Law of Nature: Part Three of Plato's Gorgias with Dr. Gregory McBrayer

Summary

Ascend – The Great Books Podcast

Episode: "Law of Nature: Part Three of Plato's Gorgias"

Hosts: Deacon Harrison Garlick & Adam Minihan
Guest: Dr. Gregory McBrayer (Ashland University, The New Thinkory Podcast)
Release Date: November 25, 2025

---

Episode Overview

This episode explores Part Three of Plato’s Gorgias, focusing on the infamous dialogue with Callicles—a character who boldly defends the pursuit of power and pleasure as nature’s law, presenting a stark contrast to Socrates’ lifelong commitment to virtue. Dr. Gregory McBrayer joins to untangle the complexities of Callicles’ argument, Gorgias’ responsibility as a teacher, and the enduring question: What does it mean to live justly? The conversation also examines the nature of rhetoric, the soul, and the indispensable role of myth in philosophical persuasion.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Podcast Collaboration & Great Books Outreach

• Introduction to The New Thinkory: Dr. McBrayer shares how their podcast started from a desire for honest, lively conversations about political philosophy—mixing “junior high banter with decent interpretations of texts” ([03:00]).
• Outreach to Everyday Listeners: Both Ascend and The New Thinkory recognize a "hunger" for big ideas among ordinary people—mechanics, homemakers, or anyone seeking wisdom ([08:00]).
  • McBrayer: “The idea that these great texts are the preserve of an intellectually trained class is sort of bonkers... Homer wasn’t writing for scholars. Plato wasn’t writing for scholars.” ([08:18])

2. The Humanity and Spirit of Great Books Study

• Eros for Wisdom: The hosts reflect on how passion for truth—rather than sterile academic detachment—inspires meaningful engagement and contagious enthusiasm in the classroom and beyond ([09:14], [10:10]).
  • Garlick: “If I find something that I really think is good and true and beautiful, I naturally want to share it.” ([09:14])
  • McBrayer: “I always want somebody whose passion for learning is contagious... burning questions, even if they’re not the same as mine.” ([10:12])

3. Why Read the Gorgias? Structure and Pedagogy

• Pedagogical Value: McBrayer explains the Gorgias is accessible yet rich—offering students an early but profound taste of political philosophy ([12:04]).
  • Key parallel: The structure mirrors Republic Book I, with Socrates facing first a gentle, then a spirited, then a combative interlocutor ([12:54]).
  • Importance of a "bad guy" (Callicles): Provides clarity and stakes for students new to philosophical argument ([14:00]).

4. The Character of Gorgias and the Influence of Sophists

• Is Gorgias to Blame for ‘Little Tyrants’?
  McBrayer gives a nuanced reading: Gorgias as a well-meaning yet naïve teacher—unaware that his neutral rhetoric can be weaponized for injustice ([17:07]).
  • McBrayer: “Gorgias is like a guy who's teaching people to shoot but he's not aware you can use a gun to kill people... I suspect Socrates’ conversation with Polus and Callicles is for the sake of Gorgias.” ([17:07])

5. Callicles: Nature, Law, and Early Nihilism

• Callicles as Proto-Nihilist?

  • Garlick notes that nihilism is not merely a modern development but present in the ancient world: “There’s nothing here to life besides maximizing my pleasure” ([23:00]).
  • Callicles’ stance: Justice is “the law of nature”—the strong rule the weak by right ([24:33]).
    • Quote: “Justice by nature holds that the superior rule the inferior and have a greater share.” — Callicles ([24:33])

• Confusion and Contradiction

  • Callicles simultaneously appeals to “nature” and “law,” even though (in Greek thought) these are opposed—he “swears” to emphasize his belief in a ‘law of nature’ ([26:36]).

6. The One vs. The Many—A Philosophic Paradox

• Callicles’ ‘One Against Many’: The tension mirrors Socratic alienation from the masses, yet Callicles’ ideal is appetitive dominance, not philosophic integrity ([28:10]).

7. Rhetoric vs. Dialectic—What Is True Speech?

• Socrates’ Critique: The episode explores whether any rhetoric can be “good” or only flattery unless guided by philosophy ([40:29]).
  • Garlick: “There must be a good rhetoric... a rhetoric brought under philosophy—a baptized rhetoric.” ([41:58])
  • McBrayer: “If you get rid of rhetoric, the only people with rhetoric will be bad people. One has to learn rhetoric precisely to inoculate oneself against people who can manipulate you.” ([41:58])
  • Examples cited: St. Paul’s epistles, Jesus’ parables, Augustine, Lincoln, all as masters of “true rhetoric.”

8. Pleasure, Appetites, and the Limits of Hedonism

• Callicles’ Argument: The superior man should let his appetites grow without restraint; self-control is a device of the weak ([48:15]).
• Socratic Rebuttal: Pushing the argument to absurdity and vulgarity, Socrates uses examples—e.g., the bird who eats and defecates constantly, incessant scratching—to reveal the shallowness of total hedonism ([51:04]).
  • Quote: “If a man scratches himself all day, is that happiness? — Certainly, says Callicles. — What if he’s scratching... something else? You’re not ashamed?” ([51:04])
  • The pedagogical purpose: To expose residual shame and moral standards within Callicles despite his bravado.

9. The Good vs. The Pleasant—Intermediate and Final Goods

• The hosts highlight Socrates’ distinction: Not all pleasures are good, and true happiness involves choosing pain or pleasure as instruments for the good ([64:24]).
  • Socrates: "The real man must reject living at any cost whatsoever." ([65:10])

10. Myths, Final Judgment, and the Soul

• The Myth of Final Judgment ([69:11]):

  • The naked soul, stripped of adornments, bears visible scars from injustice.
  • The myth completes the argument: In the afterlife, rhetoric and power are useless—only the soul’s true moral state matters.
    • Garlick: “The myth brings in that there will be a final justice, a reckoning you can’t hide from... the cosmos won’t suffer injustice to win out in the end.” ([77:30])
  • McBrayer: “[The myth] shows him in the afterlife, your rhetoric won’t get you anywhere—they’ll strip you naked and look at your soul.” ([77:51])

• Is the myth an admission of philosophical failure?

  • The hosts discuss whether mythology is employed as a “scare tactic” or because reason alone cannot persuade the recalcitrant. The myth communicates the order of the cosmos in a way argument cannot.

---

Notable Quotes & Moments with Timestamps

• On democratizing Great Books

  "The idea that these great texts are the preserve of an intellectually trained class is sort of bonkers. If you hear a professor talk about Aristophanes and it's not funny... there's something perverse."
  — McBrayer ([08:18])

• On the passion for truth

  “I want to be surrounded by people who have burning questions, even if they're not the same as mine.”
  — McBrayer ([10:12])

• On Gorgias’ unwitting creation of tyrants

  "He's like a guy teaching people to shoot but unaware what they might do. I suspect Socrates' conversation with Polus and Callicles is largely for the sake of Gorgias."
  — McBrayer ([17:07])

• On Callicles as law-of-nature extremist

  “He says it’s a law of nature, which is a contradiction in terms in Greek, and even says it—'Yes, by Zeus, by the law of nature.'”
  — McBrayer ([24:39])

• On the necessity and risk of rhetoric

  “If you get rid of rhetoric, only the bad people will have it. We need to teach rhetoric to good people to inoculate them against manipulation.”
  — McBrayer ([41:58])

• On exposing the limits of hedonism

  “If a man scratches himself all day, is that happiness? Certainly, says Callicles. What if he’s scratching... something else? Aren’t you ashamed to bring this up?”
  — Socrates and Callicles ([51:04])

• On the judgment myth and the soul

  "The image that really captured my imagination is that the unjust man treats his soul the same way a tyrant treats a slave—the soul ends up scarred and ugly, for all to see."
  — Garlick ([70:35])

• On the need for a final reckoning

  “The myth shows that in the afterlife, your rhetoric won't get you anywhere. They’ll strip you naked and look at your soul. There, rhetoric has no power.”
  — McBrayer ([77:51])

---

Important Segment Timestamps

• [02:52] — Origin & spirit of The New Thinkory Podcast
• [08:18] — Democratizing great books: mechanics, homemakers, and laughter
• [12:04] — Why teach the Gorgias? Choosing texts for first-time readers
• [17:07] — Reading Gorgias: Unwitting progenitor of tyrants?
• [24:33] — The "law of nature" and Callicles’ radical position
• [41:58] — What is good rhetoric? Socrates, Aristotle, and Christian practice
• [51:04] — Socrates pushes Callicles on bodily pleasure and shame
• [64:24] — Final goods vs. pleasure; the real "manly" life
• [69:11] — Plato's myth: the last judgment and the soul

---

Conclusion & Next Episode Preview

This conversation between Deacon Garlick and Dr. McBrayer breathes new life into Plato’s Gorgias, asking whether it’s Callicles—not Socrates—who flinches at the final test of judgment. Myth, dialectic, and the quest for “true rhetoric” are not relics—they're vital for anyone seeking to live and think well.

Next week on Ascend: Flannery O'Connor's “The Lame Shall Enter First” with Dr. Brian Kempel.

---

Find Dr. Gregory McBrayer:

• The New Thinkory Podcast
• Twitter/X: @gregmcbr3new

Ascend Podcast:

• thegreatbookspodcast.com
• X, YouTube, Facebook, Patreon

---

Transcript

[A]

Today on Ascend, the Great Books podcast, we welcome Dr. Gregory McBrayer of the New Thinkory Podcast to discuss the third part of Plato's Gorgias, the Dialogue with Callicles. We'll hear the story behind how the new Thinkory Podcast got started and then discuss whether it's proper to call Calicles a nihilist, whether Gorgias is aware he's producing Little Tyrants, and whether it is Callicles and not Socrates who is unprepared for his final trial and judgment. I greatly enjoyed my conversation with Dr. McBrayer. He was incredibly insightful and helped make some of the more difficult passages in this dialogue clean and clear. It's just really wonderful to meet him. You should know this episode will be published both by Ascend and our friends at the new Thinkry Podcast. On the Ascend side it will come out in late 2025 as part of our study on Plato, while the New Thinkory side it will come out whenever they please. So join us today for an excellent conversation on Plato's Gorgias and the Dialogue with Callicles. Welcome to Ascend at the Great Books Podcast. My name is Deacon Harrison Garlick. I'm a husband, father of five and serve as Chancellor and General Counsel for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Tulsa. I recording on a beautiful morning here in my office at the Chancery. If you're due to Ascend, we're a weekly podcast that helps guide you through the Great Books. It's our goal to be like a small group to people, especially first time readers, and we have podcast videos and written guides to help you read the Iliad, the Odyssey, the Orestia, the Bacchae and much more. Check us out on X, YouTube, Facebook and Patreon. We appreciate all of our supporters and visit thegreatbookspodcast.com for our reading schedule and more information. Today we are continuing our studies into Plato. Together we've read and discussed first Alcibiades, the Euthyphro Apology, Crito, Phaedo, the Meno, and today we are finishing our three part series on the Gorgias, looking particularly at the section with Callicles to help guide us through the third part of the Gorgias. We are joined by an excellent guest, Dr. Gregory McBrayer, who serves as a Director of the Core Curriculum and as an Assistant professor of Political Science at Ashland University. He's done some excellent work on the Thinker Xenophon Socrates. Other student is a co host of the new Thinkory Podcast, an excellent Great Books and philosophy podcast. Welcome.

