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bibliophage's review
I had a positive experience with this edition of Gorgias and Aristotle's Rhetoric. I mostly read Aristotle from another edition (one that I have marked up quite a bit) but this has been my main edition for Plato's Gorgias. The notes were clear and useful and I also liked the opening essay. As the description of the book shares, having Gorgias and Aristotle's Rhetoric juxtaposed is a great way to explore both of these texts.
naverhtrad's review
5.0
Does might make right? Is pleasure the same as the good? What is the nature of justice? Do the wealthy and powerful have obligations to the poor and weak? Do the skilled have an obligation to use their skills to benefit others, or to accommodate their desires? These questions, which touch so close to the core of politics no matter whether ancient or modern, permeate the entirety of Socrates's arguments with Gorgias, his student Polus and the friend of both, Callicles.
This discourse from the master of political philosophy is incredibly rich and textured, and I feel like one read-through isn't enough to do it justice - er, so to speak. There is a definite pre- or even proto-Christian flavour even to the pagan 'myth' with which Socrates closes the discussion, when discussing the nature of the afterlife and the last judgement, and the arguments by which Polus and especially Callicles proceed offer brief flashes, presentiments, of entire theories and families of theories of moral philosophy to come (whether utilitarianism or existentialism or even nihilism), which Plato compasses in his grounded discussion of what truly promotes human well-being. The arguments Socrates puts forward, that it is better to suffer injustice than to do it, seem at odds with certain forms of logic (and particularly the logic of self-interest as we moderns define it), but they correspond with our moral instincts, and Socrates does an excellent job of interrogating why.
This is one I will definitely have to re-read at some point in the future, because there's just so much here. But as a classic of moral and political philosophy, I can't recommend this dialogue enough.
This discourse from the master of political philosophy is incredibly rich and textured, and I feel like one read-through isn't enough to do it justice - er, so to speak. There is a definite pre- or even proto-Christian flavour even to the pagan 'myth' with which Socrates closes the discussion, when discussing the nature of the afterlife and the last judgement, and the arguments by which Polus and especially Callicles proceed offer brief flashes, presentiments, of entire theories and families of theories of moral philosophy to come (whether utilitarianism or existentialism or even nihilism), which Plato compasses in his grounded discussion of what truly promotes human well-being. The arguments Socrates puts forward, that it is better to suffer injustice than to do it, seem at odds with certain forms of logic (and particularly the logic of self-interest as we moderns define it), but they correspond with our moral instincts, and Socrates does an excellent job of interrogating why.
This is one I will definitely have to re-read at some point in the future, because there's just so much here. But as a classic of moral and political philosophy, I can't recommend this dialogue enough.
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