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523a-527a
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Gorgias, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The Practice and Goal of Oratory
Justice, Injustice, and the Treatment of the Soul
The Pleasant Life vs. the Good Life
Philosophy vs. Politics
Summary
Analysis
Socrates sums up his argument. He says that even these wisest of Greeks—Callicles, Polus, and Gorgias—have been unable to prove that people should live in any other way besides the path that will reap benefits in the afterlife as well. He maintains that it’s been proven that doing what’s unjust is worse than suffering it, and that being good is more important than seeming to be good; that discipline is good; that flattery is bad; and that oratory, as well as everything else, should only be used in support of what’s just. Following Socrates’s way will ensure happiness both in this life and the next. Callicles’s way, Socrates concludes, is worthless.
Socrates concludes that even the best wisdom of the day, as symbolized by his three discussion partners, falls short of aiming at what’s best: the afterlife. The best advice that the day’s orators can offer is to entangle oneself in this life—not with the ultimate goal of improving one’s soul, but of flattering others and promoting oneself, all with the goal of extending earthly life for as long as possible. Only Socrates’s philosophical life truly benefits the soul and, by extension, society as a whole.
Themes
