WORKSHOP: Shame and ad hominem arguments in Socratic dialogue
By Don Finkel
Divide into group of three. Make one person a clock-watcher. You have 90 minutes to discuss these questions. Be back in Lib. 2116 at 2:30 having completed all of them.
1. (10 minutes)
a. Locate the place in Socrates' conversation with Gorgias where Gorgias agrees to the statement that allows Socrates to refute him. Be clear on what the statement is.
b. Locate the place in Socrates' conversation with Polus where Polus agrees to the statement that allows Socrates to refute him. Be clear on what the statement is.
c. Considered psychologically, not logically, what do these two moments have in common? What is it about these two statements that leads Gorgias and Polus respectively to agree to them.
2. (10 mins.)
a. Read Callicles' statement that starts at 482c5 up to where he says "because he was ashamed to say what he thought" at 482e3. What do you make of the role of shame in Socrates' dialectic, both in these two specific conversations, and then in general?
b. What does it say about Socrates' approach, if Callicles is correct in characterizing it as relying heavily on shaming the interlocutor?
3. (10 mins.) At 508b7 Socrates says, "...what you thought Polus admitted through a sense of shame is true after all--that it is as much more evil as it is more shameful to do than to suffer wrong, and he who is to become a rhetorician in the right way must after all be a just man with a knowledge of what is just--an admission which Gorgias in turn made, according to Polus, through a sense of shame."
Judging from this quotation, what would you say is Socrates' version of whether and how he employs "shaming" in his dialectic? How would he justify his "shaming" in these two instances?
4. (10 mins.) Can you think of any other instances, either in the Gorgias or other dialogues, in which shaming or the sense of shame plays an important role in the course of the argument?
5. (20 mins.) In the article cited in footnote 1, C.H. Kahn makes this statement:
The three elenchi of the Gorgias, the refutations of Gorgias, Polus, and Callicles, constitute Plato's fullest portrayal of the way in which the dialectical encounter with Socrates turns into a critical examination of the interlocutor's own life... . Thus it is the central thesis of this study that all three arguments are in a deep sense ad hominem: directed against the man and not only against his statements. (pp. 75-6)
Discuss and examine this point of view on the Gorgias by first sketching out as fully as you can the character and personality of each of Socrates' three antagonists in this dialogue, and then by trying to see how Socrates' strategy or argument wit h each might be, as Kahn says, "against the man," or "a critical examination of [his] own life."
6. (20 mins.) Kahn concludes his article with the following two sentences:
Plato's philosophic justification for this dependence of the argument upon the life and character of the speaker and also ... the psychological explanation of why this linkage between argument and character achieves such conspicuous success in the dramati c impact of the dialogues--both explanation and justification are to be found in the deep, partially unconscious desire for the good on the part of the interlocu tor and reader alike. No theory of philosophical argument and proof which ignores the role of this fundamental desire in shaping patters of agreement and assent can give an adequate account of the practice of philosophy as it is portrayed in t he Platonic dialogues. (p. 121--my emphasis)
Discuss. First try to come up with an argument that would justify Kahn's claims in this paragraph (i.e., explain why you think he would come to this conclusion) and second, see whether or not you agree with the claims (that is, are convinced by the argu ments you came up with).
7. (10 mins.) Each individual separately write an answer to the following question (to be presented in class at 2:30): Do you think that in a deep sense philosophical argument is or should be always ad hominem--directed against the person and no t just her arguments? Explain why or why not.