Monday, September 7, 2020

The Challenge of Callicles

Given that we have these desires, what do we do with them?  Would fulfillment of those desires amount to your vision of the good life?  How should one pursue one’s desires?  As a starting point, we will look at an example of the view of a group of people in ancient Greece called Sophists and Rhetoricians, particularly a character in Plato’s Gorgias named Callicles.  Callicles seems to view happiness in terms of the fulfillment of one’s desires, and extends this to claim that we are happier if we have stronger desires (so long as we are able to fulfill them).  Power is the ability to get what we desire, to accomplish what we purpose, and rhetoric (the ability to persuade others to do what one wants) is the most powerful tool for gaining and exercising power.  Socrates raises a number of critical questions about this vision, and claims that the fundamental choice in life is between this Sophistic attitude and that of the philosopher.

Goals – by the end of this class you will… 

• Be familiar with Callicles’ view of the good life, and aware of two alternative views (Plato, Kongzi)
• Understand Socratic challenges to Callicles’ position, the issues they present, and what they reveal about the sophistic/rhetorical orientation
• See how to make explicit objections and arguments out of dialog text
• Appreciate why Plato views the choice between philosophical and rhetorical/sophistic lives as the fundamental choice in how to live.

Before Class

Read This:

• Gorgias, Great Speech of Callicles [link to Perusall]
• Gorgias, Socrates’ Interrogation of Callicles [link]
• Trevor Newton, “A Summary of Plato’s Gorgias” http://trevornewton.com/blog.php?id=15&title=A-summary-of-Platos-Gorgias-(Waterfield-translation-1994)

Watch This:

• Video on Gorgias

Do This:

• Try to summarize, in a sentence or two, Callicles’ view of the good life
• Enumerate the concerns Socrates brings up about Callicles’ view
• Read the passage about the scratcher and the catamite in [page range]. What seems to be the point of these examples?

If you want to explore further:

• Soccio chapter: “The Sophist: Protagoras” [link to Perusall]

In Class

Bring to Class/Have Ready:

• Plato text (i.e., Gorgias readings)

Topics

• Intro and overview of the dialog
• Main points of Callicles’ view
  • Natural and conventional senses of ‘good’
  • “Good” = “what I desire”
  • More fulfilled desires = more good
  • Why rhetoric is desirable
  • Importance of power over others, use of language to dominate
• The points Socrates presses him on
• Are there better and worse desires/pleasures?
• Tension between relativism and Sophistic idea of “superior person”
• Perhaps differentiate between (a) what you in fact wanted beforehand, and (b) what in fact makes you happy once you get it (even if happiness is pleasure) – if we accept this, what does it suggest?
• Sketch of two alternatives: Plato (Tushar?) and Kongzi (Steve A?) [or leave to 2b]

Class questions:

1.  What do the sophists see as the nature of the good life?  How do they see sophistry as the best route to this?
2. What are Plato’s criticisms of this view?
3. Can you make sense of Socrates’ claim that this is a fundamental choice – perhaps the fundamental choice – between ways of living, and what we should devote all our attention to deciding between?

Resources Used

• Handout: Dramatis Personae
• Handout: Overview of dialog

After Class

Re-read this

Do this

• Reflect on these questions:
  • Are there “better” and “worse” desires to have?
  • Are there some things that I want, but would prefer not to want?
  • Are there things I don’t actively desire that maybe it would be good for me to desire and pursue? (List them)

Additional Readings and Resources for Further Exploration:

• (stuff here)

[Class assessment – possible link to assessment tool]