why socrates \u0026 thrasymachus become friends

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Why Socrates and Thrasymachus Become Friends Author(s): Catherine Zuckert Source: Philosophy & Rhetoric, Vol. 43, No. 2 (2010), pp. 163-185Published by: Penn State University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/philrhet.43.2.0163Accessed: 29-01-2016 16:21 UTC

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Philosophy and Rhetoric, Vol. 43, No. 2, 2010Copyright © 2010 Th e Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA

Why Socrates and Th rasymachus Become Friends

Catherine Zuckert

In the Platonic dialogues Socrates is shown talking to two, and only two,

famous teachers of rhetoric, Th rasymachus of Chalcedon and Gorgias of

Leontini. 1 At fi rst glance relations between Socrates and Gorgias appear

to be much more courteous—they might even be described as cordial—

than relations between Socrates and Th rasymachus. In the Gorgias Socrates

explicitly and intentionally seeks an opportunity to talk to Gorgias and treats

him with great respect. Socrates shows that Gorgias’s claims concerning

the power of his art are contradictory, but the philosopher does not press

his advantage or embarrass the rhetorician (Stauff er 2006, 34). Although

Gorgias indicates his interest in hearing what Socrates has to say by urging

his young friends Polus and Callicles to continue the conversation, Gorgias

never says that he is convinced by Socrates. And Socrates never announces

that Gorgias has become his friend. 2

In the Republic Socrates reports that Th rasymachus burst into the

conversation like a lion. Socrates even claims that he and his interlocutor

(Polemarchus) were frightened. Th e initial exchange between Socrates and

Th rasymachus thus appears to be hostile. In the argument that follows,

Socrates embarrasses Th rasymachus; the famous teacher of rhetoric blushes.

Nevertheless, Socrates declares later in the conversation (1900, 498d) that

he and Th rasymachus have become friends. 3

PR 43-2_04.indd 163PR 43-2_04.indd 163 5/8/10 10:53:38 AM5/8/10 10:53:38 AM



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164

Th e diff erence in the relations Socrates had—or at least thought that he

could have—with the two teachers of rhetoric is important, because it indi-

cates what sort of rhetoric Socrates thought was compatible not only with his

philosophy but also with a just political order and what was not. Th e diff er-

ences between the claims and arguments of the two teachers of rhetoric are

not easy to pinpoint, however. Many of the charges that Gorgias’s associates

Polus and Callicles make against Socrates, at least partly in defense of Gor-

gias, sound very much like charges Th rasymachus makes against Socrates. In

order to discover the grounds of the diff erence in the relation between the

philosopher and the two teachers of rhetoric, it thus becomes necessary to

review and compare the claims Gorgias and his students make with those

Th rasymachus levels against Socrates at the beginning of the Republic.

socrates’ encounter with gorgias

At the beginning of the Gorgias the famous rhetorician’s Athenian host

Callicles expresses surprise that Socrates has come to hear Gorgias declaim.

But Socrates is not interested in witnessing a demonstration of Gorgias’s

prowess as a speaker; he wants to ask the rhetorician what the power of his

art is and what he teaches. Since Gorgias had previously off ered to answer

any questions after his speech, he agrees to respond to Socrates’ queries.

In order for them to converse, Socrates emphasizes, Gorgias will

have to keep his responses short. Although Gorgias sensibly observes that

all questions cannot be answered adequately with brief replies, his fi rst

responses to Socrates’ questions are very short. Since Gorgias claims to be

a knower and practitioner of an art, Socrates asks what he does and makes

others capable of doing. Gorgias replies that he gives speeches and teaches

others how to orate. Socrates asks what the speeches are about. “Th e great-

est of human aff airs, and the best” (1998, 451d), Gorgias vaguely and rather

evasively responds. Pressed to be more specifi c, he fi nally declares that

his art provides “the greatest good and cause both of freedom for human

beings themselves and rule over others in each man’s own city” by enabling

them to make speeches that “persuade judges in the law court, councilors

in the council, assemblymen in the assembly, and in every other . . . political

gathering” (1998, 452d–e, translation slightly modifi ed).

Th e Grounds of Gorgias’s Claims

If Gorgias had not been restricted to brief replies by his agreement with

Socrates, he might have explained the reasons for his vast claims with




why socrates and thrasymachus become friends

165

arguments like those to be found in two of his remaining fragments. In his

“Encomium to Helen” he explains the overwhelming power of speech, and

in “On the Nonexistent” he demonstrates the reason or basis of this power

by arguing that there is no form of “being” that exists independent of our

sensations.

Gorgias begins his “Encomium” by suggesting that there is a certain

kind of proportion and order to all things: “What is becoming to a city

is manpower, to a body beauty, to a soul wisdom, to an action virtue, to a

speech truth.” Th at proportion seems, moreover, to create a duty: because

“man and woman and speech and deed and city and object should be hon-

ored with praise if praiseworthy and incur blame if unworthy. . . ., it is the

duty of [a] man both to speak the needful rightly and to refute the unright-

fully spoken” (1972, 50). Gorgias concludes that it is right for him to refute

those who have rebuked Helen for having caused so much suff ering as a

result of her lack of fi delity to her husband. He seems to be doing what is

right or just, but the arguments he gives on behalf of Helen would under-

mine any legal conception of justice.

Helen is not responsible for the suff ering she is said to have caused,

Gorgias argues, because she did not choose to do so. Her beauty, a result of

her divine parentage, caused men to desire her love and thus brought many

men together who were seeking to satisfy their ambition for wealth and

glory by displaying their personal valor or knowledge in victorious con-

quest. Helen herself was moved to act as she did by divine command or

necessity, by force, by speech, or by passion. In the fi rst two cases it is easy

to see why Helen could not resist. Th e gods are more powerful than mor-

tals, and it is impossible for a weak woman to resist the superior physical

force of a man. Gorgias explains that speech and passion are equally irre-

sistible, however. Because human beings are mortal, we do not and cannot

know the past, present, or future. We are reduced in all cases to acting on

the basis of opinions. But these opinions can be changed—especially by

speakers who know how to arouse the passions of their audience. Fear is

stronger than thought. So is desire or love. Th e power of speech on the soul

is analogous to the power of drugs on the body.