[B]

Thanks Deacon. It's a pleasure to be here. You guys are doing some amazing things with this podcast. I sort of envy your success. We need, like, even your intro is so much more professional than ours. We usually begin with.

[A]

I don't have, you know, multiple co hosts interrupting me and making jokes, so I'm not really sure you could talk that long on the new thinkry.

[B]

Yeah, Yeah. I don't know what to do with all this politeness and praise.

[A]

It's. It's a. I'll try and throw in some. Some ribald humor that makes you feel more at home. Yeah. But tell us about the new thinkory.

[B]

Sure. It's a podcast. Gosh. We've been going about five years at this point. We have weekly episodes, which we are realizing is a pace that is difficult to maintain. I don't know what. What your kind of schedule is. It's just three. I can tell you how it started. There were sort of two sort of basic starting points. One is I was starting a new job here at Ashland University working at the Ashbrook Center. The Ashbrook center sort of has a big public outreach in education, mostly around American civics. So David Barr, my co host, he's friends with Bill Kristol, formerly of the Weekly Standard, and he has a very successful podcast called Conversations with Bill Kristol. David got Bill graciously to agree to meet with me one time, and we were just talking about starting a podcast, and I sort of think about doing something kind of Ash Brookie, American Civics. And at one point he just said, why don't you just do what you really want to do? And it sounds like you really want to do political philosophy. And I said, oh, that's okay. And so I filed that away. And then on sort of a different sort of step, Alex Priu, the other co host, and I, we would go to conferences. And I don't look at now, because this is five years ago, but we were kind of youngish for scholars. And when we go to conferences, we would notice that grad students on one hand and elderly kind of statesman professors on the other enjoyed listening to us because we would have sort of serious conversations and I think fairly decent interpretations of texts mixed in with sort of juvenile junior high banter. And we noticed that, man, really, people really seem to like this mix of things. And so David, Alex and I got together. David and Alex are very good friends. And we said, we should really just do this. And then, you know, Covid hit. We sort of thought, now's the time. And we've been having A lot of fun. It's opened doors. I think it's helped Alex get a job. I think it's helped me get some publication opportunities. This podcast, imitation, it's just been a lot of fun and it's a good way for, you know, especially during COVID but since then, still, it's a good way to stay in touch with friends who. Who live so far apart. Yeah. And of course, the name. As the name implies, we sort of see ourselves as in the spirit of Aristophanes, because the thinkery, of course, is the place that Socrates taught out in his famous play called the Clouds. Maybe that's obvious, but worth saying.

[A]

And you guys have also adopted his sense of humor for your podcast.

[B]

Yeah, it's the. It's the blend.

[A]

We.

[B]

We like to fancy that. It's the blend of the low and the high, you see.

[A]

I mean, we.

[B]

We do metaphysics on epistemology and fart jokes. So it's.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, it's an interesting mix. No, I. I appreciate the podcast. I enjoy listening. Actually, I listened to your all's episode this morning on the Gorgias.

[B]

Oh, thanks.

[A]

As I was driving in, and I should tell you. Thank you, because I think in that episode is one that you recommended, the People of Plato.

[B]

Yeah. Deborah Nails.

[A]

Yes. That book is excellent. I picked up as we were launching into the studies on Plato and I. It's a phenomenal resource.

[B]

I even checked just this morning myself, her passage on Callicles to just to make sure that I was correct. So we're talking about Calicles and the Gorgias, and there's some dispute. I sort of thought he was a fictional character. I still. I still think that. But at least, Dodd, maybe according to Deborah Nails, there's at least one classicist who thinks that Calicles was in fact a real person. So maybe there's some dispute about that. But. Yeah, no, it's. It's an invaluable resource. I always can't pronounce the word right. Prosperography, maybe? Is that what it's called? Yeah. Yeah. And anyway, it sort of has one page summaries of every single character who appears in play in Plato. And at the end, there's even. I want to say there's like an attempt to date the dialogue dramatically. So that's very helpful, too. Yeah, it's a great. It's a great resource.

[A]

Resource, I think, too. I. I was. I was familiar with your podcast before I had ever read the Clouds by Aristophanes.

[B]

How about that?

[A]

And so we. So anyway, when I. When we read Aristophanes, the Clouds on the podcast I had on Xena Hits. Oh, sure, wonderful conversation. She's fantastic. But there were so many times on that podcast I had to stop myself from saying new thinkery, because that word. The only time I ever used the word thinkory was your podcast. And so I was like, you know, you know, Socrates is here with his new thing. I mean, thinkory. I probably messed up, like, four or five times on the episode because of that.

[B]

Yeah, that's fantastic. Xena was on our show just a couple weeks ago. She's. She's great. She's done a great job. I mean, it's a great public service, what she's done, sort of getting folks interested in the great books. She started the Catherine Project, which is great. So inspired our work. I'm sure it had an influence on you. I mean, so many of us are doing these great things, right, like this that you're doing the Ascend podcast. I mean, you know, putting. Putting great books before people. There's a real hunger out there. I think even MC Hammer is interested in doing these things. And so, yeah, people are interested in these things.

[A]

I think there is a hunger. And I really appreciate it particularly that, you know, that these great texts, like, one of the reasons. I mean, kind of like scripture. So I think it's. St. Gregory the Great says that scripture is where, you know, the lamb can wade and the elephant can swim. So it kind of invites you into this depth that's proportionate to your own level of engagement. I think a lot of the great books are like that, too. So people are put off by, like, well, I can't ever read the Iliad, or, you know, I got four lines into the Iliad, and there's all these names and whatever. And what we've learned here on Ascend is just like. Just like, a little bit of help. Just like, hey, mainly, like, a lot of encouragement, like, you can do this. And also, like, here's just like, you know, two guys talking about this text, like, and it really does allow people, I think, to engage in the text. And I've been really humbled because we've had, you know, people send in pictures and, like, guys, you know, they're working as mechanics or something, and then sending us pictures that they're reading, you know, a book of the Iliad on their lunch break. And I think there's, like, really something beautiful to that.

[B]

One of my favorite notes we got from a listener was a. A woman who's described herself as a homemaker in Great Britain. And she said she would listen to us while she's doing household. Household chores. That she had studied philosophy way back in undergraduate. Anyway. Yeah, I agree. I think it's sort of crazy. I mean, these. Homer wasn't writing for scholars. Plato wasn't writing for scholars. Right. They're writing for. The idea that these great texts are the preserve of an intellectually trained class is sort of bonkers. And I think that many of these great thinkers would sort of be sad to know that their primary readers are people. So you mentioned Aristophanes, for example. Right. Like, I've been at conference after conference where you hear some professor talk about Aristophanes, and it's not funny. And you're like, dude, this is funny stuff. There's poop jokes. It's okay to laugh at them. And there's something sort of perverse about thinking that this is preserve of the scholarly class. So it's nice to hear that mechanics are listening, homemakers are listening, ordinary folks are listening. That's great.

[A]

I'd be interested on your thoughts on this. When I talked on our first episode on the Gorgias we talked about, I talked with Athenian Stranger and Jonathan B. Both who have also have kind of great books, philosophy projects that are kind of aimed at just, you know, the common people. Just, like, everyone can come. And one thing that I think we noticed is, is that on a lot of times these people who start these projects, there's like an authentic, like, Eros for this wisdom. Right? Like, they. It's because the good tends to be diffusive. So, like, if I find something that I really think is, like, good and true and beautiful, I naturally want to share it. And it seems like sometimes, not to be, like, overly critical, but it seems like at times that's a really stark contrast between sometimes what you get in academics. Because it's like, sometimes this is, like, more sterile. It's more just like an intellectual pursuit to, like, hey, I have found something beautiful and I want to share it with you. Which tends to make like for very lively and also even humorous conversations. Very human conversations.

[B]

Yeah, that's right.

[A]

I.

[B]

You know, one of the worst classes I ever took in college was on Plato. And I just thought, how did this professor take one of the most beautiful things in the world and ruin it? Yeah, I mean, it's a real. It's a real problem. I mean, you know, I've been on some hiring committees here. I've tried to hire other faculty, and I always want somebody whose passion for Learning is contagious. And I meet so many. I meet so many academics and scholars who. It doesn't seem to be a burning question that they're trying to figure out. It's just sort of. Oh, it's just this kind of cool thing that I was into, like, stamp collecting or video games. It's like, no, man. Like, I mean, if that's why you're here, I don't. You know, I want to be surrounded by people who have burning questions, even if they're not the same questions that I have.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Because I think you're trying to figure this out, you know.

[A]

Yeah. Because I think, too, what it does is it. Another aspect of that is that it dovetails into the way that you live. Right. So philosophy and religion can't just simply be like, this is my, you know, like, stamp collecting. It's just the thing I do on the side, and I live over here. And sometimes you see that, or this is, like, just an intellectual game that I find, you know, that I'm good at. But over here, I live like this as opposed to, like, you know, even, like, this dialogue, the section we're going to talk about today with Callicles strictly the ending myth. Like, some of these things really challenged me on, okay, how do I live my life? Do I take these things seriously? And there's a certain beauty that I think you kind of absorb as you kind of move, particularly through Plato. Like, how. How am I actually living my life? Yeah, for sure.

[B]

I mean, it was a way of life for Socrates. I mean, this is not. Philosophy was not an academic discipline. These were questions that mattered. And it's not something that. Yeah, everything you just said, I concur wholeheartedly with.

[A]

So when you read the Gorgias with your students.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Like, it's a long dialogue.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

You can get lost in it, I think, pretty easily. Even rereading the Callicles section, Like, sometimes they just keep going back and back to the same point sometimes. Why do you tell them this is a dialogue worth reading? Like, why read this dialogue?

