So, we're going to be discussing Socrates
interaction with Callicles. And then the
point at which his conversation with
Callicless breaks down and Socrates just
starts talking to himself. Basically now
remember how class ended last time?
Somebody remind me what Socrates
said rhetoric is the only thing that
rhetoric would be useful for. Rhetoric
would be useful, according to Socrates,
for what purpose? Yeah and the opposite
of that. Yes, so you could use rhetoric to
convict yourself if you've done anything
wrong and convince a judge in a jury
that you ought to be punished. That would
be one useful thing about rhetoric. And
the other useful thing would be if you
hated somebody and they were your enemy,
then you could defend them in court and
argue and convince and persuade a judge
that they should be let off and not have
to be punished. Because then, that would
be ruinous for them and would be the
worst thing that could possibly happen
to them because they wouldn't get all of
that wonderful benefit from the
punishment. Right? So that's what Socrates
said rhetoric would be useful for and
that's where the conversation with Polus
broke down.
And so Callicles comes in and says: well
look if what you're saying is true,
Socrates, doesn't that just turn the
world upside down? That the only purpose
in having an attorney is you go hire an
attorney so that they can make sure that
you are found guilty and get punished. Or,
so that you can get your adversary
to win a court case against you. Won't this human life of ours be
turned upside down and won't everything
we do evidently be the opposite of what
we should do? And Socrates says well if
you don't think that's how things are,
first of all yes. Maybe there is a
revolution here. Maybe we do
need to turn things upside down. But at
any rate, you need to refute the position
that I so carefully laid-out and
defended that doing what is unjust
without paying the penalty is the
ultimate of all bad things. And so,
rhetoric is worthless for anybody who is
not intending to be unjust. Now Callicles
diagnosis what the original
contradiction of Gorgias was and if you
remember back all the way to to Monday,
which seems like months ago,
Gorgias argued that if students of
rhetoric are not just then their
teachers aren't responsible for it. But
then, out of shame, he said that if a
student came to me who didn't know about
justice he would teach it to him before
teaching him rhetoric. And that resulted
in a kind of contradiction. And that's
when Poulus took over in order to save
his teacher from this embarrassing
contradiction. And Poulus actually
pointed out that Gorgias only said he
would teach a student justice if that
student didn't already know it.
He had only said that out of shame but
Callicles says Poulus fell into a
similar trap. Polus's mistake was in
conceding that doing injustice is more
shameful than suffering it. Remember,
Poulus said doing injustice is better
than suffering it. He'd rather commit
crimes than have crimes committed against
him. But he admitted that it's more
shameful to commit crimes than to have
crimes committed against you and I think
this accords with our intuitions. It's
more shameful to be a murderer than to
be someone who's murdered. Or to be
somebody who attacks innocent people
than to be an innocent person who's
attacked. Of course that's more shameful.
But then Socrates demonstrated that if
it is conceded that it's more shameful
then it must be more painful or more
harmful or both.
Everybody agreed it's not more painful
so it must be more harmful. Being more
harmful it's more bad and therefore it's
more bad. And so Polus made that
concession. That it is more shameful to
commit crime or do injustice than it is
to suffer crime or have an injustice
done to you. Why did he concede that?
Because Callicles says he's also afraid
and ashamed - would be ashamed - to admit
the opposite and we saw that. Remember
Polus as a person who believes in
conventional morality and he's motivated
by shame. He cares more about what other
people think of him than what he really
is. And so that's consistent with his
character as Plato depicts him. But Callicles
is a totally different type of
person. He doesn't suffer the shame that
led Gorgias and then Polus to make
those concessions that led them into
contradictions and led them into being
refuted by Socrates. He doesn't care
about conventional morality. He doesn't
care about morality at all. He's an
immoralist. He's not embarrassed to
promote an art that can be abused for
unjust purposes. He thinks that's just
fine - that's a wonderful thing to do. And
so Socrates is going to have a harder time
dealing with him because he is a
clear-eyed believer in learning how to
do unjust things. And so what is Socrates
going to say in order to refute him? So
here's Callicles' basic position
depends on making a distinction between
what is good according to law and what
is good according to nature. So he argues
that doing injustice, committing crimes
is not more shameful than suffering it.
Suffering injustice, having
crimes committed against you, is much
worse than doing injustice in his view.
And he defends that by making the
following distinction: doing injustice
might be more shameful according to law
or according to convention of course.
