¹ I hope to further a trend in recent studies to broaden the scope of theory of language in Plato, traditionally focused on logic, metaphysics, and the origins of language. Some examples of this new trend are White, J. B., ‘The Reconstitution of Language and Self in a Community of Two’, in When Words Lose Their Meaning (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1984), 93–113CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Blank, D., ‘The Arousal of Emotion in Plato's Dialogues’, Classical Quarterly 43 (1993), 428–439CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bestor, T. W., ‘Plato's Semantics and Plato's Cave’, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 14 (1996), 33–82Google Scholar; Michelini, A. N., ‘POLLÊ AGROIKIA: Rudeness and Irony in Plato's Gorgias’, Classical Philology 93 (1998), 50–59CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

² From a developmentalist perspective, some scholars have argued that prior to adopting the Method of Hypothesis in the Meno and Republic, the Method of Elenchus comes under extensive re-examination in several ‘transitional’ dialogues (Euthydemus, Gorgias, Lysis, Hippias Major), as well as some ‘Middle Period’ dialogues (Cratylus, Meno): Vlastos, G., ‘The Socratic Elenchus’, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 1 (1983), 27–58Google Scholar at 57–58; Irwin, T., Plato. Gorgias (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979), 111, 170Google Scholar; Kahn, C. H., Plato and the Socratic Dialogue (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1996), 46–65Google Scholar, 142–145. I would agree that the elenchus undergoes revision in several dialogues; in this paper, I am merely pursuing one aspect of dialectical conversation in a few selected dialogues.

³ Many studies have compared Socratic methods with Sophistic tactics. Gentzler, J., ‘The Sophistic Cross-Examination of Callicles in the Gorgias’, Ancient Philosophy 15 (1995), 17–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar at 23–30 provides a detailed comparison of the types of cross-examination in the Gorgias and the Euthydemus. Jackson, R., ‘Socrates' Iolaos: Myth and Eristic in Plato's Euthydemus’, Classical Quarterly 40 (1990), 378–395CrossRefGoogle Scholar argues a genuine contrast between Socratic elenchus and Sophistic eristic, in spite of the disappointing outcome for Socrates in the Euthydemus.

⁴ There is a conceptual analogue in contemporary linguistics. Some theorists have defined ‘pragmatic overshoot’ as the violation by one speaker of the pragmatic rules of another speaker's world model, on account of some discrepancy in their views of the world: Weischedel, R. M. and Sondheimer, N. K., ‘Meta-rules as a Basis for Processing Ill-Formed Input’, American Journal of Computational Linguistics 9 (1983), 161–177Google Scholar; Carberry, M. S., ‘The Use of Inferred Knowledge in Understanding Pragmatically Ill-Formed Queries’, in Communication Failure in Dialogue and Discourse, ed. Reilly, R. G. (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1987), 187–200Google Scholar; Coupland, N., Giles, H., and Wiemann, J. M., ‘Talk as “Problem” and Communication as “Miscommunication”: An Integrative Analysis’, in ‘Miscommunication’ and Problematic Talk, eds. Coupland, N., Giles, H., and Wiemann, J. M. (Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage, 1991), 1–17Google Scholar at 11–16; Mortensen, C. D., Problematic Communication. The Construction of Invisible Walls (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1994), 5Google Scholar, 38–42, 149–151, 196–198.

⁵ Collingwood, R. G., Principles of Art (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1938), 118–119Google Scholar, 140–141, 157–160, 251.

⁶ Gagarin, M., ‘The Purpose of Plato's Protagoras’, Transactions of the American Philological Association 100 (1969), 133–164CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Gagarin, op. cit., 153, argues that Socrates sincerely commends Protagoras for engagement on such matters. ‘Two facts support the sincerity of this statement. Firstly, Socrates has constantly endeavored to confine the discussion to Protagoras and himself, refusing to let anyone else even act as referee. Secondly, Protagoras throughout the Great Speech does show a great concern for aretê. Thus Socrates’ statement is true, and he must be seriously, not ironically, complimenting the sophist.'

⁷ Hunter, R., Plato's Symposium (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 98–112Google Scholar argues the ‘revisionist’ case for Alcibiades' distorted picture of Socrates. His showy experiences are not well matched to genuinely philosophical experiences.

⁸ A select list of conversation problems in the Gorgias: putting words into the mouth of the interlocutors (Gorg. 466E4–7; 469E1–6), oblique addresses of conversationalists who are present (Gorg. 466E4–7; 448D1–449A4; 481B6–C4), concern with various kinds of speech dysfunction (Gorg. 485A4–E2; 519D8–9), concern with what sense of a term (Gorg. 469C3–7; 489C1–E9) or statement (Gorg. 489A8–B6) is meant, questioning the kind of speech act (Gorg. 466B1) or speech genre (Gorg. 466C3–5; 473D3–4) meant by the speaker, charging Socrates with interrogating himself in solipsistic discourse (Gorg. 505D4–9, cf. 470B11–C3), and even noting the need to repair misunderstanding by reconstructing the lost common ground (Gorg. 517C4–518C1).