[B]

Yeah, that's a good question. So I've taught it a lot, actually. Most recently this semester, I'm teaching another class on rhetoric, which maybe you'd want to talk about more. But for the most part, I've taught this book and just a class called Introduction to Political Philosophy. And one of the reasons I do it is because I think that it's best to put whole books in front of students from the beginning and to have them walk through it. And I think the Republic is an obvious choice for freshmen to read, except I think it's too big. I just think it's hard and let's get through something that can give them a sense of accomplishment. So the Gorgias is a much smaller dialogue than the Republic, maybe a tenth as long, in fact. And so for that reason I teach it. There are a couple of other reasons that I teach it. One is that the Republic is about justice and the Gorgias is about rhetoric.

[A]

But.

[B]

But really it's about rhetoric about justice. And so it's very similar in that regard. If you've read the Republic, if your listeners have read the Republic, they'll know that book one of the Republic has Socrates engaged with three main interlocutors, Cephalus and then Cephalus's son Polemarchus, and then this sort of nasty fellow, Thrasymachus. But then book one ends and then you pick it up in book two. And so I know some professors who only teach book one of the Republican in an intro class. I'm like, I don't want to end with there's nine more books. The Gorgias is about very much the same questions that the Republic addresses. It's about justice, right? I mean, it's about how one ought to live. I mean, Callicles is actually the guy that brings this question ultimately to the fore. Like actually what we're really talking about is how we ought to live. But you'll notice also that the structure of book one of the Republic kind of parallels the structure of the Gorgias, or maybe it's vice versa, that first there's an old guy speaking, then his heir speaks, and then a nasty guy speaks. And so in a way, it's addressing many of the same questions that the Republic draws out, but in a more contained environment. I'll also say that I think it's useful. I've been doing this now for some time, a couple of decades. I don't want to over play this, but I think it's useful for students in the Platonic dialogues for there to be a bad guy. And so there's more sophisticated dialogues one could do. But I think when you're trying to introduce somebody. I teach the Protagoras fairly regularly, for example, for similar reasons. I think Protagoras is a very nasty fellow. And it's useful for students to see Socrates standing up to these nasty types and sort of vindicating the life of, let's just say, virtue or something like this. And that happens here. I think Gorgias actually is not a very nasty guy, but I don't think he's thought through the implications of what he does. And what he does is actually empower other nasty people to be very nasty. And so I think that there's that reason as well. And then in the rhetoric course, I teach it, because I think this is a critique of rhetoric, that if we're going to study rhetoric together, one needs to take seriously the possibility that rhetoric is actually morally bad. And maybe you shouldn't be in this class, or at least you should have these reservations at the top of your mind. If we're going to read this together, if we're going to study rhetoric, I hope that answers it's fun. I know it's long, but it is short compared to other dialogues. There's a hero, there's a bad guy. It ends on a sort of curious note you've already alluded to of a myth. I don't know what to do with that. Maybe we can talk about that as we get there. Does that kind of get at the.

[A]

Yeah, no, I think that was well said. No, I think that it's interesting that you talk about the need of a bad guy, because it's in my mind, it's actually calicles that makes the dialogue.

[B]

Oh, yeah, no question.

[A]

The whole veneer is gone. We're unashamed. And now we're just going to have this kind of like cold and hot conversation. And I talked about this with my. In my kind of min. Small group that meets at my house, you know, there was. There were illusions, you know, to Christ. Right. The lukewarm or spit out of the mouth. There's something about being hot or cold that actually allows things to progress and for the truth to actually come forward. But I really. I appreciate what you said, though, because this has been a question, as we've got to move through the text, is the disposition of Gorgias?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Like, when I first read this, one of the questions was what caught my attention was the fact that Gorgias keeps interjecting, Right. And seems to have. I mean, this is. In dialogues, it's always dangerous. Right. But he seems to have somewhat of a genuine interest in hearing what Socrates has to say. This seemed to bring up a contrast of like. So at first I was like, oh, okay, so maybe there's a way to read this where Gordius doesn't act. He hasn't actually fully understood that he's creating little tyrants. Like, he has certain. He has certain, you know, contradictions that he's held in his head that he doesn't seem to have like fared it out. And so the dialogue with Polis is in. With Calicles is pedagogical to Gorgias. Is that how you read it? Or I guess a contrast would be, you know, some. The dialogue starts with a reference to war. And this is a very antagonist.

[B]

First word is war in fact. Right, right.

[A]

And this is an antagonistic dialogue. We talked about being knocked on the jaw. It also has some vulgarity in it, some things that aren't always in other dialogues. And so sometimes people read this as this. Like now Gorgias is, he's just, he's Callicles, but he's more refined, he knows how to play the game. It's like these two different ways to read Gorgias, if that makes sense.

[B]

Yeah, look, first off, I think Calicles is the nastiest character in all of Plato. I mean, I mean like you said, he physically threatens Socrates. I'd like to whoop you in the mouth, you, you know, you. Something like this. Right. I suppose all readers of Socrates have probably been there at some point. But I'll suggest that. Yeah, I'll take this question of Gorgias's character. First of all, I mentioned the Protagoras is another dialogue that I teach in introductory courses. And one of the reasons is because I think Protagoras is actually quite nasty. I think Protagoras does think that he's beyond good and evil. I think that I don't want to develop it, but if you want we can try to. I think Protagoras is actually a teacher of injustice. That he's. I think that he thinks he's crystal clear about this but that he has to be very coy in revealing it because he doesn't want to upset people. But that justice is for schmucks. We all know it. Socrates, you know it, I know it, wink, wink, nod, nod. And I think Socrates is very carefully trying to protect some of the young people, Hippocrates, from this pernicious influence of this guy Protagoras, who's nasty. I think he's a teacher of injustice. Gorgias I think is like a guy who's teaching people to shoot but he's not like not aware that like you can use a gun to kill people. Maybe, maybe you shouldn't just go off and teach people to use semi automatic weapons without sort of some kind of moral education. I suspect that the dialogue begins, it's initiated by Socrates desire to speak with Gorgias, which is Kind of a curious thing. So I suspect that Socrates has actually a genuine interest in learning about rhetoric from Gorgias, but quickly realizes Gorgias may not have much to say. And it turns, as you mentioned, I think so it begins with Socrates wanting to learn from Gorgias. And I think that that's sincere and we can talk about that. But I think at a certain point, when he realizes, well, there's not much to learn from this guy, he then turns the tables and realizes, oh, this guy might need me to teach him. And so I'm going to teach him. I suspect that Socrates's conversation with Polus and then with Callicles is largely for the sake of Gorgias. And I'll just say one other further thing in defense of Gorgias. I think he sees rhetoric as a kind of neutral, powerful tool, all powerful tool. And by the way, he's sort of a decentish fellow. Like, the first example that he gives to prove he's very good at rhetoric is, I can help my brother, who's a medical doctor, persuade people to submit to medicine. That's a kind of a morally salutary thing. Like rhetoric actually can do these good things. I can help people get the treatment they need. I can help politics, this kind of thing. But I think his sales pitch to young is that that's not the sales pitch to the young. The sales pitch to the young is, if I teach you this art, you'll get away with whatever you want. You'll get away with murder. But I don't think he seriously realized how that sounds and that these kids are actually taking him up on it. And so I suspect you mentioned at several points in the conversation with Calicles that Gorgias steps in and interjects, and at one point Calicles wants to stop talking, even. And Gorgia is like, no, no, no, no, no. You keep going. Submit to Socrates. And I suspect it's because this is the first time that Gorgias has seen the effect of his own education on the young. And I suspect he's somewhat horrified by what he's producing. So I think he's kind of a decentish fellow who hasn't. Who's not, therefore, very thoughtful and hasn't thought through the implications of what he's doing. That's my take.

[A]

No, I think that's very well said. That tends to align, I think, with my intuition of reading through the text of just why it's going on and why. Because I think a lot of times, as I've been reading through Plato, A lot of times you have to realize like what is, what is Socrates's actually goal here? Right. For instance, like in first Alcibiades, when he talks to Alcibiades, he, he proves to him he doesn't know what justice is. And as a, as in a lot of first time readers of Plato are like, oh great, so this is where Socrates then explains to him what justice means. No, no, he's moved on because the point was to show you that you don't know what you're talking about. You see something similar in Euthyphro. Like I think that, I think that Plato certainly had the capacity to carry a conversation about piety in the divine much deeper than he did in there. But he gets to the point in which Euthyphro then becomes perplexed and you know, a positive reading of that is that Euthyphro doesn't go and do what he was going to. Right, right. So here too in the Gorgias, in a somewhat analogous way, I was trying to figure out like who, who is the dialogue with Callicles for.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Callicles is completely or calcitrant. He doesn't seem to be absorbing this at all. I like, I like your read that. I think that it's, it's actually for the sake of Gorgias, maybe only incidental and, and for the crowd because I guess we have to, we have to mind that there's other young men here, right?

[B]

Hierophant. Yeah, especially. Yeah. Just real quick, the Euthyphro, isn't it. Don't you wish that, I mean, isn't it curious that Plato chooses like this complete idiot for Socrates to talk about one of the most important things in the world.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Don't you wish Plato had said no, we'll have Socrates speak to, you know, Augustine or something like that. Obviously that's and right. Chronologically correct. But you know, you know, anyway, yeah, so it's this most. I mean, and by the way, Euthyphro claims to be a prophet, right. Claims to receive revelation and it's like he's just a dummy. You'd really, you really. I wish that he had put a more impressive person there for Socrates to discuss with.

[A]

But yeah, yeah, I appreciate it. I appreciated the episodes that you guys did on the Euthyphro on Strauss's notebook. Oh, good. Yeah, yeah, we had recourse to that when we went through the youth fro too. I picked up that notebook and I thought it was really.

[B]

That's very helpful. It's very helpful for sure.

[A]

So maybe to kind of get into the. The dialogue proper. So one of the things that I noticed, like, right here at the beginning is, is when he jumps in, like, he, you know, he thinks Socrates might be jesting.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Like, is this really? And he says, if Socrates is correct. Right. If you're, if you're actually saying what's true, the whole world's going to turn upside down.

[B]

Everyone's upside down. Right.

[A]

And I wonder, kind of. And this kind of dot tells into some of your points as well. But one thing that I think, as I've been reading through in our studies of Plato with Ascend, that's. That has become apparent to me, or at least it's my perspective at the moment that was not before, is that I tend to think of nihilism as a modern phenomenon, that it's something that has, like, come up kind of out of the corpse of a Christian culture.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And we're fighting, you know, this is, this is an issue that, like Nietzsche and this is the Camus and all these things. That's who we talk about here.

[B]

Right.