With a bit of refl ection it becomes clear that the four factors Gorgias

says must have determined Helen’s actions would apply to any “criminal.”

We see, therefore, what kind of speech Gorgias claimed would be the cause

of freedom for human beings and why it would enable them to rule over

others. Ability to make arguments like those Gorgias gave on behalf of

Helen would not only free a potential felon from the threat of punishment




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166

in court by persuading a jury of his innocence. Someone able to arouse the

passions of others by means of speech could also persuade an assembly to

adopt the opinions and consequent measures he or she proposed as law.

In another speech “On the Nonexistent” Gorgias set Parmenides’

famous argument showing that being is one, homogeneous, unchanging,

eternal, immobile, intelligible but not sensible on its head by arguing on

the basis of the same kinds of mutually exclusive alternatives that nothing

exists. 4 If it did exist, it would not be intelligible, because things in our

minds do not necessarily correspond to things which are. And “even if it

should be apprehended, it would be incapable of being conveyed to another.

For if existent things are visible and audible and generally perceptible, which

means that they are external substances [and perceived by the respective

senses of sight and hearing], how can these things be revealed to another

person?” (Schiappa 1997, 46). Human beings communicate by means of

logos, a separate faculty from sight or hearing. Logos is not an existing thing,

however; it arises from things impinging on us. In opposition to Parmenides’

claim that being is one, intelligible, and unchanging, Gorgias asserts that

all existence is perceptible and hence ever changing and malleable. Because

perceptions are products of interactions between external things and those

who perceive them, they change and can be changed. Th ere is no inde-

pendently existing “being” or “reason” ( logos ) by which to test or measure

the truth of our changing perceptions. Th ese perceptions can, moreover, be

intentionally manipulated by a rhetorician who knows how to aff ect the

passions and therewith the perceptions and beliefs of his audience.

Socrates’ Refutation of Gorgias

In his conversation with Gorgias Socrates does not explore the philosophical

basis of the rhetorician’s claims. He simply gets Gorgias to agree, fi rst, that

a rhetorician does not need to know the subject about which he speaks to

persuade an ignorant audience and, second, that the rhetorician’s speeches

concern the just and unjust, noble and base, good and bad. Because the

rhetorician does not claim to have much substantive knowledge, Socrates

concentrates on the potentially corrupting, destructive eff ects of the

claims Gorgias makes about the power of his art. According to Gorgias’s

understanding of the character of human access to the world, we do not

and cannot actually have knowledge of the things “in themselves,” only of

the way in which we can aff ect the perceptions other people have of the

things.





167

In refuting Gorgias, Socrates proceeds on the basis of the rhetorician’s

own presuppositions, not the philosophical claims and arguments that he

mocked. Socrates insists on beginning his examinations of the opinions of

others with propositions to which they agree, because, we see in his later

abortive exchange with Callicles, if Socrates does not, his interlocutor can

follow his reasoning to the end and then simply object to the fi rst premise.

In that case, the interlocutor is not led to reconsider his initial opinions or

commitments as a result of having been refuted or corrected.

Th ere is an implicit problem in a foreign teacher seeking students in

Athens making such claims—and Socrates knows it. If Gorgias is able to

do what he says he can, he is off ering to teach all who are willing to pay

him how they can manipulate, if not overthrow, the democratic regime.

Gorgias apparently recognizes the problem. After Socrates reminds him

that there may be “someone inside who wishes to become a student of

yours” (1998, 455c), Gorgias adds an otherwise inexplicable qualifi cation

to his exultation in the “power of his art.” Having bragged that a rhetori-

cian can “go into any city” and persuade any gathering to accept his advice

rather than that of an expert, he cautions: “One should use rhetoric just as

every other competitive skill,” not against human beings, family, friends, or

fellow citizens but “against enemies and doers of injustice” (1998, 456c–e).

If someone learns the art of rhetoric and uses it unjustly, Gorgias urges,

“the man who taught him should not be hated and expelled from the

cities” (1998, 457b).

Socrates highlights the refutation he is about to infl ict on Gorgias by

asking his interlocutor if he is a man like Socrates, who would rather learn

the truth by having his own false opinion refuted than to enjoy a victory

in speech by refuting another. Affi rming that he is like Socrates, Gorgias

nevertheless tries to escape the threatened defeat by expressing concern for

those who have been listening to him speak for so long. Th ey may be tired.

Members of the audience assure him that nothing would please them more

than for the conversation to continue.

Socrates then asks Gorgias whether he would teach a student who

does not know what is just what is just. Gorgias says that he would, and

Socrates argues that if someone who has learned to be a carpenter must be a

carpenter or someone who has learned medicine must be a doctor, so some-

one who has learned justice must do what is just. 5 If Gorgias teaches his

students to be just, therefore, he has no reason to worry about his becoming

hated or being expelled from the city. If “the rhetorician is powerless to use

rhetoric unjustly and to want to do injustice” (1998, 461a), the power of his




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art has been shown to be much less than he suggested and the teaching of

it much less dangerous.

the reactions of polus and callicles to the refutation of gorgias

Polus: Th e Diff erence between the Noble and the Just

Socrates and Gorgias do not have an opportunity to examine the question

of the relation between rhetoric and justice at length, although Socrates

suggests that would be necessary, because Polus breaks into the conversa-

tion. Less angry than incredulous, Polus accuses Socrates of proceeding

unfairly. First, Polus objects (1998, 461b), Socrates led Gorgias to contradict

himself merely because the famous rhetorician was ashamed to admit he

would not teach someone who did not know what is just, noble, and good

what is, in fact, just, noble, and good. Neither Polus nor many of the critics

who have taken his objection at face value see the diffi culty in the situation

of the foreign teacher of rhetoric to which Gorgias was responding. In other

words, both Gorgias and Socrates understand democratic politics better

than Polus (and some later commentators.) Second, Polus charges, Socrates

has treated Gorgias not only impolitely but also unfairly by insisting on

asking the questions himself and forcing the other to answer briefl y.

Socrates begins the exchange by asking Polus whether he knows what

Gorgias does and will, therefore, be willing to answer in his place—and

to keep his responses brief. Polus objects to the restraint on his freedom

of speech. Like Gorgias, Polus thinks that the ability to speak is valuable

precisely because it enables its possessor to do what he wants. Conceding

that there is more freedom of speech in Athens than anywhere else (and

thus connecting freedom to the political regime rather than to the exercise

of rhetoric), Socrates suggests that there is—or ought to be—a certain kind

of reciprocity between the speaker and listener. If a speaker has the freedom

to say what he wants, a listener has a corresponding freedom not to pay any

attention.