⁹ The translation is adapted from Zeyl, D. J., in Plato. Complete Works, ed. Cooper, J. M. (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1997), 826Google Scholar.

¹⁰ Of course, there are several important uses of these words in the Republic, where Plato develops parallel accounts of belief and desire. Beliefs are described in almost the same terms used in the Gorgias for desires (Rep. 511D7) – states of belief and knowledge are expressed as ‘experiences in the soul’ (pathêmata en têi psuchêi).

¹¹ Dodds, E. R., Plato. Gorgias (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1959), 261Google Scholar translates Gorg. 481C5–D1 as follows. ‘If people had not certain feelings (pathos) in common, some sharing one feeling, some another, but some of us had unique feelings (pathos) unshared by the rest, it would not be easy to reveal one's experience (pathêma) to one's neighbour.’ According to Dodds, the pathêma is the result of the pathos. However, the uses of these terms converge quite closely in Plato, occurring with roughly equal frequency. What I understand in this passage (experience of desire) appears in other passages: Prot. 352E6; Phdr. 250A7; Phdr. 251C2; Symp. 217E6 (pathos); Gorg. 524D6; Prot. 353A5; Phil. 32C1; Phil. 41C2 (pathêma). The term pathêma is almost always used with reference to an experience that is associated with the experience of others: Ap. 22C4; Phd. 59A5; Phd. 68E4; Soph. 243C3; Eud. 293E3; Gorg. 513C5; Gorg. 522B3; Rep. 488A2; Leg. 699E2; Leg. 712E6 (Leg. 687E2 counts as an exception).

¹² Cf. the channel analogy (Rep. 485D6–E1), the philosopher's obsession with what is (Rep. 490A8–B7).

¹³ On the other hand, in a later passage (Gorg. 513C4–6) the experience (pathos) of desire which consumes Callicles is not shared with Socrates, but rather with the Athenian people at large (pepontha de to tôn pollôn pathos). Callicles acknowledges his strong psychological attachment, and Socrates repeats the charge that he is subject to the whims of the demos (Gorg. 513C7–D1).

¹⁴ Irwin, T., Plato's Moral Theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), 230Google Scholar; Irwin, T., Plato's Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 102–106CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Woolf, R., ‘Callicles and Socrates: Psychic (Dis)harmony in the Gorgias’, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 18 (2000), 1–40Google Scholar at 16 n. 21 provide diagnosis of the frustrated outcome as regards Callicles. The question of what constitutes a ‘failure’ in the dialogues is quite complicated, as Fossheim, H., ‘On Plato's Use of Socrates as a Character in his Dialogues’, Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter (2005/6), 3–16Google Scholar shows. Scott, D., ‘Platonic Pessimism and Moral Education’, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 17 (1999), 15–36Google Scholar at 16–22; Woolf, op. cit., 28–32 point out that Socratic dialectic retains the power to induce clarity about what interlocutors most deeply desire and value, as well as their fundamentally inconsistent beliefs. Socrates needs to present a complete, clearly specified final good which is rationally acceptable to every moral agent, as detailed by Irwin, Gorgias, 149–150, 210, 222–224; Irwin, Plato's Ethics, 248–251.

¹⁵ Grice, P., Studies in the Way of Words (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1989), 26Google Scholar outlines some fundamental values and purposes of general conversation. ‘Our talk exchanges … are characteristically, to some degree at least, cooperative efforts; and each participant recognizes in them, to some extent, a common purpose or set of purposes, or at least a mutually accepted direction.’ Sperber, D. and Wilson, D., Relevance. Communication and Cognition, 2nd edn. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995), 268Google Scholar downplay common goals for pragmatic principles in reaction to Grice and his followers, although they retain weaker common purposes involved in all conversation, such as the common goal of mutual understanding.

¹⁶ Blank, op. cit., 430–431 describes such cases at length.

¹⁷ Moore, A. W., ‘Points of View’, The Philosophical Quarterly 37 (1987), 1–12CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sperber and Wilson, op. cit., 38–46, 192–200 discuss what constitutes like or unlike experiences involved in talk exchanges. Klosko, G., ‘Criteria of Fallacy and Sophistry for Use in the Analysis of Platonic Dialogues’ Classical Quarterly 33 (1983), 363–374CrossRefGoogle Scholar at 369–373 argues that the point of view of the interlocutor is important in assessing the arguments that Socrates employs, but this only concerns the logical dimensions of Socratic dialectic.

¹⁸ It is worthwhile to compare this point with the brief remarks of Dewey, John, Democracy and Education (New York: The Free Press, 1916), 5–6Google Scholar. Dewey thinks that detachment towards the content of one's own experience is always required in order to communicate this content to someone else. We should adopt an attitude towards our experience independent of one's particular point of view; another Deweyan suggestion is that we should adopt an attitude that is adapted to another's point of view.

¹⁹ In the Gorgias, finding any moral gold in the plebeian dross looks unpromising. In the Republic, Plato examines the view, only partially developed in the Gorgias, that certain loves or desires are what must be overcome by reason in order to turn people from vice to virtue, as detailed by Scott, op. cit., 21 n. 11, 26–36. It is not just a matter of presenting the opponent with arguments which depend on preferences that any rational interlocutor is supposed to accept.

