Who Was Callicles?

Exploring Four Relationships between

Rhetoric and Justice in Plato's Gorgias

Richard Johnson-Sheehan

Philosophy & Rhetoric, Volume 54, Number 3, 2021, pp. 263-288 (Article)

Published by Penn State University Press

For additional information about this article

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/810403

[ Access provided at 9 Nov 2021 07:50 GMT from CNRS BiblioSHS ]

 Who Was Callicles? Exploring Four
Relationships between Rhetoric and
Justice in Plato’s Gorgias

Richard Johnson-Sheehan

a b s t r ac t

The Gorgias presents us with a mystery and an enigma: Who was Callicles? And,
what was Plato trying to accomplish in this dialogue? While searching for the
identity of Callicles, we gain a better understanding of Plato’s purpose for this dia-
logue, which is to use justice as a means for staking out the boundaries of four types
of rhetoric. This article argues that Plato uses the Gorgias to reveal the deficiencies
of sophistic nomos-centered rhetorics and an unjust sophistic phusis-centered rheto-
ric, opening the door for a “true” rhetoric that he articulates in the Phaedrus and a
universal justice based on virtue that he describes in the Republic.

Keywords: rhetoric, Plato, Gorgias, Callicles, justice, nomos, phusis, Alcibiades

The Gorgias presents us with a mystery and an enigma. The mystery is the
identity of Callicles, who is the most prominent character in the dialogue
besides Socrates. Throughout his dialogues, Plato almost always forms his
major characters on real Athenian citizens or historical visitors to Athens.
We have evidence that these people existed, or they make cameos in other
Platonic dialogues, suggesting they were real people who ran in the same
social circles as Socrates. Callicles is a rare exception. He appears only in
the Gorgias, and Xenophon and Aristophanes do not mention him as a
character in their works. There is no evidence of a historical Callicles in
Socrates’ social circle even though the two men behave like acquaintances
and even act like friends at the beginning of the Gorgias (Groarke 2008,

doi: 10.5325/philrhet.54.3.0263
Philosophy and Rhetoric, Vol. 54, No. 3, 2021
Copyright © 2021 The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA
 richard johnson-sheehan

101; Barney 2017, para. 1). And yet, Callicles is a forceful, fully developed
character who has left a lasting impression on readers for millennia. Past
commentators on the Gorgias have tended to vilify Callicles as a solipsistic
prodigal (Shorey 1973; Rankin 1983; Rutherford 1995), but more recently
Callicles has been reimagined and even championed as a prototype for
Nietzsche’s Übermensch (Dodds 1959; Klosko 1984; Stauffer 2002; Urstad
2010). Next to Socrates, Callicles is by far the most memorable character in
this dialogue, even more so than the dialogue’s namesake, Gorgias. He steps
off the page as a dramatic and formidable antagonist, which is not typical
of Plato’s young male characters. Young men in Plato’s dialogues tend to
be rather one-dimensional, usually naïve like Polus, yielding like Phaedrus
or Theatatus, or vainly impulsive like Alcibiades. In Platonic dialogues,
the more forceful antagonists tend to be older men, such as Protagoras,
Hippias, and Thrasymachus. So, who was Callicles? Rachel Barney (2017) in
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy compares Callicles to Thrasymachus,
but concludes they are “not interchangeable.” Glaucon and Antiphon are
also mentioned by Barney as possible models for Callicles, but she only
indirectly associates these figures with him. Plato leaves us this mystery.
The enigma is what Plato was trying to accomplish in the Gorgias, the
purpose of which has been debated for centuries. The standard story, as
David Roochnik (1995) refers to it, is that the Gorgias is Plato’s “attack on
rhetoric” and that “Plato the philosopher is the mortal enemy of rheto-
ric, which he condemns on both epistemic and ethical grounds” (81). In
response to this attack, ancient and contemporary scholars from Aristotle
to Vickers (1988) have risen to defend rhetoric, highlighting the flaws in
Socrates’ position. However, as Roochnik reminds us, “the Gorgias, like
virtually all of Plato’s work, is a dialogue” and that Plato’s hostility toward
rhetoric in this dialogue is ultimately “ambiguous” (1995, 82). Indeed, try-
ing to state what Plato actually believed is always risky, especially in what
are believed to be early dialogues, such as the Gorgias. In these works,
Plato seems to be using debate as a dialogic means to explore and sort out
the beliefs of the historical Socrates; therefore, the enigmatic nature of
this dialogue may be intentional as Plato himself uses the dialogue form
as a reflective apparatus for exploring his mentor’s beliefs. Moreover, we
can accept some evolution in Plato’s philosophy within the corpus of his
works, recognizing that the ideas he presents in an early dialogue like the
Gorgias may not be as fully formed as they are in middle dialogues like
the Phaedrus and the Republic. The ambiguity that Roochnik highlights in
the Gorgias may be due to Plato’s own lack of certitude about the nature

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and function of rhetoric, or the definition of justice. In other words, the

enigma of the Gorgias, which continues to intrigue us even today, is Plato’s
open-ended exploration of the historical Socrates’ views of rhetoric and
justice.
In this article, I begin with the premise that Plato is doing something
more than attacking rhetoric. As others have argued, I agree that he seems
to be using the dialogue to investigate the relationship between rhetoric
and justice (Benardete 1991; Nichols 1998; Stauffer 2006). Plato, of course,
had much to say about justice across many of his dialogues, especially in the
Republic, but the Gorgias is the dialogue where he explores the relationship
between rhetoric and justice in the rawest, most contested, and dialogic way
(Stauffer 2002). My argument is that Plato uses justice as a way to stake out
the boundaries of four types of rhetoric, three of which he finds fundamen-
tally flawed because they do not adequately account for justice. The fourth
he eventually lays out in the Phaedrus. In several ways, the mystery and
enigma at the core of this dialogue cast an interesting light on each other,
and Plato seems to be leaving the identity of Callicles and the purpose of
the Gorgias intentionally ambiguous.

setting the stage

Most philosophers and rhetoricians are familiar with the Gorgias, so let’s
concentrate on the places where Callicles participates in the dialogue and
where issues of justice are debated.
Callicles enters at the very beginning of the dialogue. He playfully
teases Socrates and Chaerephon about just missing Gorgias’ public exhibi-
tion (epideiknusthai) of his oratorical talents. Socrates complains that he
was held up in the marketplace by Chaerephon and is disappointed to learn
that he missed Gorgias’ performance. Reassuring Socrates, Callicles tells
him that he can speak with Gorgias any time he wants because the sophist
is staying at his house (447b). Judging from this friendly exchange, Socrates
and Callicles seem to be acquaintances on good terms. A few moments
later, Gorgias and Polus enter the scene and join Callicles, Socrates, and
Chaerephon. The five characters begin their discussion of the nature of
rhetoric.
Something to keep in mind when reading Platonic dialogues, espe-
cially early dialogues like the Gorgias, is that Plato is a dramatist. Like a
playwright, he uses this opening scene to set up the main conflict that will
emerge later in the drama. Here, rather inconspicuously, Plato introduces his