That's how all of our laws and
conventions or what in Greek is nomos.
A law a nomos says that it's shameful to
be a criminal and commit crimes and it's
not shameful to be someone who suffers
them to be a victim of crimes. But that's
just according to law or according to
convention by nature. Suffering injustice
is more shameful. Quote "for by nature
everything is more ugly or shameful
which is also more evil or worse and it
is more evil to suffer wrong but by law
doing wrong is considered more evil". So
he appeals to the standard of nature and
what happens in reality. Not in the
conventions and laws that we set up but
how it really is. Before we start talking
about laws now Callicles,
uncontroversially, defines injustice as
getting a greater share getting more
than his fair share and he wants to be
somebody who gets more than his fair
share. He's greedy and unjust and he
claims that it's natural for the people
he calls better to get a greater share
than everyone else and specifically than
people that are worse. Quote "Nature
herself reveals that it is just for the
better to have a greater share than the
worse and it's right for the more
powerful to have more than the weak and
this can be more of anything - more money,
more power, more followers etc. So Callicles thinks that the superior people
should get more money than the inferior
people and that the superior people
should have more power
than the inferior people and that's
right
according to nature. Whatever our laws
happen to say that is what the law of
nature says and he offers the following
evidence. He says look at the other
animals right? The other animals say that
oh let these weak ones survive and you
know don't let the strong ones get
more than their fair share. No? Just turn
on the animal channel or watch
some YouTube videos. Do it.
Do a search on lions and prey on
YouTube. Watch a couple of these videos.
You'll see that in nature, the stronger
and faster win out. They devour the
weaker and there's no laws to prevent
that from happening. And the same thing
with human cultures. I mean just another
form of animal really but at war, right?
It's not that we don't have
some international law that says you
know weak countries are allowed to
prevail over strong countries. Strong
countries that have bigger militaries
just crush weaker ones. Take over their
 land and their property.
Right? And we saw this all through Homer
and everything and again and it goes
down to the present day. Right? This is
why this country spends more on its
military than the rest of the world
combined. So that we can be superior and
crush anyone that stands in our way and
have our values prevail because,
supposedly, we're superior to the rest of
the world. We run the world so that's
what we get to do. And then he tells a
homely myth about Hercules or Heracles
and how he led away Garanese cattle
why? Because he could. Because he was stronger
and the stronger should take by force
what they want from the weaker and
that's just how it goes in nature. And so
he comes up with a paradoxical idea that
this is actually a law of nature.
He says that the other animals, humans at
war and this story about Heracles shows
that they acted according to what is
just by Nature. And yes, he says it's a
law of nature not the law which we lay
down and that are instituted by
legislatures but it's like a law of
nature it's a convention of nature that
the stronger prevailed.
Now just digress for a second because
we're so used to speaking of laws of
nature and natural law that we don't
realize how awkward this terminology
actually is. Actually how contradictory
this terminology is. Conceptually, nature
and law or two totally different things
and they're actually opposed. Nature is
what already exists in the background of
human existence.
Whereas laws - what humans Institute to
govern their own existence - so how can we
combine the idea of law and nature into
one? A law of nature or a natural law is
a bit like saying a wise foolish person
or a square circle. It's kind of a
contradiction in terms. There's not
really any such thing but Callicles
accuses Socrates as being the one to
abuse this law versus nature distinction
and says Socrates is using it as a
debating tactic. That if his opponent
thinks that he's talking about nature,
then Socrates will suddenly start
talking about law. And if the opponent is
talking about law, then Socrates will
talk about what's good or bad according
to nature. And according to Aristotle, a
pupil of Plato and Plato is a pupil of
Socrates and Aristotle. As a pupil of
Plato and Aristotle, tells us about this
argument. He says the widest range of
commonplace argument for leading men
into paradoxical statement is that which
depends on
standards of nature and convention
or law nomos and it is thus
that both Callicles is portrayed in the
Gorgias and that all men of old supposed
the result to come about for nature they
said and law are opposites and justice
is a fine thing by a legal standard but
not by that of nature. Accordingly the
one whose statement agrees with the
standard of nature you should meet if
you're trying to defeat them in argument - 
you should meet by the standard of law.
