Titian, Allegory of Time Governed by Prudence, c. 1550–1565

3,275 words

(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 13 here, Part 14 here, Part 15 here, Part 16 here.)

The Refutation of Licentiousness (499c–508c)

Once Socrates has refuted Callicles’ hedonism, he turns his attention to refuting his defense of self-indulgence and licentiousness (akolasia) and upholding its opposite, moderation (sophrosyne). But in offering this refutation, Socrates draws together and sums up the argument of the whole Gorgias thus far and gives an overview of his moral philosophy. Thus it is an especially rich and important part of the dialogue.

Callicles has admitted that some pleasures are good and others bad. Socrates begins there and leads Callicles to assent to the following premises. Beneficial pleasures are good. Harmful pleasures are bad. Pleasures are beneficial if they do some good. Pleasures are bad if they do some evil. Pleasures that produce bodily health are good. Pleasures that destroy bodily health are evil. Some pains are beneficial. Other pains are harmful. Only beneficial pleasures and pains are to be chosen and made use of. Everything is to be done for the sake of the good, i.e., the good is the end of all our actions. The good is not pursued for the sake of other things. Thus we do pleasant things for the sake of the good, not the good for the sake of the pleasant.

Not every man can discern good and evil pleasures. Art (techne) is required. The bar is lower, however, for pursuing pleasure as such, regardless of good or evil consequences. All this takes is a knack (empeiria) for producing pleasure. As Socrates established with Polus, one knack for gratification is confectionery, meaning the ability to make tasty food, regardless of its effect on health. The corresponding techne that aims at bodily well-being is medicine.

At this point Socrates enjoins Callicles to be serious, evoking the name of Zeus, the god of friendship. Referring back to Callicles’ claim that his defense of hedonism was joking not earnest, Socrates urges Callicles neither to say anything unserious nor to take Socrates for doing so either, because, “Our argument now concerns what even a man of little intelligence must treat with utmost seriousness, namely, the way one ought to live.” Namely: Callicles’ choice of the public life of pursuing power, for which tyranny is archetype, vs. Socrates’ choice of the private life of pursuing wisdom.

The Socrates expands on the distinction between techne and knack. The techne of medicine considers the nature (physis) of the person it serves and the cause (aitia) of what it does. It is  also able to render an account (logos) of both. A knack, by contrast, has no understanding of nature and causal mechanisms. It also makes no distinctions, although Socrates doesn’t make clear what kind of distinctions he is talking about. What kind of distinctions do technai make? Instead, a knack is based simply on memory of past experiences, what works and what doesn’t.

Then Socrates moves from the body to the soul. Just as there are knacks to gratify the body regardless of its health, so there are knacks to gratify the soul, regardless of its health. Just as there are arts that help perfect the body, there are arts that help perfect the soul. Callicles assents to this, but not out of conviction. He claims he is saying yes only to humor Socrates and Gorgias.

Then Socrates establishes that just as you can pander to individuals, you can also pander to groups. He gives examples from the performing arts: flute and lyre-playing, dithyrambs and choruses, and even Athens’ much-vaunted tragic dramas. (Note Socrates does not mention comedy here. Is this because the Gorgias itself is a comedy?) All these look to gratify the audience rather than to edify them.

Socrates then asks what you get when you subtract “melody rhythm and meter from any kind of poetry” so that “only speech [logos] is left”? Then you have public speaking. Thus  Socrates says “poetry is a kind of demagoguery” and a kind of “rhetoric” addressed to all: men and women, slave and free. But there is a kind of rhetoric addressed only to free men, i.e., men in political assemblies. This sort of rhetoric has been the topic of the Gorgias from the start.

Then Socrates asks Callicles a twofold question. First, if any of the men who speak in front of the Athenian and other such assemblies think in terms of edifying and improving their audience rather than simply gratifying them. Second, if any of the men who speak to such assemblies do not “sacrifice the common [koinon] to their own private [idion].” Socrates doesn’t actually say “common good” (koinon agathon) or “private good” (idion agathon), but that is what his contrast implies. Later in the Gorgias, Socrates actually brings koinon and agathon together. The Gorgias is probably the earliest surviving statement of the standard of legitimacy central to classical political philosophy: the good regime and the good statesman pursue the common good over individual and factional interests.