Believing that Socrates was able to refute Gorgias because Socrates

controlled the course of the argument by asking the questions, Polus says

that he wants to ask rather than to answer. Before telling Polus, in eff ect,

what to ask, Socrates defends himself from the charge of treating Gorgias

impolitely by expressing concern that the rhetorician will be insulted by

Socrates’ answer, but Gorgias tells Socrates to go ahead. He understands





169

that there is more to their diff erence than simply saving face or a victory in

speech. He wants to hear what Socrates has to say. Socrates then informs

Polus that he does not consider rhetoric to be an art at all. Like cosmet-

ics, cookery, and sophistry, he thinks that rhetoric is a sham art. A true

art, like the art of legislation, gymnastic training, or medicine, is based on

knowledge of what is good for the subject. Like the sham arts, rhetoric

merely consists in the “knack” of fl attering an audience by appealing to

what pleases them.

In his exchange with Gorgias, Socrates had not pointed to the

philosophical foundations of Gorgias’s unwillingness, if not his incapac-

ity, to say precisely what his art is. With Polus, however, Socrates gives an

indication when he observes (1998, 465d) that Polus follows Anaxagoras in

thinking (like Gorgias, we have seen) that all matters are mixed up together.

People who do not think that the world is composed of distinct, intel-

ligible kinds of beings cannot conduct Socratic interrogations of the opin-

ions of others about what these “things” truly are. If there are no eternally

unchanging kinds, it does not make sense to examine the ever-changing

opinions people necessarily have in reaction to their interactions with other

things and people.

Unable to believe that Socrates does not consider the ability to per-

suade people to do whatever one wants the fi nest and best possession a man

can obtain, Polus agrees to let Socrates question him. Even more explicitly

than Gorgias, Polus claims that rhetoric is the greatest art because it gives

its possessor unlimited, tyrannical political power—the ability to kill, expel,

or fi ne anyone he pleases. He thinks that he can easily refute Socrates

simply by pointing to all the unjust things done by the tyrant Archelaus

and then observing that everyone nevertheless wants to have the power of

an Archelaus.

Socrates observes that Polus is arguing the way they do in court; he

seems to think that refutation consists in showing that the speaker disagrees

with the opinion of the majority, because the majority is made up of a

greater number of people and therefore is ultimately the most powerful part

of a city. But, Socrates objects, the truth of a proposition is not determined

by the number of people who agree with it. A speaker is refuted only by

showing that he maintains two contradictory positions.

Like other ancient Greeks, Socrates then demonstrates, Polus holds two

contradictory opinions. He believes that suff ering injustice is nobler than

doing injustice, but he also believes that suff ering injustice is worse than

doing it. When Polus responds by describing a series of extremely painful




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170

punishments no one would want to endure, Socrates accuses him of trying

to frighten rather than to reason his interlocutor into submission. Polus is

acting on the basis of the understanding of human beings Gorgias articulated

in his encomium, that is, that passion is stronger than reason. Polus laughs

at Socrates’ “innocence.” But Socrates objects to ridicule or an expression of

contempt for what is taken to be practical foolishness and instead calls for his

interlocutor to show that the opinion or behavior in question is not based on

knowledge. He demands arguments instead of appeals to various passions.

Socrates then demonstrates what a true refutation involves. Rather

than to escape punishment, as both Gorgias and Polus have maintained,

Socrates argues that the true use of rhetoric consists in accusing oneself and

one’s closest associates so that you and your friends will be brought to jus-

tice and corrected. Contrary to what both Gorgias and Polus have asserted,

Socrates points out that most people do not unambiguously think that it is

good to escape paying the penalty for injustice. If punishments are designed

to make criminals just and thus to improve them, suff ering a painful pun-

ishment is better, surely in the long run, than escaping it. Indeed, Socrates

goes to far as to suggest that a person who wants to benefi t himself, his

family, and his city should do everything in his power to see that he and his

close associates are accused and punished for any injustice. He should do

everything he can, moreover, to enable his enemies to escape and so deprive

them of the benefi ts of correction.

Polus is unable to fault Socrates’ logic, but he is not persuaded of the

truth of the outcome. He appears to exemplify Gorgias’s contention that

human opinions can be changed by means of argument but that they are

determined more by strong feelings of fear or pleasure.

Callicles: Th e Right of the Stronger

Like Polus, Callicles breaks into the argument because he, too, is incredu-

lous. If what Socrates has said about punishment is true, Callicles objects,

the lives of human beings would be turned upside down. In contrast to

both Gorgias and Polus, however, Callicles does not respond to Socrates

with a claim about the power of rhetoric. Like Th rasymachus, he responds

with a defi nition of justice. At fi rst glance, Callicles’ position seems, indeed,

to be quite close to that enunciated by the man from Chalcedon in the

Republic.

Callicles claims to have studied philosophy when he was young, and his

objection to Socrates has an explicitly philosophical basis: the distinction





171

between nature and convention. Socrates led Gorgias and Polus to make

self-contradictory statements, Callicles observes, because Gorgias was

ashamed to deny he would teach someone who did not know what is

just, and Polus was ashamed to deny that suff ering injustice is nobler than

doing it. By nature the good and the noble are the same. Suff ering is not

the part of a real man. Th e notion that it is better to suff er injustice than

to do it is a product of the laws or conventions the weak have enacted or

established to protect themselves from the strong. Rather than recognize

the natural right of the stronger “to have more than the worse and less

powerful” (1998, 483c–d), the weak have banded together to persuade the

potentially strong when they are young that everyone deserves an equal

share and that it is better to suff er injustice than to do it. Th ose with suf-

fi ciently strong natures nevertheless break through all the “writings, spells,

charms, and laws that are against nature” (1998, 484a).

