest coat, and the greatest number of them, and go about clothed in the best and finest of them?

CALLICLES: Enough with these coats!

SOCRATES: Then the most skillful and best in making shoes ought to have the advantage in shoes. [490e] The shoemaker, clearly, should walk about in the largest shoes, and have the greatest number of them?

CALLICLES: Enough with these shoes! What nonsense are you talking?

SOCRATES: Or, if this is not your meaning, perhaps you would say that the wise and good and true farmer should actually have a larger share of seeds, and have as much seed as possible for his own land?

CALLICLES: How you go on, always talking in the same way, Socrates!

SOCRATES: Yes, Callicles, and also about the same things.

[491a] CALLICLES: Yes, by the gods, you are literally always talking of cobblers and launderers and cooks and doctors, as if this had to do with our argument.

SOCRATES: But why will you not tell me in what a man must be superior and wiser in order to claim a larger share? Will you neither accept a suggestion, nor offer one?

CALLICLES: I have already told you. In the first place, I mean by superiors not cobblers or cooks, [491b] but wise politicians who understand the administration of a city, and who are not only wise, but also valiant and able to carry out their designs, and not the men to faint from want of soul.

SOCRATES: See now, most excellent Callicles, how different my charge against you is from that which you bring against me, for you reproach me with always saying the same. [491c] But I reproach you with never saying the same about the same things, for at one time you were defining the better and the superior to be the stronger, then again as the wiser, and now you bring forward a new notion: the superior and the better are now declared by you to be the more courageous. I wish, my good friend, that you would tell me, once and for all, whom you affirm to be the better and superior, and in what they are better?

CALLICLES: I have already told you that I mean those who are wise and courageous in the administration of a city — [491d] they ought to be the rulers of their cities, and justice consists in their having more than their subjects.*

* Callicles thinks he is being consistent. For him, upper-class = better = more fit to rule = by rights stronger = deserving of a bigger share. He is an up-and-coming democratic politician, but his heart is with rule by the few. If he cannot have a tyrant's power over the masses, he can at least use verbal persuasion to get them to do this or that.

SOCRATES: But whether rulers or subjects, will they or will they not have more than themselves, my friend?

CALLICLES: What do you mean?

SOCRATES: I mean that every man is his own ruler. But perhaps you think that there is no necessity for one to rule oneself. One is only required to rule others?

CALLICLES: What do you mean by his "ruling oneself"?

SOCRATES: A simple thing enough; just what is commonly said, [491e] that a man should be temperate and master of himself, and ruler of his own pleasures and passions.

CALLICLES: What innocence! You mean those fools, the temperate?*

* This is actually surprising. The common notion was the moderation was important in everything, especially in pleasures. But Callicles ostentatiously rejects commonly accepted morality — at least, he does so when speaking before this select group.

SOCRATES: Certainly, any one will know that to be my meaning.

CALLICLES: Quite so, Socrates. And they are really fools, for how can a man be happy who is the servant of anything? On the contrary, I plainly assert that whoever would truly live ought to allow his desires to wax to the uttermost, and not to punish them. [492a] But when they have grown to their greatest he should have courage and intelligence to minister to them and to satisfy all his longings. And this I affirm to be natural justice and nobility. To this however the many cannot attain, and they blame the strong man because they are ashamed of their own weakness, which they desire to conceal, and hence they say that self-indulgence is bad. As I have remarked already, they enslave the nobler natures, and being unable to satisfy their pleasures, [492b] they praise moderation and justice out of their own cowardice. For if a man had been originally the son of a king, or had a nature capable of acquiring an empire or a tyranny or sovereignty, what could be more truly base or evil than moderation? I mean, base from the standpoint of a man like like one of these tyrants or sovereigns, free to enjoy every good, someone who has no one standing in his way. But what if he has admitted custom and reason and the opinion of others to be their rulers? [482c] Must they not be in a miserable plight, those whom the reputation of justice and moderation hinders from giving more to their friends than to their enemies, even though one is a ruler in one's city? No, Socrates, for you profess to be devoted to the truth, and the truth is this: that luxury and self-indulgence and licence, if they bring with them wealth, are virtue and happiness. All the rest is mere decoration, agreements contrary to nature, foolish talk of people, nothing worthwhile.*

* Callicles still sees no self-contradiction. The powerful are better. They deserve to rule, and no one has a right to stand in their way in anything, including their efforts to satisfy their desires. The weak can sometimes gain the upper hand over the powerful: they can gang up on them, or they can use fine words like "virtue" to trick the powerful into surrendering power. But the weak are bad. It is bad for the bad to rule.

[492d] SOCRATES: There is a noble frankness, Callicles, in your way of approaching the argument. For what you say is what the rest of the world thinks, but would rather not say. And I must beg of you to persevere, that the true rule of human life may become manifest. Tell me, then: you say, do you not, that in the rightly-developed man the passions ought not to be controlled, but that we should let them grow to the utmost and somehow or other satisfy them, [492e] and that this is virtue?

CALLICLES: Yes, I do.

SOCRATES: Then those who want nothing are not truly said to be happy?

CALLICLES: No indeed, for then stones and dead people would be the happiest of all.

SOCRATES: But surely life according to your view is an awful thing? And indeed I think that Euripides may have been right in saying,

"Who knows if life be not death and death life,"

[493a] and that we are very likely dead; I have heard a philosopher say that at this moment we are actually dead, and that the body is our tomb,*

* There's a pun here. The Greek for "body" is sōma. The Greek for "grave" is sēma.

and that the part of the soul which is the seat of the desires is liable to be tossed about by words and blown up and down. And some ingenious teller of myth, probably a Sicilian or an Italian, playing with the word, invented a tale in which he called the soul — because of its believing and believable nature — a container,*

* Another pun. Someone supposedly called the soul a "container" (a pithos) because it is "believing" (pithanos) and a "believable" (peistikos) thing.

and the ignorant he called the uninitiated or leaky,*

* Yet another pun. amuētos means "uninitiated" into secret knowledge. The muētos part comes from a verb mueō, "initiate." a- means "un-." But muō is a different verb; it means "close." So by way of pun, Socrates has amuētos mean "un-closed," "leaky." Puns were popular in riddles and humor. Today, less popular. . . .

[493b] and the place in the souls of the uninitiated in which the desires are seated, being the self-indulgent and incontinent part, he compared to a container full of holes, because it can never be satisfied. He is not of your way of thinking, Callicles, for he declares that, of all the souls in Hades, meaning the invisible world,*

* Hades is the underworld, the land of the dead.

these uninitiated or leaky persons are the most miserable, and that they pour water into a container which is full of holes out of a sieve which is similarly perforated. The sieve, as my informer assures me, [493c] is the soul, and the soul which he compares to a sieve is the soul of the ignorant, which is likewise full of holes, and therefore incontinent, owing to a bad memory and want of faith. These notions are strange enough, but they show the principle which, if I can, I would like to prove to you, so that you would change your mind. And so that, instead of the self-indulgent and insatiable life, you would choose that which is orderly and sufficient and has a due provision for daily needs.*

* The idea is that a leaky container, because always leaking, always lusts for more; it is incontinent, unable to control its desires. Thus an untaught soul, like a leaky container, is always subject to its wants. Socrates is kind of calling Callicles a leaky container (use your imagination). It is going to get worse.

[493d] Do I make any impression on you, and are you coming over to the opinion that the orderly are happier than the self-indulgent? Or do I fail to persuade you, and, however many tales I tell you, you continue of the same opinion still?

CALLICLES: The latter, Socrates, is more like the truth.

SOCRATES: Well, I will tell you another image, which comes from the same school of thought.*

* Socrates probably has in mind the Pythagoreans (of Pythagorean-theorem fame).

Let me ask you to consider how far you would accept this allegorical tale as an account of the two lives of the moderate and self-indulgent. There are two people, both of whom have a number of casks. [493e] The one man has his casks sound and full, one of wine, another of honey, and a third of milk, besides others filled with other liquids. But the streams which fill them are few and scanty, and he can only obtain them with a great deal of toil and difficulty. But once his casks are filled he has no need to fill them any more, and has no further trouble with them or care about them. The other man, in like manner, can procure streams, though not without difficulty. But his containers are leaky and unsound, [494a] and night and day he must be filling them, and if he pauses for a moment, he is in an agony of pain. Such are their respective lives. And now would you say that the life of one who is self-indulgent is happier than that of the moderate? Do I not convince you that the opposite is the truth?

CALLICLES: You do not convince me, Socrates, [494b] for the one who has filled himself has no longer any pleasure left. And this, as I was just now saying, is the life of a stone: he has neither joy nor sorrow once he is filled, but the pleasure depends on the superabundance of the influx.*

* Real joy only comes from a steady flow of gratification.

SOCRATES: But the more you pour in, the greater the waste. And the holes must be large for the liquid to escape.

CALLICLES: Certainly.

SOCRATES: The life which you are now depicting is not that of a dead man, or of a stone, but of a plover.*

* Kharadrios, perhaps the Eurasian stone-curlew, understood here to eat and shit without cease and simultaneously. More or less the same image as before, just a little more earthy.

Do you mean that he is to be hungering and eating?

CALLICLES: Yes.

[494c] SOCRATES: And he is to be thirsting and drinking?

CALLICLES: Yes, that is what I mean; he is to have all his desires about him, and to be able to live happily in the gratification of them.

SOCRATES: Capital, excellent; go on as you have begun, and have no shame. I, too, must shed my shame. And first, will you tell me whether you include itching and scratching, provided you have enough of them and pass your life in scratching, in your notion of happiness?

[494d] CALLICLES: What a strange being you are, Socrates! a regular mob-orator.*

* Again, Callicles compares Socrates to a vulgar demagogue, the very thing that Socrates scorns.

SOCRATES: That was the reason, Callicles, why I scared Polus and Gorgias, until they were too modest to say what they thought. But you will not be too modest and will not be scared, for you are a brave man. And now, answer my question.

CALLICLES: I answer, that even the scratcher would live pleasantly.

SOCRATES: And if pleasantly, then also happily?

CALLICLES: To be sure.

[494e] SOCRATES: But what he is scratching parts other than his head?*

* Socrates is hinting at those whose notion of bliss is to be constantly scratching anywhere on their bodies, an image meant to be disagreeable.

Shall I pursue the question? And here, Callicles, I would have you consider how you would reply if consequences are pressed upon you, especially if in the last resort you are asked, whether the life of a sex slave is not terrible, foul, miserable?*

* "A sex slave" — a kinaidos, i.e., a sexually passive male, also understood as a pleasure addict (addicted either to passive sex or to the money one could earn as a prostitute). It was nothing special for ancient Greek men to pursue sex with members of either sex. In the case of male-male sex, free adult men were expected to choose younger men or adolescents as partners, and to play the active role. Playing the passive role might label one a kinaidos, the word Socrates uses here. In Aristophanes' Knights, the playwright compares politicians to kinaidoi (plural) kept by the people of Athens.