[A]

But I've. I've come to understand that nihilism really is something not by name, but by presence, I guess, is something that actually is haunting the Platonic dialogues as well. These young men, I mean, look at Callicles like there's. There's nothing here to life besides maximizing my pleasure. And so it's interesting to me that right at the beginning, it's like, if he's. If it's true, if Socrates is teaching, which to us nowadays, we're so downstream from him, like, the things he's saying, like, oh, yeah, take the soul seriously and you should be virtuous. And, you know, it's. It is better to suffer an injustice than to commit one. Like how antagonistic or opposite that's going to sound to a culture like Callicles, if that makes sense. Right. This whole world's been turned upside down.

[B]

Yeah, that's a great. So maybe we should talk a little bit about this. So I. I mean, obviously I think Callicles is somewhat confused, and I think that he. He may be more attached to moral things than he recognizes about himself. You mentioned the shame business. We can get to that maybe, and sort of this is some of the most vulgar or shameful passages in all of Plato as well. But he talks about nature being the standard, and so he is interested in. I mean, there is some kind of a standard for Calicles now. So, I mean, this is right around 483e, where he says it's sort of natural law, that the strong rule or something like this. I guess I should make sure I'm precise in my speech just to make sure that I have this right.

[A]

Yeah, he says justice by nature holds the superior, rule the inferior and have a greater share.

[B]

Yeah, he says it's a law of nature, which is, by the way, this is the contradiction in terms, I think, in Greek. And he even says it right. Yes, that's exactly what I mean, by the way. So he does think there's some kind of natural order. So I don't know. You're right. Maybe it ultimately is nihilistic, but I think he at least sees for himself like there is a natural order and it's that the strong rule and the weak suffer. You know, there are lions and gazelles, Socrates. And I'm a lion. Something like this.

[A]

Yeah. No, that's a good distinction. Yeah. It's interesting that he brings up. I found him really persuasive at the beginning when he makes this distinction between law and nature, simply because it really. It did actually do some rhetorical work to kind of deconstruct what Socrates had been talking about.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Basically the error is you're applying two different standards, and so you're equivocating as you've kind of moved through this. And so maybe just as like a. A summary. So he says. Yeah, like we said, it's 483A. Yeah. So law, then when he says law, what I took him to mean is like, this is instituted by the weak and the many right to their own advantage. So this is the. That kind of the demos. Right. This democratic nature. And this, this frightens the more powerful men. Right. So it pushes the. The more powerful men by nature, not by law, into submission.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And then nature is like this power to rule. You deserve a greater share. You're a better man by nature. And so, I mean, another thing, there's a few things there that I think are interesting. One particularly kind of coming from like a Catholic tradition and like how we're habituated to these terms being used is one that law and nature are antagonistic. They're opposed to one another.

[B]

Right, right.

[A]

As opposed to every time we typically, at least in the Catholic tradition here, law and nature, you pull your law from nature, there's a harmony. Right. The other thing too, that's fascinating here, and I think Athenian stranger pointed this out as well, is that like, is this our first reference to natural law is.

[B]

Yeah, I think so.

[A]

Is actually then that the. The superior governs the inferior that the might makes right.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. And he. And he. And he swears right to sort of. In other words, I suspect when Calci says, look, this is at 483 E, or one could tell of myriad other such cases. Indeed. I think these men do these things according to the nature of the just. And yes, by Zeus, yes, damn it, according to the law of nature. And I suspect he swears there because he recognizes that this is a contradiction in terms. And so it's to emphasize. I'm aware that I'm saying something that sounds contradictory, but. No, I'm telling you. In fact, there is a law of nature, and it's that the strong rule and the weak suffer. Yeah.

[A]

Yes. It's really. It's really fascinating that the first time we get that, it's. It's in a context that's opposite of how we typically take it in the West.

[B]

No, that's. That's very true. But you do get the implication there that Callicles recognizes that in the Greek mind, those are. Those are separate notions.

[A]

I mean.

[B]

I mean, I think that the sort of common way that a lot of folks have thought about it is that the discovery of fusis, the discovery of nature, or the distinction between nature and convention is what allows for philosophy to come into its own. That you recognize that people have different conventions and that. But the fire burns everywhere the same, but that people have different laws with respect to what to do to the dead or something. Maybe this is in Herodotus. Right?

[A]

Yeah. I think what doesn't. Aristotle uses a similar example in his Nicomachean Ethics to talk about natural justice. Right, Good.

[B]

So for the Socratics, I think it makes more sense to speak of natural right or natural justice. And then later, you're right, According to later Christian, especially Christian, but Romans before them begin to talk about what's legal by nature.

[A]

The law.

[B]

Natural law. That's right.

[A]

Yeah. That's. It's just fascinating that it pops up like this. But is there a way. I mean, I like what you. I like the slight defense that you gave for Callicles there, that he is looking at the world with some type of order and intelligibility, assuming to whatever degree we take him to be, you know, being honest. But isn't there too, this dynamic, though, of the one against the many? I mean, there's a way that. That's also true even for Socrates. Right. Because the philosopher versus the many. Right. We see this in the apology. We see some sections in here. So it's interesting because Calicles sets up this dynamic, but the template, I guess, the pattern of one versus the many. There's a way that that's also true for Socrates as well, and the problems that democracies bring about.

[B]

Oh, and Calicles even says at one point, let me see if I can find the reference. But he says the intelligence should rule. I think it's at 490A. I mean, that's what Socrates says in the Republic. So there's a way in which there's a kind of agreement between them, as you mentioned, that the, the wise should rule. Now, it's not clear that Calicles thinks that Socrates is actually one of the wise people. And of course, the other difference is that Calicles, I think, evinces a strong desire to rule, whereas Socrates notoriously does not want to rule and says that philosophers or the wise would have to be compelled to rule. So Callicles thinks that. I mean, as you mentioned, you alluded.

[A]

Alluded to this a little bit earlier.

[B]

That Calicles thinks that the strong should not just rule, but that they should get something, they should get more. And so it should pay to be strong once. One other small point, this is at 482E, just above where you left off when he's talking about the law. And he's like, the things that are people who do this, they don't do what's fine by nature. And that's kalos or so it's not beautiful or fine or noble by nature. And here's where I think that Callicles might have some residual attachment to the noble or to moral things that I suspect that, to use some anachronistic terminology, the Calicoles sort of sees himself as being above or beyond good and evil. Come on, Socrates, it's just lions and lambs. And this justice stuff is for the birds. It's all about satisfying your pleasure and all this. And yet he still is somehow attached to the noble. And I suspect that one of the things that Socrates is in many of the dialogue, showing people like Thrasymachus, Protagoras, Callicles, people who think that they have liberated themselves from their concern for the noble, haven't in fact, and in fact, especially some of the more violent reactions against morality, are precisely people who are still deeply moral. So it's sort of obvious, right? Thrasymachus is saying, I mean, think about the Republic. How dare you mislead these young people into thinking that there's actually justice? We both know there's not justice. Well, where's that moral indignation coming from? If Not a sense of morality. And so there's this weird way in which these loud, angry, nasty immoralists still have some latent attachment to moral things. I mean, at a certain point, Socrates, I think, is testing Callicles capacity for shame. And Calicles keeps saying, fine, fine. I'm fine with that. Fine with that. And then ultimately he says something such that it provokes Calicles to say, aren't you ashamed to bring this up? Which I think is an indication that. No. That Calicles. We've struck the nerve. Finally, we know it shames Callicles. And so he is attached to some moral things.

[A]

I like that reader a lot. That's very good. It also tends to maybe open the door or crack it open a little bit about whether or not Callicles, that this dialogue is more pedagogical for Callicles than he wants to let on, because he does. He is very recalcitrant. And he says, I'm only doing this for Gorgias. And, like, we can just move this along. But no, you're right. Then he seems to push back, which means that he is tracking. Right. He is watching what's going on. No, I like that a lot. He kind of just pushing us forward a bit. Yeah. Socrates, we kind of talked about this. He appreciates his frankness. 487A.

[B]

And he kind of.

[A]

He, he. We do. One thing I like about the Gorgias, too, that maybe I don't remember as much in the Republic, but particularly, as you said, like, for maybe for students that are first coming to this and want to engage in something longer, one thing that he does here that I actually greatly appreciate is that Socrates summarizes a lot. He says, like, okay, let's. Let's take your points and let's summarize.

[B]

Is it.

[A]

Do you still hold this? And even at certain sections in the dialogue, I think two or three times, even in this section, he stops and he's like, okay, let's restart. By the way, are these all the premises? That type of hand holding isn't always there, if that makes sense. And I think that, you know, now we can push on. On his own rhetoric there and why he's doing it. It is something that's kind of helpful. But at 4.88b, he restates what he hears the position to be. And he says, the superior should take by force what belongs to the inferior, that the better should rule the worse, and the more worthy have a greater share than the less worthy.

[B]

Right.

[A]

So that's like our working thesis at the moment.

[B]

Yeah. And Calicoles says, yeah, I say these things and more. Can I backtrack for just a second? I want to read this. This is 45A. This is one of my favorite. So Calicles is like, there's this. The other strange confusion in the Calicoles soul is he simultaneously wants to beat Socrates up and benefit him, right? In other words, he wants to knock him out of what his perceived. He thinks Socrates is sort of naive or foolish or something. He wants to teach him, but he also wants to punch him in the mouth. Cal is like, look, I like philosophy fine. It's totally appropriate for young people. When I see a 16 year old doing philosophy, I'm like, that's fantastic. I love it. But when I see a grown man doing it, I want to punch him in the mouth. He sounds like a child to me. He's. He's lacking in outspokenness, too sensitive to shame. What's going. We know that he's insufficiently educated, right? And so he's. He just, he. He's. The curious thing is that he wants to. Like if he seems confused, like if he really wanted to harm Socrates, he would withhold his wisdom from him, but instead he wants to teach him and that he's wrong. And so there's another, again, another instance, like you mentioned at the very beginning, like what you're doing, what we're doing with New Thinkory, what Zena Hits is doing. There's this erotic desire to kind of teach. It's even there in callicles. Like he wants to teach Socrates, but now of course he wants to beat him up at the same time. So maybe it's not the best education.

[A]

No, this is good. I appreciate these kind of subtle defenses of callicles because maybe it is too easy and I'm probably guilty of as well to just chalk him up as just like pure unadulterated appetitive power.

[B]

And maybe that's how he'd like to see himself, probably. So I admit that, but it's just not clear that he can consistently hold that. I guess that's my puzzle.

[A]

Yeah, no, I appreciate that. What do you take of, um. So as kind of stepping into that around 488D.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

He starts asking him. This is like typical Socrates, right? We're going to get into some grammatical questions like. So when you say this, what. What is this definition? Like, what does this mean? And I took this section as. This is where he kind of. I thought it was really interesting that he tries to point out that the many are ruling both by law and by nature. And I took this as Socrates as kind of a brilliant rhetorical point. He steps into the argument of Callicles.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And adopts his own terms. And he's like, well, wait, who's ruling now? Like, who's the superior? And he tries to point out, like, well, then wouldn't the many who's making our laws be both superior by both law and nature?