Callicles has an interesting response: “There are some who say what they say out of concern for their citizens, whereas others are of the sort you describe.” For Callicles, then, it is at least possible for statesmen to actually care about the citizens, which encompasses both improving rather than pandering to individual citizens and serving the common good over private interests. But when Socrates asks for names, Callicles cannot offer any contemporary examples. However, Callicles mentions earlier statesman, all of them dead: Themistocles, Miltiades, Cimon, and Pericles.

Socrates disagrees. He does not think these were good men. He thinks they were just panderers on a colossal scale, corrupting the Athenians by gratifying desires that made them worse rather than better.

Then Socrates explains how the genuine statesman would work. In every case, the good man (agathon) who is intent on the best (beltiston) when he speaks, does not speak at random. Instead, his speeches are guided by a vision of an order, pattern, or goal. Note that Socrates is now talking about all speeches (logoi), not just political speeches. Just as a craftsmen has a model in mind that determines the materials he assembles and the acts he performs to realize the model in matter, just as the physician or trainer keeps in mind the model of a healthy body and regulates his every word and deed accordingly, so too does the good speaker keep the model of the healthy soul in view at all time. This model determines his every word and deed: everything he says or does not say, everything he does or does not do, and—in the case of the true statesman—everything he gives to or takes from his people.

Socrates claims that the good is structure (taxis) and order (kosmos) and the bad is disorder (ataxia, akosmia). Socrates suggests that health and strength are the proper order of the body, and Callicles agrees. But Callicles is hesitant to name the proper order of the soul, probably because he senses that whatever it is, it will not be licentiousness. Thus Socrates himself provides the answer: the good structure and order of the soul is law and lawfulness, whereby souls become law-abiding (law here is nomos) and orderly, and these states are righteousness (dikaiosyne) and moderation (sophrosyne).

Every good statesman looks to this model when making decisions about governing the city. But to engender righteousness, statesmen must also remove injustice (adikia). To promote moderation, licentiousness (akolasia) must be discouraged. To promote virtue (arete), vice (kakia) must be discouraged.

Callicles agrees with this, but when Socrates confronts him with the fact that this is inconsistent with his own advocacy of licentiousness, Callicles becomes angry and sullen, saying that he doesn’t know what Socrates is talking about and telling him to ask his questions of someone else. Socrates mocks this, because Callicles is rejecting the very thing that the argument concerns: correction for one’s errors and vices. Callicles is humiliated and begins to sulk, claiming that he doesn’t care what Socrates has to say and was only answering to humor Gorgias. When Socrates presses the matter, Callicles accuses him of being “pushy” or “overbearing” (biaios), and when you accuse somebody of being pushy, that’s a signal that you are preparing to push back. Then Callicles suggests that Socrates carry on the argument by himself. This is a rather comic turn for the dialogue, but Socrates agrees to it, and Gorgias encourages him because he wants to hear the end of the argument.

Socrates says, “So as Epicharmus has it, whereas ‘previously two men spoke,’ I am now to suffice as one.” Epicharmus (c. 550–c. 460 BC) was one of the founders of Greek comedy. At Theaetetus 152e, Socrates refers to Epicharmus as “the prince of comedy,” just as Homer is “the prince of tragedy.” Only a few fragments of his work survive, and the context and connotations of this quote are no longer known. The best we can say about this allusion is that it probably lent a comic cast to the discussion, reinforcing the idea that if the Gorgias is a drama, it is a comic one.

But although Socrates is going to continue alone, he tells the onlookers to speak up if they hear him saying anything questionable, for Socrates thinks that in dialogue the aim of their discussion—namely, the good life for man, which is the most important topic of all—will better come to light, and this is “of common good to all.” Here is another reference to the common good (koinonia gar agathon).