²⁰ Irwin, Plato's Moral Theory, 115, 309; Irwin, Gorgias, 5, 227 points out that the Gorgias echoes the Crito in several respects. The moral thesis of the Gorgias that it is better to suffer than to do injustice (Gorg. 508E1–509A7; 527B2–5) is similar to the antadikein view of the Crito that under no circumstances, even when wronged, should one inflict harm on others (Crit. 49A4–C9; cf. Rep. 335B6–D13). This view is central in the Gorgias. It is the first of Socrates' five claims left standing after the previous discussions, until someone can show he is wrong, given his ignorance as to how things are (Gorg. 527B2–5; cf. 508E1–509A7).

²¹ Irwin, Plato's Ethics, 305–306 discusses the hostility of ‘the many’ towards philosophers (Phaedrus, Republic).

²² I prefer the translation of koinê boulê (Crit. 49D2–5) as ‘common ground’, while Irwin translates as ‘common deliberation’. According to the TLG database, the Crito passage contains a hapax legomenon if we cannot rely on the authenticity of uses in 1 Alc. 119B1; 124B10; Ep. VIII 355A3.

²³ Cf. the discussion in the Meno on the value of philosophical inquiry, itself established by argument, as a starting point for a dialectical exchange (Men. 80C3–81E2, 86A6–E4; cf. Gorg. 487E7–488A2). The value of inquiry is even more central to philosophy than the value, usually implicit in other dialogues, of understanding and being understood (Eud. 295B7–C11). In the Meno, philosophical inquiry amounts to recollection, as examined by Scott, D., Recollection and Experience (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 24–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²⁴ Blank, op. cit., 438–439 argues as follows. ‘The reference [in Republic X] to habituation of the soul towards a measured emotional response brings us inevitably back to Aristotle and his own theory of catharsis. As Aristotle would have said, dialectic properly conducted will train or habituate its audience to display the proper emotion in the proper measure in response to dialectic.’

²⁵ The philosophical significance of Gorgias of Leontini has attracted substantial discussion: Segal, C. P., ‘Gorgias and the Psychology of the Logos’, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 66 (1962), 99–155CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kerferd, G. B., The Sophistic Movement (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 44–45Google Scholar, 78–110; Wardy, R., The Birth of Rhetoric. Gorgias, Plato and their Successors (London and New York: Routledge, 1996), 6–51Google Scholar; Spatharas, D. G., ‘Patterns of Argumentation in Gorgias’, Mnemosyne 54 (2001), 393–408CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²⁶ Wardy, op. cit., 14–15 maintains that MXG is far more reliable as a report of Gorgias than Sextus Empiricus, on account of the signs of heavy editorial intervention, doxographical overtones, technical vocabulary germane to Hellenistic philosophy, and the mention of Protagoras (Math. 7.65). Even if Wardy is correct, we should not discount what is reported by Sextus regarding the dependence of logos on things (material which is missing from MXG).

²⁷ Wardy, R., ‘Rhetoric’, in Greek Thought. A Guide to Classical Knowledge, eds. Brunschwig, J. and Lloyd, G. E. R. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000), 465–485Google Scholar covers these points in detail.

²⁸ It has long been recognized that Gorgias is strongly influenced by the methods of Zeno, Melissus, and Parmenides, as argued by Nestle, W., ‘Die Schrift des Gorgias “über die Natur oder über das Nichtseiende”’, Hermes 57 (1922), 551–562Google Scholar; Bux, E., ‘Gorgias und Parmenides’, Hermes 76 (1941), 393–407Google Scholar. Some of these points are continued by Kerferd, G. B., ‘Gorgias on Nature or That Which Is Not’, Phronesis 1 (1955), 3–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar at 20–23.

²⁹ This is a major theme of both rhetorical discourses (DK 82: B11, B11a). Kerferd, op. cit., 78–82; Segal, op. cit., 103–135 provide additional explanation.

³⁰ Needless to say, there is an extensive scholarly literature on language, truth, and the Forms. I have particularly benefited from Partee, M. H., ‘Plato's Theory of Language’, Foundations of Language 8 (1972), 113–132Google Scholar; Patterson, R., Image and Reality in Plato's Metaphysics (Indianapolis, Ind.: Hackett, 1985), 28Google Scholar, 34, 111–113, 158.

³¹ Plato alleges Gorgias' clever speechmaking and its effects on the soul, regardless of what is objectively true or false (Men. 95C1–4). The issue is discussed by Segal, op. cit., 110–112; Robinson, J. M., ‘On Gorgias’, in Exegesis and Argument. Studies in Greek Philosophy Presented to Gregory Vlastos, eds. Lee, E. N., Mourelatos, A. P. D., and Rorty, R. M. (New York: Humanities Press, 1973), 49–60Google Scholar; Kerferd, op. cit., 79–82.

³² In the course of several stages of work, I have benefited from the generous responses of Richard Sorabji, M. M. McCabe, John Peterman, Rafe Woolf, Marina McCoy, and many others.