Or would you venture to say that they, too, are happy, if only they get enough of what they want?

CALLICLES: Are you not ashamed, Socrates, of introducing such topics into the argument?

SOCRATES: Well, my fine friend, but am I the introducer of these topics, or is it whoever says without any qualification that all who feel pleasure in whatever manner are happy, [495a] and who admits of no distinction between good and bad pleasures? And I would still ask, whether you say that pleasure and good are the same, or whether there is some pleasure which is not a good?

CALLICLES: Well, then, for the sake of consistency, I will say that they are the same.

SOCRATES: You are breaking the original agreement, Callicles, and will no longer be a satisfactory companion in the search after truth, if you say what is contrary to your real opinion.

[495b] CALLICLES: Why, that is what you are doing too, Socrates.

SOCRATES: Then we are both doing wrong. Still, my dear friend, I would ask you to consider whether pleasure, from whatever source derived, is the good. For, if this be true, then the disagreeable consequences which have been darkly intimated must follow, and many others.

CALLICLES: That, Socrates, is only your opinion.

SOCRATES: And do you, Callicles, seriously maintain what you are saying?

CALLICLES: Indeed I do.

[495c] SOCRATES: Then, as you are in earnest, shall we proceed with the argument?

CALLICLES: By all means.

SOCRATES: Well, if you are willing to proceed, determine this question for me. There is something, I presume, which you would call knowledge?

CALLICLES: There is.

SOCRATES: And were you not saying just now, that some courage implied knowledge?

CALLICLES: I was.

SOCRATES: And you were speaking of courage and knowledge as two things different from one another?

CALLICLES: Certainly I was.

SOCRATES: And would you say that pleasure and knowledge are the same, or not the same?

[495d] CALLICLES: Not the same, O man of wisdom.

SOCRATES: And would you say that courage differed from pleasure?

CALLICLES: Certainly.

SOCRATES: Well, then, let us remember that Callicles, the Acharnian,

* Acharnae was a township in Attica, a part of the Athenian state.

says that pleasure and good are the same. But that knowledge and courage are not the same, either with one another, or with the good.

CALLICLES: And what does our friend Socrates, of Alopece,*

* "Foxtown," also an Attic township.

say — does he agree with this, or not?

[495e] SOCRATES: He does not agree; neither will Callicles, when he sees himself truly. You will admit, I suppose, that good and evil fortune are opposed to each other?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: And if they are opposed to each other, then, like health and disease, they exclude one another. A man cannot have them both, or be without them both, at the same time?

CALLICLES: What do you mean?

[496a] SOCRATES: Take the case of any bodily affection. Might someone have the eye condition they call ophthalmia?

CALLICLES: To be sure.

SOCRATES: But he surely cannot have the same eyes well and sound at the same time?

CALLICLES: Certainly not.

SOCRATES: And when he has got rid of his ophthalmia, has he got rid of the health of his eyes too? Is the final result that he gets rid of them both together?

CALLICLES: Certainly not.

[496b] SOCRATES: That would surely be marvelous and absurd?

CALLICLES: Very.

SOCRATES: I suppose that he is affected by them, and gets rid of them, one following the other.

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: And he may have strength and weakness in the same way, by turns?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: Or swiftness and slowness?

CALLICLES: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And does he have and not have good and happiness, and their opposites, evil and misery, in a similar alternation?

CALLICLES: Certainly he has.

[496c] SOCRATES: If then there is anything which a man has and has not at the same time, clearly that cannot be good and evil — do we agree? Please do not answer without consideration.

CALLICLES: I entirely agree.

SOCRATES: Go back now to our former admissions. Did you say that to hunger, I mean the mere state of hunger, was pleasant or painful?

CALLICLES: I said painful, but that to eat when you are hungry is pleasant.

[496d] SOCRATES: I know. But still, the actual hunger is painful. Am I not right?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: And thirst, too, is painful?

CALLICLES: Yes, very.

SOCRATES: Need I adduce any more instances, or would you agree that all wants or desires are painful?

CALLICLES: I agree, and therefore you need not adduce any more instances.

SOCRATES: Very good. And you would admit that to drink, when you are thirsty, is pleasant?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: And in the sentence which you just uttered, the word "thirsty" implies pain?

[496e] CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: And the word "drinking" is expressive of pleasure, and of the satisfaction of the want?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: There is pleasure in drinking?

CALLICLES: Certainly.

SOCRATES: When you are thirsty?

SOCRATES: And in pain?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: Do you see the inference? It is that pleasure and pain are simultaneous, when you say that being thirsty, you drink. For are they not simultaneous, and do they not affect at the same time the same part, whether of the soul or the body. It cannot be supposed to matter here which of them is affected. Is not this true?

CALLICLES: It is.

SOCRATES: You said also, that no one could have good and evil fortune at the same time?

CALLICLES: Yes, I did.

[497a] SOCRATES: But you admitted, that when in pain a man might also have pleasure?

CALLICLES: Clearly.

SOCRATES: Then pleasure is not the same as good fortune, or pain the same as evil fortune, and therefore the good is not the same as the pleasant?*

* Since pleasure and pain can coexist in the same scenario, but good and bad cannot, pleasure cannot be a good in and of itself. So pleasure is not identical to the good.

CALLICLES: I wish I knew, Socrates, what your quibbling means.

SOCRATES: You know, Callicles, but you pretend not to know.

CALLICLES: Well, get on, and don"t keep fooling. Then you will know what a smart alec you are in the way you lecture me.

SOCRATES: Does not a man cease from his thirst and from his pleasure in drinking at the same time?

CALLICLES: I do not understand what you are saying.

[497b] GORGIAS: No, Callicles, answer, if only for our sakes. We would like to hear the argument out.

CALLICLES: Yes, Gorgias, but I must complain of the habitual trifling of Socrates. He is always arguing about little and unworthy questions.

GORGIAS: What does it matter? Your reputation, Callicles, is not at stake. Let Socrates argue in his own fashion.

CALLICLES: Well, then, Socrates, you will ask these piddling little questions, since Gorgias wishes to have them.

SOCRATES: I envy you, Callicles, for having been initiated into the great mysteries before you were initiated into the lesser. I thought that this was not allowable. But to return to our argument: Does not a man cease from thirsting and from the pleasure of drinking at the same moment?*

* As you drink, the point at which you stop feeling thirsty is the point at which you also stop enjoying the drink. (Of course, drinking can be pleasurable for reasons other than quenching thirst, but that is not the issue here.)

[497c] CALLICLES: True.

SOCRATES: And if he is hungry, or has any other desire, does he not cease from desire and pleasure at the same moment?

CALLICLES: Very true.

SOCRATES: Then he ceases from pain and pleasure at the same moment?

CALLICLES: Yes.

[497d] SOCRATES: But he does not cease from good and evil at the same moment, as you have admitted. Do you still adhere to what you said?*

* Remember Socrates' earlier point: good and evil cannot affect the same, identical thing at the same time. They can only alternate. Given that fact, good and evil can neither begin to affect nor cease to affect anything simultaneously; they cannot come and go together. Pleasure and pain can, by contrast, come and go together.

CALLICLES: Yes, I do, but what conclusion are you drawing?

SOCRATES: Why, my friend, the conclusion is that the good is not the same as the pleasant, or evil the same as the painful. There is a cessation of pleasure and pain at the same moment, but not of good and evil, for they are different. How then can pleasure be the same as good, or pain the same as evil? And I would have you look at the matter in another light, which could hardly, I think, have been considered by you when you identified them. [497e] Are not the good people good because they have good present with them, as the beautiful are those who have beauty present with them?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: And do you call the fools and cowards good men? For you were saying just now that the courageous and the wise are the good — would you not say so?

CALLICLES: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And have you never seen a foolish child rejoicing?

CALLICLES: Yes, I have.

SOCRATES: And a foolish man too?

CALLICLES: Yes, certainly, but what is your drift?

[498a] SOCRATES: Nothing in particular, if only you will answer.*

* Socrates embarks on a long and somewhat tedious attempt to prove once and for all that Callicles' initial claim, that pleasure is good and pain is bad, leads to absurd conclusions. Callicles becomes annoyed at having to submit to the painstaking process of having his claim taken apart bit by bit. But this is dialectic, not rhetoric. It is unpleasant, like medicine. Socrates and his philosophy are to be Callicles' relentless healers.

CALLICLES: Yes, I have.

SOCRATES: And did you ever see a sensible man rejoicing or sorrowing?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: Who rejoices and sorrows the most: the wise or the foolish?

CALLICLES: They are much upon a par, I think, in that respect.

SOCRATES: Enough. And did you ever see a coward in battle?

CALLICLES: To be sure.

SOCRATES: And who rejoiced most at the departure of the enemy, the coward or the brave?

[498b] CALLICLES: I would say "most" of both. Or at any rate, they rejoiced about equally.

SOCRATES: No matter. Then the cowards, and not only the brave, rejoice?

CALLICLES: Greatly.

SOCRATES: And the foolish, so it would seem?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: And are only cowards pained at the approach of their enemies, or are the brave also pained?

CALLICLES: Both are pained.

SOCRATES: And are they equally pained?

CALLICLES: I would imagine that the cowards are more pained.

SOCRATES: And are they not better pleased at the enemy's departure?

CALLICLES: I dare say.

SOCRATES: Then the foolish and the wise and the cowards and the brave are all pleased and pained, [498c] as you were saying, in nearly equal degree. But are not the cowards more pleased and pained than the brave?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: But surely the wise and brave are the good ones, and the foolish and the cowardly are the bad ones?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: Then the good and the bad are pleased and pained in a nearly equal degree?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: Then are the good and bad each good and bad in a nearly equal degree, or are the bad ones the ones who are actually better?

[497d] CALLICLES: I really do not know what you mean.*

* Socrates means that, by Callicles reasoning (pleasure = good), cowards, who feel a more pleasurable relief than do brave folks when danger departs, are better than brave folks. But that is absurd.

SOCRATES: Why, do you not remember saying that the good were good because good was present with them, and the evil because evil was present with them, and that pleasures were goods and pains were evils?

CALLICLES: Yes, I remember.

SOCRATES: And are not these pleasures or goods present to those who rejoice — if they do rejoice?

CALLICLES: Certainly.

SOCRATES: Then those who rejoice are good when goods are present with them?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: And those who are in pain have evil or sorrow present with them?

CALLICLES: Yes.

[497e] SOCRATES: And would you still say that the bad are bad by reason of the presence of evil?

CALLICLES: I would.

