Gorgias- Spin Doctor

Plato (427-348 BC), author of the Gorgias dialogue

The Sophist Supreme

It’s rare that a philosopher gets so famous that there are works responding to their positions that name drop them in the title. But that’s exactly what happened to Gorgias (483-375 B.C). Plato’s dialogue Gorgias contains his response to an alleged position held by Gorgias. That being that rhetoric is inherently neutral, but can be used for good or for ill. Whether or not Gorgias actually held this opinion depends on how much you trust Plato’s charitability, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he actually held to that opinion. You see, Gorgias was a sophist, or someone who is paid to win people over with persuasive speech. You could think of them in many ways, as lawyers, politicians, public celebrities, etc. But for the sake of this post we’ll be treating Gorgias as a philosopher.

Fragments of Fragments of Fragments

In this post, I will not be tackling Plato’s Gorgias dialogue, nor will I be covering the overview of his rhetorical tactics as told by later philosophers. What Gorgias has to say about himself is far more interesting, because we so seldom hear what the sophists have to say in their own words. This is tricky not least because Gorgias was a sophist and so rarely stood by anything he said. Furthermore, what little we have of Gorgias are mere fragments of his complete body of work. That being said, what we have is fascinating. We still have his attempt at defending Helen of Troy against the accusations that her lust started the Trojan War, so let's delve into it!

Mythbusting

While it may just be a fable to us, the narrative of the Trojan War was a big deal to the ancient Greeks. Homer’s Iliad was a key text in forming Greek religious and ethical thought. The tale of Achilles was a model for how to go about seeking honor in an honor driven society, and the tale of Helen of Sparta served as a cautionary tale of lust and its consequences. You see, Helen was “seduced” (one could more accurately say kidnapped) by Paris of Troy, and according to the Greek poets it was her “lust” that began the Trojan War in which many brave Greek soldiers died. The popular conception of Helen at Gorgias’ time was that she was responsible for the war. So if Gorgias wanted to defend Helen he didn’t just have to call into question the interpretation of a popular story, he had to call into doubt a myth which served as the bedrock of Greek religion and ethics.

Cheap Talk

Gorgias defends Helen by arguing that it was not lust that did her in, but the powerful and intoxicating speech of Paris. At the beginning of the defense Gorgias asserts that, “All who have persuaded or persuade anyone of anything do so by fashioning false logos. For if on all subjects everyone had memory of the past, <a conception> of the present, and foreknowledge of the future, logos would not be similarly similar as it is for people who, as things are, cannot easily remember the past, consider the present, or divine the future.” 

First, when Gorgias mentions "logos," he’s referring to words and speech. His main point here is to show that humans are fallible. First, our memory of the past is unreliable. For example, try to remember what you had for breakfast last Thursday. Even if you can, try recalling what you ate on this exact day when you were ten years old. Our memory is unreliable, making it easy to exploit. Second, our understanding of the present is incomplete. There are always factors we overlook and new perspectives we haven’t considered. Third, we cannot predict the future, plain and simple. Given these limitations, Gorgias suggests that all humans—no matter how intelligent or honorable—can be influenced by rhetoric. This applies not only to us but also to Helen of Troy. Gorgias claims, "[...] Helen too, against her will, came under the influence of logoi, just as if she had been taken by the force of mighty men."

Verbal Alchemy

All this talk of the potency of words and their role in confusing Helen may have you thinking that rhetoric is bad. Who could blame you, given that Gorgias has gone at length describing the suffering of Helen at the hands of a wordsmith? Gorgias even places the blame on Helen’s seducers saying, “Therefore, the one who persuaded, since he is compelled, is unjust, and the one who was persuaded, since she was compelled by logos, is wrongly blamed.”

But Gorgias isn’t convinced that rhetoric is bad in its entirety. After all, he’s a sophist and if rhetoric goes under so does his business. Gorgias attempts to save rhetoric’s image by comparing it to medicine, “The power of logos, has the same relation (logos) to the order of the soul as the order of drugs has to the nature of bodies. For as different drugs expel different humors from the body, and some put an end to sickness and others to life, so some logoi cause grief, others joy, some fear, others render their hearers bold, and still others drug and bewitch the soul through evil persuasion.” The comparison to medicine is apt. Imagine you’re administering morphine to a sick patient at the hospital. You could use it for good and ease their pain, or use it for ill and end their life. According to Gorgias, Helen was a victim of rhetoric with evil intent, “[...] she did nothing wrong but was unfortunate.”

Case Closed

In conclusion, Gorgias stands as a powerful testament to the richness of pre-Socratic thought. His rhetorical skill and intellectual creativity provide valuable insights not only into his own time but into the broader landscape of Greek philosophy. Whether or not you agree with his defense of Helen, there’s no denying his status as a master orator and thinker. Reading Gorgias allows us to appreciate a world of ideas that existed before Socrates and Plato, reminding us that philosophy in the West did not begin with them, but was built on the foundations laid by figures like Gorgias and others who came before.