But the one who agrees with law, you
should meet by leading him to the facts
of nature. For in both ways paradoxical
statements will be made. In their view
the standard of nature was the truth
where that of law was the mere opinion
held by the majority. So this comes into
work where Aristotle is documenting all
the different ways you can trick people
in arguments and make them contradict
themselves and make paradoxical
statements. And he refers to this very
argument in the Gorgias but he says
it's a very old method of argumentation.
but Calliclese doesn't oppose these
ideas. What he does is combine them.
It strangely brings them together
apparently for the first time so this
looks like the oldest texts we have in
which the expression like laws of
nature or natural law ever occurs. And
what he means by it is the advantage of
the stronger. Basically the view that
might makes right. Might makes right that
is whoever is stronger determines what
is just and what is the good thing and
the right thing to do that he says is
the law of nature. And his point is that
the advantage of the stronger or might
makes right is an absolute law so while
you can
break other laws - you can
break the laws that we Institute okay?
You can break that law that says you
have to wait until the light is
Green in order to cross the street or
you can break the law that says you
shouldn't attack innocent people or
something. But you can't break a law of
nature or a natural law. It's always
going to prevail. It's always going to be
the case that the stronger win
out and the weaker lose. It's like you're
never gonna change the fact that fire
makes things hot and ice makes things
cold. That's like a law of nature and
that's what Callicles wants to
represent this might makes right or
advantage the stronger as being on a par
with the law of gravity. You
know the law of gravity. It's a law it's
not just a good idea and try to break it,
okay you'll hurt yourself.
There is no breaking the law of
gravity if it is a law and that's the
kind of thing that Callicles is saying.
His view about might makes right is, he
argues, that laws and conventions are
instituted by the weak for their own
advantage. Weak people afraid of the
powerful who could get more than their
fair share say make up these ideas like
getting more than one's fair share is
shameful and it's unjust and they
produce a whole conventional moral and
legal system in order to protect
themselves since they're weak. They know
that those strong powerful
superior people are gonna tear them
apart like lions do to defenseless deer.
So they get together and
they set up a system that says: let's
call that bad and let's make people
embarrassed to do that so it doesn't
happen. Because otherwise we're
going to be destroyed but Callicles says that
it requires tricks and charms to
convince people from a very young age
that they should conform to this
conventional morality that encourages
equality. That we should treat ourselves
not as being superior or
inferior to each other but assume that
we're somehow equal and that we deserve
an equal share of power, of money, that
sort of thing. So what we have to do is
convince people from a really young age
that don't believe that. Raise them to
think some people are losers and they're
weak and other people are stronger and
smarter and superior and you want to be
one of those people and you want to
compete with those other people and get
more and more advantages for yourself so
that you can get more of a share of what
life has to offer: money, jobs, offices,
positions, power - whatever it is we
inculcate this to children as soon as
they're born and throughout our entire
system, like our system of grading. Why do
we give grades? Because we want to figure
out who's superior in here and who's
inferior? We want to reward those people
right? Well, no. We want to, we have an
idea that we want to help everyone. We think everybody is equal
here. Whe are slaves to this kind of
conventional morality that says
everybody deserves a chance and we
should teach them all - if at all possible.
But that's because we have this - 
we've been tricked and charmed ourselves
into this conventional view of morality
that Callicles is talking about.
Callicles says: you know a superior man - he
practically says Superman - could come
along and liberate himself from the
slavery of these conventional laws which
again, violate natural laws and could
subdue or subjugate everyone else and
then the true "justice of nature"
would shine forth if you had a really
superior individual running things and
in power and who didn't abide by
any of this conventional morality stuff.
So here's how socrates starts to undo
his argument. He says: okay, well let's
start with the idea that by superior you
mean stronger and he gets Callicles to
explain that. What do you mean
by superior? Well, I mean the stronger.
Okay,
Socrates summarizes Callicles position
as follows: "what is just by nature
is that one, the superior stronger should
take by force what belongs to the
inferior and two that the better should
rule the worse and three that the more
worthy should have a greater share than
the less worthy" but Socrates points out
that the many, these masses, this
populace of weak people that all got
together and formed this idea about
conventional morality are much stronger
than any one individual including
Superman. And the many are the ones who
institute this conventional law and this
morality and that make
these claims about justice meaning that
we should get equal shares and that no
one should get a greater share. So the
majority rule or the rule of majority in
the view that everyone should get an
equal share turns out to be in
accordance with nature, not convention. So
to the extent that it actually does
dominate and we are, and people do
believe that it's shameful to get more
than your fair share and so forth. Then
it turns out to be the law of nature or
convention of nature that the stronger
should rule the weaker and the stronger
are the masses of weak people who
institute this conventional morality.