SOCRATES: Then those who rejoice are good, and those who are in pain bad?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: The degrees of good and evil vary with the degrees of pleasure and of pain, right?

CALLICLES: Yes.*

* Or rather, no: this is the point that Socrates is in the process of dismembering.

SOCRATES: Have the wise man and the fool, the brave man and the coward, joy and pain in nearly equal degrees? Or would you say that the coward has more?

CALLICLES: I would say that he has.

SOCRATES: Help me then to draw out the conclusion which follows from our admissions. For it is good to repeat [499a] and review what is good twice and three times over, as they say. Both the wise man and the brave man we allow to be good?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: And the foolish man and the coward to be bad?

CALLICLES: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And whoever has joy is good?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: And whoever is in pain is bad?

CALLICLES: Certainly.

SOCRATES: Both good and bad people have joy and pain, but, perhaps, the bad have more of them?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: Then must we not conclude that the bad man and the good man are alike in good, or that the bad man is even better in that respect? [499b] Is this not an inference which follows equally with the preceding from the assertion that the good and the pleasant are the same? Can this be denied, Callicles?*

* Confusing passage. It just means that, by Callicles' reasoning, bad folks can be just as good, maybe even better, than good folks. The technical name for such an argument is reductio ad absurdum, the process of refuting a proposition by showing that its logical implications are absurd. Socrates hopes by now to have convinced Callicles that pleasure and good are not the same.

CALLICLES: I have been listening and making admissions to you, Socrates, and I remark that if a person grants you anything in play, you, like a child, want to keep hold and will not give it back.*

* The best that Callicles can do is diss Socrates; otherwise, he feels he has to concede every point. But he really does not have his heart in this. Callicles thinks that the truth of his claim (that pleasure is a good in and of itself, that power is the path to pleasure, that power is its own justification) is obvious to all and needs no proof — that this debate is a waste of time. So this is asymmetrical verbal warfare. That has a great deal to do with how persuasion does/does not happen in the dialogue. And it is important to note that Socrates so far has failed to win the hearts of any of his debate partners. Maybe rhetoric, or something like it, matters after all. . . .

But do you really suppose that I or any other human being denies that some pleasures are good and others bad?

SOCRATES: My word, Callicles, what a reprehensible fellow you are! You certainly treat me as if I were a child, sometimes saying one thing, and then another, as if you were meaning to deceive me. [499c] And yet I thought at first that you were my friend, and would not have deceived me if you could have helped. But I see that I was mistaken. And now I suppose that I must make the best of a bad business, as they said of old, and take what I can get out of you. Well, then, as I understand you to say, I may assume that some pleasures are good and others evil?

[499d] CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: The beneficial are good, and the hurtful are evil?

CALLICLES: To be sure.

SOCRATES: And the beneficial are those which do some good, and the hurtful are those which do some evil?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: Take, for example, the bodily pleasures of eating and drinking, which we were just now mentioning. You mean to say that those which promote health, or any other bodily excellence, are good, [499e] and their opposites evil?

CALLICLES: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And in the same way there are good pains and there are evil pains?

CALLICLES: To be sure.

SOCRATES: And ought we not to choose and use the good pleasures and pains?

CALLICLES: Certainly.

SOCRATES: But not the evil?

CALLICLES: Clearly.

SOCRATES: Because, if you remember, Polus and I agreed that all our actions are to be done for the sake of the good. Will you, then, agree with us in saying that the good is the end of all our actions, and that all our actions are to be done for the sake of the good, [500a] and not the good for the sake of them? Will you add a third vote to our two?

CALLICLES: I will.

SOCRATES: Then pleasure, like everything else, is to be sought for the sake of that which is good, and not that which is good for the sake of pleasure?

CALLICLES: To be sure.

SOCRATES: But can everyone choose what pleasures are good and what are evil, or must one have skill or knowledge of them in detail?*

* Tekhnē again.

CALLICLES: He must have skill.

SOCRATES: Let me now remind you of what I was saying to Gorgias and Polus. I was saying, as you will not have forgotten, [500b] that there were some processes which aim only at pleasure, and know nothing of a better and worse, and there are other processes which know good and evil. And I considered that cookery, which I do not call an art, but only a knack, was of the former class, which is concerned with pleasure, and that the art of medicine was of the class which is concerned with the good. And now, by the god of friendship, I must beg you, Callicles, not to jest, or to imagine that I am jesting with you. Do not answer at random and contrary to your real opinion. [500c] For you will observe that we are arguing about the way of human life. And to a man who has any sense at all, what question can be more serious than this? Should one follow after that way of life to which you exhort me, and act what you call the manly part of speaking in the assembly, and cultivating rhetoric, and engaging in public affairs, according to the principles now in vogue? Or should one pursue the life of philosophy, and live by the principles of philosophy rather than by those of politics, rhetoric, and so forth? [500d] But perhaps we had better first try to settle on how those two ways of life differ, just I tried to do just now. And when we have come to an agreement that those two ways of life are distinct, we may proceed to consider how they differ from one another, and which of them we should choose. Perhaps, however, you do not even now understand what I mean?

CALLICLES: No, I do not.

SOCRATES: Then I will explain myself more clearly. Seeing that you and I have agreed that there is such a thing as good, and that there is such a thing as pleasure, and that pleasure is not the same as good, and that the pursuit and process of acquisition of the one, that is, of pleasure, is different from the pursuit and process of acquisition of the other, which is good — [500e] I wish that you would first tell me whether you agree with me thus far or not — do you agree?

CALLICLES: I do.

SOCRATES: Then I will proceed, and ask whether you also agree with me, and whether you think that I spoke the truth when I further said to Gorgias and Polus that cookery in my opinion is only a knack, and not an art at all. [501a] And that medicine is an art, and attends to the nature and constitution of the patient, and has principles of action and reason in each case, whereas cookery, in looking only to pleasure, never regards either the nature or the reason of that pleasure to which it devotes itself. No, it makes for pleasure directly, without asking questions, nor ever considers or calculates anything. Rather, it works by experience and routine, [501b] and just preserves the recollection of what it has usually done when producing pleasure.

But first I would have you consider whether I have proved what I was saying, and then whether there are not other, similar processes which have to do with the soul: some of them processes of skill, making a provision for the soul's highest interest; others despising the soul's highest good, and, as in the previous case, considering only the pleasure of the soul, and how this last may be acquired, without considering what pleasures are good or bad, and having no other aim but to afford gratification, whether good or bad. [501c] In my opinion, Callicles, there are such processes, and this is the sort of thing which I term flattery, whether concerned with the body or the soul, or whenever employed with a view to pleasure and without any consideration of good and evil. And now I wish that you would tell me whether you agree with us*

* With Gorgias and Polus, though those two offered a somewhat unsatisfactory sort of agreement.

in this notion, or whether you differ.

CALLICLES: I do not differ; on the contrary, I agree. For in that way I will bring the argument to an end all the sooner, and will oblige my friend Gorgias.

[501d] SOCRATES: And is this notion true of one soul, or of two or more?

CALLICLES: Equally true of two or more.

SOCRATES: Then a man may delight a whole assembly, and yet have no regard for their true interests?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: Can you tell me the pursuits which delight humankind? Or rather, if you would prefer, let me ask, and do you answer. Which of them belong to the pleasurable class, and which of them do not? [501e] In the first place, what say you of flute-playing? Does not that appear to be an art which seeks only pleasure, Callicles, and thinks of nothing else?

CALLICLES: I agree.

SOCRATES: And is not the same true of all similar arts, as, for example, the art of playing the lyre at festivals?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: And what do you say of the choral art or of dithyrambic poetry? Are not they of the same nature? Do you imagine that Cinesias the son of Meles cares about what will tend to the moral improvement of his hearers, [502a] or about what will give pleasure to the multitude?

CALLICLES: There can be no mistake about Cinesias, Socrates.

SOCRATES: And what do you say of his father, Meles the harp-player? Did he perform with any view to the good of his hearers? Could he be said to regard even their pleasure? For his singing was painful to his audience! And of harp-playing and dithyrambic poetry in general, what would you say? Have they not been invented wholly for the sake of pleasure?

CALLICLES: That is my notion of them.

[502b] SOCRATES: And as for the Muse of Tragedy, that solemn and august personage — what are her aspirations? Is all her aim and desire only to give pleasure to the spectators, or does she actually struggle not to gratify the audience with pleasurable, though harmful, utterance? Does she, rather, proclaim in word and song truths welcome and unwelcome? Which in your judgment is her character?*

* The idea is that tragic drama, a popular art form at Athens, has as its chief aim providing pleasure to the audience. That cannot have been so far off. The city awarded prizes for the best plays, and the judges were drawn by lottery from the people — they were not experts. In Plato's Republic, Socrates bans tragic drama from the ideal state, where (so he says) it has nothing beneficial to offer.

CALLICLES: There can be no doubt, Socrates, that Tragedy has her face turned towards pleasure [502c] and the gratification of the audience.

SOCRATES: And is not that the sort of thing, Callicles, what we were just now describing as flattery?

CALLICLES: Quite true.

SOCRATES: Well now, suppose that we strip all poetry of song and rhythm and meter, will there remain speech?

CALLICLES: To be sure.

SOCRATES: And this speech is addressed to a crowd of people?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: Then poetry is a sort of rhetoric?

[502d] CALLICLES: True.

SOCRATES: And do not the poets in the theaters seem to you to be rhetoricians?

CALLICLES: Yes.*

* This idea is also in Gorgias' Helen, another reading for this course.

SOCRATES: Then now we have discovered a sort of rhetoric which is addressed to a crowd of men, women, and children, freemen and slaves. And this is not much to our taste, for we have described it as having the nature of flattery.

CALLICLES: Quite true.

SOCRATES: Very good. And what do you say of that other rhetoric which addresses the Athenian assembly [502e] and the assemblies of freemen in other cities? Do the rhetoricians appear to you always to aim at what is best, and do they seek to improve the citizens by their speeches? Or are they too, like the rest of humankind, bent upon giving them pleasure, forgetting the public good in the thought of their own interest, playing with the people as with children, and trying to amuse them, but never considering [503a] whether they are better or worse for this?

CALLICLES: I must distinguish. There are some who have a real care of the public in what they say, while others are such as you describe.

SOCRATES: I am contented with the admission that rhetoric is of two sorts: one, which is mere flattery and disgraceful declamation; the other, which is noble and aims at the training and improvement of the souls of the citizens, and strives to say what is best, whether welcome or unwelcome, to the audience. [503b] But have you ever known such a rhetoric? Or if you have, and can point out any rhetorician who is of this stamp, who is he?

CALLICLES: But, indeed, I am afraid that I cannot tell you of any such among the orators who are at present living.