Like Polus, Callicles thinks Socrates makes himself look ridiculous by

continuing to pursue his philosophical investigations rather than engaging

in political action to protect himself from those who use the law to further

their own interests at his expense. Because he refuses to take care of himself,

his family, and his city like a grown man, Callicles goes so far as to suggest

(1998, 485d) that Socrates needs a beating. Socrates points out that in

apparently believing Socrates would be improved by means of punishment

Callicles actually agrees with Socrates about the benefi cial intentions and

results of punishment, although Callicles does not recognize it.

But in the exchange that follows, Callicles proves that, unlike Socrates,

he is not willing to accept his punishment in the form of a refutation. After

Socrates shows that he holds contradictory opinions about pleasure seek-

ing, Callicles refuses to participate any longer in the conversation. He does

not want to let himself be embarrassed the way Th rasymachus is. 6 In fact,

we shall see, Callicles is not as close to Th rasymachus, either in character or

in the position he argues for, as it initially appears.

Socrates responds to Callicles’ assertion that it is just by nature that

the stronger have more in the same way that he initially responds to Th ra-

symachus’s assertion that justice is merely the advantage of the stronger by

asking what Callicles means by stronger. If he means physical force, then,

Socrates tells Callicles, according to his own argument, the many justly

declare what the law is and enforce it, because of their superior numbers. 7

Like Th rasymachus, Callicles informs Socrates that by the superior he does

not mean merely those with the strongest bodies; he is talking about the

prudent and courageous.




catherine zuckert

172

Socrates does not challenge Callicles’ contention that rule by the most

prudent and courageous is just by nature. Instead he asks Callicles what

the superior people deserve more of. Rather than press Callicles, as he

does Th rasymachus, about whether rule really is desirable, Socrates presses

Callicles about the need for rulers to rule themselves. But Callicles is not

willing to admit that any form of restraint on the desires, whether imposed

by others or oneself, is good. Believing that all human beings wish to do

as they please by nature, Callicles is attracted by Gorgias’s claim to teach

people “the cause both of freedom for human beings themselves and of

rule over others in each man’s own city.” People diff er from one another

in Callicles’ eyes according to their ability to do what they want and to

prevent others from imposing their wishes on them. He thus contemns

Socrates’ admitted inability to defend himself, should he be hauled into

court and unjustly accused of a crime, and expresses that contempt in an

escalating series of verbal insults. Although he bases his own understanding

on a claim about nature that refl ects his own study of philosophy, Callicles

is not bothered by Gorgias’s admission that his art is able only to persuade,

not really to teach those who do not know what the truth of the matter is.

Callicles cares about speeches, arguments, or “philosophy” only insofar

as they have practical, political eff ects. Perceiving that Socrates is leading

him to contradict himself, he answers contrary to his own opinion, and

Socrates objects that he is no longer “examining the things that are” (1998,

495a). Believing that he knows, Callicles is not engaged in an attempt to fi nd

out how things really are. Nor does he care much about logical consistency.

He is not nearly as concerned as the professional teachers of rhetoric are

about verbal victories or refutations. Dismissing Socrates’ objections to his

views as “silly talk,” Callicles agrees, under protest, to continue the exchange

for a while to gratify Gorgias (1998, 497c). When Callicles subsequently

refuses to agree, contrary to his own earlier suggestion with regard to

Socrates, that being punished is better for the soul than intemperance and

tells Socrates to make the argument on his own without an interlocutor,

Plato’s readers see why Socrates insists on coming to an agreement with his

interlocutor at the beginning of an examination of his opinions. If Socrates

does not begin with an opinion his interlocutor actually holds, whether

or not many other people hold it, that interlocutor can listen, follow, even

agree with the course of the argument, but turn around, as Callicles does, at

the end and object that he does not accept the fi rst premise(s).

Callicles does not see, as Socrates and Th rasymachus explicitly do,

that people who seek contradictory goals or the same goal in contradictory





173

ways will defeat themselves. In other words, Callicles does not understand

that logical consistency is not merely a matter of words or arguments but

has serious practical causes and consequences. He does not see the way

he necessarily works against himself, if he continues to hold contradictory

opinions, because he is not willing to accept the discipline or limitations

imposed by reason any more than he is willing to accept restrictions imposed

on his desires and actions by law.

socrates’ encounter with thrasymachus

Th rasymachus’s Accusation of Socrates

Th rasymachus burst into the conversation like a wild beast, Socrates

explains, because he had been restrained from speaking for some time by

the others. Both his desire and his frustration had intensifi ed as a result.

Th ere is nevertheless a tone of moral outrage in his protest. Socrates had

to remind Gorgias of the need to take account of justice in describing

what he taught. Th rasymachus begins by accusing Socrates of acting in an

underhanded, if not simply unjust, manner by refusing to give a defi nition

of justice himself and insisting on interrogating others.

Like Callicles, Th rasymachus accuses Socrates of being “ironic.” 8

Although Socrates claims to be seeking the truth, Th rasymachus charges,

he is actually seeking honor by refuting others and so establishing his

own superiority. Confi dent that Socrates cannot refute him or his truth,

again like Callicles, Th rasymachus also becomes increasingly insulting.

Th e fact that so many of the “moves” Th rasymachus makes in opposition

to Socrates duplicate those of Polus and Callicles leads us to suspect that

they represent ploys rhetoricians often used to discredit their opponents

in court. Th e suspicion that there is something not entirely genuine about

Th rasymachus’s outrage (or Socrates’ purported fright) is heightened by

Socrates’ observation in the Phaedrus that Th rasymachus “excelled at the

art [of ] . . . infuriating a crowd and then with his bewitching incantations

soothing the angry mob. And that no one was better at hurling slanders,

then washing them away” (2003, 267c–d, translation slightly modifi ed).

Th ere are, however, important diff erences between the charges

pronounced by Socrates’ interlocutors in the Gorgias and those leveled

by Th rasymachus. Convinced that Socrates led Gorgias to refute himself

by asking leading questions, Polus merely seeks to replace Socrates in the

dominant role of questioner. Th rasymachus “legislates” by ordering Socrates




catherine zuckert

174

not to say that the just is the helpful, profi table, gainful, or advantageous

(although Th rasymachus himself soon turns around and defi nes justice as

the advantage of the stronger. He objects, it seems, to the unqualifi ed sub-

stantives that suggest justice is equally benefi cial to all.) Instead of merely

seeking to change roles, moreover, he asks in the language of the courts

what penalty Socrates thinks he should pay if Th rasymachus gives him a

better defi nition of justice. As in his exchange with Polus, so in his initial

exchange with Th rasymachus, Socrates shows that he understands a penalty

to be a punishment one suff ers ( pathein ) for the sake of improvement when

he says that he believes that he should suff er the penalty appropriate for the

ignorant, that is, to learn ( mathein ) (1900, 337d).