[B]

Good.

[A]

Calicles, pushback on this is basically like you're playing word games.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, this is what calculates. Doesn't realize that if he. If you think through his position. Seriously, it's basically legitimizes any existing regime because they won. And so they're by definition the more powerful. Like the mini. Wonderful. But again, I think you see his latent. Like, he finds something immoral about the fact that the many rule. They're uneducated. They don't. You know, like, he. This is why the intelligence should rule. This sort of stuff. But, yeah, I know, it's a beautiful. I mean, this is what Socrates And I suspect that this is what callicles is what Thrasymachus. I think this is why Thrasymachus loses in the public. He expects a kind of moral response from Socrates, and Socrates doesn't give him the moral response. Like, okay, let's grant that you're right, that it's just about power. Okay, then why don't. Then I think these. These sophists, sort of educated people, these rhetorically educated people, they're ready for them. It's wrong. How dare you say. And Sark's like, no, no, fine. Okay. Power. It's all about who rules. But then wouldn't that be true of the many? They have the power. And then. And this. This frustrates them. And I think it's. Yeah. Using the own logic and trying to think it through to its. To its conclusions frustrates someone like Calicles. But it's. I think it's true in a way. Like, if all it is is about power, then that. That legitimizes. If that's what's just. Then whoever's ruling is by definition more powerful.

[A]

I love those sections too, because you can tell that, you know, like you said, they're. They have this rhetoric. They're expecting him to kind of give a moral argument. And then what we do is we watch him out. Rhetoric. The rhetoricians.

[B]

Yeah, right.

[A]

No, that's for sure. Which is like a beautiful, like, untying of a knot that it's just, you know, it's wonderful to watch. Which then typically opens them up or at least opens up the audience to then some real, actual conversation on, like, the philosophic side. Right. So if we can move some of this rhetoric out of the way and see that it collapses, then maybe we can actually start to find, like, some footing, like something that's actually solid.

[B]

I think that you put your finger on one of. There's so many important strands in this dialogue, but one of them is, is distinguishing, I think, between rhetoric and dialectics. So the art of conversation and the art of speaking publicly or something like this. And, you know, I think the word rhetoric is somewhat equivocal. So if we're going to use it loosely, which is just to sort of use persuasive speech, it's clear that Socrates uses that. It's clear that he uses tricks. It's clear that he uses rhetorical devices. It's clear that he has rhetorical questions. But if we understand rhetoric to be a particular kind of speech to a particular kind of audience, that's not what Socrates is practicing here. And I suspect that one of the reasons he goes to Gorgias in the first place is he's. I think he's actually interested in can I learn this large public speaking thing, which I suspect, therefore, Socrates, why would he be motivated at this particular point in life to learn rhetoric? I suspect because he knows that at some point in his life it might become necessary to defend himself against charges. This is alluded to by Callicles, by the way, in the dialogue.

[A]

Right.

[B]

You would never be able to defend yourself. And so I do think. I think you're right that there's this way in which Socrates is rhetorical. But I think that what he seems to have a mastery over is dialectic. Like he just completely disposes of Gorgias, he completely disposes of Polis, and then by the calculates, jumps in and said, the only reason you're able to defeat those guys is because they had shame. You're dealing with me. I'll be straight with you. I won't let that sort of stuff get in the way. And again, it's like the conversational approach versus the rhetorical approach. I mean, in the Protagoras, again, when Protagoras realizes that he's losing to Socrates in conversation and dialectics, he tries to give a big speech to get out of the this method isn't working. Let's do big rhetoric. And Socrates says, I can't do that. You know, I'm just a simple country boy from Madika, please, can we just have conversations? And yes, No, I think Protagoras is aware that he, he can't out jab Socrates. He wants big right hooks and big left hooks, if that makes sense. And here again, Kaukhles I think, doesn't quite understand this difference between conversation and rhetoric, as it were.

[A]

Okay, so maybe we'll lean into that. So maybe I'm with Calicles on not understanding the distinction. So the dialectic and the rhetoric as you presented it makes sense to me. But what do we think? What do we think is being exercised here or being alluded to insofar as the good side of this. So for instance, when I read this with some first time readers, his antagonisms, right, his rhetoric against rhetoric being an art, right? It's like, oh, it's like you're a baker, you're a pastry, go make cupcakes, like whatever you're doing. Like, obviously there's a lot of pushback of like, no, there's no way that rhetoric is not an art. And we see this, I think in, in the Gorgias section. It's, it's not entirely like clear to that he just seems to be very antagonistic against this Polis. We get a few allusions here in Calicles. I think to throw out a thesis is, is that no, there has to be some type of good rhetoric because when you talk to Polis, it's alluded to, it's implied, but he never actually says it. So for instance, he critiques polis going by memory. He critiques Polis's rhetoric because it clearly doesn't understand the nature of things and its causes.

[B]

Right?

[A]

Well, that's philosophy. So it seems like, I mean, so let me just throw something out here and feel free to, you know, tear it apart, is that it seems like in certain ways what's being presented here is the same way that poetry is handled in a republic, that if you read poetry in the republic on a surface level, it's like, oh, he hate Plato, hates poetry. Like, he's against Homer, he's against this, like et cetera. But then you're like, wait, he's teaching me through a dialogue. He's teaching me through poetics. He's telling me myths and little stories and Giygas ring and all these things. And so it seems here and in Calicles, it actually becomes more explicit, right? He actually says there's a true oratory that it seems. Then if I had to articulate something, is that why this rhetoric, that Gorgias and polis and Callicles is not an art? It's just flattery is because its final teleology, it's telos is in pleasure. It doesn't know the nature of things, it doesn't know causes. It's not actually trying to communicate what is good and just. And so it seems then that there must be a good rhetoric. Maybe one that's been brought in Christian terms. It'd be a baptized rhetoric, rhetoric that has been brought under philosophy. Sure, that I guess in there. I don't know how to make the. Maybe I'm using rhetoric too broadly because I see Socrates using it. Because isn't he not trying to communicate what's good and just. And even he himself slips into a few longer monologues in this. So is there a good rhetoric that we, that we're supposed to pull out of this dialogue?

[B]

Yeah, yeah, that's a, that's an excellent question. First, I'll say I agree with you about poetry. I mean it's clear to me that Plato is a poet. I mean the allegory of the Cave and Socrates, even in the Republic admits at one point in passing that he's had a love for Homer since he was a child. And so I, I take his criticism of poetry to be serious, but not to be his final word. Just like I take his criticism of rhetoric here to be serious, but not his final word. I suspect he does think rhetoric is an art. This is why I think, you know, his grandson, teacher Aristotle writes a book called the Art of Rhetoric. And I just suspect that what he figures out quickly is that Gorgias doesn't have it. Which is to say at the beginning of Aristotle's rhetoric, Aristotle mentions the people who seem to be kind of good at this by a kind of knack. And it's possible that Gorgias may have learned some tricks and he may have had just a very good knack at this kind of a thing. But the deeper problem, I suspect is that so good rhetoric, bad rhetoric. Here's my understanding of what rhetoric is. I get this from a teacher of mine, but also from the Gorgias, especially the boxing example is where I draw this from. Gorgias talks about how rhetoric is like boxing. Don't blame the boxing teacher if the boxing student comes home and punches his mom in the mouth. It's not the boxing teacher's fault. The boxing teacher is just teaching boxing. So just transpose that to today. Self defense. If someone were teaching a self defense class to a group of young ladies and one of them went home and just beat up on somebody, we wouldn't blame the trainer. So I suspect that rhetoric is morally neutral, but even this Gorgias didn't recognize because if it's morally neutral, it can be used for very bad moral things. And so the problem is, I think from Aristotle's point of view would be it's like a gun. And you know, not that I'm necessarily a huge gun advocate, but like, if we get rid of gun, guns are bad, so we should get rid of them. This is a very common belief by people. Right. I think Aristotle is saying this is just like guns. Like, if you get rid of guns, the only people with guns will be bad people. If we don't teach good people rhetoric, the only people with rhetoric will be bad people, in which case those of us who are good will be victims of those who understand rhetoric. And so there's a way in which one has to learn rhetoric precisely to inoculate oneself against people who can do this to you and manipulate you. There's also the ways in which rhetoric is very useful in democratic sort of republics. That seems true to me. And so, yeah, I think that what Socrates is after is you called it a true rhetoric. I think that's what he calls it here in the Gorgias. And I think that it would be aware of this. Now, I'll just say, like, I suspect that Plato's Apology is an extraordinary work of rhetorical art. It has an order. But by the way, despite shooing anywhere, he says sort of a praetoritio at the beginning. Gosh, I'm a simple country boy from Athens. I've never been in court. I don't know how to give a speech. I'm just going to speak haphazardly without any order. I don't know what I'm doing. 0.1, 0.1 a. 0.1 ab. 0.2, 0.2 ab. Like, it's like, holy crap. This is extremely well organized. What are you talking about? So it's clear to me that Socrates does learn rhetoric. I'll just confess I think he taught rhetoric. I'll give some evidence from that. I think is to be found in Xenophon's memorabilia. And so I think it's something he learned and taught, but it's in Aristophanes clouds, by the way, that he taught rhetoric. And so, yeah, I do think there is a good rhetoric and I think there's a bad rhetoric. And I think one of the reasons that we need rhetoric is precisely because the good and good people are vulnerable in the world. Simply being true. Is not good enough, that one needs a kind of defense. And by the way, I'm teaching this class on rhetoric, as I mentioned, Deacon, and I know you know scriptures better than I do. One of my. The passages I have students read is from first Corinthians. I think it's the second chapter where Paul sort of says he's not going to do rhetoric, but the whole chapter is. It's like rhetorical device after rhetorical device after rhetorical device. And Paul, maybe you can speak to his own education, but it seems to me that Paul would have had a classical rhetorical education. I mean, so here, even this, I mean, even the Sermon on the Mount, I mean the Beatitudes, it's like blessed are the, blessed are the, blessed are. Right. So there's this repetition at the beginning of sentences. It's inverted word order. It's even a little curious in the Greek. I have no clue if that's the Aramaic. Nobody does. But so like, even the scriptures themselves are highly rhetorical. I mean, Jesus uses rhetoric, Paul uses rhetoric. Jesus spoke in parables. This is a particular kind of rhetoric according to Aristotle. And so that all these things are not necessarily bad. And I think that the students I teach tend to have the presupposition that rhetoric is bad. And they're a little put off when they realize that people whom they admire made great use of rhetoric, not just the Bible. Augustine has this nice defensive rhetoric in. I forget what the name of the work is, but I just read it recently. But then also, great, you know, Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address is a masterpiece of rhetoric. The second inaugural. Right. So you go through all these examples. Rhetoric has a very bad name. I think it's for good reason. But then I think when you think it through, you can see that there actually is a good, a good use of rhetoric.