SOCRATES: Well, then, can you mention any one of a former generation, who may be said to have improved the Athenians, who found them worse and made them better, from the day that he began to make speeches? For, indeed, I do not know of such a man.

[503c] CALLICLES: What! did you never hear that Themistocles was a good man, or Cimon or Miltiades and Pericles, who is just lately dead, and whom you have heard yourself?*

* These are hero generals and statesmen from Athens' past.

SOCRATES: Yes, Callicles, they were good men, if, as you said at first, true virtue consists only in the satisfaction of our own desires and those of others. But if not, and if, as we were afterwards compelled to acknowledge, the satisfaction of some desires makes us better, [503d] and of others, worse, and we ought to gratify the one and not the other, and if there is a skill in distinguishing them, then for my own part I cannot say if any of those men had that skill.

CALLICLES: But if you consider the question properly, you will find out.

SOCRATES: So let us calmly consider whether any of those men was such as I have described. Will not the good man, who says whatever he says with a view to the best, speak with a reference to some standard and not at random, just as all other craftsmen do: painters, builders, shipwrights, or any other such craftsman? Does not each arrange each thing he arranges in a certain order? Does he select and apply at random what applies? [503e] Or does he strive to give a definite form to it? The craftsman arranges all things in order, [504a] and compels the one part to harmonize and fit in with the other part, until he has constructed a regular and systematic whole. And this is true of all craftsmen, and the same applies to trainers and physicians, of whom we spoke before: they give order and regularity to the body. Do you agree with that or not?

CALLICLES: Let it be as you say.

SOCRATES: Then the house in which order and regularity prevail is good, whereas that in which there is disorder will be bad?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: And the same is true of a ship?

[504b] CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: And the same can be said of the human body?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: And what would you say of the soul? Will the good soul be that in which disorder prevails, or that in which there is harmony and order?

CALLICLES: The latter follows from our previous admissions.

SOCRATES: What is the name that is given to the effect of harmony and order in the body?

CALLICLES: I suppose that you mean health and strength.

[504c] SOCRATES: Yes, I do. And what is the name that you would give to the effect of harmony and order in the soul? Try and discover a name for this as well as for the other.

CALLICLES: Why not give the name yourself, Socrates?

SOCRATES: Well, if you would rather I do so, I will. And you will say whether you agree with me, and if not, you will disprove and answer me. "Healthy," as I conceive, is the name which is given to the regular order of the body, whence comes health and every other bodily excellence: is that true or not?

CALLICLES: True.

[504d] SOCRATES: And "lawful" and "law" are the names which are given to the regular order and action of the soul, and these make people lawful and orderly? And in this way we have moderation and justice, have we not?

CALLICLES: Granted.

SOCRATES: And will not the true rhetorician who is honest and understands his art have his eye fixed upon these, in all the words which he addresses to the souls of human beings, and in all his actions, both in what he gives and in what he takes away? [504e] Will not his aim be to implant justice in the souls of his citizens, and to take away injustice, to implant moderation and to take away self-indulgence, to implant every virtue and to take away every vice? Do you not agree?

CALLICLES: I agree.

SOCRATES: For what use is there, Callicles, in giving to the body of a sick man who is in a bad state of health a quantity of the most delightful food or drink, or of any other pleasant thing that may in fact be as bad for him as if you gave him nothing, or even worse if rightly judged. Is not that true?

[505a] CALLICLES: Let it be so.

SOCRATES: For in my opinion there is no profit in a man's life if his body is in an evil way. In that case his life is evil, too. Am I not right?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: When a man is healthy, the physicians will generally allow him to eat when he is hungry and drink when he is thirsty, and to satisfy his desires as he likes. But when he is sick they hardly suffer him to satisfy his desires at all. Even you will admit that.

CALLICLES: Yes.

[505b] SOCRATES: And does not the same argument hold of the soul, my good sir? When it is in a bad state and is senseless and self-indulgent and unjust and unholy, its desires ought to be controlled, and it ought to be prevented from doing anything which does not tend to its own improvement.

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: Such treatment will be better for the soul itself?

CALLICLES: To be sure.

SOCRATES: And to restrain it from its appetites is to chastise it?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: Then restraint or chastisement is better for the soul than self-indulgence or the absence of control, which you were just now preferring?

[505c] CALLICLES: I do not understand you, Socrates, and I wish that you would ask someone who does.

SOCRATES: Here is a gentleman who cannot endure to be improved or to subject himself to that very chastisement that the argument addresses!

CALLICLES: I am not paying attention to word of what you are saying, and have only answered previously to be polite to Gorgias.

SOCRATES: What are we to do, then? Shall we break off in the middle?

CALLICLES: Judge for yourself.

[505d] SOCRATES: Well, but people say that "a tale should have a head and not break off in the middle," and I would not like to have the argument going about without a head. Please then to go on a little longer, and put the head on.

CALLICLES: How tyrannical you are, Socrates! I wish that you and your argument would rest, or that you would get someone else to argue with you.*

* Socrates has now been compared by Callicles to a tyrant (an absolute ruler) as well as to a demagogue. True, he does not mean anything deep by it. But it is ironic, seeing as (a) Callicles admires those who seek and gain supreme political power, whereas (b) Socrates does not.

SOCRATES: But who else is willing? I want to finish the argument.

CALLICLES: Can you not finish without my help, either talking straight on, or questioning and answering all by yourself?

[505e] SOCRATES: Must I then say with Epicharmus, "Two men spoke before, but now one will be enough"? I suppose that there is absolutely no help. And if I am to carry on the enquiry by myself, I will first of all remark that not only I but all of us should have an ambition to know what is true and what is false in this matter, for the discovery of the truth is a common good. [506a] And now I will proceed to argue according to my own notion. But if any of you think that I arrive at conclusions which are untrue you must interpose and prove me wrong. For I do not speak from any knowledge of what I am saying; I am an enquirer like yourselves, and therefore, if my opponent says anything which is compelling, I will be the first to agree with him. I am speaking on the supposition that the argument ought to be completed. But if you think otherwise let us leave off and go our ways.

[506b] GORGIAS: I think, Socrates, that we should not go our ways until you have completed the argument. And this appears to me to be the wish of the rest of the company. I myself would very much like to hear what more you have to say.

SOCRATES: I too, Gorgias, should have liked to continue the argument with Callicles, and then I might have given him an "Amphion" in return for his "Zethus";*

* Amphion and Zethus have a debate in Euripides' lost play.

but since you, Callicles, are unwilling to continue, [506c] I hope that you will listen, and interrupt me if I seem to you to be in error. And if you refute me, I will not be angry with you as you are with me, but I will inscribe you as the greatest of benefactors on the tablets of my soul.

CALLICLES: My good fellow, never mind me, but get on.

SOCRATES: Listen to me, then, while I recapitulate the argument: Is the pleasant the same as the good? Not the same. Callicles and I are agreed about that. And is the pleasant to be pursued for the sake of the good? Or the good for the sake of the pleasant? The pleasant is to be pursued for the sake of the good. [506d] And is that thing is pleasant in whose presence we are pleased, and that is good in whose presence we are good? To be sure, it is. And are we good, and all good things whatever are good, when some virtue is present in us or them? That, Callicles, is my conviction.

[506e] But the virtue of each thing, whether body or soul, instrument or creature, when given to them in the best way comes to them not by chance but as the result of the order and truth and art which are imparted to them: Am I not right? I maintain that I am. And is not the virtue of each thing dependent on order or arrangement? Yes, I say. And that which makes a thing good is the proper order inhering in each thing? Such is my view. And is not the soul which has an order of its own better than that which has no order? [507a] Certainly. And the soul which has order is orderly? Of course. And that which is orderly is temperate? Assuredly. And the temperate soul is good? No other answer can I give, Callicles dear; have you any?

CALLICLES: Go on, my good fellow.

SOCRATES: Then I will proceed to add, that if the moderate soul is the good soul, the soul which is in the opposite condition, that is, the foolish and self-indulgent, is the bad soul. Very true. And will not the moderate person do what is proper, both in relation to the gods and to human beings? For one would not be moderate if one did not. [507b] Certainly, he will do what is proper. In his relationships with other human beings he will do what is just, and in his relationship to the gods he will do what is holy. And whoever does what is just and holy, must he be just and holy? Very true. And must he not be courageous? For the duty of a moderate man is not to follow or to avoid what he ought not, but what he ought, whether things or human beings or pleasures or pains, and patiently to endure when he ought. And therefore, Callicles, [507c] the moderate man, being, as we have described, also just and courageous and holy, cannot be other than a perfectly good man. Nor can the good man do otherwise than do well and perfectly whatever he does. And whoever does well must necessarily be happy and blessed, and the evil man who does evil must be miserable. Now the latter is the one whom you were earlier applauding: the self-indulgent type, the opposite of the moderate.

Such is my position, and these things I affirm to be true. And if they are true, then I further affirm that whoever desires to be happy [507d] must pursue and practice moderation and run away from self-indulgence as fast as his legs will carry him. He had better order his life so as not to need punishment. But if either he or any of his friends, whether private individuals or the city as a whole, are in need of punishment, then justice must be done and he must suffer punishment, if he would be happy. This appears to me to be the aim which a man ought to have, and towards which he ought to direct all energy, both his and the city's. [507e] And he should act so that he may have moderation and justice present with him and be happy. He should not suffer his lusts to be unrestrained, and in the never-ending desire satisfy them by leading a robber's life. Such a one is the friend of neither god nor man. For he is incapable of sharing things in common, and whoever is incapable of sharing is also incapable of friendship. And the wise tell us, Callicles, [508a] that sharing and friendship and orderliness and moderation and justice bind together heaven and earth and gods and human beings, and that this universe is therefore called a kosmos,*

* Later, kosmos will mean "universe" or "world." Here it has to do with an "orderly whole." (The word Socrates actually uses is kosmiotēs, an "orderliness," obviously derived from kosmos.)

not disorder or misrule, my friend. But although you are well versed in such things, you seem to me never to have observed that geometrical equality is mighty, both among gods and among human beings. You think that you ought to cultivate inequality or excess, and do not care about geometry. [508b] Well, then, either the principle that the happy are made happy by the possession of justice and moderation, and the miserable are made miserable by the possession of vice, must be refuted, or, if it is granted, what will be the consequences? All the consequences that I drew before, Callicles, and about which you asked me whether I was in earnest when I said that a man ought to accuse himself and his son and his friend if he did anything wrong, and that to this end he should use his rhetoric — all those consequences are true. And what you thought that Polus was led to admit out of modesty is true, namely, that, to do wrong, if more disgraceful than to suffer, [508c] is to the same degree worse. And the other position, which, according to Polus, Gorgias admitted out of modesty, namely, that whoever would truly be a rhetorician ought to be just and have a knowledge of justice, has also turned out to be true.