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principal antagonist, Callicles. Then, as the dialogue proceeds, Plato allows

Callicles to blend into the background as Socrates debates with Gorgias
and Polus. Also, like a Greek dramatist, Plato early on introduces a hamar-
tia, a flaw, that will ultimately undo each of the antagonists. Specifically,
while readers are caught up in Gorgias’ and Socrates’ initial attempts to
pin down a definition of rhetoric, Plato slips in the issue of justice (dike)
when he has Gorgias say, “The persuasion I mean, Socrates, is the kind that
takes place in law courts and in those other large gatherings, as I was say-
ing a moment ago. And it’s concerned with those matters that are just and
unjust” (454b). Gorgias, to that point, had been explaining to Socrates that
he teaches the craft or art (techne) of rhetoric (449d), which allows an ora-
tor to be more persuasive in a crowd than an expert (452e). To illustrate, he
argues that a rhetor is better able than the physician to persuade patients
to take their medicine. He also claims that the rhetor is better able than
a master builder to persuade the public to support public works projects,
such as the construction of docks, walls, and a harbor. Then, Plato uses his
previously planted hamartia to pivot the discussion to the issue of justice.
He has Gorgias say,

The orator has the ability to speak against everyone on every sub-
ject, so as in gatherings to be more persuasive, in short, about any-
thing he likes, but the fact that he has the ability to rob doctors or
other craftsmen of their reputations doesn’t give him any more of a
reason to do it. He should use oratory justly, as he would any com-
petitive skill. And, I suppose that if a person who has become an
orator goes on with this ability and this craft to commit wrongdo-
ing, we shouldn’t hate his teacher and exile him from our cities. For
while the teacher imparted it to be used justly, the pupil is making
the opposite use of it. (457b)

Here, Gorgias oversteps and opens the door for Socrates to question
him about whether rhetoric must be concerned with issues of justice. He
asks Gorgias how his students would know “what’s just and unjust, what’s
shameful and admirable, and what’s good and bad” (459d). Gorgias replies,
with some hesitation, that he can teach his students a knowledge of justice
if they don’t have it already.
Socrates jumps on Gorgias’ response, arguing that a rhetor, who is some-
one with a knowledge of justice, could not possibly do something unjust or

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shameful (461a). This argument is often referred to as one of the “Socratic

paradoxes” because of Socrates’ seemingly simplistic and even contradic-
tory understanding of justice in earlier dialogues, such as the Gorgias. This
paradox has been explored by many scholars (Aristotle 1928, 1145b; Santas
1964; Walton 1978). Santas describes this particular paradox this way:

The first of these is that no one desires evil things and that all who
pursue evil things do so involuntarily; the second doctrine is that
virtue is knowledge and that all who do injustice or wrong do so
involuntarily. (1964, 147)

This austere understanding of justice can be found in both Plato’s and

Xenophon’s Socratic dialogues, so it probably reflects what the historical
Socrates actually believed (Walton 1978, 687). Scholars from Aristotle to
Aquinas to F. M. Cornford (1932) have consistently pointed out that this
understanding of justice contradicts lived experience (Santas 1964, 148).
After all, we regularly witness people who know right from wrong but still
choose to do wrong. Or, as Aristotle himself bluntly puts it, Socrates’ posi-
tion is “manifestly at variance with the plain facts” (1145b).
It’s hard to believe that the historical Gorgias, a skilled debater, would
have left Socrates’ understanding of justice unchallenged. After all, know-
ing right from wrong and doing right or wrong are two different things.
Indeed, the essence of criminal law is based on the idea that lawbreak-
ers know or should have known that they were doing something wrong
but chose to do it anyway. And yet Socrates’ antithesis traps Gorgias in
his own words, because the elder sophist does not want to admit that
he is teaching rhetorical skills that give students the power to do injus-
tice. Several scholars, including Irwin (1977) and Cooper (1999), suggest
that Plato intentionally makes Socrates’ argument weak, because Plato
was trying to create some daylight between his own views on rhetoric
and justice with the widely known opinions of the historical Socrates. By
doing so, Plato creates a space to fashion his own understandings of both
rhetoric and justice, which are offered in the Phaedrus and the Republic,
respectively.
Gorgias falls silent, and Polus enters the debate. Trying to rescue
his mentor from embarrassment, Polus argues that it is acceptable to
use rhetoric to do injustice. He contends that rhetoric gives orators the
power to do whatever they desire, even getting away with acts that are

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unjust and shameful. Polus, under questioning by Socrates, argues that

rhetoric allows a person to do what seems best to him, even if that means
doing something unjust. After much debate, Socrates again uses ques-
tions about justice to turn Polus completely around and get him to admit
that rhetoric is useful only to people who intend to do wrong and want to
avoid paying reparations for their unjust acts (480c–481b). Socrates sug-
gests that just people do not need rhetoric: they simply need to tell the
truth. He argues that by using rhetoric to do injustice and then cover it
up, individuals cause damage to their souls and cause a profound sense of
unhappiness within themselves. This uncertainty about the relationship
between justice and rhetoric is again the hamartia that undoes Polus as
it had Gorgias.
In these first two debates, we see Plato staking out two forms of rheto-
ric that he finds fundamentally flawed. Both Gorgias and Polus claim that
rhetoric is a techne that allows a speaker to be more persuasive in a crowd.
Socrates reveals that Gorgias’ rhetoric is superficially just, while Polus’ rhet-
oric is patently unjust. The difference between these two rhetorics is that
Gorgias believes that rhetoric, like a martial art or a competitive sport, can
be curbed with a knowledge of laws or rules, that is, justice. In contrast,
Polus believes concerns about justice are irrelevant as long as the rhetor is
doing what is best for himself and can get away with it. Gorgias’ examples
demonstrate that he believes rhetoric should be used for good, such as per-
suading patients to take their medicine or convincing the public to take
action for the common good. Gorgias is uncomfortable with the idea that
his students would use rhetoric to intentionally do something shameful or
wrong. Polus defends a rhetoric untethered from justice, and he argues that
concerns about justice ultimately leave a person vulnerable to abuse, pun-
ishment, and even death. By drawing attention to this disjunction between
rhetoric and justice, Socrates catches Gorgias and Polus in their own words
and shames them into silence.
Something to take note of is that Plato never gives Gorgias and Polus
an opportunity to explain their understanding of the techne of rhetoric, that
is, how rhetoric can be used to persuade others. In several places, Socrates
even seems to agree with them that a trained orator would be more persua-
sive in a crowd than an expert, but he never lets them explain how orators
use rhetorical techniques to bring about this persuasive effect. Letting them
describe the techne of rhetoric would have put Gorgias and Polus on much
firmer ground, but Socrates keeps sidetracking the argument into issues of
justice. This seems to be a conscious diversion on Plato’s part.

