The Use Of Dialect In Plato's Gorgias

The use of dialect in Plato’s Gorgias raises question about whether it actually changes the beliefs a person holds. The reading opens up with Socrates and his friend Polus having a conversation about orators and tyrants while questioning the power they hold in there cities. Throughout the whole reading they engage in topics of power, Happiness, and suffering while each disagree with each other. Socrates uses the art of dialect and shows Polus that his opinions are flawed and eventually Polus concedes and sides with Socrates, contradicting his first statement. Although Polus now takes the views Socrates has, does that really mean his mind is truly changed? I would make that claim that though Socrates has successfully made Polus contradict his first statements, his use of dialect did not

thoroughly change Polus’s beliefs because in the end we don’t know if Polus truly accepts Socrates’s views. Polus takes a more argumentative approach to the conversation and doesn’t truly grasp the idea of a dialectic conversation, which if done properly could help him understand Socrates’s views. The outcome leads to nowhere and we do not have enough evidence to know if Polus actually understands.
Polus makes the mistake of thinking that Socrates would love having great power over people, to be able to execute them, take their property, and do as he sees fit because he would be envied. Socrates does not want such power because whether it would be justly or unjustly he along with people with that power are unhappy. Polus does not agree with his ideas because he believes people with great power are happy that they can do as they see fit without repercussions, while Socrates says they are miserable. After Socrates explains his view to Polus, Polus starts to agree with Socrates and as we think, seems to agree with him. Socrates in the conversations reaffirms Polus’s contradiction by saying,
“Well then, my surprising fellow, here again you take the view that as long as acting as one sees fit coincides with acting beneficially, it is good, and this, evidently, is having great power. Otherwise it is a bad thing, and is having little power” (341).
Socrates explains to Polus that even not having to deal with the consequences of ones actions is still bad because of the guilt it brings and even good just men have to deal with that. After Polus agrees Socrates asks again if he agrees and Polus’s answer is short “yes”.
As the conversation continues Socrates and Polus begins to talk about would a person rather take unjust suffering or give unjust suffering. Polus believes that he would rather do the injustice than to receive the suffering. Socrates believes that because doing the injustice is shameful, he would rather endure the injustice. Polus and Socrates go back and forth talking and get down to good and evil within the actions of a person who does injustice or endures it, in the end Polus concedes again. Polus would not welcome more evil and shame over what is less. After Socrates proved Polus wrong, he did not want to answer Socrates afterwards. Socrates reiterates Polus’s contradiction by saying, “I was right, then, when I said that neither you nor I nor any other person would take doing what’s unjust over suffering it, for it really is more evil” (349). Socrates is telling Polus that in the end people would rather deal with the physical agony than to live with the horror of their actions of doing unjust acts to another. Unfortunately that is not the case in today’s reality most people would do harm to each other to protect their own interests even if that means taking a life. People of the modern world often find any and every way to justify their own evil.
Towards the end of their conversation Polus is now just fast answering Socrates and no longer trying to refute him because he knows Socrates would just prove his opinion wrong.

Socrates then goes back to Polus’s original point, the one that started this conversation. In the beginning Polus thought Archelaus a happy man because he had great power. Socrates has proven Polus’s statement to be false by making him contradict ever point he tries to make. By doing so the conclusion to the conversation should have been Polus agreeing with Socrates fully and us as readers feel that this conversation has closure. Polus shows his attitude by saying in the end, “I think these statements are absurd, Socrates, though no doubt you think they agree with those expressed earlier” (357). Polus is now feeling flustered and just wants the conversation to be over because after Socrates makes Polus contradict his claims every time he would drive the point in that he agreed with him in the end. Polus now just does not want to speak on this topic and I feel this is what could have been avoided. Both men acted childishly Polus being argumentative and opinionated while Socrates was being a sore

winner.
Overall the use of Socrates’s dialectic method did not work because Polus was being overly protective of his own views and not willing enough to hear out Socrates. Socrates on the other hand was acting kind of childish by making Polus repeat his lose in the conversation which in turn pushed Polus away from actually learning something. Because of these mishaps I reaffirm my claim that dialectic did not help change Polus’s beliefs and he is more so feeling beaten at an everyday game rather than truly understanding Socrates views.