Now Callicles can't accept that
conclusion so he changes his definition
of what he means by superior. He
withdraws the suggestion that it means
merely stronger and now he uses a much
more vague term 'worthier', which he then
allows to be glossed as 'more intelligent'.
Now in response to this Socrates devises
a thought experiment. Suppose we suppose
there was some kind of disaster - some
radiation disaster going on outside of
this room so we couldn't all
leave here. We wouldn't be able to leave
here for the next week and so we have a
certain amount of supply of food and
drink for people that have their
beverages and
some people have some candy. We can take
that. We can pull it all together. Now are
we gonna give everybody an equal share
so that we could all survive? or
should we distinguish here and say: look
some of you are really beautiful and
others are really ugly so let's give the
beautiful people the food; or some of you
are really physically weak while others
are strong so let's give the strong
people the food instead of the
physically weak people; or let's give the
smart people who
got higher grades on essay assignment
number one, let's give them the food and
people that got B's or C's
on that assignment let's let them go
hungry. Now does that make any sense?
Would anybody be willing to agree
to that? That makes it sound absurd
so Callicles responds dismissively
saying: well I wasn't talking about food
and drink is what one should get more
than their fair share of. Oh okay, so
Socrates says do you mean clothes?
Intelligent people should get more
clothes or shoes? That beautiful people
should get better or bigger shoes than
other people? Suppose we're talking about
farmers. Perhaps the most intelligent
farmers should get the most seed,
fertilizer and land while the stupider
farmers shouldn't get as much. Nobody
thinks any of that's a good idea. So
Socrates reduces his argument to
absurdity. He employs this
strategy of reductio ad absurdum and by
the way I'm sure here you began to
detect a bit of that reason why people
find Socrates so annoying and why
Aristophanes depicted him as being a
very annoying person. There seems to be
some accuracy to that
representation.
He tends to have that effect on people.
Very annoying, he takes your arguments, takes
your clarifications and then shows they
don't make any sense either.
So Callicles is very
frustrated and he again changes his
account of what superior must mean. He
says that I'm not talking about cobblers
and cooks or farmers but I'm talking
about those who are good at the affairs
of the city _ about the way that it's to
be well-managed not only the intelligent
but also the brave being competent to
accomplish whatever they have in mind
without slacking off because of some
softness of spirit. And here Socrates
points out that Callicles leaves, accuses
Socrates of always saying the same thing
and keep coming back to the same points
about justice. And Socrates says yeah, but,
you keep changing what you're saying and
you don't have a coherent, consistent
view to make. But Callicles says: look my
bottom line position is that I admire
most those people who have intense
drives and desires and are competent to
satisfy these desires using intelligence,
bravery or any other virtues you want to
name they use those as a means towards
getting what I consider to be the
highest good which is essentially my own
pleasure and what I can indulge in. And
so then Socrates replies to that with a
story about how Callicles's soul is
sort of like a sieve or a leaky jar. He
wants a situation where you keep putting
more stuff into it and things just
keep flowing out of it. and Socrates
says why is that worthwhile to have this
kind of consumerist idea that whoever
has, whoever takes in, the most stuff is
the best and has the best life? That's
not actually how we think of it. And so
Socrates tries to show that enjoying
pleasure is not the good and that
whatever the good is it's different than
pleasure and in fact the good and so the
end of the actions that we undertake is
more these things like bravery and
virtue which Callicles represents as
merely being means to getting more
pleasure. Socrates says those things are
actually the goods themselves and we
should be undertaking things in order to get
those virtues. And Socrates offers at
least four separate arguments for
thinking that pleasure is not the good
and instead that these virtues are good.
Just review some of these arguments.
First bravery and intelligence are
things that one can have and if one has
them you're said to be doing well even
if you're feeling pleasure or pain so if
you're a brave person who's nevertheless
hungry or thirsty
we still think you're good.