Leo Strauss (1964, 78–80) and Allan Bloom (1968, 326–27, 329) have

argued that Th rasymachus acts like the city in demanding the right not

only to say what is just and then asking the criminal found to have chal-

lenged its decree and his prosecutor to name an appropriate punishment

but also to decide which penalty will be infl icted. As in his own trial later,

Socrates protests that he has no money, but his friends agree to pay the

penalty for him. Th e course of the conversation (as well as his exchange

in the Gorgias with Polus) has made it clear that Socrates simply does not

share the most common opinions of his contemporaries about the meaning

of justice. Th rasymachus jumped into the conversation just at the point at

which Socrates had led Polemarchus to agree that justice entails benefi ting

true friends and not harming anyone. Like Polus and Th rasymachus, most

people believe that criminal justice involves punishments that hurt and thus

harm. Th rasymachus thus appears to share a widespread notion of justice

and gets angry at Socrates for denying its evident truth. Implicitly claiming

to benefi t not merely Socrates but the group as a whole by teaching them

what justice really is, he demands a payment of money. Th rasymachus does

not merely ape conventional justice; he acts on the basis of the widely held

understanding of justice articulated earlier in the conversation by Cephalus,

namely, as giving each his or her due.

Th rasymachus’s Defi nition of Justice as the Advantage of the Stronger

Because Th rasymachus thinks he knows what justice is, he agrees to let

Socrates question him. He then famously declares that justice is the advan-

tage of the stronger. As with Callicles, Socrates asks whether by stronger

he means superior bodily strength and a corresponding need for more

food. Like Callicles, Th rasymachus fi nds Socrates’ question disgusting. 9





175

Like Callicles, the rhetorician protests, he is not referring to the physical

strength of any individual but to political power—the power the ruling

group in any city, be it a tyranny, democracy, or aristocracy has—to enact

laws to its own advantage. But, unlike Callicles, who emphasized the natural

right of the stronger to do as they please free from conventional restraints,

Th rasymachus identifi es the rule of the strong with the ability to declare

what the law is. He is not simply a conventionalist, if by conventionalist

one means a person who says that the just is simply what the law says it is

and recognizes that laws diff er from place to place and regime to regime

(cf. Hourani 1962, 110–20; Grote 1888; Strauss 1964, 78–80). Th rasymachus

sees a fundamental uniformity in the apparent diversity of laws: the stron-

gest party in any city shows that it is the strongest by determining what the

law is, and, in every case, the strongest party makes laws that benefi t it at

the expense of the weaker. 10

Socrates does not challenge the accuracy of Th rasymachus’s description

of what actually happens in cities, that is, his contention that the laws in

any particular city refl ect the particular interests and opinions of the people

who make them. Socrates asks whether lawmakers always know what is

in fact advantageous for them or whether they do not sometimes make

mistakes. Th rasymachus responds that a ruler in the precise sense does not

make mistakes; he acts on the basis of knowledge or “art” ( technē ). When

Clitophon steps in and tries to show Th rasymachus that he can avoid the

diffi culty into which Socrates is leading him by simply declaring that

lawgivers enact what they believe is advantageous to them, Th rasymachus

emphatically refuses to agree. For Th rasymachus, in contrast to Gorgias,

justice is not merely a product of persuasion. Nor is rule. No one could call a

person a doctor because of his mistaken diagnoses, Th rasymachus observes;

likewise, no one should be called a ruler or “stronger,” if he does not know

where his own benefi t lies and how to achieve it.

Th rasymachus concludes his defi nition by once again accusing Socrates

in court terms of being a “sycophantic” informer, that is, someone who

falsely charges another of a crime in order to harm him. But, he declares,

Socrates “won’t be able to overpower [him] in the argument” (1968, 341b).

Th rasymachus has shifted, we see, from accusing Socrates to seeing himself

as the accused. Once knowledge or prudence becomes the standard of

excellence, Th rasymachus becomes defensive vis-à-vis the philosopher.

And, we will see, Socrates punishes Th rasymachus by embarrassing him

in front of an audience of potential students. Both the accused and the

accuser maintain an obvious interest, we should note, in seeing that justice




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is done and that members of the audience benefi t by learning what justice

truly is.

Th e Contradiction in Th rasymachus’s Position

Socrates brings out the contradiction in Th rasymachus’s position in two

stages.

First, Socrates points out that if rule is an art like other arts, it is

exercised not for the benefi t for the ruler but for the benefi t of those who are

treated or ruled. A doctor does not ordinarily practice medicine primarily

by curing himself; he cures his patients. Accepting Th rasymachus’s unargued

presumption that the advantage or benefi t of the ruler is completely separate

and diff erent from the advantage or benefi t of the ruled (even though that

is an obviously problematic presumption in a democracy or on a ship where

the safety of the pilot depends on his art as much as that of the sailors),

Socrates points out that a pilot also rules sailors primarily for their benefi t

(getting to port) rather than for his own.

Th rasymachus reluctantly agrees. But, apparently taking heart from a

new inspiration, he again insults Socrates by asking whether he had a wet

nurse. Even a babe would know that the shepherd exercises his art in taking

care of the fl ock, ultimately not for the sake of the sheep but for the sake of

shearing or eventually eating them himself or for making money for his mas-

ter. Rulers regard the people they rule the same way. Th ey force them to obey

laws not for their own benefi t but for the benefi t of the ruler. Understood as

obeying the law (which serves the interests of the unjust legislators, not the

common good), justice is no virtue. Th ose who praise justice do so because

they fear suff ering injustice. If they were able to do what is unjust without

paying a penalty, they would do so gladly and other people would call them

most happy. In response to Socrates’ questioning, Th rasymachus thus seems

to take a position much closer to that held by Polus and Callicles.

