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4 The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Nature, Rhetoric, and Refutation in the Gorgias Before I proceed along these lines any further, I would like to interrupt this reading of the Apology long enough to insert a discussion of the Gorgias , and in particular the accusation made by Callicles against Socrates as it is issued near the very center of that dialogue, namely that in his refutative encounters with Polus and Gorgias, Socrates exploits and yet covers over the difference that prevails between what holds according to f¥siq, or nature, and what holds merely according to nømoq, or convention (Gorg. 482cff.). An elaboration of refutation (‘legxoq) in this context reveals how the Socratic turn to dialogue, and to the necessity of dialogue, is intimately bound to a transformation of nature and the human relation to nature. Socratic refutation in the Gorgias can be said to enact a kind of dialogical justice that unfolds only in the affirmation of the human good as it is inexorably bound to a prior community, the friendship that arises from out of the belonging together of all things. The dialogue demonstrates that it is this community that returns Socrates to the task of self-knowledge as a possible friendship with oneself. What Callicles says can be heard as an attempted summary of what occurs through Socratic refutation: “And this, take note, is your wise ploy for working evil in speeches: when one says something according to convention [katÅ nømon] you respond according to nature [katÅ f¥sin], and when one speaks of what is according to nature, you respond with what is according to convention” (Gorg. 483a). Now while it is the case that in this dialogue Socrates both flatly denies the opposition as such and denies that he exploits the opposition in his refutations (Gorg. 489b), it is nevertheless 67 worth recalling how Aristotle will account for this very stratagem, the one that in Plato’s text Callicles attributes to Socratic refutation, as a piece of sophistry.1 Callicles, however, raises this objection against Socrates as a way to deprecate what he takes to be a distinctly philosophical practice. Closely connected to the charge that philosophy exploits the distinction between nature and human convention is the further claim that philosophy leads to a corruption or a degeneration of human life. It is the ruin of humans, the diafuorÅ t©n Ωnur√pvn, especially if the one who takes it up continues to pursue it beyond youth. The relative benefit or harm philosophy holds for human life thus comes to be articulated by Callicles within the nature of human life, precisely as that nature is bound up with a movement of aging, and cannot be determined in abstraction from such movement. Philosophy is thus said not only to present a distorting interpretation of nature—by covertly exploiting the distinction between nature and convention—but to be itself a degenerate form of nature. Callicles thus asks Socrates to dispense with philosophy and to move on to “bigger things” (Gorg. 484c–d). It becomes clear that this means that Socrates should cease refuting: pa†sai d’ ®l™gjvn (Gorg. 486c). Philosophy can be compared to lisping and the playing of tricks, which Callicles states are endearing when found in youth but become disgusting if encountered in one who is older (Gorg. 485b). But what is most debilitating about philosophy, when it is pursued beyond the years appropriate to it, consists in the way it produces “ridiculous” and “unmanly” individuals who are unable to defend themselves in public. Philosophy is thus something shameful—and we might also say, ugly— because of the political ineptitude that it brings about. Callicles challenges the wisdom of an “art” (t™xnh) that renders one utterly incapable of saving oneself “from the greatest dangers” (®k t©n megºstvn kind†nvn) (Gorg. 486b). For as it is, if someone got hold of you or of anyone else like you and took you off to prison on the charge of injustice when you were not unjust [fåskvn Ωdike¡n mhd‚n Ωdiko†nta], you know that you wouldn’t have any use for yourself . You would be dizzy and agape with nothing to say. You’d go to trial facing a no good accuser and be put to death, if death is that to which that one would condemn you. (Gorg. 486a–b) In the Apology, Socrates himself raises this very objection against himself and responds to...

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