Thus pleasure cannot be the good and
pain cannot be the bad. Or second, a
related argument. If you feel thirst and
hunger and so you're in pain then you
can eat or drink and then enjoy that and
feel pleasure. So it's possible to feel
both pain and enjoyment at the same time
but it's not possible to be good and bad
at the same time. Thus, desires and their
satisfaction must not be the same as
being good or doing well. Third argument:
compare the brave versus the brave
person or the courageous person and the
cowardly person. The cowardly person who
is bad by the very fact that he's a
coward
he feels more pain at the coming of the
enemy than the brave man does. But he
also feels more pleasure at the retreat
of the enemy. So if the enemy's
retreating and the coward who has an
excessive amount of fear when
confronting the enemy ends up feeling
more pleasure, then the coward has more
pleasure than the virtuous, courageous
person. But we don't think that he's
better just because he's experiencing
more pleasure.
So again, pleasure must not be the good.
The fourth argument he makes
takes us back to the main theme of the
dialogue. If we compare the various arts
and their routines or knacks that
imitate them. Knacks like dessert making
or cosmetics produce pleasures but they
don't produce goods. True
crafts like gymnastics and medicine
produce goods but not necessarily
pleasure. So think of how doctors limit
the gratification of ill
patients when they're sick to help them
recover. For example they might say eat
less or don't drink as much. This is what
my doctor is constantly saying to me. And
so that is in order to improve my health
which i think is a good thing. But it
deprives me of pleasure.
Therefore, pleasure cannot be good or
pleasures and goods must be different.
And Socrates says there are many knacks
that aim at giving pleasure that don't
produce knowledge or the good. And here
he groups all musicians, comedians and
even tragedians in together and says
these are all forms of rhetoric and
they're all forms of flattery that aim
at gratification - not improvement of the
public as do true arts like gymnastics
or medicine or legislation and justice.
So that's the point at which the
argument totally breaks down and
Callicles is so angry he refuses to
continue conversing with Socrates and he
says "Socrates, why don't you just
converse with yourself"? And Socrates says
"oh ok, so I'll do that". And then Socrates
says: ok Socrates, do you think that the
good and the pleasant are the same? And
then he says: no Socrates I don't think
that the good and the pleasant are the
same and let me explain why. And goes
through the arguments by himself and he
says: by the way interrupt me if I'm
saying anything you don't agree with
because I'll be the first person to
admit it if my argument isn't right. And
if you have something to say in response
- and here's where Callicles says: look it would
be shameful for you not to be able to
defend yourself if you were accused in
court and rhetoric is what gives us the
power to preserve ourselves and protect
ourselves against that kind of threat so
I don't know why you aren't conceding
that rhetoric is good so that you can
use it to
protect yourself and so he foreshadows
what in fact did happen to Socrates.
Socrates was prosecuted by somebody with
superior rhetorical skills and even
though he was not guilty he was found
guilty and even sentenced to death and
Callicles says if that happens to you
it would be most shameful and it would
be a result of your not cultivating
rhetoric. And the reader knows that
that's going to happen and next week
we'll actually read some speeches that
show that happening. But Socrates
responds by saying that it's much more
important for him to protect himself
from doing wrong than it is to protect
himself from having wrong done to him.
And so he says: look the best thing would
be to have both. To never commit any
injustice yourself and also to protect
yourself against ever having injustice
committed against you. Now those two
things don't come about just by wishing
or hoping that that will occur but
it requires some cultivated art or
technique to make sure that you don't
commit injustice. Like you have to know
about the law and you have to know about
what your fair share is and you have to
have an art that allows you to protect
yourself. Rhetoric in the case of being
prosecuted in court. And Callicles says:
look the best way to protect yourself
would be to become a tyrant and you
could use rhetoric to become a tyrant
and then nobody can mess with you at all.
And Socrates responds to this by saying
that's a terrible strategy because of
what happens from the fact that tyrants
have no friends. Friends are people who
are in some relevant way like you and so
if we happen to have a savage,
unjust or uneducated tyrant in power -
quite a stretch - but imagine that you
were in some mythical society where
there was a savage ,unjust and uneducated
ruler in power then that person would
not trust anyone that smarter or better
than him because they're unlike him. But
for the same reason he also
wouldn't trust anyone that's inferior
to him. So that leaves only the person or
people who become most like him - become
tyrant, savage, unjust, uneducated people
in order to protect yourself from
injustice in a tyranny you have to
become as much like the tyrant as
possible. But if you become most like a
tyrant then you might avoid having
injustice done to you because you're so
powerful but you will be unjust and so
not avoid committing injustice yourself.
