Gorgias, Sextus Empiricus and Intuitionism: Rhetoric and Logic

(First draft)
MariaCecliadeMirandaN.Coelho
(PUCSPBrazil)
deltos@gmail.com
Gorgias Treatise On Not-Being or On Nature is summarized by the
anonymous author of De Melissus, Xenophanes, Gorgias or MXG, included in the
Aristotelian corpus, and also in Sextus Empiricus so-called Adversus Mathematicos, the
latter being the source most quoted1.
There is one crucial aspect of Sextus eleven books I would like to draw your
attention to, which, I believe, is not a simple detail of denomination. Five of the books are
concerned with the dogmatic or philosophers and six with the mathematicians or
professors. It is important to point out that the text of Gorgias is presented in the first two
books of Against the Logicians, which, together with the two books of Against the
Physicists, and another one Against the Ethicists, make up the treatise Against the
Dogmatics. The other treatise, Adversus Mathematicos, is composed of six books: the
Grammarians, Rhetoricians, Geometers, Arithmeticians, Astrologers and Musicians.
Usually, the two books of Against the Logicians are named Adversus Mathematicos vii and
viii, but this process of naming can sometimes be more distracting than helpful. It is worth
remembering that the references to Gorgias (in addition to those which are made in
Hipotiposis Pirronians) appear only in the treatise Against the Logicians. Thus there are no
references to him in the book Against the Rhetoricians, although this treatise begins by
discussing Platos Gorgias and making a reference to beauty as one of the instruments of
persuasion (and Sextus quotes Helen of Troy). Why, when dealing exhaustively with
rhetoric as the art of persuasion, does Sextus not say anything about Gorgias? This fact
seems remarkable to me.
Let us pay attention to where and how Sextus talks about Gorgias. Against
the Logicians begins with a discussion of the meaning of philosophy (I, 2) and deals with
the various forms into which this discipline can be divided, assuming that the best
classification is that which considers Logic, Physics and Ethics its main branches (I, 16).
Later in the text, the existence of a criterion of truth is discussed (I, 27-28) and the
meanings of criterion (I, 28-37) and truth (I, 38-46), questions which, together with a
proof theory, are the objects of Logic. Keeping the problems of Logic in mind, Sextus
presents the philosophers who studied them. Xenophanes, Protagoras and Gorgias, in this
order, are some of the philosophers presented2
It is interesting to observe that even the scholars who defend the importance
of Gorgias as a profound thinker either for the value of his criticism of ontology, for his
contributions to the development of Rhetoric, or for the study of the language as an
autonomous subject when attempting to interpret the concept of truth always arrive
(implicitly or not) at one of the two conclusions3:
1. Truth does exist and is relative (to the individual or group): Dupreel (1948, 68),
Adrados (1981,46), Kerferd (1981), Guthrie (1971), Mourelatos (1985)

2. There is no sense in speaking about truth because everything is true i.e. truth is an
empty term4. Cassin (1980), Bett (1984), Paes (1989).
Let us consider the first conclusion.
The most common way to characterize Gorgias as a relativist is to establish a
relationship between him and Protagoras. Probably, one of the stimuli for this type of
characterization is a commentary made by Sextus immediately before his presentation of
Gorgias Treatise. Speaking about Disionidoro and Eutidemo, soon after his discussion
about Protagoras, Sextus says: for they too consider both, the being and the truth as
relative things ( pros ti, A.L., I, 64)5. Even knowing that Sextus claimed that Gorgias
denied the existence of a criterion of truth in a different way than that of Protagoras, it
seems to me that this process of listing them one after the other leads to a conceptual
proximity greater than that which should exist. A curious example of this practice can be
found in a paper by J. Mansfeld6. When investigating to what extent the arguments of the
Treatise, in both versions, can indeed be attributed to Gorgias, Mansfeld not only suggests
that the echo from the doctrine of man-measure can be identified in the third part of the
Gorgias Treatise, but also that the most interesting aspects of Gorgias arguments are what
they imply for the discussion of public and private knowledge and their consequences in the
question of consensus. Neverthless, Mansfeld adds, it is very safe, however, to assume
that he [Gorgias] is hardly original and that his arguments would be much less interesting if
more of Protagoras had survived (p. 258).
I understand that the man-measure thesis7 is neither compatible with the
thesis of the Treatise nor with that of the Encomium of Helen. My position is to partially
agree with the ideas of Bett, who argues that there is no basis to infer, from both versions of
the Treatise, that Gorgias was a relativist8.
Let us consider now the second conclusion: the word truth is an empty term.
Thinking about On Not-Being, but also about other important works of
Gorgias and their unity, my first objection to this statement is that we have in the
Encomium of Helen and in the Palamedes Apology the use of the word truth (aletheia),
and in both texts it does seem to have a meaning. It seems to me that these elements are
sufficient to further complicate conclusion 29 .
When interpreting these texts, Kerferd (1981, 79; 81) claims that we should
not affirm that Protagoras and Gorgias had the same conception of truth, for the former, by
using the concept of deceit (apate), necessarily accepted that there exists that which
actually is true. I think we can accept the idea of truth without having to accept the
existence of an objective reality independent of ourselves. How, then, can we find meaning
in the word truth?
Let us now return to On Not-Being. My interpretation of this treatise was
influenced by a contemporary trend in the philosophy of mathematics initiated by Luitzen
Brower at the beginning of 20th century - Intuitionism10. I believe it is important to give an
explanation for this approach. What motivated me to attempt to establish this analogy were
some similarities between the way the Intuitionists were received by other philosophers of
mathematics, and the way Gorgias ideas have been received since Plato.11
It seems to me that the intuitionists have challenged non-intuitionist
mathematicians 12 (mainly the realists or platonists), insofar as the former have cut off
many mathematical achievements by denying the dogmatic aspirations of the latter. In a
similar way Gorgias ideas concerning the limitation of our possibility of knowledge have
produced a great strangeness and troublesomeness for other philosophers, to such an extent

