Gorgias
Classical
The sophist who argued that nothing exists, and that if it did, no one could know it, and if they could, no one could say it.
Gorgias came from Sicily to Athens as an ambassador and dazzled the city with a new power: persuasion as an art. He took no fixed doctrine, charged high fees, and showed that a skilled speaker could argue any side of any question. His little treatise On Non-Being runs a chain of arguments to three impossible conclusions — nothing exists, the existent cannot be known, the known cannot be communicated — half logic, half dare. Plato made him the foil of a dialogue and spent a career answering the unsettling idea that rhetoric might matter more than truth.
Places
Ideas
Words
“Nothing exists; and if anything did, it could not be known; and if it could be known, it could not be put into words.”
Works
Life & Moments
Born in Sicily
Born at Leontini in Sicily, he would carry the new art of persuasion to mainland Greece.
The Embassy to Athens
Came to Athens as an envoy and stayed to teach rhetoric, dazzling the city and charging high fees for the power of words.
Influence
Influenced
- Plato
Plato made Gorgias the foil of a dialogue, spending a career answering the sophist's claim that persuasion might matter more than truth.