[A]

I think it's really. Yeah. Really well said. Yeah. I just think we. I think sometimes there's a knee jerk reaction when you read the Gorgias that he's just against rhetoric.

[B]

Right.

[A]

I think that.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And obviously there's reasons for that, particularly at the beginning of the dialogue. But I think as you kind of move through, you realize that the reason he can make some of these bombastic claims that like. Well, you're just like a pastry chef, which I think, you know, is. Is. So I think it was somewhat tailored to polis because I have no question polis to be spirited and sort of.

[B]

Tells, how dare you insult my teacher in front of me.

[A]

Right. Yeah, you tell the real spirited guy that he's like a cupcake maker.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know you're going to get a reaction, so. No, I think that was really well said. I appreciate you parsing that out.

[B]

Thank you.

[A]

Let's look at the. Or I could be rude to you too if you wanted to feel more at home.

[B]

No, no, no, it's fine. It's a nice change of pain.

[A]

Let's. So one of the things I think is really interesting is the treatment of pleasure. And so we kind of get into this at 491D or so. Right. So callicles, like superior man or whatever stand in term we want to use for this, right. The, the one that's superior by nature, like counties, makes this like a really fascinating argument of like, no, he shouldn't, he shouldn't be self controlled. There shouldn't be self discipline. Right. You should allow appetites to grow as large as possible and not restrain them.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And actually, you know the quote, a lack of discipline is shameful. I mean that's a creation of the many. That's a creation of the weakness to try. Like that's what the lambs come up with to try and get the lion to stop eating them.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Well, you just need to be self disciplined and have some, you know, egalitarianism and, and we all get the same share and things like this. No, no.

[B]

And indulge, indulge, indulge all the pleasures, bodily pleasures.

[A]

Well, the one thing I really like about reading Plato, just kind of coming from my own background.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Is that today, like if we encounter arguments like this, it's like straight hedonism, et cetera. Like so many of us just, you know, myself included, like our knee jerk reaction is to go to some Christian principle.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

And just good rhetoric. If you don't adhere to Christianity, using Christ as a source typically doesn't bear a whole lot of weight. And so one of the reasons I actually really like reading Plato is it's like, no, we can have someone who actually can observe by nature that this can't be correct. Like just this unlimited amount of pleasure. Even though there's a caveat there, which we'll hopefully get to, which is that even Plato ends these arguments with a religious myth.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And we, I think we have to take that somewhat seriously.

[B]

Oh, no doubt. Yeah.

[A]

But here we see, right, this kind of, this lack of discipline etc, and this leads into, well, actually Socrates asks him in 492E, you know, is this really happiness?

[B]

Right.

[A]

Which at any time, if you see justice or happiness in any of the Platonic dialogues always, like, put a big box around them. Right. This is a theme. And obviously there's a. There's a funny little retort that Calicles has of like, you know, well, if happiness is. Is actually being fulfilled and you don't have need, then aren't stones and corpses the most happiest of things because they have no needs?

[B]

Right, right, right.

[A]

And so this, you know, I took that as, you know, I think if you pushed back on that, obviously there's a distinction between not having a need and having a need and it being satiated. Therefore you're not in need of it.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Those two things are. Are distinct, if that makes sense. No, sure, sure.

[B]

This is one of my favorite passages. I don't know. I don't know how comfortable you are going through this, these examples, but.

[A]

No, okay, well, no, I'm happy to defer to you because we've got the jars example, we've got good stuff. So no, like, take it away.

[B]

And your audience is okay with vulgarity, I suppose. Yeah. So Callicles is trying to make sense of just shameless pursuit of hedonism. As you said, pleasure, pleasure, pleasure, pleasure, as much pleasure as possible. Calicles says living pleasantly consists in this keeping as much as possible flowing in. That's the best is constant, just wine coming in all the time. I will tell you once, once, only once in my life have I consumed too much alcohol. And it wasn't that pleasant in fact, to have it all. Mistake.

[A]

But only once.

[B]

And then Socrates, I already alluded to this, but I think Callicles thinks that he's a hedonist, but he can't consistently sort of maintain that position because Socrates, okay, well, what if a guy just does this all the time? So the best life is just constantly satisfying your pleasures. And then Socrates, I mean, Socrates gets kind of filthy, actually. So if much flows in, Socrates asks, this is at 494B. Is it then necessary that what goes away also be much and that there be some big holes for the outflowings? Now, I don't want to make this too graphic, but clearly he's talking about defecation. Like, so the best life would be having a big hole to evacuate yourself. Right. And a big hole to push stuff into. Right. And we're talking about bodily stuff, but it's, you know, there's some other indications here, I suppose. And then Caleb says, yeah, of course. And then Sark says, well, then you're just talking about this little bird that eats and poops at the same time, like, and that can't be the best life, can it? And then, of course, one can't help but think of, like, vomitoriums in ancient Rome and sort of these weird sort of. I don't know if you've seen Theocracy, but the guy who's sitting in the Lazy Boy, that's also a toilet while he's eating like Cheetos or something like this, he's like, this is the best life, right? And Calculus like, yes, fine. I'm fine with that. That's the best life. And Stock's like, okay, I'm so glad that you don't hold back through shame. You're very impressive, Kyle, please. And Socrates says, okay, what about a guy who just scratches all the time? What do you think about that? Calculus says, yeah, that's pleasure. Pleasure as well. That's pleasant. And Sakaji says, At 494D, so if pleasantly, then also happily, certainly. So if I just have a rash and I scratch it all the time, that's happiness. Calculus like, yes, that's happiness. And then Socrates very delicately asks, what if it's not his head he's scratching? What if it's scratching something else? Eyebrow raised, yes. In other words, I suspect he's asking, what if one satisfies oneself in the manner of Onan. Your listeners may get this reference. And Kyle, he's like, fine, you know, this is the. This, this is happiness. And then he says, what about the academite, which is a fellow who has interesting sexual proclivities, let's just say. And calhes. Then. Then he sort of pounds his fist on the table and says, aren't you ashamed to bring this up? That's. That's a bridge too far. And so I think that's the example of. And we'll see, we've seen some other traces of calicles, actually is still attached to the noble, which. The sort of opposite or one opposite of the noble is shame. And here he's. That's shameful to bring that up, Socrates. And I think Socrates was just pressing and pressing and pressing to see, I know, I know that you're not being honest with me or yourself right now. You do have some limit where you think that it would be shameful for a human being to live that way. And I found it, and I've exposed that now for Gorgias. Calicles becomes much more recalcrant after this point, I suspect because he realizes he's been shown that he doesn't know what he's talking about. But this is just a very Common thing. I'll mention in passing that I once attended a conference of libertarians who are nice people, by the way. I like libertarians. I tend to be somewhat sympathetic to them, but who thought that the free market could solve all problems, every single problems. I won't go through all the examples, but I was young and stupid and I just read the Gorgias and so I just kept saying, well, what about a market for this? And you know, drugs? And they're like, well, of course that's much safer than okay, what about a market for organs? Yes, of course, this is the best, more efficient way. And then I just kept pressing until finally I mentioned that a market for something in particular that I saw their collective gasp at and they realized that no, maybe some things there shouldn't be a free market for. Maybe some things are. It's okay to say, let's not let that be for sale in the marketplace. But it took some prying and then of course they immediately recovered. They remembered that they were good libertarians and sort of tried to forget that they had been exposed to this. So this is, I think this is a, it's a. Nate, it's a, it's a very tiny little bit piece of evidence, but it's a piece of evidence that there's a shred of morality still in Calculi's soul. There is a limit that's twofold. Are.

[A]

No, I think that was really well said. Yeah, I think he, he pushes, right. The, the pedagogical nature of the examples and why push into the absurdity and even into the vulgar.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Really. To kind of draw this out of like, there's no way this is actually true, nor do you actually believe it. Right. And I, I liked the example of the guy on the, on the lazy Boy. Right. So. Because I think what he's gonna. And what he's. Where the dialogue I think is, is gonna go is that the problem is. And I guess the jars example gave this to a certain degree that the problem was just saying I constantly need to consume is that means you constantly also have to have a need and it's the delight of consumption itself.

[B]

Right.

[A]

You know, so for, for lint we read Dante's Inferno and you think about like the gluttonous, right? So the delight comes from the consumption itself, regardless of the need. Then you constantly just have to consume. And you, you think of when, when Virgil is taking Dante, the pilgrim into that third circle. Cerberus is the guardian and not, it's not magical honey cakes that he feeds him it's muck, it's that, that's that disgusting muck that's in that circle. And the reason that in Cerberus eats it and is satisfied. And I think Dante the poet is showing us there that this type of consumption is irrational. It doesn't actually make sense and it just becomes just simply about consuming. And so I think you see something analogous going on in this section where Socrates just has to push Calicles to the point.

[B]

It's also, it's also, you're totally right, but it's also curious because like we already talked about this. But that's not what Calicoles has in mind for himself. Right. He's talking about ruling like that. I mean, in a way he wants to say it's shame is what constrains people from consuming. It's what constrains people from trying to rule.

[A]

Blah, blah.

[B]

But in other words. But he already is implicitly drawing this hierarchy in his own mind between the good use of this totally natural freedom and this low use of it, you know, scratching oneself and filling oneself like you're an empty vessel. And so. But even that distinction is already, of course not all pleasures are as equal as, as otherwise we might think. And so he really does have a revulsion at the low. Like. And that's why I think that's why Socrates is going this direction and not the, well, let's examine the people who are grabbing political power or something like this to try and expose that calculus thinks that this is beneath human dignity or something like this.

[A]

Well, Calicles seems to take on at times the disposition of like a 13 year old debating online where. And he says this somewhere, I don't know if it's in this section, I apologize, where basically he says, yeah, the only reason I'm holding to this line is because if I don't, I'd be inconsistent.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And so it's like at that point it's like, well, what is the actual dialogue? Yeah, it's happening.

[B]

Right.

[A]

So he just becomes, he's, he's just kind of putting up. And I think that's why this last section has some of the nature it does where it has to circle back. Even Socrates says, okay, we, we keep coming back to the same point about craft. I think one of the reasons we do it is because it basically goes back into. To one of your points between rhetoric and dialectic is to what degree can the dialectic progress towards truth if your interlocutor is recalcitrant and not actually being, you know, not acting in good faith. And that's why Gorgias has to jump in several times to try and move this thing along, because it isn't. I don't think Callicles is going to take it where it needs to go.