that he was (and still is) regarded as a non-serious thinker, or euphemistically, as only a
rhetorician13.The conceptions of truth for Gorgias and for the intuitionists have a
particularly interesting resemblance. Let me present schematically the main characteristics
of Intuitionism and, simultaneously, indicate their similitude with some of Gorgias
ideas14:
1. The intuitionist conception of mathematics as a socio-biological activity, whose aim
is to satisfy a few human necessities, or as a social enterprise (Tieszen, 1994, 589,
Heyting, 1956, 75), could be analogous to the rhetorical practice of Gorgias.
Gorgias believes in the possibility of speech to persuade others is similar to the
intuitionists belief that some elementary notions (that of natural numbers, for
instance) are familiar to every thinking creature.
2. Intuitionists deny the actual infinite, and as a consequence, they limit the scope of
the law of excluded middle15, because for them this platonic conception, requires
us to have an understanding of quantification over infinite domains, but this
transcends our capacity to recognize statements which quantify over infinite
domains as true (Tieszen, 584, 590). When Gorgias denies the possibility of
teaching virtue (Meno, 71e-72b) or, more generally, discusses the instability of our
knowledge (EH, 11) and the inexistence of a criterion of knowledge (Treatise), we
have the same sort of doubt about the universal validity of certain principles.
3. Since a proposition is a hypothesis which can or cannot be proved constructively, a
proof is not an object, but an act (Martin-Loef, apud Tieszen, 581), it is quite
important to consider the performance of the mathematician. In a similar way,
gorgianic persuasion is a process in which the truth is constructed and presented by
speech (deixas kai epideixas, EH, 3).
4. Intuitionists believe that they should avoid the illusions of mathematical platonists
(Brower, 1912, 81; 1948, 90). Like Gorgias, they believe that we know far less
about objects than we can reason about, on a classical model of reasoning16
I will try, from now on, to give a plausible argument, which will support my
claim that Gorgias was not a relativist, though he was an anti-realist, in a sense that I would
like to explain17. The use of terms like anti-realist and realist is recent, but I do not think
this use is an anachronism that obscures my argumentation, for it is not less problematic
than the use of the term relativism18. Let us now consider one central aspect of the realistic
position on truth19 Roughly speaking, for a realist, the truth or falsehood of a proposition
depends on whether such a proposition is in agreement or disagreement, respectively, with
a reality that exists independently of us. This is valid for mathematical statements, whose
truth for a realist mathematician does not depend on whether they were demonstrated or
not, for statements about the physical world, whose truth for a scientific realist does not
depend on the observation that they could be verifiable and, also, for moral statements,
which for a moral realist have their truth or falsehood determined not by subjective
considerations, but by the fact that they do or do not correspond to reality.
In opposition to the realistic conception of truth there are a large number of
antirealist doctrines, and relativism is only one of them. I insist that transforming the truth
of a sentence into a subjective question is not the only way to deny that this truth is a
function of some reality which does exist independently of us. It is possible, for instance, to
make compatible objective judgments denying the universal validity of some logical
principles. Let us consider, for instance, the intuitionist critique of mathematical realism.