And further, since you're a tyrant or a
friend of a tyrant you'll be able to
escape punishment and thus you'll suffer
the worst evil of all. So the next move
is that Socrates compares rhetoric to
other arts of preservation and says: look
arts that preserve or protect or allow
us to survive really aren't as great as
you're making them out to be in they're
certainly not the greatest art. So
preservation of life and survival is not
an absolute value, is not the most
important thing. Survival is only
valuable if you have something to live
for.
Like if you're a just and good person it
might be valuable. Other arts of
preservation and safety like engineering
or being a pilot don't consider their
own arts to be absolutely valuable.
They're modest about their results
because a pilot who flies you from here
to New York can't say whether he's done
a good or a bad thing by safely
transporting you there because he
doesn't know if you're a good or bad. If
you're a criminal that he's transporting
and is going to New York in order to
rob a bank or torture innocent people,
then he did a bad thing by bringing you
there. So pilots and engineers that build
bridges, they don't know if good or bad
people go over them so they don't claim
that they have the ultimate great art.
They say we just have this modest art
that's capable of being put to good or
bad use and rhetoric is like that. It
might give someone the ability
to protect and preserve themselves but
that's of limited value if your life
isn't worth protecting and preserving. So
then Socrates sets up a criterion for
what would make a life worth
preserving and extends this into a
political theory about what would make a
good politician. Should we try to survive
by becoming like the regime that we live
under? This would mean we should all become like the
Trump regime if we want to flourish in
this Trump govern society. Right?
And now that would protect us. That might
help some of our interests
but what if it makes us unjust and worse
people and this is a problem with
democracy. Because in a democracy in
order to become powerful and preserve
yourself you have to become most like
those who are in power. But if
the public itself is bad and you don't
improve them then your government will
be bad and engaged in injustice and you
could be overthrown by them whether
justly or unjustly. So if the governed
are corrupt then the leader will have to
be corrupt too in order to gain power.
But if the leader is corrupt then the
power is illegitimate and destructive so
a politician should aim always at making
the citizenry and the body politic
better people. Not just flattering them
and catering to their whims. So the
example Socrates gives is if we're
engaged in building projects we hire
people who we think will improve the
location and the facilities and we judge
them on the basis of whether they've
achieved any improvement. Are those
buildings actually good buildings or not?
Same thing with doctors. Not everybody
who practices medicine is a good doctor.
But those who have results - if there's a
doctor who all of their patients end up
dying
we don't say yeah it was good, he's a
good doctor. It's just that his his
patients don't tend to live after
consulting with him.
No, we say that's
a bad practitioner of that art. It's the
same thing with politicians Before we
let a politician take power - since the
purpose of politics is to improve the
citizens - we should say: "who has this
politician made better"? What evidence can they show me that they've actually made
the citizenry or the people they were
governing better. And it's madness to
elect or put somebody into power that
shows no evidence of having improved
anyone or made them any better. And so
all of the historical examples that Callicles
 gives of "look at these powerful
politicians who practice rhetoric and
how great they were. People like Pericles
and Cimone and Militiades and so
forth. Weren't they great and famous
people? They built great monuments like
the Parthenon. But the problem is
Pericles evidently failed because
although at first he had this great
reputation, people ended up running him
out of power and if they did this for
good reasons then he must have been a
bad leader and if they did it for bad
reasons then he must have been a bad
leader because he didn't improve them
and make them any better and so on with
all the others. And socrates goes through
each example. These are examples of good
politicians from the standpoint of
flattering people, giving them what they
think they desire but since they didn't
improve the people or make them more
just they were not in fact good
politicians from the standpoint of what
really matters. So this idea of flattery
comes back if by flattery the
body is corrupted, for example, by smoking.
Smoking feels good but it's bad for your
body then flatterers ought to be blamed.
So we should blame cigarette
manufacturers and advertisers if they
led to that kind of corruption. Similarly
if the body politic or citizens are
corrupted by rhetoric and sophistry then
the leaders like the President and
Congress should be blamed and a society
that measures its success by monuments
buildings and public
works great things that it's managed to
build and wealth is corrupt, the only
measure of whether you have a good
politician is the goodness of the
citizens. And this is also why it's wrong
for politicians to blame voters and by
extension of the argument why professors
are wrong when they blame students for
being bad. When politicians claim that
they're wronged by people who threw them
out of power they don't have much of an
argument since it was their
responsibility to make them good so that
they would treat them
justly, the good people. And a similar
thing goes for students of rhetorician.
