Notes on Plato’s Gorgias, Part 13
Callicles’ Critique of Philosophy

3,157 words

Part 13 of 14

(Part 1 here, Part 2 here, Part 3 here, Part 4 here, Part 5 here, Part 6 here, Part 7 here, Part 8 here, Part 9 here, Part 10 here, Part 11 here, Part 12 here, Part 14 here)

Power vs. Wisdom

We have seen that Callicles is more philosophical than Gorgias or Polus. So it comes as some surprise that the second part of Callicles’ speech is a critique of philosophy. As we shall see, this critique is based on mistaken assumptions about Socrates and philosophy in general.

Callicles holds that philosophy is part of a liberal education. But it becomes a liability if carried on into adulthood: “. . . philosophy is a charming thing for anyone who gets a modest dose of it at the right age” (484c).

It’s fine to partake of philosophy to the extent that education requires, and for a boy there’s no disgrace in pursuing philosophy. But for a person who’s grown up to be still going on with philosophy, the thing’s ridiculous, Socrates. What I feel about people doing philosophy is very like what I feel about people lisping or playing. When I see a child, who is still of an age to talk that way, lisping or playing, I like it. I find it charming, an assertion of freedom, and suited to the age of the child. Whereas hearing a little child speaking with great clarity is a thing I find distasteful. It offends my ears and seems to have something slavish about it. But when you hear a man lisping, or see him playing, it strikes he was ludicrous and unmanly. [Note: Alcibiades was noted for his childish way of speaking when he was an adult.] He deserves a beating, you feel. Well, speaking for myself, that’s exactly how I feel about people doing philosophy. When I see philosophy in a young lad, I am charmed; I find it appropriate, and I think “This is somebody who expresses his freedom, this person.” The one who doesn’t do philosophy I think of him unfree and unlikely ever to expect any admirable or noble achievement from himself. But when I see an older person still going on with philosophy, and not giving it up, then in my view, Socrates, what this man needs is a good beating. (485 a–c)

If one employs the Socratic idea of philosophy as the ability to make right use of all things, then Callicles is not actually discussing philosophy, for any activity or study that needs to be managed cannot be philosophy. For Socrates, only wisdom is unconditionally good. All other things are good only if they are rightly used, which is the function of wisdom. Therefore, if one can raise the question of right use about something called “philosophy,” as Callicles does here, we are not talking about genuine philosophy. Indeed, Callicles’ standpoint from which he criticizes “philosophy” is closer to genuine philosophy. And indeed, he later characterizes it as a form of worldly and practical wisdom.

The reference to beating adult men brings to mind the theme of father-beating from Aristophanes’ Clouds, and this clue helps us to understand Callicles’ indictment of philosophy. Callicles sees philosophy pretty much as it is depicted in Aristophanes’ Clouds: a theory-centered, unworldly, impractical activity. For instance, according to Callicles, the philosopher,

. . . however able he may be, . . . becomes unmanly, avoiding the city center and the meeting places in which, says the poet [Homer], “men win distinction.” He disappears from view and spends the rest of his life whispering in a corner with three or four adolescents, without ever giving voice to anything free, or great, or effective. (485d)

This is true of Socrates in the Clouds, who retires from the world to his “Thinkery,” where he discusses semantics, cosmology, and zoology with spindly youths. Note, however, that Callicles omits the other side of Aristophanes’ critique, namely that Socrates also teaches rhetoric, specifically sophistry, i.e., how to make the speech that is weaker in truth beat the speech that is stronger in truth.

Callicles explains why he thinks philosophy is unsuitable for adults:

. . . if [a man] carries on with [philosophy] further than he should, it is the ruin of any human being. However able he may be, if he carries on with philosophy to an advanced age, he will inevitably be without experience of all the things you need to have experience of if you are going to be a man fine, upstanding, and well-respected. (484 c–d)

Callicles is talking about the leading gentlemen of the city. What do these gentleman know that philosophers don’t?