[B]

Right. No, I agree with that. Yeah. I mean, yes. And, you know, I don't know if you want to pivot to the myth, but I suspect that one of the functions of the myth is Socrates's awareness that Callicles is impervious to argument at this point. But I'll also point out, by the way, that at 493d, just to make somewhat curious Socrates, this is long before Socrates does give the myth. He sort of says, my arguments aren't persuading you, but I bet even if I tell Miz that that also won't persuade you. And calicles says, at 493D. Yeah, that's right. You're absolutely right. No myth will persuade me. So then there's another curiosity of why does Socrates give the myth if Calicles has just told you the myth won't work on him? Maybe. Now, of course, maybe the answer is Calculus doesn't understand that. Maybe it will, but it's still very curious, like why. Why Socrates turns to a myth at the end and it's about punishment in the afterlife.

[A]

So, yeah, I think one. One that dovetails a little bit into what we mentioned earlier of like, who. Who is benefiting from the dialogue. Right. Out of all the people listening, like, you can make an argument, obviously, I agree with you that I think Gorgias is being. Is something's being revealed to Gorgias.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

There's these young men, right, that apparently had just listened to Gorgias give. We don't. I don't know if we know how many are there, but Gorgias had just given write this rhetorical speech and they're still there in a public setting. This is like. I mean, maybe something. It's mundane, but that would be analogous to this is sometimes you find yourself on X, right, responding to someone and you're like, I don't think this person's actually going to, like, listen to what I have to say. But it's the public square and someone else might actually benefit from what I'm actually telling you.

[B]

Right. So the benefit from the myth is for others.

[A]

You think, Yeah, I don't know if I mean Callicles. I mean, you've made me think more about Callicles openness and his responsiveness to being told. But it's so buried down beneath, like, this veneer that he has that I'm not sure how well we can track it, but I'm more interested in someone like, you know, is the myth beneficial for Gorgias? Like, is polis open right to it? Are the young men who are listening open to it? Right.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Now that's not to say I don't think the myth is without problems. Right. They have the. The bodies are somehow punished. Right. So we don't. But it's weird because we don't have bodies or something in the afterlife. There's visible, there's visible evidence on the souls, I guess of the scars for the bad things that they. From the bad things that they've done or something like this. Yeah. As a side also, there's like this threat of eternal damnation or eternal punishment. When Socrates had earlier made some notion, some mention of the notion that people who do wrong things do so involuntarily. And it would be curious if Socrates's gods in this instance believe what he has said, in which case it might not make sense to punish people forever for something like if they did it out of ignorance or something like this. Maybe educating, educating them is the better sort of example. Yeah.

[A]

So maybe just to anchor some of the things we talked about in the next so at 500C is when he actually explicitly mentions that we're talking about the way we're supposed to live.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Again, as a first time reader, like, this is where I really started to enjoy this dialogue that we've moved on from the purpose of rhetoric to what is rhetoric in service of.

[B]

And just a small point, by the way, you know, we've been sort of hammering away at calicles pretty hard. I mean, he's the one who's in a way responsible for elevating the theme or the topic that they're investigating. I mean, he realizes that we're really not talking about simply rhetoric, we're talking about what the best way of life is. So yeah, just to your point, I mean, he's responsible for. And in a way I think that shows he's more serious than polis. Like the stakes are much higher. But. Yeah. Sorry, didn't mean to interrupt.

[A]

No, and it's why. It's why the lukewarm don't tend to bring out the truth. Right. So the hot and the cold do because you actually have something there to engage with. But the lukewarm, it's too malleable. They don't. It's milk toast. You don't get to like do anything.

[B]

So.

[A]

No, I think Calicles. This goes into the earlier conversation of like, is Callicles a real person or was he basically invented? Because Plato needed someone like this to bring out the truth of the dialogue. And you're not going to get that from Gorgias or Polis.

[B]

You're just not.

[A]

So, yeah, if you look at 503A, again, this is where he actually, for the first, I think first time maybe is compares that there's actually two different types of rhetoric. So he makes more explicit what I think has been haunting a lot of the dialogue. So there's the flattery, the shameful. But then there's this one that, you know, getting souls of citizens to be as good as possible.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And striving valiantly to say what is best. And I think your comments have made me think about whether or not he's engaging in that rhetoric specifically because he's more dialectic or. This is a rhetoric that Socrates sees could exist if someone had the skill set to do it.

[B]

Yeah. And by the way, Socrates says, do you know anybody who practices this good rhetoric? And Calculus says, I can't. Damn it, I can't think of. By Zeus, I can't think of anyone. By the way, his teacher is right there. So not Gorgias.

[A]

Right, right again, that's. I think there's so many moments in this that are deeply pedagogical to Gorgias.

[B]

But also, by the way, not even Themistocles or Pericles. Right. Like Washington, Lincoln, they sort of get discarded. Right, correct. Because Cal says, well, what about those guys? And Socrates says, I don't know, I'm not so sure. Yeah.

[A]

Which is funny because it's the same kind of group of men that get discarded in the meno.

[B]

Yeah, that's right.

[A]

They're not truly being virtuous.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

I found it interesting on. Let's see, he makes some good arguments about. Obviously he's leading Calicles on, or at least Calicles is allowing him to develop his argument around like 506C. He makes some good arguments going back. He's building, I think, upon his conversation with Polus about intermediate goods. And he doesn't use. He doesn't use the phrase final good, but that's like, just to kind of present that concept. So obviously he's maturing in the conversation here that no, the pleasant is not the same as the good. And so we have to seek what's pleasant or painful for the sake of the good. So sometimes we have to do painful things because for the sake of the good. And so he shows that there are intermediate goods and trying to show that the pleasant and the good are not the same kind of. Again, going back to that. Can life just be this constant consumption of pleasurable things?

[B]

Yeah, no, that seems. That seems. Yeah, it's persuasive to me.

[A]

And I found it interesting, if your.

[B]

Arm had some disease, you'd cut it off. Something like this, Right.

[A]

And he gives, you know, just as like, as moderns. What I found really interesting is when he. He talks a little bit about friendship, and then at 5:12d, he says, the good in life is not reducible to self preservation. Yeah, And I loved that line there. There has to be something more to this life than simple, like simply self preservation and pleasure. Simply like. So basically, Callicles is presenting this narrative where it's basically like, I try to preserve for the sake of pleasure. Right. Or at least that's like the caricature that he's presented.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Because he doesn't want to become the tyrant.

[B]

Yeah. And by the way, Socrates turns this manhood business back onto Calicles. Right? Because I think Calicles had been insisting, I'm a man and you're a boy. And you, Socrates, you do stuff that you young boys do. And Socrates says, the real man, the true man must reject living at any cost whatsoever. Right. And so it's. Socrates seems to be trying to wrest back from Calicles this notion of manliness or courage. Like, no, actually, real men don't try to live their lives for as long as possible. They're willing to. There are other things more important than mere life, it seems. Then, of course, Socrates, as we know, seems to have. Have lived that out.

[A]

In fact, it's wonderful because you can see when you. You read slowly that Socrates will bring back Callicles rhetoric against him later on without a lot of fanfare. So even like the I'll knock you in the jaw comes back.

[B]

Oh, is that right?

[A]

Yeah, it comes back at the end of. In the myth.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

So there's this, like, book ending, if you will. Maybe before we jump into the myth, though, your thoughts. I mean, because sometimes Socrates just drops these statements and he says at 5:21d that he is the only one to practice the true political craft, the practice of true politics. So the guy who's constantly told us, I didn't want to get involved in politics. I have no interest in this. We see this from the apology. He says, oh, just as a side note, I'm the only one in Athens who actually practices true politics. What does he mean by this?

[B]

Yeah, That's a great question. And it's the art of politics, it's the techne. I think craft. I think you said craft. Gosh. I mean, one is tempted always to read such things with a certain amount of irony. But I suspect that he's being somewhat serious here. And we think about politics is also an equivocal term. So what we mean by politics is he's engaged in governing, large scale, the community. I would say the answer is no. He doesn't just like, does he engage in rhetoric, large scale in the community? I think the answer is no. But he does engage in rhetoric in the small scale. And I wonder if what he's not saying here is he doesn't actually engage in politics in the small scale as well, and that maybe politics in the truest sense is only possible, therefore, in the small sense. So what would politics really be trying to improve another human being with respect to virtue, make someone better. And if that's what Socrates means here, maybe that's what Socrates means here, that he's the only one who's actually, you know, all these politicians come, say they're going to help you and this, that and the other. And maybe he's the only one who's genuinely helping people in this way.

[A]

I like that.

[B]

It's very curious. I agree.

[A]

I took it, you know, nothing against what you said. I deeply appreciate that. I took it. As, you know, he's basically given us, I guess, a template, right? So here's something that you're engaging in, but it's not a true art because you don't know the nature of things and you don't know its causes. Which then leads us to believe that you have to take these arts and for them to be true arts, they somehow have to be guided by philosophy, they have to know what's true and good, et cetera. And we see something similar with poetry in the Republic. So then it seems to me like he can just drop a different type of art and say, oh, by the way, I'm the only one who actually does the art of politics. But we have a framework by which to maybe discern what he means by that. Does that make sense?

[B]

Yeah, sure. And he mentions in passing maybe two or three lines down medicine, doctors. And so one wonders if what he has in mind here is that Socrates is like the only real soul doctor that there is. He's actually improving the souls of people. I wonder if there's not something like that going on because you didn't do this in Polo section. Perhaps you sort of track the chart. And there are these analogies between medicine and pastry making and rhetoric and politics and all these things, and so that maps on. So maybe what he's saying is he's the only one who's looking to the genuine good of the souls of people.

[A]

Yeah, no, I think that would track really well with the analogs that we've seen in this dialogue. Yeah. So let's look at the. The myth. We've kind of already done a little bit of a foray into it. It's probably one of my favorite favorite parts.

[B]

Awesome. Cool.

[A]

I just. I. Well, I mean, you know, may I. I said. I mentioned this on the. The first episode, and both the guys that I was discussing it with were like, oh, yeah, you're. Because you're, you know, Catholic, you're Christian. So this thing about, you know, this punishment at the end and, like, this beauty and etc. Makes sense. But I like it because I. You know, the way I took it. So it's. It's an interesting thing. So the narrative, basically, we had living judges judging living people, and this was causing all kinds of problems, because if you're tall and you're handsome and whatever, oh, you're a good person, but actually you're really ugly on the inside, and everyone's distraught because everyone's going to the wrong place for the afterlife. So, you know what? We're gonna have dead judges, and we're gonna have dead people. And so you take off all the adornments, and you just have this naked soul. The reason I really liked it was because of what really captured my imagination. And maybe, you know, I'm. I'm. I'm too into it to read it neutrally, but the image that really captured my imagination is that the unjust man treats his soul the same way a tyrant treats a slave. And there's a tyrant, like, beats his slave, and he sees the scars of the injustice upon the slave. So, too, does the unjust man treat his own soul. So then at life, there's like, this reckoning, and your body goes away, this adornment that can hide the ugliness. And what you see in front of you then is actually the way you've abused your own soul. So you see a soul that is scarred and bruised, you know, et cetera.