And now, these things being as we have said, let us proceed in the next phase to consider whether you are right giving me grief because I am unable to help myself or any of my friends or kinsmen, or to save them in the extremity of danger, and that I am like an outlaw, subject to another's power, someone to whom anyone may do what he likes. [508d] He may box my ears, which was a brave saying of yours; or take away my goods or banish me, or even do his worst and kill me; a condition which, as you say, is the height of disgrace. My answer to you is one that has been repeated already and often, but may as well be repeated once more. I tell you, Callicles, that to be boxed on the ears wrongfully is not the worst evil that can befall a man, nor to have my purse or my body cut open. [508e] But to strike and to slay my family and me wrongfully is far more disgraceful and more evil. Yes indeed, and to rob and to enslave and to pillage, or in any way at all to do me and my family wrong, is far more disgraceful and evil to the doer of the wrong than to me, the sufferer. These truths, which have been already set forth as I stated them in the previous discussion, would seem now to have been fixed and riveted by us, if I may use an expression which is certainly bold, [509a] in words which are like bonds of iron and steel. And unless you or some other still more enterprising hero will break them, there is no possibility of denying what I say. For my position has always been that I myself am ignorant how these things are, but that I have never met any one who could say otherwise, any more than you can, and not appear ridiculous. [509b] This is my position still. And if what I am saying is true, and if injustice is the greatest of evils for the doer of injustice, and if there is an evil even greater than that greatest of evils (if any such thing is possible!), I mean, the evil that has to do with the guilty escaping punishment — given all that, what sort of self-defense is it that one must be able to carry out so as not to be made a laughing stock? Must it not be the one that will protect us from the greatest harm? But that defense must needs be the worst of all of them if one is powerless to protect oneself or one's friends and family. And second to that is powerlessness to to avert the next greatest evil; [509c] thirdly that which is unable to avert the third greatest evil. And so on of other evils. As is the greatness of evil so is the honor of being able to avert them in their several degrees, and the disgrace of not being able to avert them. Am I not right Callicles?*

* Socrates is simply setting up a ranking, worst to least bad, of inabilities to come to the aid of oneself or another when threatened. But if one is guilty of a crime, then the greatest danger one faces, and the greatest shame, is, paradoxically, that of escaping punishment, as Socrates will soon remind us.

CALLICLES: Yes, quite right.

SOCRATES: Seeing then that there are these two evils, the doing of injustice and the suffering of injustice — and we affirm that to do injustice is a greater evil, and to suffer injustice a lesser evil — by what preparations can someone succeed [509d] in obtaining the two advantages, the one of not doing and the other of not suffering injustice? Must one have the power, or only the will to obtain them? I mean to ask whether a man will escape injustice if he has only the will to escape, or must he have provided himself with the power?

CALLICLES: He must have provided himself with the power; that is clear.

SOCRATES: And what do you say about doing injustice? Is the will by itself sufficient, and will that prevent someone from doing injustice, or must one have provided oneself with power and skill. [509e] And if one has not studied and practiced, will one still be unjust? Surely you will say, Callicles, whether you think that Polus and I were right in admitting the conclusion that no one does wrong voluntarily, but that all do wrong against their will?

[510a] CALLICLES: Granted, Socrates, if you will only get this over with.

SOCRATES: Then, as would appear, power and skill have to be provided in order that we may do no injustice?

CALLICLES: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And what skill will protect us from suffering injustice, if not wholly, then as far as possible? I want to know whether you agree with me. For I think that such a skill is the skill of one who is either a ruler or even tyrant, or the equal and companion of the ruling power.

[510b] CALLICLES: Well said, Socrates. And please observe how ready I am to praise you when you talk sense.

SOCRATES: Think and tell me whether you would approve of another view of mine. To me, everyone appears to be most friendly to whoever is most like to oneself — like to like, as ancient sages say. Would you not agree to this?

CALLICLES: I would.

SOCRATES: But when the tyrant is rude and uneducated, he may be expected to fear any one who is his superior in virtue, [510c] and will never be able to be perfectly friendly with him.

CALLICLES: That is true.

SOCRATES: Neither will he be the friend of any one who is greatly his inferior, for the tyrant will despise him, and will never seriously regard him as a friend.

CALLICLES: That again is true.

SOCRATES: Then the only friend worth mentioning, whom the tyrant can have, will be one who is of the same character, and has the same likes and dislikes, and is at the same time willing to be subject and subservient to him; he is the man who will have power in the city, [510d] and no one will injure him with impunity: is not that so?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: And if a young man begins to ask how he may become great and formidable, this would seem to be the way — he will accustom himself, from his youth upward, to feel sorrow and joy on the same occasions as his master, and will contrive to be as like him as possible?

CALLICLES: Yes.

[510e] SOCRATES: And in this way he will have accomplished, as you and your friends would say, the end of becoming a great man and of not suffering harm?

CALLICLES: Very true.

SOCRATES: But will he also escape from doing harm? Must not the very opposite be true, if he is to be like the tyrant in his injustice, and to have influence with him? Will he not rather contrive to do as much wrong as possible, and not be punished?

CALLICLES: True.

[511a] SOCRATES: And by the imitation of his master and by the power which he thus acquires, will not his soul become bad and corrupted, and will not this be the greatest evil to him?

CALLICLES: You always contrive somehow or other, Socrates, to invert everything. Do you not know that whoever imitates the tyrant will, if he has a mind, kill him who does not imitate him and take away his goods?

[511b] SOCRATES: Excellent Callicles, I am not deaf, and I have heard that many times, from you and from Polus and from nearly everyone in the city, but I wish that you would hear me too. I dare say that he will kill him if he has a mind — the bad man will kill the good and true.

CALLICLES: Do is that very thing not infuriating?

SOCRATES: No, not to a person of sense, as the argument shows. Do you think that all our cares should be directed to prolonging life to the uttermost, and to the study of those arts which secure us from danger always, [511c] like that art of rhetoric which saves people in courts of law, and which you advise me to cultivate?

CALLICLES: Yes, truly, and very good advice too.

SOCRATES: Well, my friend, but what do you think of swimming? Is that a skill of any great pretensions?

CALLICLES: No, indeed.

SOCRATES: And yet surely swimming saves a person from death, and there are occasions on which one must know how to swim. [511d] But if swimming seems a trivial thing, I will tell you of another and greater art, the art of piloting a ship. For the pilot not only saves the souls of people, but also their bodies and property from the extremity of danger, just like rhetoric. Yet his art is modest and unpresuming: it has no airs or pretences of doing anything extraordinary. In return for the same sort of salvation that a courtroom advocate gives one,*

* The ship's pilot and the courtroom pleader are in a position to save our lives, the former by not sinking his ship or losing passengers overboard, the later by protecting us when we are accused of a capital crime.

the pilot charges only two obols if he brings us from Aegina to Athens,*

* Not a long passage. That fare would have represented something like the cost of a day's food (?).

or for the longer voyage from the Black Sea or from Egypt, [511e] at the utmost, he charges two drachmas.*

* Equals twelve obols.

On arrival, he collects his fee for having saved, as I was just now saying, the passenger and his wife and children and goods. Once they have safely disembarked at the Piraeus,*

* Athens port town.

that is the payment which he asks in return for so great a boon. And whoever is the master of the art, and has done all this, gets out and walks about on the seashore by his ship in an unassuming way. [512a] For he is able to reflect and is aware that he cannot tell which of his fellow-passengers he has benefited, and which of them he has injured in not allowing them to be drowned. He knows that they are just the same when he has disembarked them as when they embarked, and not a whit better either in their bodies or in their souls. And he considers that if a person who is afflicted by great and incurable bodily diseases is only to be pitied for having escaped, and is in no way benefited by him in having been saved from drowning, much less whoever has great and incurable diseases, not of the body, but of the soul, which is the more valuable part of him. Neither is life worth having nor profitable to the bad man, whether he is delivered from the sea, or the law courts, [512b] or any other danger; and so he reflects that such a one had better not live, for he cannot live well.

And this is the reason why the pilot, although he is our savior, is not usually conceited, any more than the maker of war machines, who is not at all behind either the general, or the pilot, or any one else, in his saving power. For he sometimes saves whole cities. Is there any comparison between him and the pleader? And if he were to talk, [512c] Callicles, in your grandiose style, he would bury you under a mountain of words, declaring and insisting that we ought all of us to be engine-makers, and that no other profession is worth thinking about. He would have plenty to say. Nevertheless you despise him and his skill, and sneeringly call him an engine-maker, and you will not allow your daughters to marry his son, or marry your son to his daughters.*

* Athens was a democracy that celebrated the power of the ordinary man (man, not woman). But there was still a certain snobbery about anyone who had to hold down a job or earn a living in any of the crafts or trades. Farming was absolutely respectable (because it is your land and you are working for yourself), but not all other vocations were.

And yet, on your principle, what justice or reason is there in your refusal? What right have you to despise the engine-maker, and the others whom I was just now mentioning? [512d] I know that you will say, "I am better, and better born." But if the better is not what I say, and virtue consists only in one saving oneself and one's own, whatever may be one's character, then your censure of the engine-maker, and of the physician, and of the other arts of salvation, is ridiculous. O my friend! I want you to see that the noble and the good may possibly be something different from saving and being saved. For the real man*

* Masculinity really matters here, as elsewhere in the dialogue. Callicles and Socrates are, among other things, debating what "real men" are and do. According to Socrates, real men do philosophy. According to Callicles, they do not.

[512e] must leave aside worrying about life expectancy; he must not obsess over extending life. People know, as women say, that no one can escape fate, and therefore the real man is not fond of life; he leaves all that with God, and considers in what way he can best spend his appointed time. Will he adopt the likeness [513a] of the type of regime under which he lives? Think about how you at this moment obsess over how you can make yourself into the likeness of the Athenian people, that to get in their good graces, and to have power in the city.*

* He means the effort to make oneself relatable. Remember how Socrates earlier accused Callicles the politician of shaping his self-presentation to something that the Athenian people, his "beloved," would recognize and approve of? But in focusing on making themselves relatable, are not politicians just coddling (kolakeia, "flattery") the people?

whereas I want you to think and see whether this is for the interest of either of us. I would not have us risk that which is dearest on the acquisition of this power, like the Thessalian enchantresses, who, as they say, bring down the moon from heaven at the risk harm to themselves. [513b] But if you suppose that any man will show you the art of becoming great in the city without having to conform yourself to the ways of the city, whether for better or worse, then I can only say that you are mistaken, Callides. For if you think that anybody at all will pass on to you some such art of gaining political power, I mean, the technique of aping, for better or worse, the image that the city and its political system projects, you are, in my view taking bad advice, Callicles. For you cannot simply imitate them; rather, you must become so much like them that you take on their very nature, if you expect to forge an affectionate relationship with the Athenian dēmos or, by Zeus, with Dēmos, Pyrilampes' son. That teacher of yours will, then, make you just like them, will make you just what you desire: a statesman and orator.*

* Socrates clearly has in the mind the sophists, who for a fee professed to teach the "political art." Closely related is Gorgias' claim to teach the "rhetorical art." For Socrates, the successful politician has to be relatable; that has to be the art that sophists teach. But to make oneself relatable is to stoop low — or so Socrates thinks.