For the intuitionists, a mathematical proposition is true only if there exists a demonstration
of this proposition. For the realists, giving a demonstration of a proposition only reveals the
truth which this proposition already has, by reason that it corresponds to reality (this
revelatory task is, of course, extremely important, but it should not be confused with the
truth which belongs to the proposition). For the intuitionists, the demonstration itself is
what establishes, not only reveals, the truth of a proposition20. The intuitionists are
constructivist mathematicians. As Dummett said: constructivists.do not deny that there
are mathematical propositions but hold that they relate to our mental operations; their truth
therefore can not outstrip our ability to prove them (1991, 5)21.
Let me take as an example the famous Goldbach conjecture, which affirms
that every even number greater than 2 is a sum of two primes. Until now, this conjecture
has not been either refuted or demonstrated. Consequently, for the intuitionists the
conjecture is neither false nor true. It is not the case that we do not know if it is true or
false22, but, indeed, that the conjecture is not, until now, either false or true. Despite the
fact that the intuitionist critique has a strong foundation - even the realists do not deny its
depth platonists do not accept intuitionism, on the grounds that it mutilates mathematics;
that is, it does not prove several theorems of the classical mathematics.23 Something
similar occurs in relation to the refutation of gorgianic ideas: the pars construens of the
Treatise is regarded by many scholars as much less effective than the pars destruens. It is
not my intention to increase the list of labels which have been attributed to Gorgias by
calling him intuitionist. However, I think it is possible to make an analogy between the
intuitionist concept of truth for mathematical propositions and the conception of truth
which I believe appears in the Treatise On Not-Being and, also, in the Encomium of Helen
and Palamedes Apology.
Let us consider now the two apparently contradictory assertions :
1. In the Treatise and Palamedes Apology, language is incapable of
communicating exterior objects (85-7, Sextus; 21-25, MXG, 980a20-b20)
2. The power of logos is soundly praised in the Encomium of Helen (8-15).
Another alternative, besides relativism, that can reconcile 1 and 2 is to
ascribe to Gorgias a constructivist conception of truth, that is, speech would be, for him, the
instrument by which the truth of a proposition would be established. This perspective is
perfectly compatible with the most vigorous exaltation of the logos. For Gorgias, speech
would not reveal the truth of a proposition in the same way that for the intuitionists proofs
would not have the function of revealing the truth of mathematical propositions. The
conception of truth as a discursive construction is also compatible with the impossibility of
words to communicate (in an essentialist or foundational sense) exterior things and, rather
more, it implies that this incapacity is not a limitation. We could have, consequently, with
this concept of truth as a discursive construction, a reconciliation between 1 and 2, which
are apparently antagonistic. I believe that reconciling 1 and 2 is more interesting than trying
to defend Gorgias as a relativist. If an anti-realist conception of truth is tenable (and
convincing), we do not need to conclude, for instance, that there is no meaning in talking
about truth or falsehood24
Let us make a digression, connecting Gorgias and Euripides, which is a good
example for the relation between epistemological and moral anti-realists in fifth-century
Greek thought. Considering Euripides drama, we observe, in Cassandras scene in The
Trojan Women and in Theonoes scene in Helen, a similar situation. Both prophetesses
know what could be understood as the truth of the events. However, while Cassandra is not

