Plato on the Connection between Freedom and Tyranny

• In Event: From Freedom to Fear: Tyranny in Classical Greek Political Thought

Abstract

We tend to think of freedom and tyranny as opposites; a tyrant is someone who deprives everyone else in the community of their liberty. In the Gorgias, however, Plato suggests that the desires of individuals to be free are the reason they seek tyrannical power.
The first two individuals Socrates interrogates in the Gorgias are foreign teachers of rhetoric, and they understand freedom basically to consist in the ability to do what one wants. When Socrates asks Gorgias what the power of his art is, the rhetorician brags that anyone who masters his art will be able to persuade others in an assembly to do as he wishes. Socrates suggests that Gorgias’s claim could be true only in a democracy and that Gorgias endangers his own status by claiming, in effect, that he can teach anyone willing to pay him how to overthrow the government of Athens. As onlookers we are reminded that persuasion (as Aristotle emphasizes in his Rhetoric) requires the audience to trust the speaker. Contrary to the claims the historical Gorgias made in his own writings as well as those he makes in Plato’s dialogue, we are reminded that there are limits to the power of persuasion and deliberative rhetoric.

Nevertheless, the second foreign rhetorician, Polus, objects that Socrates merely shamed Gorgias into agreeing that he would teach any student who does not know what is just, what is just. According to Polus, the true power of rhetoric is to enable anyone to do as he wishes—and escape punishment. Anyone who has that ability would be able to kill, rob, or rape anyone he pleases—without suffering the consequences. In that case, mastery of forensic rhetoric would give a person maximal power to do as he pleases. Yet Socrates objects that it is more shameful to do injustice than to suffer it—and gets Polus to agree.
Socrates’s fellow citizen, Callicles, then bursts into the conversation and declares that the strong and the prudent by nature rightfully rule the weak and less intelligent. Although his position initially seems to be the least decent of the three, Socrates’s questions show that Callicles does not understand freedom to consist in the ability to satisfy one’s most shameful desires. It consists instead in the ability to defend oneself from attacks by others. Callicles criticizes Socrates for persisting in philosophizing rather than entering politics, because he predicts, any scoundrel could haul Socrates into court and accuse him of corrupting the young. Socrates acknowledges the truth of Callicles’ claim. But Socrates does not agree that he should cease philosophizing and enter politics in order to secure his own or his family’s safety. Callicles concedes that merely seeking to assure one’s own safety is not a noble, desirable, or realistic goal. However, he continues to insist that it is necessary to participate in politics—in order to protect oneself from unjust and unwarranted attacks by others. That seems to be a much more decent and, arguably, democratic position to take. However, Socrates responds by arguing that anyone who associates with a tyrant—or a tyrannical people—in an effort to preserve his own life is foolish. The tyrant will never trust you, and you will necessarily have to adapt your views and behaviors to those approved by the tyrant.
In order to be truly free to do what one wants, Socrates argues, one has to know what one wants—or what is truly good. If one merely follows his or her own desires, he or she will not be truly free. By engaging in the philosophical conversations he does, Socrates claims that he is at least trying to practice the true art of politics. That consists in knowing what legislation is needed to make people good and how to punish those who are not so that they will become good. His mode of proceeding may not achieve many observable results, but the common ways of seeking freedom by acquiring the ability to do what one wants result only in injustice and tyranny.

Author

• Catherine H. Zuckert, University of Notre Dame