Having delivered his speech with a rhetorical fl ourish, Socrates

observes, Th rasymachus wanted to make a dramatic exit, but the others

forced him to stay and present an argument for what he had just said. As

Socrates points out, they thus forced him to live up to his promise to teach

them what is truly just and thus to benefi t them in return for the payment

he had demanded. 11

Socrates begins the second step in his argument with Th rasymachus by

observing that he is not persuaded that injustice is more profi table than jus-

tice. Th rasymachus asks with exasperation what on earth he could say further





177

to convince such a stubborn man, and Socrates suggests that Th rasymachus

could stop shifting his position. Initially he had claimed that justice is the

advantage of the stronger, who are “in the know,” but then he had agreed

that an art benefi ts those subject to it, not the artist or knower. Now he has

shifted from maintaining that justice is the advantage of the stronger to say-

ing that injustice is best for those able to do it and that those who are weak

declare what is just in an attempt to protect themselves from the strong. 12

Socrates expands on his earlier objection that arts benefi t the recipient

and not, qua art, the artist himself (who profi ts, if he profi ts, by exercising

another more general “moneymaking” art) by insisting that every art

constitutes knowledge of a specifi c topic. Ruling does not benefi t rulers, he

reiterates; if it did, they would not demand wages, money, or honor as the

price of serving the public. Th ey might rule in order to avoid the penalty of

being ruled by worse people. Th ey nevertheless view rule as a duty or penalty

and not as something advantageous to them. In arguing that injustice is

preferred to justice, Th rasymachus had pointed out that the just lose even

more than they do in private exchanges with unjust people when they hold

offi ce and are forced to neglect their own aff airs as a result.

Once again Socrates thus shows that Th rasymachus has contradicted

himself, because he continues to assert that rule is an art. As Th rasymachus

sees it, rule is not obtained or held merely by chance (e.g., heredity) or

sheer physical force. Rule requires intelligence ( phronēsis ). Agreeing thus

far, Socrates nevertheless points out that if rule consists in knowing how to

achieve certain eff ects on other people, like medicine, knowledgeable rule

benefi ts its subjects. Rulers acknowledge that fact by demanding a reward

or treating rule as a penalty. If rulers are to benefi t, they need to acquire and

exercise another kind of knowledge, associated here with “money making”

(which is sometimes, but not consistently, denominated as an “art”). Money

or wealth is generally considered to be the means of obtaining what one

wants through exchange. Th e “art” to which Socrates refers would thus

consist in knowing what is truly good and how to obtain it. Later in the

dialogue (1968, 518d–e) Socrates says that the only true virtue is prudence

( phronēsis ) and that it is possessed only by philosopher-kings who know

what is good in itself.

Socrates’ Persuasion of Th rasymachus

Socrates concludes that he “can in no way agree with Th rasymachus that

the just is the advantage of the stronger.” But he shifts their inquiry from




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the question of what is just to the question of what is unjust, because

Th rasymachus has just said “a far bigger thing—that the life of the unjust

man is better” (1968, 347e). For Socrates (and Th rasymachus) the decisive

consideration is what is truly good.

Perhaps to show that he has superior numbers on his side in this small

group (and thus playing on the ambiguity of the word kreitton, which can

refer not merely to physical strength but to superiority more generally),

Socrates seeks and obtains the help of Glaucon, Plato’s brother, in persuad-

ing Th rasymachus that what he has said is not true, that is, that the life of an

unjust man is more profi table than the just. Appealing to Glaucon’s aristo-

cratic sense of his own superiority to the many, Socrates gets the young man

to agree that they will not seek to persuade Th rasymachus by proceeding

the way rhetoricians usually do. Th ey will not speak at length, set argument

against argument, and list the good things that belong to the life of justice,

the way Th rasymachus did in arguing that the unjust life is best, because that

way of arguing requires a judge or jury. Such a rhetorical mode of proceeding

implicitly suggests that the judge or jury is wiser than the advocates.

Most readers, if they thought about it, would recognize the apparent

problem in Socrates’ way of making the participants in the conversation

into both advocates and judges. Judging in one’s own case has been a

proverbial defi nition of injustice, precisely because human beings tend to

be attached to themselves and their own good, fi rst and foremost. 13 In the

Gorgias both Socrates and the rhetorician agreed, however, that speaking

to a large group all at once in a relatively limited time could only produce

belief, not knowledge. In the Gorgias Socrates thus explicitly contrasted

his own attempt to obtain the agreement of his individual interlocutors in

order to get to the truth of things (rather than a mere opinion about them)

with rhetorical persuasion (and legal practice). In the Gorgias we also saw

that Socrates insisted on obtaining the agreement of his interlocutor on

the opinions they were examining, because his interlocutor could be shown

that he held contradictory opinions and be led to reexamine, change, and

correct his primary commitments or presuppositions only if he actually

held them. He would not change his own opinions if he only agreed to

propositions “for the sake of the argument” or because most other people

thought so. Socrates recognizes that Th rasymachus has established the

ground of an agreement between them by conceding that someone can

obtain something advantageous or good only if he knows what is truly

advantageous and good. Th rasymachus, however, has not yet seen the

signifi cance of this fundamental agreement between himself and Socrates.





179

To persuade Th rasymachus that the unjust life is not more profi table

than the just life Socrates thus begins by obtaining Th rasymachus’s agree-

ment that prudence and goodness are virtues. Th e explicit question is

whether injustice defi ned as the attempt to get more than others is a virtue.

Th rasymachus initially refuses to characterize either justice or injustice as

(moral) virtue. Asked whether justice is a virtue, he declares that it consists

in a kind of innocent foolishness that leads people to do things contrary to

their own good for the good of others. He does not claim that injustice is a

virtue. He identifi es it, rather, with good counsel. But he agrees that those

“who can do injustice perfectly and are able to subjugate cities and tribes of

men to themselves” (1968, 348d) are good as well as prudent.

Socrates observes that “Th rasymachus does not seem to be joking

now, but to be speaking the truth as it seems to [him]” (1968, 349a). Th en

he points out that those who know a subject perfectly do not try to get

the better of others with the same knowledge. Commentators who fault

this argument by observing that scientists and scholars often compete in

making new discoveries do not pay suffi cient attention to the precise terms

of Th rasymachus’s claim or Socrates’ rebuttal. 14 Th ey both refer to complete

knowledge to which it is impossible to add. We may think that it is impos-

sible for a human being to obtain such complete knowledge. Th e possibility

of acquiring such knowledge is, however, a diff erent question. Socrates and

Th rasymachus have agreed that knowing how to rule requires such “perfect”

knowledge and that possessing such prudence is a virtue, if not virtue itself.