believed by anyone, that is, none can grasp the meaning of her words, Theonoe has to lie
(to her brother) to accomplish what she thinks is the right decision (this is curious, because
her name was chosen by her parents so that it could reveal her inner self, for she was
endowed with the ability to know the designs of the gods). It seems to me that these two
examples help to indicate how Euripides is committed to a vision similar to Gorgias. Even
if being exists, we cannot understand it. Nonetheless this does not imply that we cannot talk
about truth25.
It is important to point out that there are a plethora of derogatory
assessments of the works of Gorgias and Euripides, related to the concept of rhetoric. It is
worth quoting two of them. One was made by Dodds (1958, p. 9) in the introduction to his
edition of Platos Gorgias. He denied the seriousness of Gorgias by quoting the
commentary of Denniston regarding the Encomium of Helen: starting with the initial
advantage of having nothing in particular to say, he was able to concentrate all his energy
upon saying it. The other was made by Kitto (1961, p. 315), when analyzing Euripides
Helen. Therefore the dramatist, for the first time, is free to attend entirely to his form... it
is when the poet has nothing in particular to say that he must be most elegant and
attractive.
To have nothing in particular to say... I do not believe that this judgment
about the two authors is only a coincidence. It seems to me that there are two reasons for it.
First, it is a sort of ad hominem fallacy26, for I believe it is related to a moralist conception
about the character of Helen. Second, the fact that the drama Helen and Encomium of
Helen are related to the thesis presented in Gorgias Treatise On Not Being.27
Concerning the analogy with intuitionism, which contributes a great deal to
the concept of truth as discursive construction, it is worth clarifying one last point. When
the intuitionists reject that a mathematical proposition is true or false, independently of its
proof or refutation, they deny the universal validity of the law of excluded middle. Gorgias,
indeed, utilizes some instances of this law in his Treatise, for instance, when he affirms it
is necessary, for something to exist, to be generated or non-generated (MXG, 12), or if
something exists, is one or multiple (MXG, 13). But, even when he utilizes instances of the
law of excluded middle, this does not make the analogy to intuitionism weaker, for what the
intuitionists reject is the universal validity of this principle; they accept instances which
deal with finite domains. Regarding the law of non-contradiction, which is fundamental to
many criticisms on relativism, Gorgias, as we can infer from his texts (and that of
intuitionists) also accepts it.
Considering now the Encomium of Helen the most famous piece of
rhetoric we can infer that Gorgias is using results presented in the Treatise: he maintains
that Helen cannot be considered guilty, unless we establish, through speech, her
responsibility, and the same is valid for the negation of guilt. And this fact is independent of
the capacity of words to indicate reality, for there would be no independent reality, with
which the sentences Helen made an error or Helen did not make an error could be
compared, in order to decide which of them is true by the fact that it corresponds to that
reality. If we argue that it is possible to say that a person believes that Helen made an error
and another person believes that she did not, we would be faced with a relativistic
perspective concerning morality. But according to my interpretation, for Gorgias, Helen
would have made an error, or not, in the exact moment in which one can construct a speech
proving one of these possibilities. Therefore, persuasion seems to be a consequence of the
construction of the innocence of Helen. He did not, I believe, want only to persuade others

of the innocence of Helen, but rather, to construct her innocence, and, in this process, to
persuade others.
To close this paper I would like to say that returning to Sextus in the light of
mathematical intuitionism, and considering his silence about Gorgias in Against the
Rhetoricians, help us to have a new perspective about On Not-Being, and consequently on
the so-called rhetoric texts Helen and Palamedes, but with a more comprehensive
understanding of both philosophy and rhetoric.
----------------------------------------------------------------------1 Sextus Empiricus Adversus Mathematicos (1987) Ed. and transl: R.G.Bury. Harvard U.P.,
3 vol. [On the Non-Being or Nature] at book 7 (65-87); MXG at chapters 5-6 (979a12980b21), see in UNTERSTEINER, M. Sofisti, testimonianze e frammenti, vol. II, Firenze:
La Nuova Itlia, 1942.
2 But, next (I, 88ss), he will say that, actually, the physicists seem to have been the first to
introduce the inquiry regarding the criterion, for when they had condemned sensation as
being in many cases untrustworthy, they set up reason as the judge of the truth in existing
things.
3 Another rehabilitating trend is that of Schiappa, Mccomiskey and Consigny.
4 I understand that the reason to conclude that everything is true is a consequence of the
first part of the Treatise, that is, if the being does not exist, every predicate which is
attributed to it is true, for no being exists to be shown as a counter-example to whatever
predicate that someone attributes to the being. Only this first part of the Treatise could
support, I think, the interpretation of Cassin, and that of Bett. But we have to pay attention
to the other two parties as well.
5 See also AL, I, 60
6 Mansfeld (1985, 250).
7 This is traditionally considered a symbol of relativism, nevertheless the debate about the
pertinence of Protagoras as a good representative of the sophists is open. See mainly Bett
(1989) and Fine (1998).
8 I disagree with Bett, not only when he says that based on the Treatise we can say that all
sentences are false (1989, 151-2) - a fact that, in his vision, is the support of the power of
persuasion of anyone who knows how to manipulate the rhetorical techniques but, also
when he claims that it is possible to infer, from the second and the third part of the Treatise,
a skeptical position.
9 In the first text it is worth noting that we have two related pairs: truth-speech and
beautiful-body (EH, 1), but throughout the Encomium these pairs are interchangeable, and
the sensations (mainly vision and hearing) become fundamental to defining what is true. In
the second text Palamedes claims (P., 34) that speech is not even able to convey the truth of
facts.
10 See Brower (1912) 1983.
11 See Kerferd (1986). About the criticism of rhetoric as a servant of philosophy, see
Kerferd (1981, 78) and Cassin (1985, 435-48), and about the relativism as a necessary
consequence of being rhetorical, see Bett (1989, 154)
12 The Disputation of Heyting is extremely elucidative about this theme, whose more
recent development may be found, also, in Maddy (1990, p.1-35), Dummet (1991) and
Tieszen(1994)

