Plato's Dialogue "Georgias" between nature and laws, rhetoric and it's role, truth and responsibility

Greyfeather
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Greyfeather
Greyfeather: Plato's Dialogue "Georgias" is a debate between nature and justice, a dialectical philosophy of Socrates with a sophistry who is Georgias.
About sophistry" Protagoras was the leader of sophist thought in the fifth century. He believed that man is the measure of everything, good and evil, determined according to the needs of the human being. Protagoras was doubtful about knowledge, meaning there is no fixed standard for truth.
The approach of sophists used depends on the argument based on fallacy and manipulation of words to turn truth into falsehood or vice versa.
In Georgias dialogue, an interlocutor announced that it is better for us to be that Hercules whose will becomes law and that the weak people are the ones who made laws and called them justice, he claimed that justice is the right of the strongest and the best"
Actually he didn't know that nature doesn't choose the strongest always,
Sometimes the slowly insects in the flour stay alive more than the fast ones because the fast ones appear easily in the white flour, so the chance of survival for slowly insects will be more"
So Socrates asked whether the group’s will is just as long as it is the strongest?
And he declares that we can derive from the mind everything that is legitimate for the individual and the group, and a chaste person is good, just and courageous, and other will be wretched because he is outside the scope of love.
Injustice is the worst of evils .. Socrates considers that a person will not be miserable if he is just, but the one who will suffer whoever steals him or sells him by selling slaves and so on.
Socrates asserts that the unjust is not happy and should be punished because injustice is the greatest of all evils..
But Some believe that the oppressor is happy when he acts with absolute freedom.
In this dialogue Socrates asked Georgias about rhetoric and Georgias was sophist,so according to Georgias, rhetoric is the art of persuasion even if the matter is wrong. But in philosophy according to Socrates the purpose is not to satisfy the curiosity of the mind, but the patient and persistent search for the only thing that guarantees true happiness in this world and the other world, it is debt in other words.

This dialogue is based on a controversial revelation, so rhetoric according to Giorgias is the art of speech and the art of persuasion, so Socrates asked is persuasion a science or belief? And where the oraters use it?
Giorgias clarified that it is the best of the arts for human because it persuades people, and it is an art that used in courts and popular councils and is also used in medical matters sometimes, where the orator can convince the patient to take medicine if he does not want that.
Socrates asked, is the art of persuasion only used in rhetoric? So the answer of Georgias was no.
Socrates commented that the persuasion could be for example from the teacher of math as well.

Also Socrates invoked the topic of justice in the example of learning sports and defensive games
Where if the student uses them to harm others, then the punishment is not imposed on the teacher, because the student is the one who used it to offend, and all arts must be taught based on justice, not injustice.
Socrates asked if rhetoric is a science or belief, then Gorgias replied that it is a belief.
Socrates commented on this that there are two types of belief: belief that's gaining knowledge and belief that's not gaining knowledge.
Socrates continues that the ignorant who persuades the crowd without knowing what the scientist knows will win through that persuasion and be equal to the scientist
Gorgias agrees that the person who acquires the knowledge of oratory is equal with the specialists without having learned any of the other sciences.
So the ignorant person becomes equal with the knowledgeable person according to Georgias, but Socrates asked Georgias whether rhetoric is taught and he said yes, then Socrates completed and asked, can the ignorant of rhetoric be able to convince people? so Georgias replied no.
Therefore, we see that the preacher does not replace the scholar and that the preacher claims he can answer all the questions.
This problem confronts us today, where the art of rhetoric has become most important in Islamic community where the preacher speaks about everything and can mislead the audience, and he can also convince them of an alternative medicine as long as he doesn't distinguish between right and wrong
What is important is that his belief is correct,
but we can't say that all of them mislead people.

So rhetoric often used to mislead people by merely persuading them through manipulation of their minds.
And must let specialist people to answer the questions related not anyone ignorant of them.
Socrates used to see that there is a debt after death and he was ready to die because he knew that the oppressor is tormented more than the victim, but I somehow think that the matter of the victim is debatable, that the victim sometimes is a victim of his thoughts about himself and others
so one will be always a victim as long as he gave up the position of being responsible for his deeds.
We are victims of our thoughts and responses to thoughts that oppress us or the person who is wronging us.
Another kind of victim is a victim through the thought of the society as making unjust law on someone who doesn't deserve that, is a victim by his society.
So as long as justice exists then there is a point on the concept of victim. But
If I am convinced of the preacher to go by such-and-such and then regret it because the matter caused me harm, the responsibility does not fall on the preacher, but it falls on me because it was my decision.
Socrates talked about that responsibility in the example of the teacher and the student in the matter of punishment, where the person who uses a certain art to harm people, he is the one who will be punished and the teacher is not blamed for that.
The issue of the victim remains debatable as I mentioned up.
Though Socrates believed that the oppressor will suffer more than the victim and considered himself as victim
he was acting as responsible man and drank the poison. So it was very sad to fight such Wiseman.
In this context we see that he was a victim of the thought of his society,
here we see the law wasn't just.
The first kind of victim is the one who claims that he is not responsible for his action, but as long as a person makes mistakes, the issue of the victim is a matter that calls for law because not all of us consider ourselves responsible for our actions in order to hold accountable, but on the contrary, people often evade responsibility.
So the common law is to establish justice among people.
Perhaps if a person attains a spiritual and intellectual elevation, he can produce a self-law that does not require external intervention.
But this is very idealistic and far from the nature of human, and human may develop himself and with time may that become part of his daily life...I think

Socrates had a point as many religious people who consider punishment after death which is a belief and not a science, but this belief is positive somehow to remain good relationships before death or consider that there is punishment for wrong doers even after death.

Also justice started to be a God for non religious communities which is for both of religious and non religious who will follow.

This subject is debatable and the law remains the ruling as long as a person isn't responsible for his relationship with others.
Finally, Truth in my opinion is the accurate event and the interpretation of it is the thing that's changeable between right and wrong
For example a crime of killing, the truth here is the search for the real killer, so the truth appears after finding the real killer and his motives for killing.

So we see the truth here is like that.
But in another event will be different truth
So we couldn't say that the truth is love or hate because in that event the truth was hate, killing someone for hate
And in another event we could find someone kills out of jealousy for love.
So the truth is according to the event but right and wrong is about the agreement of people and ethical beliefs
we see in some communities right and wrong are different than others but now we have standards on that, that we agree on them as common ground for us all.
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smilingkiss
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Greyfeather
Greyfeather: @smilingkiss There is a great debate about epistemology, some believe in empirical knowledge, others as idealism, that is, belief in innate preconceptions such as what you mentioned.
Another is a skeptic, and another mental one that believes in the importance of the above, another is pragmatic, and so on
There is a problem in determining right and wrong based on the difference of ideas, but nevertheless we have common standards that take into account the interest of the individual and the group, and this is what I think about happiness as something common between both of them.
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smilingkiss
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Greyfeather
Greyfeather: @smilingkiss We are having problems because of the absence of justice and the meaning of justice is the absence of injustice. There is justice of the law and there is justice that reverts to the conscience of the individual where the individual is responsible for himself and his relations with others
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Greyfeather
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Greyfeather
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