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callicles reenters the debate

After Polus concedes, Callicles reenters the dialogue by pointing out,
correctly, that Socrates has been playing a language game to trap his oppo-
nents, a language game that would have been familiar to any sophist. He
says,

This is in fact a clever trick you’ve thought of, with which you work
your mischief in your discussions: if a person makes a statement
in terms of law (nomos), you slyly question him in terms of nature
(phusis); if he makes it in terms of nature, you question him in
terms of law. (482e)

And, if we look back at Socrates’ debates with Gorgias and Polus, this is
exactly what he has been doing (Rutherford 1995, 162). In fact, once pointed
out, Socrates’ debating gambit would have been so obvious to Plato’s read-
ers that we have to assume that he meant everyone to see how Socrates
had outdueled Gorgias and then Polus. As W. K. C. Guthrie explains,
playing nomos against phusis was a popular antithesis in ancient Greece
(1995, 58). The ancient Greeks regularly debated nomos versus phusis top-
ics, such as whether the gods existed by phusis (nature, natural laws) or
by nomos (human laws, social conventions, belief ), whether Athenian laws
were founded on phusis or nomos, and whether people were slaves by nature
or by convention (58). These debates would be as familiar to the Greeks as
our contemporary arguments about whether humans do things by “nature
or nurture.” Aristotle himself refers to the debate between Socrates and
Callicles when he explains the nomos-phusis antithesis as a sophistic topos in
his Sophistici Elenchis, or On Sophistical Refutations:

The widest range of commonplace argument for leading men into

paradoxical statement is that which depends on the standards of
Nature and of the Law: it is so that both Callicles is drawn as
arguing in the Gorgias, and that all the men of old supposed the
result to come about: for nature (they said) and law are opposites,
and justice is a fine thing by a legal standard, but not by that of
nature. Accordingly, they said, the man whose statement agrees
with the standard of nature you should meet by the standard of
the law, but the man who agrees with the law by leading him to
the facts of nature: for in both ways paradoxical statements may

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be committed. In their view the standard of nature was the truth,

while that of the law was the opinion held by the majority. So that
it is clear that they, too, used to try either to refute the answerer or
to make him make paradoxical statements, just as the men of today
do as well. (173a)

As Aristotle points out, the sophists themselves were masters at tan-

gling up their opponents in these kinds of verbal antitheses between nomos
and phusis. So, it is interesting that Plato shows Socrates himself engaging
in this kind of sophistic language game to trap Gorgias and Polus. Perhaps
Plato wanted to demonstrate that Socrates could beat the sophists at their
own game. It is also interesting that Aristotle uses this particular example
from the Gorgias to illustrate the nomos-phusis antithesis as a sophistic topos.
Aristotle recognizes that Plato’s Socrates used a paradoxical sophistic trick
to defeat Gorgias and Polus.
Surely, though, Plato had something more significant in mind than
describing how Socrates showed up a couple sophists by beating them
at their own game. Instead, he uses Socrates’ phusis-centered arguments
to reveal that the rhetorics of Gorgias and Polus are sham arts, which are
dependent on flattery and manipulating nomoi (human laws, social con-
ventions, and beliefs) to persuade others. As Callicles points out, Socrates
begins by questioning Gorgias and Polus according to nomos, getting
them to agree that rhetoric can be used to manipulate a crowd unjustly
by appealing to human laws, social conventions, and beliefs. Then, he pulls
the rug out from under them by arguing according to phusis that using
rhetoric to do injustice damages the soul, thereby causing unhappiness in
life and leading to punishment in the afterlife. This seems like more than
a trick. Plato is aligning Gorgias and Polus with a nomos worldview in
which human laws, social conventions, and beliefs take precedence over
the laws of nature. Plato is aligning Socrates with a phusis worldview in
which natural laws take precedence over nomos (human laws, conventions,
and beliefs).
Callicles figures out how Socrates trapped Gorgias and Polus and he
calls him on it. He rebukes Socrates for “grandstanding” and “engaging
in crowd-pleasing vulgarities that are admirable only by law and not by
nature” (482c–e). Then, Callicles offers two arguments of his own. First, he
argues that men like himself are, by nature (phusis), stronger than others and
therefore should have a greater share. He contends that weaker people use
human laws and social conventions (nomoi) as the basis of justice, binding

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themselves together in order to restrain those who are naturally superior.

Second, he argues that philosophy, while a beneficial study for children, is
not suitable or useful for adults who live in the real world (Timmerman
1993, 121). He describes philosophers in the following way:

It’s typical that such a man, even if he’s naturally very well favored,
becomes unmanly and avoids the centers of his city and the
marketplaces—in which, according to the poet, men attain “pre-
eminence”—and, instead, lives the rest of his life in hiding, whis-
pering in a corner with three or four boys, never uttering anything
well-bred, important, or apt. (485d)

Of course, Callicles’ insult is directed at Socrates. Callicles argues that

studying philosophy leads to the ruin of a naturally superior person, specifi-
cally a superior intellectual like Socrates, because it keeps that person from
engaging in important matters of state and commerce.
Scholars of Plato, including Cornford (1932), Dodds (1959), and Fussi
(2000), have all commented on the bitterness that develops between
Callicles and Socrates at this point in the dialogue. Why does this dia-
logue get so nasty so quickly, indeed much nastier than debates in any other
Platonic dialogue? Primarily, the debate deteriorates because Callicles and
Socrates actually agree on more than they disagree but feel that the other
is betraying nature. Both seem to accept that some people are, by phusis,
stronger than others and therefore should lead the weaker. Plato’s Socrates
makes these kinds of statements in numerous dialogues, most noticeably in
the Republic, where his concept of philosopher kings is based on the idea
that some people are naturally superior to others. Meanwhile, both Socrates
and Callicles accept a phusis-centered worldview, while agreeing with each
other that a nomos-centered worldview allows people to artificially manip-
ulate human laws, conventions, and beliefs. Most importantly—and this
probably explains the bitterness—each believes that the other is betray-
ing phusis and therefore his own natural superiority. Callicles believes that
Socrates, who is intellectually superior like himself, is wasting his potential
by pursuing philosophy and “whispering in the corner with three or four
boys” (485e). Quoting Euripides, he says,

