Alessandra Fussi

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Why Is the Gorgias so Bitter?1Alessandra FussiMihi in oratoribus irridendis ipse esse orator summus videbatur.-Cicero, De Oratore 1.471. The hand of an apprentice?Commentators have often responded with uneasiness to Plato's Gorgias. E. R. Dodds speaks of the "disillusioned bitterness" of the criticisms leveled against Athenian politics and politicians and of the tragic tone of the dialogue's last part, which culminates in a prediction of Socrates' condemnation (1959, 19). F. M. Cornford observes that the discussion between Socrates and Callicles "is marked by a bitterness of tone rarely found elsewhere in the dialogues" (1945, 21). A. E. Taylor is more explicitly irritated: "Personally-he writes-I cannot help feeling that, with all its moral splendor, the dialogue is too long: it 'drags.' The Plato of the Protagoras or Republic, as I feel, would have known how to secure the same effect with less expenditure of words; there is a diffuseness about our dialogue which betrays the hand of a prentice, though the prentice in this case is Plato" (1960, 103). Many readers of the Gorgias have a similar emotional response, yet the feeling that this is a bitter dialogue is never analyzed, accounted for, or adequately justified.While assessing various hypotheses on the date of composition of the Gorgias, Dodds speculates that its "disillusioned bitterness" may suggest that Plato wrote the dialogue right after Socrates' death and under the impact of the event. The Gorgias is so bitter, the reasoning goes, because Plato was enraged with the Athenians when he wrote it. Dodds goes on to discard the hypothesis of such an early date of composition, but he does not revise his view that this is indeed a bitter dialogue. Why, then, does the [End Page 39] Gorgias sound so bitter? Instead of relying on external factors, I suggest it would be more profitable to turn to the dialogue itself for an answer. After all, the impression of bitterness is a function of the emotional impact that the dialogue has on its readers. A well-constructed chain of arguments can hardly sound bitter. The Gorgias contains many arguments, but its emotional impact must lie elsewhere. So where?In the dialogue, Socrates is involved in three discussions of increasing length and complexity with interlocutors who, in one way or another, defend the power of rhetoric and the superiority of political life over philosophical life. The discussions cannot, however, be characterized as mere exercises in abstract reasoning, or urbane conversations on different views of the good life; the Gorgias is a "fighting dialogue," as indicates its opening sally, "to war and battle" (447a1).2 As the saying goes, these are fighting words, since Callicles is basically accusing Socrates of being a coward.Even if we abstract from the themes evoked in the Gorgias, it is difficult to ignore the peculiarity of its dramatic movement. First, we are plunged in medias res, with no clear indication as to the time and place of the dialogue's unfolding. We then proceed through a tour de force of conversations that begin, are immediately interrupted, start again, and continue through refutations, repeated interruptions, fits of anger, and bad temper. If we expected Socrates to win against his nonphilosophical interlocutors, we are sorely disappointed. The further the conversations proceed, the more they are infiltrated by anger and misunderstanding, and the more we come to feel that, though Socrates' interlocutors may well be silenced, they will remain unpersuaded. Indeed, toward the end of the dialogue, Callicles simply refuses to respond to Socrates, who is finally reduced to performing a monologue. The dialogue ends with a myth addressed to Callicles in the stated conviction that the young man will dismiss it as an old wives' tale (527a5-b3). The invocation of Callicles' name, which concludes the dialogue, is significantly and poignantly left hanging.Besides the points just mentioned, I think that several aspects of the dramatic setting contribute significantly to the dialogue's peculiar emotional impact on its readers. I will try to show this, first, by considering eight dramatic devices Plato uses in the Gorgias and, second, by contrasting these devices with their counterparts in the Protagoras. The two dialogues...

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Aux marges des dialogues de Platon: Essai d'histoire anthropologique de la philosophie ancienneAlessandra FussiMarie-Laurence Desclos. Aux marges des dialogues de Platon: Essai d'histoire anthropologique de la philosophie ancienne. Grenoble: Millon, 2003. Pp. 286. Paper, €27,00.The book takes its bearings from Plato's knowledge of Herodotus's and Thucydides' writings as it is witnessed in such dialogues as the Menexenus, the Timaeus, the Critias and the Laws. Plato not only indirectly quotes from both authors, but also frequently plays with chronology and the relationship between historical events. What motivates Plato's interest in historical events? Is it possible to speak of a Platonic philosophy of history? Before addressing such questions, the author devotes several chapters to a very detailed and insightful study of the meaning(s) of "historiography" in Herodotus and Thucydides. The first chapter examines different contemporary views concerning Herodotus's and Thucydides' attitude towards their sources. Desclos sides with those who underlie the distance between modern theories of historical sources and ancient historical literature. The ancients had no theory of objective sources. Rather, they focused on the subjective means employed, such as the historian's own sense of sight, and his good judgment. As to the witnesses of the past, the accent was not as much on their reliability as it was on their plausibility vis-à-vis the opinions of the historian himself.Chapters II and III are devoted respectively to Thucydides' employment of the rhetorical instruments of the law courts, and to the stylistic and methodic proximity of Herodotus's Histories to the Corpus Hippocraticum. Both chapters oppose the view that the two ancient historians identify their task as "critical history," i.e., as an attempt to free the historical attitude towards facts and events from the subjective aspects of rhetoric, poetry, and religion, where persuasion and chance play a major role. Thucydides' language is rooted in the law courts. However, Desclos argues, the place he occupies in the Peloponnesian War is not that of the impartial judge—as N. Loraux and C. Darbo-Peshanski have suggested—but that of the defendant's attorney. He is much closer to Antiphon's antidikoi—whose ability he extols in VIII, 68, 1-2—than to the modern, impartial judge. The main stress of the methodological chapters in Book I of the Peloponnesian War, then, is not as much on the critical attitude that the historian must have towards his different kinds of sources, as it is on the attempt to persuade the readers that he is true to the facts, while his opponents and competitors are not. In this sense, Desclos agrees with Lloyd that we are in the presence of a "rhetoric of legitimation." According to this interpretation, then, Thucydides' text assigns his ideal reader a passive role. He is meant to be persuaded, conquered, and entirely a-critical (62).Chapter III argues that Herodotus's Histories give their ideal reader an entirely different role. Desclos focuses here on the analogy between medicine and writing, and on Herodotus's preference for Greek medicine, which uses "sweet" methods, over Persian medicine, characterized by harshness and violence. The Greek doctors' superiority ultimately resides in their ability to enroll the patients in the fight against illness. Analogously, the superiority of the Greek historian resides in his ability to accommodate his writings to the reader in such a way that the latter may become an active participant in the historical inquiry. Herodotus does not pretend to be above all opinions. He clearly states his opinions, but by treating them as such he allows the reader to take position, to be "interactive" with the written work (85). [End Page 203]This interesting analysis bears its fruits in the last chapters devoted to Plato. Desclos suggests that the anonymous and silent interlocutor in such dialogues as the Charmides, the Lysis and the Republic plays an important philosophical function, by circumscribing a dialogical empty space that the reader is invited to fill (220). This takes Herodotus's strategy a step forward, since the truly philosophical nature of the Platonic dialogue lies thereby in its openness to the reader. Unfortunately Desclos's chapters on Plato are not as...