[513c] For everyone is pleased when spoken to in one's own language and spirit, and dislikes anyone who acts differently. But perhaps you, sweet Callicles, may be of another mind. What do you say?

CALLICLES: Somehow or other your words, Socrates, always appear to me to be good words. And yet, like the rest of the world, I am not quite convinced by them.

SOCRATES: The reason is, Callicles, that the love of Dēmos which abides in your soul is an adversary to me. But I dare say that if we return to these same matters, and consider them more thoroughly, you may be convinced for all that.*

* It seems that Socrates does not expect to complete the discussion just yet, but hopes to have another chance with Callicles, maybe when the latter is in a more receptive mood. From this point on, Socrates does little more than lecture at his interlocutor.

[513d] Please, then, remember that there are two processes of training all things, including body and soul; in the one, as we said, we treat them with a view to pleasure, and in the other with a view to the highest good, and then we do not indulge but resist them. Was that not the distinction which we drew?

CALLICLES: Very true.

SOCRATES: And the one which had pleasure in view was just a vulgar flattery. Was not that another of our conclusions?

[513f] CALLICLES: Be it so, if you will have it.

SOCRATES: And the other had in view the greatest improvement of that which was ministered to, whether body or soul?

CALLICLES: Quite true.

SOCRATES: And must we not have the same end in view in the treatment of our city and citizens? Must we not try to make them as good as possible? For we have already discovered that [514a] there is no use in imparting to them any other good, unless the mind of those who are to have the good, whether money, or office, or any other sort of power, is gentle and good. Shall we say that?

CALLICLES: Yes, certainly, if you like.

SOCRATES: Well, then, if you and I, Callicles, were intending to set about some public business, and were advising one another to undertake buildings, such as walls, docks or temples of the largest size, [514b] ought we not to examine ourselves, first, as to whether we know or do not know the art of building, and who taught us? Would not that be necessary, Callicles?

CALLICLES: True.

SOCRATES: In the second place, we would have to consider whether we had ever constructed any private house, either one of our own or one for our friends, and whether this building of ours was a success or not. And if upon consideration we found that we had had good and eminent teachers, [514c] and had been successful in constructing many fine buildings, not only with their assistance, but also without it, by our own unaided skill — in that case prudence would not stop us from proceeding to the construction of public works. But if we had no teacher to show, and only a number of worthless buildings or none at all, then, surely, it would be ridiculous in us to attempt public works, or to advise one another to undertake them. [514d] Is not this true?

CALLICLES: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And does not the same hold in all other cases? If you and I were physicians, and were advising one another that we were competent to practice as state-physicians, would I not ask about you, and would you not ask about me, "Well, but how about Socrates himself, has he good health? And was anyone else ever known to be cured by him, whether slave or freeman?" And I would make the same enquiries about you. And if we arrived at the conclusion that no one, whether citizen or stranger, man or woman, [514e] had ever been any the better for the medical skill of either of us, then, by Zeus, Callicles, what an absurdity to think that we or any human being would be so silly as to take on the role of state-physicians, or to advise others like ourselves to do the same, without having first practiced in private, whether successfully or not, or having acquired experience of the art! Is not this, as they say, to begin with the big jar when you are learning the potter's art, which is a foolish thing?

CALLICLES: True.

[515a] SOCRATES: And now, my friend, as you are already beginning to be a public character, and are admonishing and reproaching me for not being one, suppose that we ask a few questions of one another. Tell me, then, Callicles, how about making any of the citizens better? Was there ever a person who was once vicious, or unjust, or self-indulgent, or foolish, and became by the help of Callicles good and noble? Was there ever such a person, whether citizen or stranger, slave or freeman? [515b] Tell me, Callicles, if a person were to ask these questions of you, what would you answer? Whom would you say that you had improved by your conversation? There may have been good deeds of this sort which were done by you as a private person, before you came forward in public. Why will you not answer?

CALLICLES: You are argumentative, Socrates.

SOCRATES: No, I ask you, not from a love of arguing, but because I really want to know in what way you think that affairs should be administered among us — whether, when you come to the administration of them, [515c] you have any other aim but the improvement of the citizens? Have we not already admitted many times over that such is the duty of a public man? No, we have surely said so. For if you will not answer for yourself I must answer for you. But if this is what the good man ought to effect for the benefit of his own city, allow me to recall to you the names of those whom you were just now mentioning, [515d] Pericles and Cimon and Miltiades and Themistocles, and ask whether you still think that they were good citizens.

CALLICLES: I do.

SOCRATES: But if they were good, then clearly each of them must have made the citizens better instead of worse?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: And, therefore, when Pericles first began to speak in the assembly, the Athenians were not so good as when he spoke last?

CALLICLES: Very likely.

SOCRATES: No, my friend, "likely" is not the word. For if he was a good citizen, the inference is certain.

[515e] CALLICLES: And what difference does that make?

SOCRATES: None; only I would like further to know whether the Athenians are supposed to have been made better by Pericles, or, on the contrary, to have been corrupted by him. For I hear that he was the first to give the people pay, and thereby made them idle and cowardly, and encouraged them in the love of talk and money.*

* Pericles created a number of public works projects that provided jobs for the people. Under him as well, courtroom jurors began to receive pay. The oligarchic faction was not pleased; the dēmos loved it.

CALLICLES: You heard that, Socrates, from the Sparta-lovers who bruise their ears.*

* Sparta, another Greek city state (polis), was Athens' enemy at the time. The openly antidemocratic faction at Athens would sometimes adopt Spartan fashion (austerity of dress, long hair) and exercise habits (dedication to fitness and fighting). Neither Socrates nor Callicles is one of those Sparta-lovers. Socrates does, though, have friends in that camp. Callicles, a career politician under the democracy, presents himself as a committed democratic — the relatability thing. But in his heart he despises the people.

SOCRATES: But what I am going to tell you now is not mere hearsay, but well known both to you and me: that at first, Pericles was glorious and his character unimpeached by any verdict of the Athenians — this was during the time when they were not so good — yet afterwards, when they had been turned into perfect gentlemen by him, [516a] at the very end of his life they convicted him of theft, and almost put him to death, clearly under the notion that he was a malefactor.

CALLICLES: Well, but how does that prove Pericles' badness?

SOCRATES: Why, surely you would say that anyone was a bad manager of donkeys or horses or oxen, who had received them originally neither kicking nor butting nor biting, and implanted in them all these savage tricks. Would he not be a bad manager of any animals [516b] who received them gentle, and made them fiercer than they were when he received them? What do you say?

CALLICLES: I will do you the favor of saying "yes."

SOCRATES: And will you also do me the favor of saying whether humans are animals?

CALLICLES: Certainly they are.

SOCRATES: And was not Pericles a shepherd of men?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: And if he was a good political shepherd, ought not the animals who were his subjects, as we were just now acknowledging, [516c] to have become more just, and not more unjust?*

* Pericles was often lampooned as a tyrant. Note, though, that Pericles was no tyrant. He did not wield power over Athenians like the power a shepherd wields over flocks, or a tyrant over his subjects. As a politician, Pericles was a highly effective persuader; he influenced and guided, he did not command. Pericles also held the post of general, which obviously conferred on him military duties and even power. But the Athenian dēmos was always understood to hold supreme command. In law and in fact, the Athenian people were Pericles' boss.

CALLICLES: Quite true.

SOCRATES: And are not just people gentle, as Homer says? Or are you of another mind?

CALLICLES: I agree.

SOCRATES: And yet he really did make them more savage than he received them, and their savageness was shown towards himself, which he must have been very far from desiring.*

* Yes, the Athenians finally prosecuted Pericles for corruption. Was he guilty? No one knows; it could have been instigated as a political move by someone. Did he corrupt the Athenian people? That is already a partisan question, not how history is usually done. It was generally understood by the antidemocratic faction that democracy spoils the people. In Plato's works, Socrates voices that view regularly.

CALLICLES: Do you want me to agree with you?

SOCRATES: Yes, if I seem to you to speak the truth.

CALLICLES: Granted then.

SOCRATES: And if they were more savage, must they not have been more unjust and inferior?

[516d] CALLICLES: Granted again.

SOCRATES: Then upon this view, Pericles was not a good statesman?*

* Pericles was generally understood to be the very model of statesmanship. The Athenian people could be, though, viewed as difficult to govern.

CALLICLES: That is, upon your view.

SOCRATES: No, the view is yours, after what you have admitted. Take the case of Cimon again. Did not the very persons whom he was serving ostracize him, in order that they might not hear his voice for ten years?*

* Ostracism (from ostraka, the pottery sherds on which names were written) was a vote to remove an Athenian from Athens for a period of ten years. It was not exile, nor any form of punishment at all. What was it? Possibly a form of political "time out" for politicians viewed as threatening to become dictators (i.e., tyrants). Clearly, though, it became a weapon to wield against one's political rivals: we're in, you're out. That could have served the purpose of lessening political tensions. After 415 BCE, it ceased to be used.

and they did just the same to Themistocles, adding the penalty of exile. And they voted that Miltiades, the hero of Marathon, [516e] be thrown into the pit of death, and he was only saved by the presiding official. And yet, if they had been really good men, as you say, these things would never have happened to them. For the good charioteers are not those who at first keep their place, and then, when they have broken-in their horses, and themselves become better charioteers, are thrown out — that is not the way either in charioteering or in any profession. What do you think?

CALLICLES: I should think not.

[517a] SOCRATES: Well, but if so, the truth is as I have said already, that in the Athenian State no one has ever shown himself to be a good statesman — you admitted that this was true of our present statesmen, but not true of former ones, and you preferred them to the others. Yet they have turned out to be no better than our present ones. And therefore, if they were rhetoricians, they did not use the true art of rhetoric or of flattery, or they would not have fallen out of favor.

CALLICLES: But surely, Socrates, no living man ever came near any one of them [517b] in his achievements.

