Gorgias of Leontini
The Original Flatterer
Gorgias of Leontini
His Life
Gorgias of Leontini was a teacher of rhetoric, and a paid public speaker. His persona was immortalized by the great Athenian philosopher Plato in his dialogue of Gorgias. He would travel around teaching and giving entertaining lectures. He was an aristocrat, an extreme Aristotelian who predates Aristotle. He arrived in Athens as ambassador of Leontini in 427 BCE.
His Works
His known surviving works consist of a collection of epideictic speeches such as Encomium or Defense of Helen and a second work "On Non-Being." Number among his numerous achievements and innovations was his being the first to initiate a question and answer period following his lectures. Gorgias also pioneered the idea of adjusting your speaking to suit your audience.
His influence
With respect to his philosophy, as demonstrated in his Encomium of Helen, Gorgias emphasized and exalted the domain of oratory. He emphasized pleasure and pain, opinion, and most importantly persuasion over truth.
For example, his book, "On Non-Being" is a book that seeks to argue that nothing exists by stating that, anything you might mention is nothing, if it were something it would be unknowable, and that even if it were knowable it could not be made evident to others. Gorgias laid the foundation for every would be persuader as to where the real power of the persuader lies.
Leonardo davinci
Unlike Gorgias Leonardo believed that universal principles were understandable and demonstrable.
On Non-Being
central ideas
Anything you might mention is nothing.
If it were something it would be unknowable.
If it were knowable it could not be made evident to others.
Doubting Thomas
Much like Gorgias doubted the nobility of humanity.
“So if there is anything, it is necessarily either born or unborn, and since both of these are impossible, it follows in fact that it is impossible for there to be anything.”
the Rape of Helen
To Gorgias not Helen, nor any other human being is capable of asserting mental powers sufficient to overcome to powers oratory.
Encomium of Helen
influential quotes
“for in associating with the opinion of the mind the power of the incantation and chants persuades and alters it through which modes the twin arts of witchcraft and magic have been discovered these are illusions of mind and delusions of judgment how many men on how many subjects have been have persuaded and do persuade how many others by shaping a false speech where all men and all subjects had memory of the past understanding of the present and foresight into the future speech would not be the same in the same way but as easy as it is to remember the past to examine the present or to prophesy the future is not easy and so most men on most subjects make opinion and advisor to their minds and opinion is perilous and uncertain and brings those who use it to perilous and uncertain good fortune”
Sir Winston Churchill
Was a classic orator is the spirit of Gorgias
This quote, like many other quotes in the Encomium of Helen, lays out the power of persuasion and orator. And although it is clear that Gorgias himself never thought that orators could teach virtue, the orators and flatterers that would follow him such as Aristotle, would use the power he discovered to do exactly that.
Although it is worth noting that Aristotle did criticize Gorgias’ presentation style, offer his own version in the Nichamachean Ethics in a section called The Proud Man, his view of humanity, especially as it relates to our mental powers, efficiently represented views of his predecessor.
“sacred incantations with words inject pleasure and reject pain”
The idea of seeking pleasure and avoiding pain as a standard of virtue is a common theme among the followers of Gorgias. Every flatterer since his death has held a position counter to the Socratic position which holds that make judgments based on pleasure and pain are flattery.
“Doing what’s unjust is more to be guarded against that suffering it, and that it’s not seeming to be good but being good that a man should take care of more than anything, both in his public and his private life; and that the second best thing after being just is to become just by paying one’s due, by being disciplined; and that every form of flattery, both the form concerned with oneself and that concerned with others, whether they’re few or many, is to be avoided, and that oratory and every other activity is always to be used in support of what is just.”
Master Persuader
Master Persuader Scott Adams endorses Donald Trump as a Master Persuader.
“debates with words where a single speech to a large crowd pleases and persuades because it is written with skill not spoken with truth”
Apollo’s temple at Delphi
At Delphi, more often than not, choices were made based on the size of the offering rather than on reason or universal law.
“the power of speech is the same effect on the disposition of the soul as the disposition of drugs on the nature and bodies”
The orators that followed Gorgias have successfully seized on the opportunity to overthrow the Socratic method of seeking truth with persuasive speech.
Fictional gorgias
Plato’s Dialogue of Gorgias
The fictional depiction of Gorgias of Leontini in Plato’s dialogue of Gorgias is very similar to the historical Gorgias. He along with two fictional characters, his apprentice Polus, and the noblemen Callicles debate Socrates on concept of power. Who holds it, how is it wielded and to what end?
The three flatterers challenge Socrates one by one, each attempting to amend and augment each others arguments in the pursuit of victory to no avail. The three flatterers can be seen as one individual because the full picture of what the followers of Gorgias, the so called flatterers, persuaders or orators, believe and why they believe it is clarified by the sum of their combined speeches.
Taking the sum of their speeches into account, you discover the inspiration and the foundation of Aristotle’s philosophy. Like real life Gorgias of Leontini, the fictional trio exalted the idea of seeking pleasure and rejecting pain or the idea so seeking the good.
The following are a few significant quotes from the aforementioned trio that is indicative of what would be become the enlightenment doctrine centuries later.
Dialogue of Gorgias
Significant quotes
Gladiator Games
The thrilling destruction of a societies morality and desire for justice.
“Socrates, you see that the orators are the ones who give advice and whose views on these matters prevail.”
“Oh yes, Socrates, if only you knew all of it, that it encompasses and subordinates to itself just about everything that can be accomplished. And I’ll give you ample proof. Many a time I’ve gone with my brother or with other doctors to call on some sick person who refuses to take his medicine or allow the doctor to perform surgery or cauterization on him. And when the doctor failed to persuade him, I succeeded, by means of no other craft than oratory. And I maintain too that if an orator and a doctor came to any city anywhere you like and had to compete in speaking in the assembly or some other gathering over which of them should be appointed doctor, the doctor wouldn’t make any showing at all, but one who had the ability to speak would be appointed, if he so wished. And if he were to compete with any other craftsman whatever, the orator more than anyone else would persuade them that they should appoint him, for there isn’t anything that the orator couldn’t speak more persuasively about to a gathering than could any other craftsman whatever.”
Death of Socrates
Unlike Gorgias and later Aristotle, Socrates believed that the teacher of any craft should be held accountable for the actions of his students, if the actions are coherent the teaches teachings.
“The orator has the ability to speak against everyone on every subject, so as in gatherings to be more persuasive, in short, about anything he likes, but the fact that he has the ability to rob doctors or other craftsman of their reputations doesn’t give him any more of a reason to do it. He should use orator justly as he would any competitive skill. And I suppose that if a person who has become an orator goes on with this craft to commit wrongdoing, we shouldn’t hate his teacher and exile him from our cities. For while the teacher imparted it to be used justly, the pupil is making the opposite use of it. So it is the misuser whom it’s just to hate and exile or put to death, not the teacher.”
Bread Handouts
Bread and Circuses
“The man who will live correctly must let his own desires be as great as possible and not chasing them and he must be sufficient to serve them when they’re as great as possible give courage and intelligence and to fill them up with things from which desire arises on each occasion.”
civil rights
Was implicitly a rejection of flattery and of Gorgias.
“I believe; hence, the become detractors of people like this because of the shame the feel, while they conceal their own impotence. And they say that lack of discipline is shameful...and so they enslave men who are better by nature, and while they themselves, lack the ability to provide for themselves fulfillment for their pleasures, their own lack of courage leads them to praise self-control and justice.”