In this presentation, Roger explores Plato's Gorgias, in which Socrates confronts Gorgias, the most celebrated teacher of rhetoric in the ancient world, in a clash between two opposed visions of speech and truth. Weir reveals how Socrates pioneers a new form of consciousness—a method of dialogue built on sequential inquiry and demonstrable truth—standing in stark contrast to rhetoric's mastery of persuasion through belief rather than knowledge. As the conversation moves from Gorgias to his brash student Polus and finally to the fiery Callicles, Socrates exposes rhetoric as mere flattery, a counterfeit of the true arts of medicine, gymnastics, legislation, and justice, insisting that the mind's real task is to serve as the crucible in which the gold of the soul is tested and proven. Touching on power, pleasure, discipline, and the courage to be refuted rather than to win, this lecture reveals one of Plato's most underestimated dialogues as a pivotal moment where Socrates begins to grasp an entirely new kind of mind.

This presentation by Roger Weir was originally delivered on January 18, 1990.

More information about these presentations can be found at
https://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/plato
https://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/platos-theory-of-education
https://sharedpresencefoundation.org/presentations/plato-ii

More presentations by Roger Weir are available at the Shared Presence Foundation website and on our YouTube channel