Socrates will lay out the argument in the way that seems best to him. But he is aware that his thoughts are hardly the final word on the matter. Thus if he says something questionable, he welcomes the audience’s corrections. Socrates is not being dogmatic. Even though he’s going to be the sole one talking at this point, he’s not giving a speech. He’s still conversing, albeit with himself, but he is inviting everyone into a dialogue with him. Also, it becomes clear that Socrates is still primarily addressing Callicles.

Gorgias encourages Socrates to continue and says that the rest of the audience appears to agree. Socrates says, “Why, I’d happily go on discussing with Callicles here, Gorgias, up until I’ve paid him a speech of Amphion in return for his of Zethus.” This is a reference back to Callicles’ reference to Euripides’ Antiope, in which Zethus argues for the active and public life as opposed to private life of his artistic brother Amphion. Callicles identified himself with Zethus and Socrates with Amphion, and here Socrates seems to accept that identification. It also underscores they are still debating the choice between the public life and the private one, although in this case the public life is about politics and the private life is about philosophy. Then Socrates addresses Callicles directly, saying that he welcomes Callicles’ corrections if he should say something mistaken, since it is a great benefit to have one’s false beliefs replaced with true ones. Callicles sourly tells Socrates to finish by himself.

This is the substance of what Socrates establishes in his dialogue with himself. The pleasant and the good are not the same. We do the pleasant for the sake of the good, not the good for the sake of the pleasant. We are pleased by pleasure and we are made good by the presence of the good. This much we have already heard. What comes next is new.

All things—souls, bodies, artifacts, and every living thing—insofar as they are good are made good by the presence of some virtue or excellence (arete). The virtue of each thing is most beautifully produced, not at random, but through proper structure (taxis), correctness (orthotes), and techne. The virtue (arete) of each thing consists in its regular and orderly (kosmios) structure (taxis). The good (agathon) of every kind of thing is its proper order (kosmos). An orderly soul is better than a disorderly one. A soul is orderly through possessing order. An orderly soul is moderate. Thus the moderate soul is good.

Socrates says he can find no objections to these claims and asks Callicles if he can. Callicles does not agree but simply bids him to continue.

If a moderate soul is good (agathon), then the soul affected by the opposite of moderation is evil (kakon); it is both imprudent (aphron) and licentious (akolastos). The moderate man does what is fitting concerning both gods and men. To do otherwise would be immoderate. By doing what is fitting concerning men, the moderate man is just (dikai), and by doing what is fitting concerning the gods, he is pious (hosia). He who does just and pious things is necessarily just and pious. Furthermore, he is necessarily courageous, for a moderate man would not pursue or shun what he should not. Rather, he would pursue and shun what he ought, whether things or people, pleasures or pains, and to be steadfast in doing his duty. Thus—and here Socrates addresses Callicles again:

It is necessary, Callicles, that the moderate man, because he is also as we’ve explained just [dikaion] and courageous [andreion] and pious [hosion], should be a completely [teleos] good man [agathon]. The good man does what he does well [eu] and nobly [kalos]. By doing and faring well he is blessed [makarion] and happy [eudaimon]. The bad man does and fares ill and his wretched [athlion]. This man who is opposite to the moderate man is the licentious man [akolastos] whom you praised. Now, I hold these things so and say that they are true. But if true, then he who wishes to be happy must, it seems, pursue and practice moderation, and each of us must flee licentiousness [akolasia] as fast as our feet will carry us, and so far as possible see to it that we need no chastisement.

At this point, Socrates returns to the account of punishment he gave in his discussion with Polus. Just punishment restores the health of the soul, thus promoting happiness. Hence if an individual, his family, or his city need such punishment, they should be the first to suggest it. Every individual and every city must always keep the model of the happy and blessed man in sight, in order to provide all men who would live well with the necessary moderation and justice—including restraining and punishing excessive desires—lest their pursuit lead to ruin. For the man of unrestrained desires becomes antisocial, leading the “life of a robber,” deprived of the community and friendship of both gods and men.