Th ere is then nothing to “compete” about; all true practitioners of the same

art know the same things as all others.

When Socrates points out that a truly virtuous or knowledgeable man

would not try to get the better of an equally prudent person, Th rasymachus

blushes. He has been shamed, if not tamed. His claims have been proven

wrong not merely in speech but in fact or deed. He had boasted that Socrates

could not overcome him in argument, but both he and the audience now

see that Socrates has done just that.

Although Th rasymachus has been embarrassed, he does not admit

defeat. Socrates reminds him that they have agreed justice is virtue and

wisdom, whereas injustice is vice and ignorance, but that injustice is mighty.

He implies that the only question remaining is whether injustice is stronger

than justice. Th rasymachus declares that he is not satisfi ed with what they

have said and that he has more to say. He thus agrees to answer Socrates,

if Socrates wishes to go on questioning him. He would like to give another

long speech, but, he suspects, Socrates will not allow him the freedom to




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180

speak as he wishes and will accuse him of delivering a long public harangue,

if he does.

At fi rst glance, Th rasymachus’s willingness to nod yes or no as to

an old wives’ tale looks like Callicles’ reluctant agreement to continue

answering Socrates’ questions at Gorgias’s behest. As with Callicles,

so with Th rasymachus, Socrates insists that the question concerns the

“way one should live” (1968, 354c; 1998, 500c). And like Callicles, we see,

Th rasymachus does more than simply nod; he gives Socrates fuller answers

when he agrees and simply says “let it be” when he does not. 15

Th ere are, however, important diff erences between Callicles’ and

Th rasymachus’s reactions to Socrates’ interrogations, which point to

the reasons why Socrates later declares that he and Th rasymachus have

becomes friends, whereas he had said only that Callicles would perhaps

be persuaded (1998, 513d) if they investigated the same things many more

times. Th rasymachus has more respect for reason or argument and is willing

to be disciplined by it in a way Callicles is not. After he has clearly been

refuted, Callicles agrees to continue his conversation with Socrates at fi rst

only to please Gorgias and then not at all. Th rasymachus agrees to continue

answering questions, because he has more to say and to please Socrates

(1968, 351c).

Socrates and Th rasymachus agree not only that all people seek what

they think is good and advantageous but also that in order to acquire it

people have to know what is truly good and advantageous. Socrates and

Th rasymachus disagree about what is truly good and advantageous. Like

most ancient Greeks and the ambitious young men he seeks as students,

Th rasymachus believes that wealth, power, and honor are good. People

praise justice, Th rasymachus declares, because they do not want to suff er

injustice. Th ey nevertheless call the most unjust people happy and blessed

when their injustice is suffi ciently great. Socrates argues, on the contrary,

that justice is good. At the end of their exchange Th rasymachus urges

Socrates to feast on the victory he has enjoyed in speech, but Socrates

admits that his arguments have been defective. He has proved that jus-

tice is good without determining what justice is. In the long discussion

that follows, Socrates concludes that the defi nition of justice that he and

Plato’s brothers arrive at should serve as a paradigm for the order of an

individual soul. In other words, he provides a better foundation for the

last two arguments he has with Th rasymachus in which he declares that

justice is good for an individual soul because an individual will not prosper

if he seeks contradictory goals or uses contradictory means of achieving





181

the same end and that, like everything else, a soul works well only if it

is in order. 16 In arguing for the necessity of philosopher-kings, moreover,

Socrates maintains that rule is good for the ruled but not for the ruler. Once

again, he gives additional support for the position he initially takes in his

exchange with Th rasymachus.

the basis and significance of the friendship

Because Adeimantus declares that “the many will be eager to oppose

Socrates” when he suggests that evils in cities will not cease until philosophers

become rulers “and won’t be persuaded at all, beginning with Th rasymachus”

(1968, 498c), some scholars have suggested that the friendship Socrates

declares he has just made with Th rasymachus means that Socrates thinks

Th rasymachean rhetoric might be used to convince the many to accept

philosophers as rulers. 17 Having accused the people of being the greatest

sophist of all, because they discourage talented youths from becoming phi-

losophers and urge them to go into business or politics instead (1968, 492a–b),

and having declared that “it is impossible for a multitude to be philosophic”

(1968, 494a), Socrates nevertheless tells Adeimantus “not to make such a severe

accusation against the many. Th ey will no doubt have another sort of opinion,

if . . . you soothe them and do away with the slander against the love of

learning by pointing out whom you mean by the philosophers” (1968, 499d).

Even if a rhetorician like Th rasymachus were to convince a people

to accept a philosopher as a ruler, however, a rhetorician qua rhetorician

could not determine who is or is not a philosopher. As Socrates points out

(1968, 489d–e), those who claim to be philosophers generally are not. Th ese

“pretenders” are responsible, indeed, for bringing philosophy into disre-

pute. To determine whether or not someone is a philosopher, to determine

whether he knows what is truly good or even whether he merely seeks

such knowledge, a rhetorician would have to engage in a dialogue with

him, as Socrates does with Th rasymachus. A rhetorician might persuade

people to take a better view of philosophy and thus make them less hostile.

(Plato’s dialogues might be considered to constitute an attempt to do just

that.) But, as Socrates often emphasizes, opinions can be easily changed.

Merely changing popular opinion about philosophers would not, therefore,

be suffi cient to make them rulers. Nor would a more positive view of

philosophers on the part of most people convince a person who seeks above

all to acquire wisdom to devote his time and energy to ruling. Philosophers

would have to be convinced (or, as Socrates says, “compelled”) to serve by




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being shown that their rule was required as a matter of justice by someone

who knows what justice is. Socrates assures Glaucon (1968, 519d–520b) that

it would not be just to compel a philosopher to rule unless he received his

education as a philosopher from the city, which would be the case only in

the city they have described in speech, but which does not exist nor is it apt

to exist anywhere.

Th e friendship Socrates declares he has just made with Th rasymachus

does not entail a hope that rhetoricians will persuade the multitude to

accept philosophers as rulers. Th e friendship is based on two agreements

they share, which Socrates’ three interlocutors in the Gorgias do not.

