September 30th 2010

Michael Millerman

Phil 310A: Plato

Word Count: 1137

Socrates’ Case for Justice in the Gorgias: Is Curtis Johnson’s Approach Satisfactory?

Curtis Johnson holds that Socrates’ case for justice in the Gorgias is “a

failure” (Johnson, 2005; viii); that Socrates makes, “little argumentative headway”
against Callicles (ibid; pp. 1); that Socrates, “doesn’t produce the refutations he

claims to produce” (ibid; pp. 1); and “does not demonstrate the truth of his own

moral convictions” (ibid; pp. 2). One way of showing that Johnson has erred is by

refuting, line by line, his consistency-of-beliefs analysis of the logos of the

argument1. But this approach misses the mimetic element of the argument (Klein,

1965; pp.27; Strauss, 2000; pp.27). A reading that takes into account the mimetic

elements of the discussion between Socrates and Callicles makes a compelling case

for the supremacy of the philosophical life.

The Gorgias begins and ends with the word “Callicles” (447a; 527e). It is

reasonable, then, to suppose that Callicles is a major character in the Gorgias. His

idea of the good life is called “worthless” by Socrates (527e). It is important to

know whether Socrates successfully demonstrated that worthlessness to the men in

the dialogue; and to us, its contemporary readers.

The discussion between Socrates and Callicles about the nature of the good

life begins at 481c. Callicles responds to Socrates’ speech to Polus (480c-481b), in

which Socrates had argued that oratory is useful when (1) the orator uses it to

accuse himself, his loved ones and his country once any of these act unjustly,

urging and compelling himself and them to the punishments these injustices merit

(480c-e) and (2) if the orator wants to harm someone, he should use his oratorical

skills to keep that person from suffering the penalty his injustices merit (480e-

481b). Callicles states that if we live like Socrates has suggested, our lives will be

“upside down” and the things we do now will “evidently be the opposite of what we

should do” (481c).

1
Cf. the distinction in Klein, 1965.
 Socrates responds that because Callicles loves the people of Athens he must

bend his thoughts to accommodate their shifting moods (481d). Socrates, who

loves philosophy (481d-e), which always stays the same (482a), does not have to do

so. Callicles has to speak to and with the crowd (481e) while Socrates’ only loyalty

is to the truth, to his “beloved” (482a). He pays no attention to the disagreements

of “the vast majority of men” (482b-c) who are “dissonant” with themselves (482b),

and instead pursues knowledge. Socrates tells Callicles to either refute Socrates’

previous arguments about justice or to remain in a disharmonious state (482b).

This brief exchange (482dc-486d) frames, arguably, the remainder of the

dialogue, which we may rightfully expect to examine, as it unfolds, the merits of the

lives that correspond to these two loves: (1) political life, ruled by flattery and love

of popular opinion2 and (2) philosophical life, ruled only by the love of wisdom and

the search for truth. Callicles’ speech in favor of the political life develops the idea

that Socrates earlier view of justice (480c-481b) is thought to be just only because

of democratic conventions, because of the laws instated by “the weak and the

many” (483b) to protect them against the naturally “powerful among men” (483c).

Under natural law, as Callicles understands it, “it’s a just thing for the better man

and the more capable man to have a greater share than the worse man and the less

capable man” (483d). By the law of nature, it is worse to suffer than to do

injustice; not, as Socrates had it, the other way around.

This, the law of nature, would be obvious to Socrates (and his philosophical

readers) if he (we) abandoned philosophy for “more important” things, things

2
Although Callicles speaks of the many as the weak, Socrates more than once points out
that Callicles “love for the people” (513c) is what keeps “against” Socrates; against the
philosophical way of life. One explanation for this is that Callicles’ notion of the good life is
not that different from the popular notion: it is high-pitched vulgarity.
required for a man to be “admirable and good and well thought of.” These things

are: (1) legal experience; (2) speech-making experience of a certain kind; (3)

experience of human “pleasures and appetites”; (4) skill in public and private

dealing (484c-e). The man who practices philosophy past his youth is “ridiculous

and unmanly, deserving of a flogging,” (485c). The philosopher could never defend

himself in a court of law against a charge of “doing something unjust,” he would be

tried and put to death (486a-b; cf. 526e-527c). He would suffer the two “gravest

dangers” (486b): to lose his property and his rights (486b)3. Hence, he should give

up philosophy (486c) and live a political life of “renown” and “many other good

things” (486d).

Callicles speech takes up 147 lines of text and does not mention the word

“soul” once; Socrates mentions “soul” 5 times in the first 10 lines of his response

(486d-487a): For Socrates, the good life is the life of the soul. The uninitiated fools

(493b) who do not discipline their appetitive soul (493b) are “most miserable”

(493b) in Hades (Goodart, 2009). The happy and just man is the man whose soul is

well-ordered (504d) and disciplined (505b); not the tyrannical man (525d-526a) but

the philosophical man (526c). The man with too much regard for “the things held in

honor by the majority of the people” (526d), who does not practice philosophy

(526d-e) will not be able to give an account of himself – of his soul-self – before the

judges of the underworld (526e-527c). The only things to fear and to be ashamed

of are not knowing the most important things and not practicing justice (527b-e);

Socrates, unlike Callicles, does not fear suffering injustice (521b) as he fears being

unjust (522e; Letter VII, 335a-b)4.

3
Cf. Strauss, 1965; the section entitled Modern Natural Right; e.g. pp. 180-181, 183, 184,
and especially 201.
4
The grounds of their fears are radically different: one man fears for his body; the other, for
his soul.
 This overview does not proceed by a consistency-of-beliefs analysis (e.g.

Johnson, pp 93-104) but mimetically (Letter VII, 344c), drawing our attention,

though briefly and preliminary, to dramatic parallelisms (the Athenian Jury vs. the

Judges in Hades), textual clues (the frequency-of-words approach, e.g.) and soul-

typologies (the lover of the demos/opinion vs. the lover of wisdom/truth) for the

purpose of persuasion. This psychagogic approach makes a compelling case for the

supremacy of the philosophical life. As Leo Strauss has written, [the Platonic

dialogue] will not disclose itself to the tenth reading, however painstaking, if the

reading is not productive of a change of orientation” (Strauss, 2000, pp. 185). A

reading that ignores the mimetic element is unlikely to produce such a change.

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND WORKS CITED

Cooper, J. (1997). Complete Works / Plato . Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing

Company, Inc.

Goodart, S. (2009). The Lesser Mysteries of Eleusis.

http://www.rosicrucian.org/publications/digest/digest2_2009/04_web/05_goodart/05_
goodart.pdf Accessed September 27th, 2010.

Johnson, C. (2005). Socrates and the Immoralists. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.

Klein, J. (1965). A Commentary On Plato's Meno. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North
Carolina Press.

Strauss, L. (1965). Natural Right and History. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago
Press.

Strauss, L., ed. Roth & Gourevitch. a. (2000). On Tyranny. Chicago, IL: University of
Chicago Press.