gorgias

bkz: Mario Untersteiner
A. Laks - Early Greek Philosophy vol. 8-9, Sophists (vol 8, pp. 114-291)
G.B. Kerferd, The Sophists and their legacy
S. Consigny, Gorgias: Sophist and Artist
John Dillon, Tania Gergel, The Greek Sophists

gorganize, gordy greep, gorgorwell

on not-being or on nature

• nothing exists
• even if anything is, its inapprehensible
• also its inexpressible and incommunicable

is the cafe there? can you know the cafe as it actually is? can you describe/convey what you know about the existence of the cafe?

if anything exists it must be: being (what is), non-being (what isnt), both!

gorgias eliminates, or atleast tries to, every possibility.

both cant be, absolute non-being cannot exist.

epic move: gorgias tries to eliminate being.

being:

• have always existed (eternal)
• have come into existence (generated)
• both

eternal → no beginning → infinite → nowhere → doesnt exist

reminds me of the attributes of allah

does having no beginning require something to have no spatial boundaries?

if time began, would it require a moment before time existed? “before” already assumes time. or a beginning means a first moment rather than an event preceded by another event.

suppose Being is spatially infinite:

1. if being is somewhere, it must be inside something
2. that container must be larger than whats in it
3. nothing is larger than infinite
4. infinite being is nowhere, so it doesnt exist

if we consider space as a whole, does it require a larger space around it?

my redditor mind suggests that space provides itself the space it needs to be contained. ofc gorgias anticipated this and said it makes space two things. 1. the thing 2. the thing containing the thing

absurd result.

but why must those two roles require two separate things?

§71:

1. being must come from either being or non-being
2. if from being, it was already there, so it hasnt come into existence.
3. if from non-being, nothing exists to produce it.
4. therefore being cannot come into existence.

so he treats material and the object from that material as the same.

why does gorgias feel the need to constrict concepts such as space with his rules? are his rules requirements of reality or assumptions imposed by his arguments?

they arent automatically true because he uses them, hes using them as bait so you feel entitled to challenge his premises. demonstrating the power of argument.

§77, even if anything exists, it is unknowable and inconceivable

thinking of things doesnt make them happen, a flying chariot for example.
but there is a difference between: thought doesnt always correspond to reality & thought cannot ever give us knowledge of reality

imagining something doesnt establish either its existence or its impossibility.

a square circle

some thoughts dont correspond to reality, we cannot simply conclude that no thought can correspond to reality.

third claim §84, what you convey is speech (logos), you drank a very nice espresso, you can very accurately describe the taste yet you can not convey the experience to the interlocutor.

your friend could be familiar with the espresso, or even had the same drink at the same place. your position allows a limit to communication without making communication impossible.