Then Socrates returns to what Heidegger called the Fourfold:

Wise men [sophoi, which are something above the philosopher, who merely pursues wisdom] tell us, Callicles, that heaven [ouranos] and earth [ge] and gods [theoi] and men [anthropoi] are held together by communion [koinonia] and friendship [philia], by orderliness, moderation, and righteousness, and that is the reason why, my friend, they call the whole of this world by the name of order [kosmos], not of disorder [akosmia] or licentiousness [akolasia]. But you, I think, have not attended to this, for all your wisdom, but have forgotten the great power of proportional equality [isotes] amongst both gods and men: you recommend excess [pleonexia] because you neglect proportion.

Recall that earlier in the Gorgias proportionate equality means:

Jack’s merit : Jill’s merit ::  Jack’s reward : Jill’s reward.

Thus if Jill is twice as good as Jack, she will receive twice his reward. This inequality is not, however, unjust or unfair, because it is proportionate to inequalities of worth. If, however, Jack and Jill were of equal worth, it would be unjust to give them unequal rewards. Moreover, if Jill received ten times Jack’s reward, that would also be unjust, because it is not proportional to their differences of merit.

Now Socrates is claiming that proportionate equality exists within the Fourfold:

Heaven : earth :: gods : mortals.

What is the connection between the two senses of proportionate equality? The term that seems to link them is community. Proportional equality between Jack and Jill is a principle of distributive justice. Justice is the right order of communities. Here Socrates first speaks of community among men, claiming that the immoderate man is anti-social, like a criminal, incapable of community and friendship with his fellow men. If that were all to his new discussion of justice, it would go no further than the first human-centered analysis of proportionate equality. But here Socrates also speaks of community and friendship with gods.

Does this change anything in Socrates’ critique of immoderation, licentiousness, and excess? In the first analysis, if Jill were inclined to infinite acquisition, she would be constrained because she is only entitled to finite acquisition, namely finite acquisition proportionate to her finite merits. Even if she is twice as worthy as Jack, she is worthy of only twice as much, not a thousand times as much, much less infinitely more. Jill’s pleonexia is thus constrained, as it were from below, by proportional equality.

Now let’s bring the gods into the picture:

Jill’s merit : Apollo’s merit :: Jill’s reward : Apollo’s reward.

Since the Greek gods are finite in their goodness, such an analogy is possible. But note that we don’t need to assign any numbers here to eliminate pleonexia on Jill’s part. Infinite rewards would be proportionate only to infinite worth. And an infinitely worthy human is simply inconceivable if there is a whole additional realm of beings that are superior to man. But note that Jill can’t pursue pleonexia by wishing to become a god either, for the gods are finite as well, which implies they cannot justly demand infinite respect, sacrifices, etc. from us.

In the Gorgias, the Fourfold is introduced to constrain infinite human acquisitiveness. It plays a similar role in Heidegger. For Heidegger, the Fourfold is introduced as a foil to the Gestell, the modern conception of being as raw material for human projects. The Gestell depicts the world around us as boundlessly transparent to human curiosity and boundlessly available for human appropriation, manipulation, and consumption. One could characterize the Gestell’s boundless world and the boundless strivings it incubates as “Faustian” in the sense used by Oswald Spengler. One could characterize Callicles’ desire for infinite power and acquisition as Faustian as well. By placing man in the Fourfold, however, both Plato and Heidegger bring infinite striving to an end by containing the realm of human action within finite bounds.

Socrates brings this part of his argument to a close by challenging Callicles to refute the dual claim that righteousness and moderation are the causes of happiness and vice is the cause of wretchedness, and if it cannot be refuted, to face the consequences. The first consequence is Socrates’ claim that the proper use of forensic rhetoric is to accuse oneself or one’s family and friends of vice and to demand the appropriate punishments, a claim that Callicles scoffed at as unserious. The second consequence is that it is better to suffer wrong than to do it, which Callicles said that Polus agreed to only out of shame. The third consequence is that the true rhetorician must know the truth about justice, which Polus said that Gorgias agreed to only out of shame.

Socrates, in short, believes that all of his previous positions hinge on the claim that righteousness and moderation are the causes of happiness, vice the cause of wretchedness. Having established this, he now wishes to return to these arguments and finalize his victories.