Gorgias

At this point, Polus interrupts the conversation, accusing Socrates of taking advantage of the fact that Gorgias was “ashamed” (461b) not to concede that the orator knows about right and wrong and using this shame to lead Gorgias unfairly into inconsistency. Socrates invites Polus to take Gorgias’s place and correct any mistakes that he or Gorgias had made, provided that he, like Gorgias, agrees to avoid making long speeches.

Reluctantly agreeing to Socrates’s terms, Polus begins by asking Socrates how he defines oratory. Socrates replies that he does not regard oratory as an art at all but rather as “a sort of knack gained by experience” (462c). At Polus’s prompting, Socrates explains the distinction he draws between an “art” and a “knack” (empeiria): While an art (for example, legislation or medicine) is based on a rational theory and can therefore be taught, a knack (such as sophistry and cookery) is based on no rational theory and aims at providing gratification and pleasure. An art, then, relates to the soul, while a knack relates to the body.

Without conceding that oratory is a knack rather than an art, Polus presses Socrates to admit that orators at least have power. Socrates is not willing to agree to this. Comparing orators to tyrants, he draws a distinction between doing what is best and doing what one wants. Somebody who is ignorant about right and wrong but does what they want is not doing themselves any good (as Polus concedes), so unless an orator does have knowledge of right and wrong, they cannot do what is best and thus cannot truly do what they want.

Polus dismisses this argument as outrageous, so Socrates introduces a distinction between ends and means. Sometimes, certain unpleasant means must be taken to achieve a desired end, such as taking unpleasant medicine in order to achieve health. Since what every person really wants is the good, the only real power that exists is power that strives for the good. Since orators, like tyrants, are ignorant about the good, they are misled as to what is in their best interests and so even when they do as they please they do not do what they want, i.e., the good. Consequently, orators cannot be said to be truly powerful.

As Polus continues to question Socrates’s assertions, Socrates reveals his belief that “the greatest of all misfortunes is to do wrong” (469b)—indeed, he claims that it is better even to suffer wrong than to do wrong. Polus agrees that doing wrong can harm the wrongdoer if they are punished, but believes he can easily refute Socrates by citing the “happy wrongdoer” who does wrong but is not punished for it. Socrates responds that Polus’s happy wrongdoer is not truly happy (eudaimon) at all, explaining that in his view, a person can only be happy “if they are honourable and good” (470e).

After Polus tries to illustrate again the happiness of certain wrongdoers by citing the example of the Macedonian tyrant Archelaus (happy to all appearances, despite his wicked behavior), there is a short interlude in which Socrates chides his interlocutor for neglecting “the art of reasoning” (457d). Socrates distinguishes between illusory proofs that are based on conventional agreement and the support of numbers—the kind of proofs used by orators like Polus—and genuine proofs based on rational argumentation, which are the only true proofs but which are less popular.

Socrates then returns to the subject at hand, stating his opinion that the wrongdoer is “more miserable if he does not pay the penalty and suffer punishment for his crimes, and less miserable if he does pay the penalty and suffer punishment at the hands of gods and men” (472e). Polus dismisses this proposition as absurd and imagines extreme hypothetical cases to prove that this cannot be the case, but Socrates is not convinced.

Making Polus concede that though it may be better to do wrong than to suffer wrong, it is also more shameful, he goes on to establish that what is “shameful” (aischron) must be either harmful or painful, while what is “fine” (kalon)—that is, the opposite of shameful—must be either useful or pleasant; since Polus admitted that doing wrong is more shameful than suffering wrong, it must be either more harmful or more painful, and since in this case it is obviously not more painful, it must be more harmful. On the other hand, if it is finer to suffer wrong than to do wrong, and since suffering wrong is obviously not more pleasant, it must be more useful.

Confident that he has refuted Polus, Socrates returns to his earlier proposition that it is worse to escape punishment for wrongdoing than to be punished. Socrates makes Polus concede that an action done to an object must “correspond in nature and quality to the act of the agent” (576b). From this it follows, Socrates asserts, that if an agent punishes justly, then the object who is punished suffers justly. To experience something that is just, moreover, is fine, meaning that somebody who is punished has something fine done to them. Since what is good is useful or beneficial, somebody who is punished receives a benefit.

Socrates then introduces the soul (psyche) into the discussion, asserting that when somebody is punished for wrongdoing, their soul is improved. Socrates explains his view that evil that is done to the soul is the worst evil there is. While wrongdoing and escaping punishment for wrongdoing are like a disease or poison for the soul, suffering punishment for wrongdoing is like medicine for the soul. If this all holds, Socrates argues, then people should not use oratory to escape punishment for their wrongdoing—though one might still use oratory to hurt one’s enemies by ensuring that they escape punishment for their misdeeds, thus causing great harm to their souls.