Gorgias (in Greek old Γοργίας / Gorgías ) of Léontium (or Léontinoï) was born in Sicily, it was pupil of Empédocle with which it learned the Rhétorique. Sophist, it taught art to persuade. It is affirmed that he lived 108 years!
Plato, whose writings form the core around whose philosophy and its history crystallized, threw a discredit upon the thought of Gorgias so that today still the qualifier “Sophiste” is pejorative. “It is said that Gorgias, having read itself the dialog which bears its name, said: “As Plato can make fun well! ”” It would be nevertheless right to return to the sources in order to discover the importance of this thought - not only in the history of philosophy but also for the contemporary thought.
Gorgias thinker To be it and of the truth
“Gorgias de Léontium belongs to this category of philosophers who removed the criterion of truth. (...) In its entitled book Of the non-being, or nature , it sets up, in the order, three fundamental proposals: firstly, and to start, that nothing exists; secondly that, even if there exists something, the man cannot apprehend it; thirdly, that even if one can apprehend it, one can neither formulate it nor to explain it to the others. ”(Sextus Empiricus, Against the mathematicians , VII, 65)
The arguments of Gorgias to prove that nothing exists are of a logical nature: “ if there exists something, it is or the being, or the non-being, or at the same time the being and the non-being. ” which in propositional logic is written as follows: (pv¬p) v (p^¬p)
“If the non-being exists, it will be and at the same time it will not be (...). However it is completely absurd that something either and is not at the same time. Thus the non-being is not pas.
If the non-being exists as well as the being, the non-being will be identical to the being from the point of view of the existence: so that any of both will not be. That the non-being does not exist, they is allowed; demonstration was given that the being would be constituté like him, and thus, the being itself will not exist. ”
Gorgias rhetorician
Beside the weakness of the truth, Gorgias poses the force of the language, its capacity on the spirits, by the argumentation, and on the emotions, by the rate/rhythm and the sound effects. This capacity can be well or misused, the technè rhêtorikè does not guarantee nor does not raise the morality of that which employs it, it acts of a neutral instrument. In that, Gorgias is the founder of pragmatism rhetorician, opposed to the philosophical idealism with the manner of Plato (the lessons of Socrate lead those which listen to them to become better). Gorgias seems to be one of the first to develop the idea that the speaker can help the States to make policy options, because its technè allows him 1. to analyze the situation, 2. to convince for the action.
Apart from his treaty of a metaphysical nature whose Sextus Empiricus preserved us an extract (see above), one has of Gorgias two short pleas, For Helene and For Palamède . One can see there examples of the processes stylistics and sound of which it makes the theory.
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