Editing Gorgias (section)

==Philosophy==
The philosophies of the pre-Socratic Greek Sophists are much debated among scholars in general, due to their highly subtle and ambiguous writings and also to the fact that they are best known as characters in [[Dialogues of Plato|Plato's dialogues]].{{sfn|Consigny|2001|pages=2–3}}{{sfn|Kenny|2004|pages=28–32}} Gorgias, however, is particularly frustrating for modern scholars to attempt to understand.{{sfn|Consigny|2001|pages=2–3}} While scholars debate the precise subtleties of the teachings of [[Protagoras]], [[Hippias]], and [[Prodicus]], they generally agree on the basic frameworks of what these thinkers believed.{{sfn|Consigny|2001|page=3}} With Gorgias, however, scholars widely disagree on even the most basic framework of his ideas, including over whether or not that framework even existed at all.{{sfn|Consigny|2001|page=3}} The greatest hindrance to scholarly understanding of Gorgias's philosophy is that the vast majority of his writings have been lost{{sfn|Consigny|2001|page=4}} and those that have survived have suffered considerable alteration by later copyists.{{sfn|Consigny|2001|pages=4–5}}

These difficulties are further compounded by the fact that Gorgias's rhetoric is frequently elusive and confusing;{{sfn|Consigny|2001|pages=2–3, 5–6}} he makes many of his most important points using elaborate, but highly ambiguous, metaphors, similes, and puns.{{sfn|Consigny|2001|pages=5–6}} Many of Gorgias's propositions are also thought to be sarcastic, playful, or satirical.{{sfn|Consigny|2001|page=6}} In his treatise ''[[Rhetoric (Aristotle)|On Rhetoric]]'', Aristotle characterizes Gorgias's style of oratory as "pervasively ironic" and states that Gorgias recommended responding to seriousness with jests and to jests with seriousness.{{sfn|Consigny|2001|page=6}} Gorgias frequently blurs the lines between serious philosophical [[discourse]] and satire,{{sfn|Consigny|2001|page=6}} which makes it extremely difficult for scholars to tell when he is being serious and when he is merely joking.{{sfn|Consigny|2001|pages=2–3}} Gorgias frequently contradicts his own statements and adopts inconsistent perspectives on different issues.{{sfn|Consigny|2001|page=3}} As a result of all these factors, Scott Porter Consigny calls him "perhaps the most elusive of the polytropic quarry hunted in Plato's ''[[Sophist (dialogue)|Sophist]]''.{{sfn|Consigny|2001|page=3}}

Gorgias has been labelled "The Nihilist"<ref name="books.google.com"/><ref name="Rosenkrantz, G. 2002"/><ref name="Gronbeck, B. E. 1972"/><ref>A History of Philosophy from Thales to the Present Time by Friedrich Ueberweg: History of the ancient and mediaeval philosophy, Volume 1, Friedrich Ueberweg, Hodder and Stoughton, 1872 p. 72</ref><ref>The Crime of Credulity, Herbert Newton Casson,P. Eckler, 1901 p. 15</ref> because some scholars have interpreted his thesis on "the non-existent" to be an argument against the existence of anything that is straightforwardly endorsed by Gorgias himself.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|last=Higgins|first=C. Francis|title=Gorgias|url=http://www.iep.utm.edu/gorgias/|encyclopedia=Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy|access-date=17 October 2013}}</ref> According to Alan Pratt, [[nihilism]] is "the belief that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated." It is associated with pessimism and a radical skepticism that condemns existence.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|last=Pratt|first=Alan|title=Nihilism|url=http://www.iep.utm.edu/nihilism/|encyclopedia=Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy|access-date=17 October 2013}}</ref>

Gorgias presented his nihilist arguments in ''On Non-Existence''; however, the original text is no longer extant. We only know his arguments through commentary by [[Sextus Empiricus]] and [[Pseudo-Aristotle]]'s ''De Melisso, Xenophane, Gorgia.''<ref>{{cite journal |last=McComiskey |first=Bruce |title=Gorgias, "On Non-Existence": Sextus Empiricus, "Against the Logicians" 1.65–87, Translated from the Greek Text in Hermann Diels's "Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker |journal=Philosophy and Rhetoric |year=1997 |volume=30 |issue=1 |pages=45–49 |jstor=40237935}}</ref> Ostensibly Gorgias developed three sequential arguments: first, that nothing exists; second, that even if existence exists, it is inapprehensible to humans; and third, that even if existence is apprehensible, it certainly cannot be communicated or interpreted to one's neighbors.

That being said, there is consensus in late 20th century and early 21st century scholarship that the label 'nihilist' is misleading, in part because if his argument were genuinely meant to support nihilism it would be self-undermining. The argument ''is'' itself something, and has pretensions to communicate knowledge, in conflict with its explicit pronouncement that there is nothing and that it can't be known or communicated. Gisela Striker argues: "I find it hard to believe that anyone should ever have thought that Gorgias seriously advocated the view that nothing is and that he was, therefore, a 'nihilist.'"<ref>Striker, Gisela. "Methods of sophistry." Essays on Hellenistic Epistemology and Ethics (1996): p. 13</ref> Similarly Caston states: "Gorgias would have to be not merely disconsolate, but quite dull-witted, to have missed the conflict between his presentation and its content".<ref>Caston, Victor. "Gorgias on Thought and its Objects." Presocratic philosophy: Essays in honor of Alexander Mourelatos (2002): p. 205</ref> Finally, Wardy says, "This sadly mistaken reading overlooks the most obvious consequence of Gorgias' ''paradoxologia'' (παραδοξολογία): his message refutes itself, and in consequence, so far from constituting a theory of ''logos'', it confronts us with a picture of what language cannot be, with what it cannot be assumed to aspire to be."<ref>Wardy, Robert. The birth of rhetoric: Gorgias, Plato and their successors. Routledge, 2005.</ref> Gigon and [[Hans-Joachim Newiger|Newiger]] make similar points.<ref>Gigon, Olof. "Gorgias' Über das Nichtsein'." Hermes (1936): p. 213</ref><ref>Newiger, Hans-Joachim. Untersuchungen zu Gorgias' Schrift über das Nichtseiende. Walter de Gruyter, 1973.</ref>