And they give a humorous example of a
professor whose student refused to pay
the fee because he claimed that he
didn't learn enough about persuasion and
the professor sued the student over the
fee and said: look if I win this case
then the student has to pay the fee but
if I lose the case then it becomes clear
that the student did learn enough about
persuasion in which case the student
still has to pay the fee. And the student
flips this argument around by saying:
well look, if I win then I don't have to
pay the fee but if I lose then it's
obvious that I didn't learn enough about
persuasion in which case I shouldn't
have to pay the fee. So it is illogical
for a teacher to find fault with a
student and say: I've been unjustly
treated by my students because the goal
of teaching is to make the students
better. So it's my fault if they're not
better at least if I'm somebody that
claims to practice a true political art
and to make them better. So that brings
us back to Socrates' ultimate fate and
Socrates makes an extraordinary claim at
5:21 D. All I think that I am one of the
few Athenians and I say whew in order
that I may not say only person but I am
one of the few who undertakes to
practice the true art of politics
and that I alone among our
contemporaries perform the statesman's tasks and he says: look,
if I'm prosecuted by an unfair
rhetorician I'll be in the situation I
described earlier where a medical doctor
is arguing with the candy maker in front
of an audience of children about what
they should eat. And Socrates says: yes I
would be ashamed at not being able to
defend myself against those false
charges and it would be really lame if I
had to die as a result of it but I would
take the death lightly he says if the
cause was my lack of engaging in
rhetorical flattery. And he says it's
unreasonable and cowardly to fear dying
itself. What you should be worried about
and fear is committing any injustice. Now
at that point even the pretense of
dialog and Socrates arguing with himself
breaks down and Socrates tells a story,
tells a myth. As he explains it and he
relates it to to a Homeric myth he says:
since the time of Chronos there was a
law that says the good and the just are
rewarded and sent to the Isles of the
Blessed. But the bad are sentenced to the
prison of justice and punishment
Tartarus which is beneath Hades and in
the time of Chronos and early in
Zeus's reign living men judged other
living men to decide to which place they
would be sent. But at some point Pluto
told Zeus that people are being sent to
the Isles of the blessed contrary to
desert tyrants and unjust men were able
to get through basically because they
have good attorneys and nice suits and
so they look good and look presentable
in front of the judges and the judges
get confused and don't realize that
they're actually unjust. So Zeus says: I'm
gonna reform this whole system in the
following way. First humans will now be
judged naked not clothed and when
they're dead not living. Death is defined
as a separation of soul from body
judging human souls without bodies will
avoid
those being judged from using other
living humans to defend them with tricky
rhetoric like lawyers and using clothing
and cosmetics to disguise their ugliness
and shamefulness. And furthermore the
judges will also be dead and naked.
Zeus appoints three of his own sons and
two of them are from Asia and one is
from Europe and so one will judge the
Asians the other will judge Europeans
and then there's a third one that will
resolve Appeals. And here's some
depictions of them but the depictions
aren't all that good because they don't
show them naked which is the crucial
feature. This one gets a little bit
closer but they ought to be completely
naked.
Now the theory is that just as the body
bears scars of its physical illnesses
and injuries so the soul is scarred by
mental illnesses and by corruption and
the corruption of those who were tyrants
in life will be obvious to the naked
judges in the afterlife who judged
unadorned and unaccompanied souls. Those
corrupt tyrants will now be sent for
punishment to the prison of Tartarus.
Those who were just in life and here
Socrates says and I mean basically the
philosophers (so keep that in mind when
picking your major) will be sent to the
Isles of the blessed instead. And
Socrates says: I'm convinced by this
account and this is why I consider being
just better than being unjust even if I
could use rhetoric to get away from it.
Now there's a big question about this
myth because it's basically a breakdown
of the philosophy and the argumentation.
We're going back now to a primitive form
of talking about justice and injustice.
It's more similar to the archaic age of
Homer than it is to the advanced
political and legal age of Plato. So why
does Socrates resort to giving a myth at
the end? Why does his interrogation and
examination of these people not convince
his interlocutors
even when he expounds his own views
without the pretense of the
question-and-answer refuted method? After
the dialog breaks down why was that not
even persuasive? Why does he do what he
constantly complains one should not do?
Give a long speech and tell myths
instead of making arguments. Doesn't this
show the weakness and the impotence of
Philosophy?