You’re neglecting the things you should devote yourself to, Socrates,
and though your spirit’s nature is so noble, you show yourself to
the world in the shape of a boy. (485e)

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Socrates, too, recognizes that Callicles is superior by nature, so he is angry

that Callicles is using his natural gifts to pursue a hedonistic,pleasure-centered
lifestyle. Socrates says,

I want to persuade you to change your mind if I can: to choose

the orderly life, the life that is adequate to and satisfied with its
circumstances at any given time instead of the insatiable, undisci-
plined life. (493c)

The essential difference between the two men’s positions is that

Socrates believes that justice is a virtue that emerges when a naturally
superior person exhibits self-control and temperance. Quite the opposite,
Callicles believes that restraining himself would be a betrayal of his natural
superiority, as well as a betrayal of the community (polis) itself. After all,
he argues, when naturally superior people like himself curb their desires
(epithumia) and passions, they become weaklings and cowards who cannot
be effective leaders of others (492a–c). Interestingly, as Kerferd points out,
Callicles’ position in the Gorgias is a vulgar version of some of Socrates’ own
positions on justice in the Republic:

For Plato in fact agreed with Callicles in wishing to get away from
conventional justice in order to move to something higher. For
Plato, Vulgar Justice must be replaced by Platonic Justice, the jus-
tice appropriate above all to the ruler and the philosopher. Both
Plato and Callicles accept that arête must involve the fulfilment
of the needs of individual human beings. Such fulfilment is eudai-
monia. But for Plato, fulfilment involves a pattern of restraint in
the satisfaction of desires, a pattern based on reason, whereas for
Callicles neither reason nor restraint have anything to do with the
matter. (119)

As Kerferd suggests, Callicles believes in a vulgar justice in which

naturally stronger individuals, like himself, follow their nature (phusis) to
instinctively determine what is right. In contrast, Platonic justice, as defined
in the Republic, “involves the provocative idea that justice in the city (polis)
is the same thing as justice in the individual, just ‘writ large’” (LeBar 2020).
What is just in Plato’s republic is determined by naturally superior indi-
viduals, namely philosopher kings, who use restraint and reason to extend
that virtue broadly to the polis.

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 who was callicles?

Through Socrates’ successive debates with Gorgias, Polus, and Callicles,

Plato is using concerns about justice to stake out the boundaries of three
types of rhetoric. In contrast to Gorgias’ and Polus’ nomos-centered rheto-
rics, Callicles defends a third type of rhetoric that is based on phusis. He
argues that nomos-centered justice is a means by which the weaker band
together to restrain naturally stronger individuals like himself, while phusis-
centered natural justice compels the stronger to follow their desires and
passions. In this way, as Balot (2001) argues, Callicles is representative of the
sense of selfishness and greed that had settled into post-Periclean Athens.
Natural justice, Callicles is arguing, compels the stronger to selfishly follow
their instincts and passions in a way that allows them to obtain more than
their share. This lack of self-control and temperance within individuals and
the broader Athenian polis is what Socrates is arguing against.

the end of the debate between socrates

and callicles
As the debate nears its end, Socrates doggedly tries to corner Callicles,
attempting to persuade him to accept the restraints of self-control and
temperance. Callicles rejects this approach, instead holding to the posi-
tion that self-control and temperance would constrain him from reaching
his full potential. Here, as some scholars have suggested, is where Plato
may again be creating some daylight between himself and the historical
Socrates (Fussi 2000, 53; Jenks 2007, 212). Even though Socrates gets the
last word in the dialogue and appears to “win” the debate, Plato purposely
leaves the Gorgias a stalemate. Socrates is not given a complete victory,
as Fussi points out, because Plato was probably hesitant to entirely reject
rhetoric (53). Plato wants to reject only the kinds of rhetoric taught by
the sophists and practiced by reckless youths like Callicles. Moreover, even
Plato probably did not fully accept the historical Socrates’ austere definition
of justice, as it is articulated in the Gorgias ( Jenks 2007, 212). Instead, he was
using this dialogue to lay the groundwork for developing a phusis-centered
understanding of Platonic justice that is explored in the Republic.
So, let’s return to the question of what Plato is trying to accomplish in
these three debates in the Gorgias. Historians of rhetoric like Guthrie and
Kerferd tend to sort the historical sophists into proponents of nomos or
phusis. The proponents of a nomos-centered worldview are often identified
as Protagoras, Gorgias, Hippias, Lysias, Demosthenes, the author of the
Anonymus Iamblichi, and Isocrates. On the other side, according to Guthrie,

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the main proponents of a phusis-centered worldview would be Antiphon

and perhaps Socrates (if one views him as a sophist, as Aristophanes did).
But, it is important not to draw these lines too strictly. As both Guthrie and
Kerferd acknowledge, Greek philosophers and rhetoricians did not view
nomos and phusis as mutually exclusive to each other. Instead, they tended
to view either nomos or phusis as more dominant within particular areas
of concern. As Guthrie points out, sophists like Protagoras would feature
nomos as the basis of their theories of morality, law, progress, and justice,
but they would occasionally use phusis when discussing natural phenomena
or even arête (63–68). In contrast, a phusis-centered sophist like Antiphon
would acknowledge the importance of nomos when he advised people to
“respect the laws when witnesses are present but otherwise to follow the
precepts of nature” (Antiphon fr. 44A DK). Historians, including Guthrie
and Kerferd, usually align Gorgias with nomos, because his rhetoric seems
to be a techne that relies on using persuasion by appealing to commonly
held beliefs.
Plato uses Gorgias, Polus, and Callicles to illustrate what he believes
to be the fundamental flaws of three illegitimate forms of rhetoric, while
opening a space to advance a fourth form of rhetoric that would be legiti-
mate (Figure 1). He uses Socrates’ debates with Gorgias and Polus to expose
the flawed nature of nomos-centered rhetoric, demonstrating that they can-
not adequately account for issues of justice. Gorgias is forced to admit that
his version of rhetoric is separable from justice, detaching rhetoric from an
understanding of right and wrong. If so, as Socrates concludes, this form
of rhetoric opens the door for using rhetoric to do injustice. Afterward,
Socrates demonstrates that Polus’ amoral and unjust rhetoric, which is based
on social forms of power, is damaging to one’s soul. Socrates warns that using
this rhetoric will lead to unhappiness in life and punishment in the after-
life, which he finds unacceptable. Later, Callicles defends a phusis-centered
worldview that is grounded in natural law and power—might makes right
(Guthrie 1995, 102; Groarke 2008, 102). He argues not only that naturally
superior people like himself should be able to do what they want but that
they have an obligation to pursue those selfish desires. Socrates also finds
this third view of rhetoric flawed because it, too, lacks justice as a virtue.
However, Callicles’ argument is much harder to counter because it is phusis-
centered like Socrates’ position. By not allowing Socrates to completely
defeat Callicles (Socrates only browbeats Callicles into silence), Plato
seems to be leaving the door open for a phusis-centered rhetoric that is
grounded in justice as a virtue (Kastely 1991, 107; Jenks 2007, 211).

