Gorgias ( Sicily , 483 BC – Sicily , 375 BC ). Greek sophist from the town of Leontini, supporter of slave democracy. He completed Pythagoras’ relativism with rationalist agnosticism . His works have reached us in exhibitions by Plato and other authors. In his writing On not being or of nature, Gorgias, based on the Eleatas, present three theses: nothing exists; if something existed, it would be unknowable; if there were something knowable, the known would be incommunicable. [1]
Biographical synthesis
A contemporary of Protagoras , he was born in Leontinos ( island of Sicily ) between 490 and 483 BC. n. e., and died exceeding one hundred years of age between 380 and 375 BC. n. and. Great traveler, and supposed student of Empedocles (also a Sicilian) Gorgias worked in many Greek cities, until he settled in Athens in 427 as head of an embassy in his city, when he was already 60 years old.
He also wrote a treatise called On Nature or On Not Being He was a famous and subtle speaker. He devoted himself fundamentally to teaching the art of rhetoric as the most suitable way to access power. He shared the basic assumption of the philosophy of protagoras: relativism. We move in the world of mere opinion, being the truth for each of us that which persuades us as such. Rhetoric is the technique of persuasion, and the sophist the master of opinion.
Outstanding works
- Rhetoric manuals: Commendation of Helena and Defense of Palamedes
- Numerous political speeches, epidictics, etc .: Funeral prayer , Olympic Speech
- Sixth Empirical end of the 2nd century AD. C. collects in a writing the three theses of Gorgias that challenged the Eleatas thesis of the existence of a unique and immutable being.
The three theses are as follows:
- Nothing is (exists).
- If something existed, it would be unknowable
- If it were knowable, it would be incommunicable.