SOCRATES: O, my dear friend, I say nothing against them regarded as servants of the city. And I do think that they were certainly more serviceable than those who are living now, and better able to gratify the wishes of the city. But as to transforming those desires and not allowing them to have their way, and using the powers which they had, whether of persuasion or of force, in the improvement of their fellow citizens, which is the prime object of the truly good citizen, [517c] I do not see that in those respects they were a whit superior to our present statesmen. I do, though, admit that they were more clever at providing ships and walls and docks and all that. You and I have a ridiculous way, for during the whole time that we are arguing, we are always going round and round to the same point, and constantly misunderstanding one another.*

* Important comment from the standpoint of communication and dialogical theory — more later in he course.

[517d] If I am not mistaken, you have admitted and acknowledged more than once, that there are two kinds of operations which have to do with the body, and two which have to do with the soul: one of the two is therapeutic, and if our bodies are hungry provides food for them, and if they are thirsty gives them drink, or if they are cold supplies them with garments, blankets, shoes, and all that they crave. I use the same images as before intentionally, in order that you may understand me the better. The purveyor of the articles may provide them either wholesale or retail, or he may be the maker of any of them: [517e] the baker or the cook or the weaver or the shoemaker or the leather worker. And in so doing, being such as he is, he is naturally supposed by himself and every one to minister to the body. For none of them know that there is another art: an art of gymnastic and medicine which is the true caretaker of the body, and ought to be the mistress of all the rest, and to use their results according to the knowledge which she [518a] has and they have not, of the real good or bad effects of foods and drinks on the body. All other arts which have to do with the body are servile and menial and illiberal. And gymnastic and medicine are, as they ought to be, their mistresses.

Now, when I say that all this is equally true of the soul, you seem at first to know and understand and agree with my words, and then a little while afterwards you come [518b] repeating, "Has not the city had good and noble citizens?" And when I ask you who they are, you reply, seemingly quite in earnest, as if I had asked, "Who are or have been good trainers?" Thearion, the baker, Mithaecus, who wrote the Sicilian cookbook, and Sarambus, the wine dealer. These are [518c] caretakers of the body, first-rate in their art. For the first provides wonderful loaves, the second excellent dishes, and the third capital wine. To me these appear to be the exact parallel of the statesmen whom you mention.

Now, you would not be altogether pleased if I said to you, My friend, you know nothing of gymnastics; those of whom you are speaking to me are only the caretakers and purveyors of luxury, who have no good or noble notions of their art, and may very likely be filling and fattening people's bodies and gaining their approval, although the result is that they lose their original flesh in the long run, and become thinner than they were before. [518d] And yet they, in their inexperience, will not attribute their diseases and loss of flesh to their entertainers. But when in after years the unhealthy excess brings the penalty of disease, at that point, whoever happens to be near them at the time, and offers them advice, is accused and blamed by them. And if they could they would do him some harm, while they proceed to extol the people who have been the real cause of the mischief. [518e] And that, Callicles, is just what you are now doing. You praise the men who feasted the citizens and satisfied their desires, and people say that they have made the city great, [519a] not seeing that the swollen and ulcerated condition of the city is to be attributed to these elder statesmen. For they have filled the city full of harbors and docks and walls and revenues and all that, and have left no room for justice and moderation. And when the crisis of the disorder comes, the people will blame the advisers of the hour, and applaud Themistocles and Cimon and Pericles, who are the real authors of their calamities. And if you are not careful they may assail you and my friend Alcibiades*

* Alcibiades, the young man Socrates loves, would go on to be a politician, very much on the model of Callicles here. Socrates was very conscious of Alcibiades' faults and sought to correct them. He failed.

[519b] when they are losing not only their new acquisitions, but also their original possessions. Not that you are the authors of these misfortunes of theirs, although you may perhaps be accessories to them. A great hubbub is always being made, as I see and am told, now as of old, about our statesmen. When the city treats any of them as malefactors, I observe that there is a great uproar and indignation at the supposed wrong which is done to them: "After all their many services to the city, that they should unjustly perish," so the tale runs. [519c] But the cry is all a lie. For no statesman ever could be unjustly put to death by the city of which he is the head. The case of the professed statesman is, I believe, very much like that of the professed sophist. For the sophists, although they are wise men, are nevertheless guilty of a strange piece of folly. Professing to be teachers of virtue, they will often accuse their students of wronging them, and of defrauding them of their pay, and of showing no gratitude for their services. [519d] Yet what can be more absurd than that people who have become just and good, and whose injustice has been taken away from them, and who have had justice implanted in them by their teachers, should act unjustly by reason of the injustice which is not in them? Can anything be more irrational, my friends, than this? You, Callicles, compel me to be a mob-orator, because you will not answer.

CALLICLES: And you are the man who cannot speak unless there is someone to answer.

[519e] SOCRATES: I suppose that I can; just now, at any rate, the speeches which I am making are long enough because you refuse to answer me. But I adjure you by the god of friendship, my good sir, do tell me whether there does not appear to you to be a great inconsistency in saying that you have made someone good, and then blaming that person for being bad?

CALLICLES: Yes, it appears so to me.

SOCRATES: Do you never hear our professors of education speaking in this inconsistent manner?

[520a] CALLICLES: Yes, but why talk of people who are good for nothing?

SOCRATES: I would rather say, why talk of men who profess to be rulers, and declare that they are devoted to the improvement of the city, and nevertheless upon occasion declaim against the utter vileness of the city. Do you think that there is any difference between one and the other? My good friends, the sophist and the rhetorician, as I was saying to Polus, are the same, or nearly the same. [20b] But you ignorantly fancy that rhetoric is a perfect thing, and sophistry a thing to be despised; whereas the truth is that sophistry is as much superior to rhetoric as legislation is to the practice of law, or gymnastic to medicine. The orators and sophists, as I am inclined to think, are the only class who cannot complain of the mischief ensuing to themselves from that which they teach others, without in the same breath accusing themselves of having done no good to those whom they profess to benefit. Is not this a fact?

[520c] CALLICLES: Certainly it is.

SOCRATES: If they were right in saying that they make people better, then they are the only class who can afford to leave their remuneration to those who have been benefited by them. Whereas if someone has been benefited in any other way, if, for example, he has been taught to run by a trainer, he might possibly defraud him of his pay, if the trainer left the matter to him, and made no agreement with him that he should receive money as soon as he had given him the utmost speed. [520d] For not because of any deficiency of speed do people act unjustly, but by reason of injustice.

CALLICLES: Very true.

SOCRATES: And whoever removes injustice can be in no danger of being treated unjustly. He alone can safely leave the honorarium to his pupils, if he is really able to make them good — am I not right?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: Then we have found the reason why there is no dishonor in someone receiving pay who is called in to advise about building or any other art?

[520e] CALLICLES: Yes, we have found the reason.

SOCRATES: But when the point is how someone may become best himself, and best govern his family and city, then to say that you will give no advice for free is held to be dishonorable?

CALLICLES: True.

SOCRATES: And why? Because only such benefits call forth a desire to reward them, and there is evidence that a benefit has been conferred when the benefactor receives a return; otherwise not. Is this not true?

[251a] CALLICLES: It is.

SOCRATES: Then to which service of the city do you invite me? You decide for me. Am I to be the physician of the city who will strive and struggle to make the Athenians as good as possible? Or am I to be the servant and flatterer of the city? Speak out, my good friend, freely and fairly as you did at first and ought to do again, and tell me your entire mind.*

* Plato's Apology shows us Socrates claiming to be the city's "gadfly," goading citizens on to reflect on what they truly do or do not know, and on what is good. It was for that that the city had him killed.

CALLICLES: I say then that you would be the menial servant.

[521b] SOCRATES: The flatterer? Well, sir, that is a noble invitation.

CALLICLES: The Mysian, Socrates, or what you please.*

* Mysians, an ethnic group Athenians regarded as the lowest of the low.

For if you refuse, the consequences will be —

SOCRATES: Do not repeat the old story — that whoever likes will kill me and get my money. For then I will have to repeat the old answer, that he will be a bad man and will kill the good, and that the money will be of no use to him, [521c] but that he will wrongly use that which he wrongly took, and if wrongly, basely, and if basely, hurtfully.

CALLICLES: How confident you are, Socrates, that you will never come to harm! you seem to think that you are living in another country, and can never be brought into a court of justice, as you very likely may be brought by some miserable and mean person.

SOCRATES: Then I must indeed be a fool, Callicles, if I do not know that in the Athenian state any man may suffer anything. And if I am brought to trial and incur the [521d] dangers of which you speak, he will be a worthless person who brings me to trial — of that I am very sure, for no good man would accuse the innocent. Nor will I be surprised if I am put to death. Shall I tell you why I expect this?

CALLICLES: By all means.

SOCRATES: I think that I am the only or almost the only Athenian living who practices the true art of politics. I am the only politician of my time. Now, seeing that when I speak my words are not uttered with any view of gaining favor, and that I look to what is best and not to what is most pleasant, [521e] having no mind to use those arts and graces which you recommend, I will have nothing to say in the justice court. And you might argue with me, as I was arguing with Polus: I will be tried just as a physician would be tried in a court of little boys at the indictment of the cook. What would he reply under such circumstances, if someone were to accuse him, saying, "O my boys, many evil things has this man done to you. He is the death of you, especially of the younger ones among you, cutting and burning and [522a] starving and suffocating you, until you know not what to do. He gives you the bitterest potions, and compels you to hunger and thirst. How unlike the variety of foods and sweets on which I feasted you!" What do you suppose that the physician would be able to reply when he found himself in such a predicament? If he told the truth he could only say, "All these evil things, my boys, I did for your health," and then would there not just be a clamor among a jury like that? How they would cry out!

CALLICLES: Possibly.

[522b] SOCRATES: Would he not be utterly at a loss for a reply?

CALLICLES: He certainly would.

SOCRATES: And I too will be treated in the same way, as I well know, if I am brought before the court. For I will not be able to rehearse to the people the pleasures which I have procured for them, and which, although I am not disposed to envy either the procurers or enjoyers of them, are deemed by them to be benefits and advantages. And if any one says that I corrupt young men, and perplex their minds, or that I speak evil of old men, or use bitter words towards them, whether in private or public, it is useless for me to reply, as I truly might: [522c] "All this I do for the sake of justice, and with a view to your interest, my judges, and to nothing else." And therefore there is no saying what may happen to me.

CALLICLES: And do you think, Socrates, that someone who is thus defenseless is in a good position?

SOCRATES: Yes, Callicles, provided he has that defense, which as you have often acknowledged he should have — [522d] if he is his own de fence, and has never said or done anything wrong, either in respect of gods or of human beings. And this has been repeatedly acknowledged by us to be the best sort of defence And if any one could convict me of inability to defend myself or others after this sort, I would blush for shame, whether I was convicted before many, or before a few, or by myself alone. And if I died from want of ability to do so, that would indeed grieve me. But if I died because I have no powers of flattery or rhetoric, I am very sure that you would not find me repining at death. [522e] For no one who is not an utter fool and unmanly is afraid of death itself, but he is afraid of doing wrong. For to go to the world below having one's soul full of injustice is the last and worst of all evils. And in proof of what I say, if you have no objection, I would like to tell you a myth.*

* A muthos: "myth," "story," "fable." Plato's dialogues regularly include myths, mostly made up by Plato, to illustrate a key point or points through allegory. They're very much like what we would call fables with a lesson to teach.