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 who was callicles?

Figure 1:  Four relationships between justice and rhetoric in the Gorgias. In the Gorgias,
Plato describes three kinds of flawed rhetoric and leaves an opening for a legitimate form of
rhetoric that he ultimately explicates in the Phaedrus.

The purpose of the Gorgias, therefore, is to draw attention to an

unexplored space that exists between the views of Socrates and Callicles,
and Plato purposely leaves that space ambiguous in this dialogue. More
than likely, Plato kept this door open because the historical Socrates
rejected rhetoric altogether and believed in what Plato realized was an
inadequate and perhaps paradoxical theory of justice. Plato, unlike the his-
torical Socrates, probably wasn’t ready to completely reject rhetoric, and
he wanted to leave the door open to defining justice in a way that the
historical Socrates may not have accepted. Indeed, as Maciejewski (2008)
points out, Plato may have thought that justice as a virtue could be posi-
tioned at the nexus of phusis and rhetoric (73), so he leaves exploration of
rhetoric and justice to future dialogues, which become the Phaedrus and
the Republic.
In the Phaedrus, Socrates succinctly describes this phusis-centered
“noble” rhetoric when he says,

First, you must know the truth (alethes) concerning everything

you are speaking or writing about; you must know how to define
(orizesthai) each thing in itself; and having defined it, you must

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know how to divide it into kinds until you reach something indi-
visible. Second, you must understand the nature (phusis) of the soul,
along the same lines; you must determine what kind of speech is
appropriate to each kind of soul, prepare and arrange your speech
accordingly; and offer a complex and elaborate speech to a com-
plex soul and a simple speech to a simple one. Then, and only then
will you be able to use speech artfully, to the extent that its nature
allows it to be used that way, either in order to teach or in order
to persuade. This is the whole point of the argument we have been
making. (277b–c)

By doing so, as Benardete suggests, “Justice and law are restored to

rhetoric, but it is justice no longer fueled by anger and indignation” (1991,
183). Then, in the Republic, Plato’s Socrates brings forward a more complex
understanding of justice than the one he presents in the Gorgias. He says
the following:

Justice is doing one’s own work, and not meddling with what isn’t
one’s own. . . . I think that [justice] is what was left over in the city
when moderation, courage, and wisdom have been found. It is the
power that makes it possible for them to grow in the city and that
preserves them when they’ve grown for as long as it remains there
itself. (433a–c)

Justice, therefore, is a virtue that conjoins individual souls into the

broader polis. Thus, in the Republic, Plato situates nomos within phusis, arguing
that universal justice involves individuals taking their natural and harmoni-
ous place in the polis (LeBar 2020). His concept of justice is phusis-centered,
suggesting that individuals with a healthy, harmonious soul would not will-
ingly do something unjust because it would damage their own souls and the
polis itself. Universal justice results when individuals do their natural work
in the polis with moderation, courage, and wisdom.
Interestingly, the enigmatic nature of the Gorgias is probably because Plato
was beginning to work out these relationships between rhetoric and justice for
himself. He wants to argue for a phusis-centered understanding of justice and
thereby a phusis-centered rhetoric, but he’s unsure whether either could meet
the historical Socrates’ standards. Therefore, he is using the Gorgias to create a
space for exploring this phusis-centered view of rhetoric and justice while dem-
onstrating the shortcomings of the rhetorics of Gorgias, Polus, and Callicles.

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who was callicles?

The identity of Callicles may seem like an unrelated matter, but the
dramatist Plato enjoys a mystery, and he seems to purposely mask Callicles’
identity, casting an interesting light on this nomos-phusis debate about
rhetoric and justice. The mystery and the enigma illuminate each other in
ways that Plato may have intended.
To begin, we can take note of the biographical information that Plato
reveals about Callicles in the Gorgias. Plato says Callicles is from Acharnae,
Athens’ largest and wealthiest deme, or suburb, and he has a lover Demos,
who we can confirm was a historical person (Nails 2002, 75). Historians
routinely and mistakenly identify Callicles as a sophist, sometimes even the
archetypal sophist. Plato, however, does not portray him that way. Callicles
is not an orator, and he’s not a teacher. Unlike most sophists, he also does not
believe that virtue/excellence (arête) can be taught. In fact, when Socrates
directly asks Callicles whether sophists are able to teach arête to others,
Callicles dismisses sophists as “completely worthless people” (519e). Plato is
intentionally portraying Callicles as someone quite different than a sophist.
Callicles is a young man on the rise in the Athenian society. We can assume
he is wealthy and well connected because otherwise a celebrity like Gorgias
would not be staying at his house. He is obviously educated and intel-
ligent, because he has the ability to see through Socrates’ language games.
Callicles also views himself as naturally superior to commoners. Indeed,
when Socrates tries to insult him by calling him a “lover of the demos” (a
lover of commoners), the jibe is merely an opportunistic pun on the name
of Callicles’ lover, Demos (Schofield 2009, 1). In reality, Callicles shows only
contempt for the demos, and he repeatedly expresses a low opinion of com-
moners (Kastely 1991, 101; Schofield 2009, 1). Plato portrays Callicles as a
bright and forceful young man of affluence, taste, and political aspirations,
who believes he is naturally superior and therefore deserves to pursue his
passions in an unbridled way (Svoboda 2007, 282).
Surely, there were many young men in Socrates’ day who would have
defended the might-makes-right form of justice that Callicles espouses.
And yet, Plato chooses to create a fictional character who defends views
that could have been easily attributed to a historical person. Why? In other
dialogues, Plato never hesitates to use real people as foils for Socrates. So,
why create a fictional character here? More than likely, he modeled Callicles
on a real person but had reasons to mask that person’s identity. Let’s con-
sider some possible models for Callicles.