Philosophers are without experience of the laws of the city, of the language required in dealings with people, whether private or public, of human pleasures and desires in fact, altogether ignorant of the ways of the world. (484d)

But aren’t the ways of the world a kind of wisdom, too? Isn’t Callicles talking about practical wisdom here?

What are the consequences for philosophers who lack practical wisdom?

The result is that when they enter upon any private or public undertaking, they make themselves a laughingstock, just as I imagine politicians do when they in turn enter upon your lot’s discussions and ways of talking. (484 d–e)

This is another allusion to the Clouds, which depicts Socrates as an unworldly buffoon.

But, as in the Clouds, there are far more serious consequences than laughter:

As things stand now, if someone seized hold of you or one of your kind, and carted you off to prison, claiming that you were acting unjustly when you weren’t acting unjustly, you know you’d have no way of helping yourself. You’d go dizzy, and stand there gawping, with no idea what to say. You’d be had up in court, find yourself facing some altogether contemptible and vicious accuser, and if he chose to demand the death penalty for you, you’d be put to death. (486 a–b)

This is obviously a reference to Socrates’ eventual trial and death, which Socrates in the Apology claims was the result of his first accuser, Aristophanes in the Clouds. Callicles is  saying that philosophy is all well and good as part of liberal education. But when you grow up and become a man, you don’t just need practical wisdom, you also need rhetoric. For what? For self-defense.

Callicles even questions whether the sort of philosophy depicted in the Clouds is really wisdom at all:

How can this be wisdom, Socrates “an art which takes an able man and makes him worse” with no power to help himself, or save himself or anyone else from the greatest dangers? All he can do is watch his whole property being plundered by his enemies and live in the city as an absolute nobody. With someone like this, to put it a bit crudely, you can give him a knuckle sandwich and get away with it. (486 b–c)

This is a pertinent question. For if anything can be criticized as unwise, it cannot be philosophy, whereas if you are in the position to criticize something as unwise, you are already practicing philosophy.

You can buy Greg Johnson’s The Trial of Socrates here.

Thus Callicles gives us a portrait of the kind of philosopher Socrates was shown to be in Aristophanes’ Clouds: a person who knows nothing of the characters of men, a person who is off whispering in his little Thinkery with a few emaciated youths, the kind of person who doesn’t understand the way society works, the sort of nebbish who can’t defend himself.

This isn’t, however, a very good description of Socrates in Plato’s dialogues, because Socrates is almost always out in public talking. In fact, they’re talking in public in the Gorgias. We know it’s not the house of Callicles, because they talk about “back at the house.” Gorgias has been giving a public demonstration of his rhetoric and Socrates has arrived at the end of the show. So, he’s not in some little corner whispering to a few youths. Socrates is also masterful at judging people’s characters and accommodating his speeches to the different characters of the people he speaks to. Socrates, in short, was a master of rhetoric in his own way.

Callicles seems dead right when he says that Socrates is the kind of guy you could do injustice to, however. Just think of his trial and execution. But even that’s not really true, because Socrates had the political connections and wherewithal to prevent the trial from ever taking place. Moreover, once he was on trial, he had the rhetorical skills to save himself. But he chose not to.

Two Ways of Life

Another strand of Callicles’ speech is the contrast he draws between two kinds of life: the philosophical and the political. Callicles illustrates this distinction by quoting Antiope, a lost tragedy by Euripides. In the play, the two sons of Zeus and Antiope, Zethus and Amphion, debate about which life is the best. Zethus, a hunter, takes the side of the active life, which would include politics. Amphion, a musician, defends the creation of culture and the cultivation of the self, which would include philosophy. Each brother naturally defends what he is good at and denigrates what he is bad at.

