Gorgias

(450+/- B.C.E.)

 

Gorgias came to Athens from Sicily as ambassador from his native city of Leontini in 427 B.C.E. He took such a radical view regarding truth that he eventually gave up philosophy and turned to the practice and teaching of rhetoric. This radical view differed from Protagoras’ in that while Protagoras said that everything is true, that truth is relative to persons and circumstances, Gorgias denied that there is any truth at all. With hair-splitting keenness, employing the mode of reasoning used by the Eleatic philosophers Parmenides and Zeno, Gorgias propounded the extraordinary notions (1) that nothing exists, (2) that if anything exists it is incomprehensible, and (3) that even if it is comprehensible, it cannot be communicated. Taking this third notion, for example, he argued that we communicate with words, but words are only symbols or signs and no symbol can ever be the same as the thing it symbolizes. For this reason, knowledge can never be communicated. By this mode of reasoning Gorgias thought he could prove all three of his propositions, or at least that his reasoning was as coherent as any used by those who disagreed with him. He was convinced, consequently, that there could be no reliable knowledge and certainly no truth.

Abandoning philosophy, Gorgias turned to rhetoric and tried to perfect it as the art of persuasion. It is said that he developed, in this connection, the technique of deception, making use of his knowledge of psychology and the powers of suggestion. Having earlier concluded that there is no truth, he was willing to employ the art of persuasion for whatever ends he chose.

FRAGMENTS

Our struggle in life requires two virtues, bravery and wisdom—readiness to endure a danger and skillful knowledge of how to manage it.

In contending against adversaries, destroy their seriousness with laughter and their laughter with seriousness.

While a friend may often choose to serve his friend by unjust actions, he will never expect unjust actions from his friend in return.

Tragedy produces a deception in which the deceiver is more honest than the non-deceiver and the deceived is wiser than the undeceived.

Being is unrecognizable unless it manages to seem, and seeming is feeble unless it manages to be.

The bright jewel of a city is courage; of a human body it is beauty; of the soul, wisdom; of human action, virtue; of speech, truth. To lack the quality in each case is to lack the specific excellence.