Callicles

He seems, like Aristophanes, to regard the new opinions, whether of Socrates or the sophists, as fatal to Athenian greatness.

He is of the same class as Callicles in the Gorgias, but of a different variety.

The immoral and sophistical doctrines of Callicles are not attributed to him.

The moderation with which he is described is remarkable, if he be the accuser of Socrates, as is apparently indicated by his parting words.

Perhaps Plato may have been desirous of showing that the accusation of Socrates was not to be attributed to badness or malevolence, but rather to a tendency in men's minds.

The true and false finally appear before the judgment seat of the gods below.

The dialogue naturally falls into three divisions, to which the three characters of Gorgias, Paulus, and Callicles respectively correspond, and the form and manner change with the stages of the argument.

Socrates is deferential towards Gorgias, playful and yet cutting in dealing with the youthful Paulus, ironical and sarcastic in his encounter with Callicles.

In the first division the question is asked, what is rhetoric? To this there is no answer given, for Gorgias is soon made to contradict himself by Socrates, and the argument is transferred to the hands of his disciple Paulus, who rushes to the defense of his master.

The answer has at last to be given by Socrates himself, but before he can even explain his meaning to Paulus, he must enlighten him upon the great subject of shams or flatteries.

At least, they seem to him to follow legitimately from the premises.

Thus the second act of the dialogue closes.

Then Callicles appears on the scene, at first maintaining that pleasure is good, and that might is right, and that law is nothing but the combination of the many weak against the few strong.

The true and false finally appear before the judgment seat of the gods below.

The dialogue naturally falls into three divisions, to which the three characters of Gorgias, Paulus, and Callicles respectively correspond, and the form and manner change with the stages of the argument.

Socrates is deferential towards Gorgias, playful and yet cutting in dealing with the youthful Paulus, ironical and sarcastic in his encounter with Callicles.

In the first division, the question is asked, what is rhetoric? To this there is no answer given, for Gorgias is soon made to contradict himself by Socrates, and the argument is transferred to the hands of his disciple Paulus, who rushes to the defense of his master.

The answer has at last to be given by Socrates himself, but before he can even explain his meaning to Paulus, he must enlighten him upon the great subject of shams or flatteries.

At least, they seem to him to follow legitimately from the premises.

Thus the second act of the dialogue closes.

Then Callicles appears on the scene, at first maintaining that pleasure is good, and that might is right, and that law is nothing but the combination of the many weak against the few strong.

The true and false finally appear before the judgment seat of the gods below.

The dialogue naturally falls into three divisions, to which the three characters of Gorgias, Paulus, and Callicles respectively correspond, and the form and manner change with the stages of the argument.

Socrates is deferential towards Gorgias, playful and yet cutting in dealing with the youthful Paulus, ironical and sarcastic in his encounter with Callicles.

In the first division the question is asked, What is rhetoric? To this there is no answer given, for Gorgias is soon made to contradict himself by Socrates, and the argument is transferred to the hands of his disciple Paulus, who rushes to the defense of his master.

The answer has at last to be given by Socrates himself, but before he can even explain his meaning to Paulus, he must enlighten him upon the great subject of shams or flatteries.

At least, they seem to him to follow legitimately from the premises.

Thus the second act of the dialogue closes.

Then Callicles appears on the scene, at first maintaining that pleasure is good, and that might is right, and that law is nothing but the combination of the many weak against the few strong.

Excuse me.

where a character there called Calicles has a slightly different version of this.

But both Calicles and Thrasymachus are basically saying that it's right and noble and magnificent.

It's not just a fact of nature that the strong rule, but they should rule.

Those who are stronger in intellect or courage or physical strength or money, they should rule.

I mean, plus ça change, right? So...

And it does take Plato another nine books to try to get to grips with this.

And I think the fundamental sort of position that Plato takes is, well, look, characters like Thrasymachus and Calicles, who think that might is right, What do they think your interest is? What do they think your well-being is? They define it solely in terms of power over others, doing whatever you happen to feel you want, and accumulating and displaying and consuming material wealth.

I mean, to us, that doesn't sound so crazy because Jesus copied Socrates, and then that became a popular thing.

But in Socrates' world, the idea that there was something intrinsically wrong with revenge, that's, like, so countercultural, right? Um, okay, so he had a lot of views, and the interesting thing is that his midwifery amounted to extracting those views from the most reluctant mouths, right? So it turns out, where do you get the view that it's better to have injustice done against you than to do injustice? You get it out of Polus, right? Um, where do you get the view that, um, you should exercise self-restraint and repress your desires and not pursue pleasure excessively? You get it out of Callicles because those are the people he had to refute to get it, right? And so he is delivering these, um, idea babies, [laughs] right, from people because it sort of turns out that there's only one way for the conversation about virtue to go.

There's only w- or one set of ways for it to make sense.

Part of why I wanna recover that is not just to rehabilitate Socrates or even just to say that those people who say he doesn't say anything is, are wrong, but I think those views are really compelling.

At last, he gets tired of being defeated at every point by Socrates, and is with difficulty induced to proceed.

Parentheses, compare Thrasymachus, Protagoras, Callicles, and others, to whom the same reluctance is ascribed, end of parentheses.

Hippias, like Protagoras, has common sense on his side, when he argues, citing passages of the Iliad in support of his view, that Homer intended Achilles to be the bravest, Odysseus the wisest of the Greeks.

But he is easily overthrown by the superior dialectics of Socrates, who pretends to show that Achilles is not true to his word, and that no similar inconsistency is to be found in Odysseus.

The true and false finally appear before the judgment seat of the gods below.

The dialogue naturally falls into three divisions, to which the three characters of Gorgias, Paulus, and Callicles respectively correspond, and the form and manner change with the stages of the argument.

Socrates is deferential towards Gorgias, playful and yet cutting in dealing with the youthful Paulus, ironical and sarcastic in his encounter with Callicles.

In the first division the question is asked, what is rhetoric? To this there is no answer given, for Gorgias is soon made to contradict himself by Socrates, and the argument is transferred to the hands of his disciple Paulus, who rushes to the defense of his master.

The answer has at last to be given by Socrates himself, but before he can even explain his meaning to Paulus, he must enlighten him upon the great subject of shams or flatteries.

At least, they seem to him to follow legitimately from the premises.

Thus the second act of the dialogue closes.

Then Callicles appears on the scene, at first maintaining that pleasure is good, and that might is right, and that law is nothing but the combination of the many weak against the few strong.

He seems, like Aristophanes, to regard the new opinions, whether of Socrates or the sophists, as fatal to Athenian greatness.

He is of the same class as Callicles in the Gorgias, but of a different variety.

The immoral and sophistical doctrines of Callicles are not attributed to him.

The moderation with which he is described is remarkable, if he be the accuser of Socrates, as is apparently indicated by his parting words.

Perhaps Plato may have been desirous of showing that the accusation of Socrates was not to be attributed to badness or malevolence, but rather to a tendency in men's minds.