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Antiphon
If Callicles were meant to be viewed as a sophist, he might have been
Antiphon of Rhamnus (480–411 BCE). As a sophist, Antiphon was active
in Athenian politics in Socrates’ day, and he was a teacher of oratory. The
Greek historian, Thucydides, describes Antiphon as bright and clever with
an ability to speak persuasively. Thucydides also identifies Antiphon as
a ringleader in the Four Hundred, a coup that seized power in 411. He
writes,

But in fact, the man who had developed the whole scheme to this
point and worked longest for its achievement was Antiphon. He
was a man of quality, equal to any of his contemporaries in Athens,
and exceptionally gifted in his powers of thought and expression.
He was reluctant to come forward in the assembly or on any other
public stage. This, and a reputation for cleverness meant that the
people at large were suspicious of him. (8.68)

In his treatise On Truth, which survives in fragments, Antiphon makes

an argument for natural law (phusis) that is similar to the one Callicles
makes in the Gorgias. Antiphon argues that orators should manipulate the
laws of a community in public as long as they follow natural law in their
own lives (fr. 44A DK). He writes,

Justice consists in not transgressing the law and usages of one’s

state. Therefore, the most profitable means of manipulating justice
is to respect the laws when witnesses are present but otherwise to
follow the precepts of nature. Laws are artificial compacts, they
lack the inevitability of natural growth. (Antiphon fr. 44A DK)

Following the collapse of the Four Hundred, Antiphon and many of

his coconspirators were executed in 411. They were considered too danger-
ous to live after the coup dissolved.
If Plato wanted Callicles to be viewed as a sophist, he could have safely
used Antiphon as a foil for Socrates in the Gorgias. Antiphon was alive
while Gorgias was in Athens, and he would have been an ideal archetype of
a prominent, accomplished sophist who espoused a phusis-centered rheto-
ric. Indeed, Plato could have skipped the pseudonym, because Antiphon
had been executed decades before the Gorgias was written. He had no

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reason to protect Antiphon’s identity. On the whole, though, Plato wants

his ­audience to view Callicles as the misguided product of a sophistic
education, not as a sophist himself; therefore, it is unlikely Callicles was
modeled on Antiphon (Dodds 1959, 13; Guthrie 1995, 102). Antiphon was
a statesman, an orator, and a teacher who believed in natural law and a
might-makes-right form of justice. Plato intends Callicles to be viewed as
a corrupted youth who lacks self-control and temperance.

Thrasymachus
For the same reasons, it is unlikely that Callicles was modeled on
Thrasymachus (ca. 459–400 BCE), another historical figure who is the
major antagonist in Plato’s Republic. In the first book of the Republic,
Thrasymachus and Socrates debate the nature of justice. After some prod-
ding from Socrates’ companions, Thrasymachus leads off the debate by
stating, “I say justice is nothing more than the advantage of the stronger”
(338c). His definition of the stronger is more broadly conceived than the
one offered by Callicles, because Thrasymachus does not argue for the natu-
ral superiority of some individuals. Instead, he assumes that power is inher-
ently a social construct as people, especially the elite, band together for
their common interests. Thrasymachus eventually clarifies his position by
defining justice in terms of political power:

Democracy makes democratic laws, tyranny makes tyranni-

cal laws, and so on with the others. And they declare what they
have made—what is to their own advantage—to be just for their
subjects, and they punish anyone who goes against this as law-
less and unjust. This, then, is what I say justice is, the same in all
cities, the advantage of the established rule. Since the established
rule is surely stronger, anyone who reasons correctly will conclude
that the just is the same everywhere, namely, the advantage of the
stronger. (338e–339a)

At first glance, this position may seem similar to Callicles’ argument,

but it’s actually quite different. Thrasymachus seems to be adopting the
idea that justice is socially constructed by a ruling class. That is, the rul-
ing class of a society determines what is right and wrong by creating laws,
and they band together to enforce their will on the state. Collectively,
those who control the government (the “stronger”) are able to manipulate

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human laws, conventions, and beliefs to their advantage. In other words,

Thrasymachus is basically arguing that social conventions and laws are oli-
garchic, with those in power establishing what is right and wrong for their
own benefit.
Eventually, Socrates baits Thrasymachus into defending a position
that is similar to Polus’ argument in the Gorgias, which is that doing injus-
tice is more profitable than being just. Similar to his debate with Polus,
Socrates trips up Thrasymachus by arguing that unjust rulers are actually
damaging their souls and therefore not acting in their own self-interest.
The primary difference between the arguments of Thrasymachus and Polus
is that the latter argued for the unchecked power of a tyrannical individual.
Thrasymachus is arguing that the ruling class, as a collective, can use injus-
tice for their own preservation and gain. Socrates dispatches Thrasymachus,
as he did Polus, by arguing that it is not in the ruling class’s best interests to
act in unjust ways because it damages their souls.
Callicles was probably not modeled on Thrasymachus for two rea-
sons. First, as mentioned earlier, Plato reveals that Callicles is not a soph-
ist, while Thrasymachus is identified as a sophist in the Republic. Second,
Thrasymachus is adopting a nomos-centered, oligarchic model when he
defines justice. He is arguing that the elite of society, as the stronger, col-
lectively make laws that allow them to exert power over others in an oli-
garchical fashion. Callicles’ argument, quite differently, is that an individual
who is naturally superior should be able to pursue his personal desires and
passions in an unchecked way.

Glaucon
In Book II of the Republic, Thrasymachus exits, and Socrates begins a new
debate with Glaucon (445–? BCE), who adopts a stance similar to Callicles’
argument. The historical Glaucon was Plato’s older brother and a friend
of Socrates. Glaucon tells Socrates he was unsatisfied with the argument
against Thrasymachus, because Socrates demonstrated only that doing
injustice is worse than being just. He says, “But I’ve yet to hear anyone
defend justice in the way I want, proving that it is better than injustice. I
want to hear it praised by itself ” (358d).
To foster the discussion, Glaucon offers to be Socrates’ debating oppo-
nent, so Socrates can demonstrate why being just is “more profitable” than
doing injustice. Toward this end, Glaucon stakes out a phusis-centered view
of justice when he states,

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 who was callicles?