I bears noting that myths and fables were associated with the sort of instruction that small children received. Thus there is, in a way, something childish about how this philosopher, Socrates, goes about teaching the naughty "child" Callicles, who is not yet ready to listen to reason.

[523a] CALLICLES: Very well, proceed. And then we will have done.

SOCRATES: Listen, then, as story-tellers say, to a very pretty tale, which I dare say that you may be disposed to regard as a fable only, but which, as I believe, is a true tale, for I mean to speak the truth. Homer tells us how Zeus and Poseidon and Pluto divided the empire which they inherited from their father. Now in the days of Cronos there existed a law respecting human destiny, which has always been, and still continues to be in Heaven, [523b] that whoever has lived life entirely in justice and holiness will go, when dead, to the Islands of the Blessed, and dwell there in perfect happiness out of the reach of evil. But that whoever has lived unjustly and impiously will go to the house of vengeance and punishment, which is called Tartarus. And in the time of Cronos, and even quite lately in the reign of Zeus,*

* In Greek mythology, Zeus wrested lordship of the universe from Cronus, his father.

the judgment was given on the very day on which people were to die; the judges were alive, and the people were alive. And the consequence was that the judgments were not well given. Then Pluto and the authorities from the Islands of the Blessed came to Zeus, and said [523c] that the souls found their way to the wrong places. Zeus said: "I shall put a stop to this; the judgments are not well given, because the persons who are judged have their clothes on, for they are alive. And there are many who, having evil souls, are appareled in fair bodies, or encased in wealth or rank, and, when the day of judgment arrives, numerous witnesses come forward and testify on their behalf that they have lived righteously. [523d] The judges are awed by them, and they themselves too have their clothes on when judging; their eyes and ears and their whole bodies are interposed as a veil before their own souls. All this is a hindrance to them; there are the clothes of the judges and the clothes of the judged. What is to be done? I will tell you: In the first place, I will deprive people of the foreknowledge of death, which they possess at present: this power which they have, [523e] Prometheus has already received my orders to take from them. In the second place, they will be entirely stripped before they are judged, for they will be judged when they are dead. And the judge too will be naked, that is to say, dead — he with his naked soul will peer into the other naked souls. And they will die suddenly and be deprived of all their kindred, and leave their brave attire strewn upon the earth — conducted in this manner, the judgment will be just. I knew all about the matter before any of you, and therefore I have made my sons judges; [524a] two from Asia, Minos and Rhadamanthus, and one from Europe, Aeacus. And these, when they are dead, will give judgment in the meadow at the parting of the ways, whence the two roads lead, one to the Islands of the Blessed, and the other to Tartarus. Rhadamanthus will judge those who come from Asia, and Aeacus those who come from Europe. And to Minos I will give the primacy,*

* Sort of makes sense: Minos in life was king of the island of Crete, sort of half way between Asia (= modern Turkey) and Europe (= Greece).

and he will hold a court of appeal, in case either of the two others are in any doubt. Then the judgment respecting the last journey of human beings will be as just as possible."

[524b] From this tale, Callicles, which I have heard and believe, I draw the following inferences. Death, if I am right, is in the first place the separation from one another of two things, soul and body; nothing else. And after they are separated they retain their several natures, as in life; the body keeps the same habit, and the results of treatment or accident [524c] are distinctly visible in it. For example, whoever by nature or training or both was a tall man while he was alive, will remain as he was, after he is dead. And the fat man will remain fat. And so on. And the dead man, who in life had a fancy to have flowing hair, will have flowing hair. And if he was marked with the whip and had the prints of the scourge, or of wounds in him when he was alive, you might see the same in the dead body. And if his limbs were broken or misshapen when he was alive, the same appearance would be visible in the dead. [524d] And in a word, whatever was the habit of the body during life would be distinguishable after death, either perfectly, or in great measure and for a certain time.*

* The body does hold its shape at least for a certain time after death. But the point is to set up a kind of symmetry with the situation regarding the soul.

And I would imagine that this is equally true of the soul, Callicles. When a person is stripped of the body, all the natural or acquired affections of the soul are laid open to view. And when they come to the judge, [524e] as those from Asia come to Rhadamanthus, he places them near him and inspects them quite impartially, not knowing whose the soul is. Perhaps he may lay hands on the soul of the great king, or of some other king or potentate, who has no soundness in him, but his soul is marked with the whip, [525a] and is full of festering sores and scars of false oaths and crimes with which each action has stained him, and he is all crooked with lies and hypocrisy, and has no straightness, because he has lived without truth.*

* I think these last guilty ones are meant to include bad sophists, rhetoricians, and politicians, liars all.

Him Rhadamanthus beholds, full of all deformity and disproportion, which is caused by licence and luxury and insolence and incontinence, and dispatches him ignominiously to his prison, and there he undergoes the punishment which he deserves.

[525b] Now the proper purpose of punishment is twofold: whoever is rightly punished ought either to become better and profit by it, or he ought to be made an example to his fellows, that they may see what he suffers, and fear and become better. Those who are improved when they are punished by gods and humans are those whose sins are curable. And they are improved, as in this world so also in another, by pain and suffering. [525c] For there is no other way in which they can be delivered from their evil. But they who have been guilty of the worst crimes, and are incurable by reason of their crimes, are made examples. For, as they are incurable, the time has passed at which they can receive any benefit. They get no good themselves, but others get good when they behold them enduring for ever the most terrible and painful and fearful sufferings as the penalty of their sins — there they are, hanging up as examples, in the prison-house of the world below, a spectacle and a warning to all unrighteous people who come thither. [525d] And among them, as I confidently affirm, will be found Archelaus, if Polus truly reports of him, and any other tyrant who is like him. Of these fearful examples, most, as I believe, are taken from the class of tyrants and kings and potentates and public men, for they are the authors of the greatest and most impious crimes, because they have the power. And Homer witnesses to the truth of this. For they are always kings and potentates whom he has described as suffering everlasting punishment in the world below: [525e] such were Tantalus and Sisyphus and Tityus. But no one ever described Thersites,*

* In Homer, Thersites is a common soldier, unlike the kings and heroes around him.

or any private person who was a villain, as suffering everlasting punishment, or as incurable. For to commit the worst crimes, as I am inclined to think, was not in his power, and he was happier than those who had the power. [526a] No, Callicles, the very bad people come from the class of those who have power. And yet in that very class there may arise good people, and worthy of all the admiration they get. For where there is great power to do wrong, to live and to die justly is a hard thing, and greatly to be praised, and few there are who attain to this. Such good and true people, [526b] however, there have been, and will be again, at Athens and in other cities, who have fulfilled their trust righteously. And there is one who is quite famous all over Greece, Aristeides, the son of Lysimachus.*

* Aristeides was highly esteemed as honest and just. Politically, he tended to side with the those opposed to democratic policy. But he also was a leader of the people. Themistocles, his great rival, had him ostracized.

But, in general, great men are also bad, my friend.

As I was saying, Rhadamanthus, when he gets a soul of the bad kind, knows nothing about the person, neither who it is, nor who the person's parents are. He knows only that he has got hold of someone depraved. And seeing this, he stamps the person as curable or incurable, and he packs the person off to Tartarus, [526c] whither the soul goes to receive a proper recompense. Or, again, he looks with admiration on the soul of some just one who has lived in holiness and truth; that one may have abstained from public life or not. And I would say, Callicles, that he is most likely to have been a philosopher who has done his own work, and not troubled himself with the doings of other men in his lifetime; him Rhadamanthus sends to the Islands of the Blessed. Aeacus does the same. And they both have scepters, and judge. [526d] But Minos alone has a golden scepter and is seated looking on, as Odysseus in Homer declares he saw him:

"Holding a scepter of gold, and giving laws to the dead."

Now I, Callicles, am persuaded of the truth of these things, and I consider how I will present my soul whole and undefiled before the judge in that day. Renouncing the honors at which the world aims, I desire only to know the truth, and to live as well as I can, and, when I die, to die as well as I can. [526e] And, to the utmost of my power, I exhort all others to do the same. And, in return for your exhortation of me, I exhort you also to take part in the great combat, which is the combat of life, and greater than every other earthly conflict. And I reject your reproach of me, and say, that you will not be able to help yourself when the day of trial and judgment, of which I was speaking, comes upon you. [527a] You will go before the judge, the son of Aegina,*

* Socrates is referring to Aeacus here.

and, when he has got you in his grip and is carrying you off, you will gape and your head will swim round, just as mine would in the courts of this world, and very likely someone will shamefully box you on the ears, and put upon you any sort of insult.

Perhaps this may appear to you to be only an old wives' tale, which you will scorn. And there might be reason in your contemning such tales, if by searching we could find out anything better or truer. But now you see that you and Polus and Gorgias, who are the three wisest of the Greeks of our day, [527b] are not able to show that we ought to live any life which does not profit in another world as well as in this. And of all that has been said, nothing remains unshaken but the saying, that to do wrong is more to be avoided than to suffer wrong, and that the reality and not the appearance of virtue is to be followed above all things, whether in public or in private. And that when any one has been wrong in anything, he is to be chastised, and that the next best thing to a person being just [527c] is that he become just, and be chastised and accept just punishment; also, that he should avoid all flattery of himself as well as of others, of the few or of the many; and rhetoric and any other art should be used by him, and all his actions should be done always, with a view to justice.*

* Note that rhetoric can be an art, i.e., a technical discipline useful to humanity, if it is studied methodically only after a proper introduction to ethics, and used with a view to its proper proper use.

Follow me then, and I will lead you where you will be happy in life and after death, as the argument shows. And never mind if someone despises you as a fool, and insults you, if he has a mind; let him strike you, by Zeus, and be of good cheer, and do not mind the insulting blow, for you will never come to any harm in the practice of virtue, if you are a really good and true man. When we have practiced virtue together, we will apply ourselves to politics, if that seems desirable, or we will advise about whatever else may seem good to us, for we will be better able to judge then. In our present condition we ought not to give ourselves airs, for even on the most important subjects we are always changing our minds, [527e] so badly educated are we! Let us, then, take the argument as our guide, which has revealed to us that the best way of life is to practice justice and every virtue in life and death. This way let us go. And in this spirit summon everyone else to follow, not in the way to which you trust and in which you summon me to follow you now. For that way, Callicles, is worth nothing.

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