13 On characteristics of Gorgias works as rhetorical and not philosophical see esp.

Kennedy (30-31), Nestle (135), Guthrie (50), Dodds (7-10). It is common practice to
evaluate the gorgianic rhetoric under platonic criteria. Coutler (1979, 33; 68) for instance,
studying the relation between the Plato s Apology and Gorgiass Palamedes (this paper is a
critic of Calogero, 1956), shows this particular prejudice in his vocabulary. He has used the
word imoral to refer to consequences of Gorgianic rhetoric and the word amoral when
explaining how Socrates was pictured by the group of people who slandered him. Buxton
(1982, 82) was one the few to avoid this practice: Here is a measure of the difference
between Plato and Gorgias: for Plato the rethoric of the sophist-orator can be without
absurdity said to be alogos, irrational; for Gorgias the power of peitho is the power of logos
and neither is to be judged by any higher criterion of truth. Isocrates and Plato argue that
Gorgias is not really philosopher, and Aristotle didnt quote him in his list of presocratics
14 The four main characteristics I am presenting do not include the peculiarities of the main
ideas of representatives of this school. On this subject, see mainly Tieszen, 1994. I believe I
can indicate, though it would take more time than I have here to present all the arguments
in defense of my thesis.
15 Whatever is A, A or non-A is always true
16 In accepting the law of excluded middle. (Tieszen,1994, 591).
17 Perhaps the interpretation I am suggesting is, in its general terms, the same that Bett
calls Modern Epistemologic Skepticism (1989, 150).
18 The term realism appears for the first time in the XV century, with Silvestro de Prieria,
in his Compendium Dialecticae, in 1496, to indicate the scholastic tendency in opposition
to nominalism. Relativism is a more recent term, for it appears only in the XIX century,
with W. Hamilton, in his text Lectures on Metaphysics, in 1870. (Cf. Abbagnano, N.
Dicionario de Filosofia. Ed. Mestre Jou: So Paulo, 1982).
19 I am following mainly Dummett (1991).
20 To some extent we can observe this method in Gorgias when, by the speech, he makes
us think as true what we read/understand.
21 Tieszen (1994, 589) does not agree with this mental operation.
22 This is the realist perspective, which is closer to common sense. It is curious that despite
the fact that Parmenides conceptions (a sort of radical realism) are extremely distant from
the common sense, they are more easily accepted than Gorgias. One of the good
discussions related to the way human beings tend to refuse anti-realists conceptions I found
in the second and third W. James conferences on Pragmatism.
23 As I have already point out, the intuitionists are conscious of this (Cf, Heyting, p.73/75).
Despite the fact that the following quotation can obscure the difference between the two
groups, I believe it is very interesting: In fact all mathematicians and even intuitionists are
convinced that in some sense mathematics bear upon eternal truths, but when trying to
define precisely this sense, one gets entangled in a maze of metaphysical difficulties....as
the meaning of a word can never be fixed precisely enough to exclude every possibility of
misunderstanding, we can never be mathematically sure that the formal system express
correctly our mathematical thoughts (Heyting, 1956, 68-69).
24 Cf. also 1995, 66-74 and Paes (1989).
25 Neither compels us to social inactivity or imoralism. Gorgias and Euripides foci seem
to be epistemological and they refute the two ways to apprehend reality : the mind or

thinking (the nous of Parmenides and Plato) and sensation (aesthesis), proposed by Platos
Protagoras.
26 Perhaps it would be more appropriate to say ad feminam
27 My purpose bringing up this example is not to demonstrate the influence of Gorgias on
Euripides or vice-versa but to attempt to read some of their works as examples of antimetaphysical visions of the world and knowledge about it.
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