Socrates and Th rasymachus think that the best speaker is the one who

can refute another in argument—whether or not everyone else listening is

persuaded. In contrast to eristic sophists like Euthydemus, however, neither

Socrates nor Th rasymachus maintains that victory in speech is virtuous

or good in itself. Socrates and Th rasymachus both respect arguments or

speeches as opposed merely to “what works,” because they both also agree

that it is necessary to know what is truly good or to one’s advantage, but

both regard speeches or arguments merely as means of acquiring what is

truly good. According to a defi nition of friendship Socrates proposes in the

Lysis (1900, 216c–217a), he and Th rasymachus can become friends, because

lacking the good, they nevertheless seek it. Th rasymachus is confused

about the goodness or virtue of justice and thus shifts sides in the course

of his exchange with Socrates, because he has not thought out the relation

between his admiration of power and wealth, on the one hand, and his

conviction that it is necessary to know what is truly in one’s own advantage,

on the other. It is not clear from the Republic or any other Platonic dialogue

exactly what impression or lesson Th rasymachus took away from the con-

versation. But unlike Gorgias, Th rasymachus is never said to have “solved”

the contradiction in his initial position by declaring that it is impossible to

teach virtue and ridiculing those who claimed to do so.

notes

I would like to acknowledge the support of the Social Philosophy and Policy Center at

Bowling Green State University in preparing this article for publication. Th e section on the

grounds of Gorgias’s position is reprinted with permission from Zuckert 2009, 532–36.

1. Cicero 1962 may indicate the reason why when he states in Orator 13.49 that

Th rasymachus and Gorgias were the fi rst, according to tradition, to have submitted

words to a more or less methodical arrangement. Th e question as to whether Gorgias and





183

Th rasymachus were also “sophists” has been vigorously debated by Harrison 1964; Sidgwick

1905, 323–71; Kerferd 1981, 29–94; Rankin 1983, 37; Romilly 1992, 6–7, 63, 170. In Isaeus 20

Dionysius of Halicarnassus lists Th rasymachus but not Gorgias among those who made

a profession of accurate expression and devoted their energies to argumentative oratory.

Th ere is no record of Th rasymachus’s ever claiming to teach virtue.

2. Early in his conversation Socrates does contrast the greater frankness of speech

he expects from his fellow Athenian Callicles with “Gorgias and Polus, [who] are wise

and friends of mine, but rather too lacking in outspokenness and too sensitive to shame”

(1998 487b). As Arlene Saxonhouse points out, the dialogue begins with the word for “war”

( polemou ), and the conversation between the philosopher and his “friends” seems to be

competitive, if not hostile (1983, 139).

3. Some readers might object that the fi rst book of the Republic is often considered

to be an early dialogue, written much before and independently of the rest. But Kenneth

Dorter points out that “even those who regard it as an earlier dialogue concede that it must

have been revised when Plato incorporated it into the Republic ” (2005, 3 nn. 18–19). Stanley

Rosen fi nds the claim that Socrates and Th rasymachus have become friends “dubious,

especially in view of Th rasymachus’s graceless and ill-tempered submission to refutation

by Socrates” (2005, 38).

4. Edward Schiappa (1997) shows the parallels between Gorgias’ text and Parmenides’

poem.

5. Socrates’ contention that someone who knows what is just will do what is just has

been criticized by Terence Irwin (1979, 126–28) and Mary Margaret Mackenzie (1981, 160).

As Socrates emphasizes in this dialogue, however, he argues on the basis of the presup-

positions or “agreements” of his interlocutor. He and Gorgias agree that a human being is

what she or he does. At the beginning of the dialogue, in asking who or what Gorgias is,

Socrates asks what art Gorgias claims to practice and teach. He is a rhetorician, because

he knows the art of rhetoric and claims to be able to teach it. So, by analogy, someone who

knows what is just is just.

6. Th ere has been a great deal of scholarly debate about Callicles’ character. Scholars of

the last generation tended to see Callicles as an “immoralist,” if not an “amoralist.” See, for

example, Friedländer 1964, 2:244–72; Grote 1865, 2:90–151; Shorey 1933, 136; Voegelin 1981,

24–25. Like Euben 1997, 227; Benardete 1991, 61–102; Newell 2000, 9–41; Saxonhouse 1983,

162–69; and Stauff er 2002, 627–58, I argue that Callicles is not simply immoral or amoral.

7. Rachel Barney observes that Callicles “goes further than either Th rasymachus or

Glaucon in taking this nature as the basis for a positive norm” (2004, 5).

8. “Irony” is the way eironeia is usually translated, and there is a huge literature about

Socrates’ use of it. Recently, however, the meaning and prevalence, if not the very existence,

of Socratic “irony” has been questioned by Ronna Burger (1985) and Melissa Lane (2006).

9. Allan Bloom translates bdeluros as “disgusting” (1968, 338d). Th e Greek term refers

to “a beastly cad,” according to Paul Shorey (Plato 1930, 1.47 n. d), and was a term of abuse

commonly used by orators.




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184

10. C. F. Hourani emphasizes the empirical character of Th rasymachus’s description,

which is not, properly speaking a “defi nition” (1962, 112).

11. Some readers might compare the group’s forcing Th rasymachus to stay and give an

argument to support his defi nition of justice with its initially forcing Socrates to stay with

it in the Pireaus. Socrates had not claimed to know what justice is, however, or to be able

to benefi t his audience.

12. Cf. Dorter 2005, 13–14, on the shifting back and forth of the positions in book 1 of

the Republic .

13. For example, Federalist 10: “No man is allowed to be a judge in his own cause,

because his interest would certainly bias his integrity.”

14. For example, Rosen 2005, 56–57. Nor is the unwillingness of the knowledgeable

to compete with equally knowledgeable people a matter of self-restraint as Devin Stauff er

suggests (2001, 105–6). Th ere is nothing to “show up” or compete about.

15. Cf. Plato 1998, 497b, 499c, 503a–505d, 509c–511b, 513c–e, with Plato 1968,

351c–354a.

16. See Stauff er 2001, 118, on the inadequacy of Socrates’ arguments in this respect.

17. For example, Stauff er 2006, 178–82.

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