Plato’s Gorgias

Week 5: Polus (461b-481b)

Whether because Gorgias is getting tired or because he seems to be getting drubbed in the discussion, his young friend and supporter Polus (whose name means “colt”, allowing Socrates to pun on his frisky impulsiveness) enters the fray. He doesn’t edge Gorgias out altogether, and we occasionally come back to the elder sophist in this section, but it is largely dominated by a changed line of attack.

Perhaps perceiving that Socrates’ method of inquiry is apparently working to his advantage, Polus gets the idea of reversing the flow: instead of answering Socrates’ questions, he turns the discussion around and asks Socrates questions instead. He begins by asking what he thinks rhetoric is. Socrates, much to Polus’ initial puzzlement, answers quite readily that he considers it a form of flattery — something designed to gratify the hearers in much the way cooks (whose goal is chiefly the appeal to the senses) are falling short of excellence of nutrition. A kind of pandering, he argues, it is not a true or valid skill or art at all (the Greek term is τέχνη [techne]). Polus is not happy with this, and there is some back-and-forth effort to clarify what Socrates is driving at. By Socrates’ metric, anything that has this kind of goal, without taking into account the long-term correct benefit to the one perceiving (whether a speech or a meal) has mastered a knack, but not the true techne.

He follows this up by proving to a very reluctant Polus (at least formally — it’s not sure that Polus has surrendered in fact) that such influence and gains as one can win over others by the underhanded means that characterize rhetoric are not actually beneficial, even to those who apparently exercise the power; instead they ultimately act to their disadvantage. Polus is clearly not entirely persuaded: he still thinks that having unfettered and tyrannical power over anyone else is a pretty fine thing. The rightness or wrongness of the exercise of power really only depends, for Polus, on whether one can get away with it. Socrates dismisses that as merely accidental. Callicles at this point comes into the dialogue in highly indignant response, condemning Socrates’s approach as ridiculous and contemptible. We’ll turn to that next week.

For discussion:

• Is Polus out of line by reframing the question Socrates has asked without his (or Gorgias’) having provided an answer themselves?
• Is Polus’ idea of power tenable? It does seem to correspond generally to a contemporary American and world perspective on power — that is it the ability to get and do what one wants, without restraint, and irrespective of moral rightness. Is that really power?
• Does the fact that a person unfairly gaining an advantage (like the dictator/tyrant) is not really getting what he wants (or should want in the long view, if only he knew what was good for him) mean that it is any the less real power? It seems to be exercised as power is generally understood.
• Aside from the positions in the dialogue itself, what are the goals and means of power generally? How do we understand them politically and socially? (A short excursus into the Roman vocabulary of power may be informative.)