Euripides is right: this is where each person shines, and this is what he is striving for: keeping the main part of the day for things in which he’s at his best. Where he’s weak, that’s territory he avoids, pouring scorn on it, while the other he praises, out of self-regard, thinking that in this way he is praising himself. (484e–485 a)

Callicles takes the side of Zethus:

For my part, Socrates, I feel pretty friendly towards you . . . I find myself wanting to say to you very much what Zethus said to his brother:  “Socrates, you pay no attention to the things you ought to attend to. Fate has given you a natural nobility of soul, yet you present yourself to the world and the guise of an adolescent. You couldn’t make a proper speech in the halls of justice; you’re never going to come up with the plausible or the persuasive, or put forward a bold proposal in support of someone else.” And yet, my dear Socrates and don’t be angry with me; it’s for your own good I’m saying this; don’t you think it’s a disgrace to be in the state I think you’re in, along with the rest of those who spend their whole time pressing on with philosophy? (485 e–486a)

Stop this questioning people, and “practice the music of affairs”;  practice where “for wisdom you will get repute”; “to others, leave these subtleties”; call them follies, call them nonsenses, which will “bring you a life in empty halls.” Model yourself, not on men who ask these nitpicking questions, but on those who possess life and reputation and many other good things besides. (486c)

Socrates and Plato would find Callicles’ approach here laudable, because they understand philosophy as a way of life and formulate the great moral and political questions as the choice of lives. Philosophy is the life of pursuing wisdom. Politics is the life of pursuing power.

But as Callicles draws it, the distinction between the two is not airtight. For, following Aristophanes, Callicles depicts philosophy as lacking in practical wisdom, whereas the political life possesses a genuine store of practical, worldly wisdom.

But the Socratic revolution in philosophy called philosophy “down from the heavens,” as Cicero put it, where philosophy was focused on theoretical questions, and directed it toward the affairs of men. Thus Socratic philosophy is first and foremost practical wisdom.

But if there is a kernel of truth in Aristophanes’ depiction of  the “pre-Socratic” Socrates in the Clouds, he was also a practitioner of rhetoric. So how did the Socratic moral revolution affect rhetoric? By subordinating rhetoric, like all other technai, to knowledge of the good.

Socrates’ Reaction to Callicles’ Speech

Callicles has made a fairly long speech, as sophists are wont to do. Note that Socrates doesn’t cut him off and say, ‘Callicles, I’m going to leave unless you confine yourself to short answers.’ Plato includes this for a reason, and it says a lot.  Socrates listens! Why? Obviously, because he thinks Callicles is saying something worth listening to.

Nonetheless, despite Callicles’ professions of friendship, his speech is extremely arrogant and condescending. Socrates is smart enough to see this. He’s also a normally constituted man. He has thumos. So he is bound to have been offended. Thus his reaction is surprisingly gentle and diplomatic, a sterling example of moderation (sophrosyne), the virtue he lauds throughout the conversation to come:

Suppose it were in fact made of gold, Callicles, this soul I have, don’t you think I’d be delighted to find one of those stones, and the very best, they use for testing gold? I could apply my soul to it, to see if the stone agreed that my soul had been well cared for; that way I could finally be sure that I was in satisfactory shape and that I had no need of any further test. (486d)

You can buy Greg Johnson’s Graduate School with Heidegger here

The stone Socrates refers to is called a “touchstone.” To test the purity of a golden object, one rubs it on the touchstone and compares the color of the gold left on the surface to samples of known purity.

The idea of a golden soul brings to mind the Republic, where Socrates proposes a noble lie, known as the myth of the metals, to justify social inequality. In creating men, the gods compound gold, silver, or bronze into their souls. Golden souls are suited to rule. Silver souls are suitable as guardians. Bronze souls are suited to do manual labor. In the Republic, the rulers are ultimately philosophers. If this carries over to the Gorgias, then Socrates’ well-cared-for golden soul is the soul of a philosopher.

But how is Callicles a touchstone? Socrates specifically likens philosophical conversation with Callicles to a touchstone. Socrates’ soul forms opinions, which he then tests against Callicles in dialogue. If Callicles agrees, then Socrates thinks this is good evidence that his views are true. But what makes Callicles an ideal interlocutor?