[B]

Yeah, sure.

[A]

And this is what's presented to the judge or the judges, I think.

[B]

Yeah, judges. Yeah, yeah, the three of them.

[A]

And therefore, they see you.

[B]

There's one that only votes in a tie. Is that right? Minus.

[A]

I don't Remember the. But you. So anyway, that's one of the reasons I really liked it because I really enjoyed this picture because I thought it gave us an insight into what is it really when I commit an injustice. And this, this tailors into one of the whole sub themes of this entire dialogue, which is it's better to suffer something that's unjust than to commit something and do something. Right. That's unjust. And so why. Well, here in this myth, you see that like. Well, all those, you know, if you're the tyrant, all the injustices that you participate in that you thought you benefited from. Every single time you did that, you scarred your own soul. Right. You made yourself ugly. And so now when you present, you don't have a beautiful soul. Right. Like the philosopher would have, right. You don't have a beautiful soul. You have this ugliness. And I really enjoyed, I mean, just, you know, as a moral read, I really enjoyed taking that type of approach to what, what actually happens to me when I commit an unjust act.

[B]

Yeah. So I would just using sort of. It's a powerful image. Of course, the problem is that he, he sort of says we should strip the soul of the body and then look at the soul, but he speaks of the soul as though it were bodily. So it's, it's hard to do this without using images of things we actually see. I mean, like, I, I don't think that you're soul has bruises, literally. Right. But the idea that it has something like that is somewhat persuasive to me. And I'll just. There is a way in which I think it actually manifests bodily. You know, I. You can see, I think you can see on people who've lived very bad lives that many of them, it takes an enormous toll on their outward appearance. For example, and I suspect that that's. There's something to. I mean, there's ways in which people have. I think I probably shouldn't name names. I knew a guy once who I thought was living a fairly immoral life and he started having heart problems. And I, I honestly believed at the time that that was probably the kind of natural consequence of him being dishonest with himself and not living up to the standards that he had for himself. And so you're right, I think in a way, as an image, as a myth, as a story, I think there is a way in which one harms one's own soul when one's doing bad things. And if that's true, I suspect that the Socratic point of view would be that therefore such people deserve pity because it's sad. They're harming themselves, they're making their souls uglier. They're making their souls maimed and bruised and scarred, and no one would want that. Now the curious thing is we look at people who have been harmed and think therefore they're deserving of punishment. It's a curious, it's curious in that regard as well. I don't quite know what to do with that.

[A]

Yeah, it's interesting with the, the talk about the, the. You still have to think as the soul as like an image, something that can be scarred. Right. Because Dante runs into that exact same issue. Right. We talked about Dante's Inferno earlier. So he has to present this, the bodiless souls as basically bodied to have these images. But what's interesting is, is that even our Lord does this. So in the parable of Lazarus and the rich man, Lazarus goes down into, you know, they're in limbo.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And they can see each other, but Lazarus rests his head on Abraham's bosom.

[B]

That's right. That's very.

[A]

But they're without body. So there's something here. I mean, one point is that all analogies fail at some point.

[B]

Yeah, of course.

[A]

But I think that for me, what captured my attention is I thought it was. Sometimes I just feel like Plato just shifts into gear and presents incredibly beautiful images. Yeah. And I, you know, people are drawn to different things. I tend to be drawn to these types of myths. I love the myths that are like.

[B]

The Republic then, for example.

[A]

Yeah. I love, I actually think, I mean, granted, this is the problem. Like, I read this one recently and so now I'm going to tell you that I like it more than the one in there. But if I read it, if I read the Myth of Ur sometime soon. But yeah, but like guy just ring. Right. Another one like these stick in my head. And I think that it shows you the power of these narratives to be instructive then on, you know, how we live our life.

[B]

So you don't take the, the idea, the, the inclusion of a myth at the end to be an indication of a failure of the argument on Socrates's part. I can't persuade you using words, using reason. And so therefore I'll just tell you a scary story.

[A]

You know, I can see that and I really can in a certain way. I wonder to a degree how much I would believe that's actually true. You know, one of the questions I had, I know we're kind of pushing up on Time is, you know, how would Aristotle handle Callicles? Because, see, my point there is that you have. Plato tends to end all these arguments with a religious myth. And you could say on a certain way that, yeah, this is a scare tactic or something like that, or his, his philosophy ends. But I would wonder, like, to what degree can I guess pure philosophy, Right. You know, unaided, natural reason.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Actually answer these questions. Yeah, like I, actually, that's a, that's a question I have. It's not resolved for me. But to what degree can an actual natural reason tell Callicles it is better to be virtuous and self disciplined, even though you could live a life of pleasure as a tyrant, get everything you want and then you die and we're all the same.

[B]

The Aristotle question is a good one. I suspect that the answer, I mean, the ethics, he says at one point, I mean, the question of who the audience for the Nicomachean ethics is a sort of interesting one, but I don't think the audience of that text is for people who are recalcitrant to reason. And so I suspect that end of the ethics, he sort of says, look, and then people don't listen to you and that's why you need the law, politics. And so I suspect that the answer is somebody like Cal. I mean, this may be why it ends with a sort of very legalistic myth at the end is that maybe the answer is such people, we, for such people, we just need politics. And.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Aristotle does say, like the perfectly virtuous man doesn't need a law, he's a kind of law unto himself and doesn't need the. But. So, but there are people who don't need that and, or who can't do that. Excuse me, who can't discipline themselves, who won't live a virtuous life, and for them we just need cops, Something like that. If I were the town police officer, I'd say, keep an eye on Calicles.

[A]

Yeah, no, that makes sense to me, but it's still. Obviously it's probably not something to explore at the moment, but I'm still kind of captured by this question because even then, why, why even live this good life? And why, what actually constitutes it as good? So I guess you could say, well, it's according to reason, and therefore you should do it simply because it accords with reason.

[B]

Right.

[A]

But then Socrates tends to then always cap these arguments with some type of religious myth. But I think it's not simply, I don't think the myth is simply reducible to a scare Tactic, because the thing it brings in that is unique is that there will be a final justice, that there will be a final reckoning in which you can't hide. You can't hide behind rhetoric, you can't hide behind power, you can't do anything. Oh, really interesting.

[B]

I hadn't thought about that. That's a really good insight, because Calicles says to him, you won't be able to help yourself with a judge, this, that, and the other. And so the implication is that I, Calicles, can get out of any problem because I have rhetoric. But Socrates's myth shows him that in the afterlife, your rhetoric won't get you anywhere because they'll strip you naked and look at your soul. That's. That's really. That's very good.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

Rhetoric has no power here. Right.

[A]

Yeah. It flips it from the apology. Right. So when we read it, we think, oh, look, Socrates will be defenseless when he goes to his trial, but actually, at the end of all things, it's Callicles, actually, that will be defenseless in his own.

[B]

That's very good.

[A]

So that's a very good insight. But I think that's the. What it brings in that's really unique, is that there. There has to be the. For things to actually be just. There has to be a final reckoning. And that reckoning can't happen in this life. And so I can't. I can't reduce the myth to simply backing up the philosophy because it seems like in a lot of ways, the myth is that some type of. We call it religious, whatever you want to call it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

There has to be some type of final judgment to make everything. Just because he. I mean, we didn't get to it, but he argues in here, the whole cosmos is ordered according to justice, and the cosmos is not going to suffer injustice to win out in the end, if that makes sense.

[B]

No, I think you're right. I think that is very in line with what Socrates says, is that there cannot perfect justice cannot be brought into being in this world. And that. Yeah, I think that what you said is very good. Yeah.

[A]

Well, I've deeply appreciated all of your comments and insights.

[B]

Thanks, Deacon. I've enjoyed talking with you.

[A]

Yeah, this is great. No, I appreciate it. Again, big fan of the new thinkory. Thank you for coming on. Tell us where people can find more about you and your work. Sure.

[B]

Obviously, they can go to the newthinkry.com, i have an academia site I'm working on, a book on Xenophon. Sarah paideia right now. Hopefully that'll be out in about, let's say, two years. I'd like to finish it in a year. And then, if past experience is any indication, it takes about a year to get it published. I've edited a volume of Xenophon's shorter writings. That's with Cornell Press. They can find that. I just did a lot. Oh, gosh, this. This isn't being published for 10 months. You know, I. I write stuff occasionally for Law and Liberty or a fort. Some I try to do. I get a semi popular piece. Popular, very broadly understood. It's not like I'm Lady Gaga or anything, but, you know, a sort of less scholarly kind of thing at least once or twice a year. But they could find me. I'm out there. I'm on Twitter. I'm on X. I'm probably not very interesting because I don't do the kinds of things you were talking about. I try to exercise some discretion and moderation and not fight people. But you know the website, the New Thinkory.com we have a Twitter handle @the NewThinkry. I'm Greg McBr3new on Twitter or X. Excuse me, it's no longer Twitter. My apologies to Mr. Musk. I don't want to be doji'd out of existence. They can find me anyway. And if. And by the way, I've had a lot of folks reach out to me. I'm sure you have, too. Like you mentioned, I think before we started recording. I mean, people do reach out to me all the time, and it's. It's always a pleasure to hear from folks who listen. If they picked something up or if they just enjoy it. I welcome it. It's nice. It's nice affirmation that we're actually doing something worthwhile, which is, I think, what you and I are. That's why we're both doing it.

[A]

Yeah, I really appreciate it. I appreciate your time and attention and everything I've learned this morning about Calicles. It's wonderful. And I appreciate your project and New Thinkory and everyone should go check you out on X and go subscribe to your podcast.

[B]

Yeah. Thanks, Deacon. It's been a pleasure. You know, you've been doing great things. I've been. I've admired the success of this podcast, and I continue to look forward to what you'll be doing next. Thank you.

[A]

Thank you so much. All right, everyone. Next week we'll be discussing the lame shall enter. First, we're actually going to take a break from Plato and discuss the short story the Lame Shall Enter first by Flannery O', Connor with Dr. Brian Kempel of the Lyceum Institute, and then we'll move back into our studies on Plato. So pick up that short story and read it with us, and we will see you next week.