Plato's Sophist Theory of "Gorgias" and Socratic Dialectic, or the Unity of Opposites

Abstract

This article seeks to overcome the dichotomy between the relativistic philosophy professed by the Sophists and the dialectical Socratic method through the analysis of one of Plato`s "mature" or transitional books, "Gorgias." The theme is justified by the fact that, in this work, Plato encourages debate between Gorgias himself and the "wisest of men," according to the Oracle of Delphi, who was Socrates. Despite two dichotomous views, namely Rhetoric and Episteme, or the Socratic "elenkos," which is the exposure of the ignorance of his interlocutors, we consider both to be interdependent, which, if we were also following a philosophical approach, would approximate what Heraclitus of Ephesus called the "unity of opposites."