I’m quite sure that if you agree with me about the opinions my soul is forming, then these are finally the real truth. It strikes me that the person who is going to be an adequate touchstone for the soul, to see whether or not it lives rightly, must in fact possess three things — knowledge [episteme] goodwill [eunoia] and frankness [parrhesia] all of which you do possess. I meet many people who cannot possibly act as my touchstone because they are not wise [sophoi] the way you are. Others are wise, but refuse to tell me the truth because they don’t care about me the way you do. As for our two friends here, Gorgias and Polus, they are both wise, and both my friends; but they lack frankness, and are rather more ashamed than they should be. That must be it, they’ve both taken concern for what people will think to the point where, out of embarrassment, each of them resolutely contradicts himself, before a large number of people, and about things of greatest importance at that. Whereas you have all these qualities which other people do not have. You had you have had a good enough education, in the opinion of many Athenians, and you are well disposed towards me. (486e–487b)

Socrates praises Callicles as an ideal interlocutor because he is knowledgeable, wise, well-meaning, and frank. He agrees with Callicles’ statement that Gorgias and Polus ended up contradicting themselves because they put shame before frankness. Callicles, however, is frank, which means that he is willing to say things that some might regard as shameful. (I think that Socrates may be flattering Callicles here, since shame may not be merely social. It might be one manifestation of our innate knowledge of the good.)

Socrates is willing to overlook Callicles’ arrogance and take his professions of goodwill at face value. One reason he gives for this is Callicles’ behavior toward his friends:

What evidence do I have for [Callicles’ good will]? I’ll tell you. I know there are four of you, Callicles, who are associates in wisdom with you, Tisander of Aphidnae, Andron son of Androtion, and Nausicydes of Cholarges. I overheard you once discussing how far the practice of wisdom should be taken, and I know that the opinion which prevailed upon you was something like this: you shouldn’t throw yourselves into the philosophizing that sets store by extreme precision; rather you are urging one another to be careful not to acquire more wisdom than was called for, and so come to grief without realizing it. When I hear you giving me the same advice you give your own closest friends, that’s evidence enough for me that you really are well disposed towards me. (487c–d)

This is a reasonable inference. If Callicles gives Socrates the same advice he gives his closest friends, that is a sign of good will. Tisander, Andron, and Nausicydes are all historical figures, which increases the likelihood that Callicles was one as well. E. R. Dodds assembles the surviving historical fragments and testimonia and concludes, “The general picture which the evidence suggests is that of a group of ambitious young men, drawn from the jeunesse dorée of Athens, who have acquired just enough of the ‘new learning’ to rid them of inconvenient moral scruples.”[1]

Socrates also agrees with and underscores Callicles’ contrast between the philosophical and the political ways of life:

Of all possible enterprises this inquiry is the finest, Callicles, though you criticized me for it. It’s about the kind of person a man should be, be he older or younger, what he should pursue, and up to what point. For my part if there is some way in which I am not doing the right thing in my own life, then believe me, I am not doing wrong on purpose, but as a result of my own stupidity. So it’s up to you. You’ve started taking me to task, so don’t give up, but make it absolutely clear to me what this thing is I should be pursuing, and in what way I might be able to acquire it. And if you catch me agreeing with you now, but at some later time not doing the things I have agreed to, then you can regard me as a complete numbskull, and never take me to task again, since I’ll not be worth bothering with it. (487e–488a)

Socrates’ claim that if he is living the wrong way, it is out if ignorance rather than ill intent, is a statement of his principle that nobody does wrong intentionally but only out of ignorance. If Socrates is ignorant of the most important things, however, he is anxious to learn the truth and will be grateful to Callicles or anyone else who manages to teach it to him. This is why Socrates describes finding an ideal interlocutor such as Callicles as “a stroke of luck.”

Note

[1] Plato, Gorgias, ed. E. R. Dodds (Oxford: Clarendon, 1959), p. 282.