They say that to do injustice is naturally good and to suffer ­injustice

is naturally bad, but that badness of suffering so far exceeds the
goodness of doing it that those who have done and suffered injus-
tice and tasted both, but who lack the power to do it and avoid suf-
fering it, decide that it is profitable to come to an agreement with
each other neither to do injustice nor to suffer it. (358e)

In other words, Glaucon is arguing for a definition of justice in which

people act justly in the public eye but then privately do injustice when it
benefits them. This argument is similar to Antiphon’s position in On Truth.
If Glaucon was arguing in earnest, and not just pretending to be an antag-
onist for Socrates, he might have been a good model for Callicles. Glaucon’s
position is similar to Callicles’ argument, because it is phusis-centered.
Also, like Callicles, Glaucon is described as a bright, ambitious young man.
However, it is clear from the outset that Glaucon does not really believe in
the argument he is making, so it lacks the passion and sincerity of Callicles’
argument. Not long after Glaucon makes his initial statement on justice, he
is reduced to a yes man, agreeing with Socrates’ understanding of justice as
a virtue that extends from individuals to the polis. Glaucon only half-heart-
edly defends his initial position on justice. Plato probably did not want to
align his own brother by name with views as extreme as Callicles’ views.

Critias or Charmides
If we look further among Socrates’ acquaintances, we find better models for
Callicles. Callicles could have been one of Plato’s other relatives, Critias (ca.
460–403 BCE) or Charmides (years uncertain). Critias was Plato’s great
uncle, and Charmides was Plato’s cousin. They were Athenians who col-
laborated with the Spartans and became leading figures in the Tyranny of
the Thirty, a bloody coup that occurred in Athens in 404. At the end of the
Peloponnesian War, Critias and Charmides aligned themselves with the
Spartans, traitorously helping to bring about Athens’ defeat from the inside.
Then, as surrogates for the Spartans, they unleashed death squads that ter-
rorized Athens, leaving the corpses of murdered democrats in the streets.
If Callicles was modeled on Critias or Charmides, Plato would have
had good reasons to mask their identities. After all, they were Plato’s rela-
tives, and their treasonous acts were still widely reviled by Athenians after
democracy was restored in 403. Before the coup, Critias and Charmides had
been students and close associates of Socrates. And, as Plato recounts in the

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Apology, as leaders of the Thirty, they even ordered Socrates to participate

in one of their death squads, which Socrates declined to do (32c). Indeed,
Critias’ and Charmides’ traitorous and murderous activities may have paved
the road to Socrates’ own execution four years later (McComiskey 1992, 80).
Socrates was their mentor, and his sympathies for the Spartans and anti-
democratic arguments probably account for the “corruption of Athenian
youth” charge that was brought against him in his trial (Stone 1988, 155). If
Plato did have Critias or Charmides in mind while writing the Gorgias, he
probably wanted to avoid reminding his readers that his own relatives were
largely responsible for betraying Athens to the Spartans and unleashing
death squads.
Interestingly, the two dialogues named for Plato’s relatives, Critias
and Charmides, steer clear of these historical unpleasantries. These “later”
Platonic dialogues were probably written long after the Gorgias, and they
offer mostly favorable portrayals of Critias and Charmides as bright and
promising young men. In the Critias, Plato lets Critias tell the myth of
Atlantis. Scholars have long debated whether the character of Critias in
this dialogue was the leader of the Thirty or the grandfather of that Critias
(Cornford 1937; Morgan 1998). Plato seems to have left the central char-
acter’s identity ambiguous on purpose. Meanwhile, the Charmides shows
Socrates patiently encouraging Charmides to practice temperance. In
Charmides, Socrates also engages with Critias, who is Charmides’ guardian,
in a discussion of self-knowledge. Neither of these discussions are particu-
larly contentious, and Plato seems keen to show his relatives, Critias and
Charmides, in a positive light.

Alcibiades
Callicles could have been Alcibiades (450–404 BCE), the golden boy, bad
boy, and traitor of Athenian politics and society. Alcibiades was Pericles’
protégé and Socrates’ lover. He led the hell-raising, hedonistic lifestyle that
Callicles defends. Moreover, he was largely responsible for the coup of the
Four Hundred in 411, and he later turned traitor by joining the Spartans. It
is notable that Alcibiades is mentioned twice in the Gorgias. Early in the
debate with Callicles, Socrates claims to be a lover of two objects, Alcibiades
and philosophy. Later, as the dialogue grows more spiteful, Socrates warns
Callicles, “Perhaps if you’re not careful, they’ll lay their hands on you and
my friend Alcibiades” (519b).

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 who was callicles?

Socrates’ contemporary, the historian Thucydides, describes Alcibiades

in a way that is almost identical to Plato’s Callicles. In Book 6 of his History
of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides recounts Alcibiades’ speech that per-
suaded Athenians to launch the disastrous attack on Syracuse (415–413
BCE). Like Callicles, Alcibiades merges his own desires (epithumai) with
the collective desires of Athens. He argues that naturally superior men
and a naturally superior city have an obligation to pursue their desires in
an unbridled way (Svoboda 2007, 288). Thucydides quotes Alcibiades as
saying,

To my mind a city which has never believed in quiet will very

quickly go under if it makes the change to quiescence, and the
greatest security in national life is when people deviate least from
their traditional character and practices, whatever its faults. (6.18)

Indeed, Callicles could have easily made this speech, conflating his
own desires as a naturally superior man with Athens as a naturally superior
city. Along these lines, as Balot points out, in Alcibiades’ speech, “Individual
desires and democratic decisions have come together to establish a cultural
norm of expansionism that will define Athens throughout the century”
(2001, 130). As Balot argues, the individual greed and selfishness of men
like Alcibiades becomes the basis of a broader Athenian greed and selfish-
ness that foments expansionism and imperialism.
Another interesting bit of evidence in favor of Alcibiades being the
model for Callicles is that the purpose of Gorgias’ ambassadorial trip to
Athens in 427 BCE was to persuade the Athenians to defend his home city
of Leontini against a possible attack by Syracuse. Alcibiades would have
been twenty-three years old when Gorgias was in Athens, a reasonable
age for Callicles. Athens sent that first expedition in 427 to drive off the
Syracusans. Then in 415 Alcibiades argued for and was made a co-general of
the disastrous Sicilian Expedition against Syracuse in which the Athenian
fleet was destroyed. This twelve-year difference in the timeline is compli-
cated by other references in the Gorgias to events that took place anywhere
from 427 to 405; however, as Reames (2018) argues, Plato intends for the
two expeditions against Syracuse to serve as a backdrop to the Gorgias,
even if the timeline does not work (38). If so, Reames argues, the sophist
Gorgias could be viewed as having a corrupting influence on youths simi-
lar to Callicles, including the hedonistic Alcibiades. Reames even refers to
Callicles as a “mirror” of Alcibiades (42).

