Book, Plato's Gorgias: works 2[LS]

Language: Brazilian Portuguese. Gorgias is the second volume dedicated to Plato that the publisher Perspectiva brings to the Brazilian reader in its Textos collection (after the Republic). Translated directly from Greek by Daniel Lopes, author of the notes and introductory essay, this dialogue appears in the catalog of Diógenes Laércio (2nd century AD) and in medieval manuscripts with the subtitle 'On Rhetoric'. However, the reader who ventures along the dialogical paths taken by the interlocutors soon finds that the discussion goes beyond the attempt to define what this art is, or even whether it is truly an art. As the examination conducted by Socrates passes from one character to another, the fundamental question emerges, which is the best way to live: will it be the political life of Athenian democracy, of which rhetoric is an immanent part, or the philosophical one, in image of Socrates constructed by Plato? The Socratic challenge is to persuade that justice is superior to injustice and that human happiness lies in a virtuous life. In this moral perspective, the question is: what is the use of rhetoric? Conceived by Gorgias, Polus and Callicles as a means of achieving a fortunate existence through power and freedom, it is, for Socrates, an instrument for the practice of injustice in the political sphere. The debate therefore points to Plato's broader criticism of democracy, since it generates the philosopher's antipode, the tyrant, as we read in the Republic.