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So, why not use Alcibiades as a character in the Gorgias? Alcibiades

was widely known to be Socrates’ former lover and was still a controversial
figure in Athens. If the writing of the Gorgias can be dated somewhere
around 387 BCE, Alcibiades, who was killed in 404, was already dead for
almost two decades. Nevertheless, in Plato’s day, Alcibiades still had his
admirers in Athens who remembered him as a tragic and misunderstood
hero. Indeed, using Alcibiades in the Gorgias would have actually helped
achieve one of Plato’s overall objectives in writing Socratic dialogues, which
was to restore Socrates’ reputation. Plato could have used the Gorgias to
show that Socrates had actually tried to curb Alcibiades’ reckless behavior
and did not stand aside while Alcibiades grew more dangerous. Meanwhile,
using Alcibiades as a character would have added gravity and celebrity to
the Gorgias.
The reason Plato may have chosen not to use Alcibiades is because
Socrates’ mocking and aggressive stance toward Callicles would have
seemed out of character if directed at Alcibiades, who was Socrates’ lover.
In contrast, in the Alcibiades Socrates is much gentler, a lover guiding the
hedonistic and impulsive Alcibiades toward self-restraint and temperance.
Moreover, Alcibiades’ admirers and defenders might have chafed if Plato in
the Gorgias presented an unflattering portrayal of their tragic hero.

Plato
Dodds speculates that Callicles may even be modeled on a younger Plato:
“One is tempted to believe that Callicles stands for something which Plato
had it in him to become (and would perhaps have become, but for Socrates),
an unrealized Plato who lies buried deeply beneath the foundations of the
Republic” (1959, 14). As Kerferd and McComiskey both point out, Plato’s
later views of natural law and justice are similar to Callicles’ views in sev-
eral ways. In later dialogues, such as the Phaedrus and the Republic, Plato
presents a much more sophisticated view of rhetoric, justice, power, and
knowledge. Of course, because Plato wrote in dialogue form, it’s always
precarious to state what he believed, but he seems to have believed that
the naturally stronger should be allowed to rule over the weaker. He, too,
may have been skeptical of commoners and their use of conventions and
laws to democratically impose their will on the stronger. Perhaps a younger,
less mature Plato once contemplated the passionate, hedonistic life that
Callicles argues for. Plato was a wealthy, intelligent, and aristocratic young

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man on the rise. As Dodds suggests, Socrates may have pulled Plato aside
and persuaded him to lead a life of self-control and temperance.
Before going too far down this path, though, it is worth noting that
Plato was not directly involved in the treasonous coups that swept up his
relatives and fellow students. Born in 428 BCE, he would have been about
seventeen years old during the coup of the Four Hundred and twenty-four
during the Tyranny of the Thirty. In other words, he could have easily par-
ticipated in these events—even been a central player—but he did not as far
as we know. After Socrates’ execution, Plato spent several years abroad, per-
haps in self-exile or perhaps to avoid Athenian democrats seeking revenge
for his relatives’ treasonous activities and their murderous death squads. He
traveled broadly around the Mediterranean, notably in Egypt, where he
adopted a new understanding of the soul that we see in the Gorgias and the
Phaedrus. Plato returned to Athens when he was forty years old.
Perhaps Socrates convinced a younger Plato to lead a life of justice
and temperance, even persuading Plato not to participate in the two coups.
Perhaps the Gorgias is a recounting of a much less contentious discussion
between Socrates and Plato about the relationship between rhetoric and
justice. That’s all speculation, of course.

the mystery and the enigma in the gorgias

To sum up, let’s address the mystery and enigma that launched this article.
First the mystery: Who was Callicles? In the end, if Callicles was not a
real person, he was an archetype based on the many selfish and reckless
young men of post-Periclean Athens, such as Alcibiades and Critias. If we
were forced to choose, the parallels between Callicles’ argument for epi-
thumai in the Gorgias and Alcibiades’ use of epithumai to argue for invad-
ing Syracuse would tip the scale toward Alcibiades. Whether Callicles was
Alcibiades or Critias, though, Plato would have had good reasons to mask
their identities. By using a fictionalized character like Callicles, Plato could
demonstrate that Socrates had vigorously tried to curb and constrain the
desires of the young men in his circle. The Gorgias could then be read as a
cautionary tale about what happens when young men are not persuaded to
practice self-control and temperance. If so, one of Plato’s goals may have
been to argue that philosophers like Socrates, who are by phusis among the
naturally superior, have an obligation and a duty to reach out to naturally
superior young men and help them cultivate self-discipline. However, the

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Gorgias also shows that even the most ardent attempts to curb young men’s
desires, even by the likes of Socrates, may not persuade them to change.
Second, the enigma: What is Plato trying to achieve in the Gorgias?
By leaving the definition of rhetoric in the Gorgias “ambiguous” as
Roochnik suggests, Plato lays the groundwork for the more sophisticated
discussions of rhetoric and justice in the Phaedrus and Republic. In the
Gorgias, Plato lays bare the potential vulgarity and immorality of both
nomos- and phusis-centered sophistic approaches to rhetoric and justice,
but he also chooses not to give the historical Socrates a final triumph
over Callicles. Rather, Plato saves those kinds of more sophisticated argu-
ments for the Phaedrus and Republic. Instead of using the Gorgias as an
“attack” on rhetoric, Plato seems to be demonstrating that the three forms
of rhetoric represented by Gorgias, Polus, and Callicles have fundamen-
tal flaws because they do not properly account for justice. Plato uses the
Gorgias to create a space for a phusis-centered “noble rhetoric” that could
meet his standards for universal justice as a virtue. The enigma at the heart
of the Gorgias exists because Plato chooses not to fill that space within
the dialogue itself, leaving these issues ambiguous and unresolved to be
worked out later.
Interestingly, Plato lived in a time much like our own. The upheaval
in Plato’s Athens, much like today, was due to technological changes, eco-
nomic disruption, demographic shifts, political polarization, and even a
pandemic. This upheaval brought about a post-truth age, similar to ours, in
which even long-held truths were being impugned. Exploring the relation-
ships between rhetoric and justice in the Gorgias can help us better under-
stand what is happening today.

Department of English
Purdue University

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