The Birth of Logic Out of the Spirit of Democracy

Abstract

This paper advances a version of the theory whereby logic had deep origins in democracy, by re-reading Gorgias’ Encomium of Helen. Democracy, ‘the government by debate’, called political (and scientific) attention to the inferential abilities of citizens and to politicians’ ability of taking advantage of them. Sophists, in particular, discovered that people’s inferences follow constant repeatable forms, that these forms have impact on choices and decisions concerning public good, and then by dominating them you dominate politics in democracy. With the Encomium Gorgias launched these ideas, so laying the ground for Aristotle’s science of deduction.

KEYWORDS:

• Ancient logic
• democracy
• sophists
• Gorgias
• logical form

Acknowledgments

In conceiving this paper, I owe the greatest debt of gratitude to the late professor Enrico Berti, invaluable mentor for generations of students and scholars, in particular those concerned with the use and application of ancient philosophy for the needs of present times. Some friends have read, commented and corrected previous versions of the paper, in particular, Maurizio Ferrera and Juliette Weyand have provided extremely useful improvements. Elena Ficara, as usual, has given illuminating insights. Evidently, errors, flaws and lacunes in the text are up to my responsibility.

Notes

1 The thesis has been variously proposed by Bocheński 1961, Hintikka 2007, Kneale and Kneale 2008, Dutilh Novaes 2021, Denyer 2023, Castagnoli and Fait 2023a. Affinities and differences between ancient and modern notions of dialectic are highlighted by Berti 1987.

2 In reporting Gorgias’ theses, I refer to Diels and Kranz 1964 (sixth edition), quoted in the standard way, ‘DK’, referring to Gorgias’ chapter, 82, then the direct quotation ‘B11’, and then the internal section of the fragment, according to the Diels–Kranz numbering convention. In reporting the English version, I substantially refer to Graham 2010, except for some rare points, wherein I check the Greek text providing slightly different translations.

3 Previously the term was mainly intended in Heraclitus’ sense, as ‘reason’ or ‘order’ of being. Instead, Gorgias uses ‘logos’ sometimes meaning what we mean by ‘language’ or ‘discourse’, sometimes as what we would rather call ‘word’ (DK82B11, 8).

4 About the notion of political ‘framing’, see Lakoff (2010). If we assume the current idea of feminism as a political engagement concerned with the correction of gender-injustice by reframing common language and thought, we will say the Encomium is a first ‘feminist’ document of our history (at least, written by a man). The hypothesis has been variously advanced and discussed: Crockett 1995 and Shaffer 1998.

5 The definition appears repeatedly, possibly in the Sophistic Refutations (165a) for the first time (Aristotle 1958).

6 ‘Spirit’ (Geist) can be intended here in the sense of grounding motive or overall inspiration, as in Nietzsche (1993) and Weber (2002). The postulated connection of democracy and truth is furtherly clarified in Ferrera 2023 (see also d’Agostini and Ferrera 2019 and d’Agostini 2021).

7 Untersteiner 1954, Woodruff 1999. Cassin 2022 emphasizes the differences between the ‘ontological’ and ‘logological’ approaches of philosophers and sophists, respectively. She underlines ‘l’héritage sophistique’ of contemporary culture, so justifying the idea of sophists as critical philosophers ante litteram.

8 The Greek elenchos is a great discovery of the history of philosophical logic, credited to Socrates or Democritus, but variously active even before. See Vlastos 1983, Bellissima and Pagli 1996, Castagnoli 2007, Castagnoli and Fait 2023b, Dutilh Novaes 2021, Bown 2023.

9 It should be noted that the aletheia about which we are mostly speaking about is not the predicate or the operator or the property we call ‘truth’, but the concept. As it is contemporary stressed by many authors nowadays, when we deal with truth as a concept, things might change (see especially Asay 2013, 13–16), and Gorgias ideas about it (so I think) become clearer.

10 He gives ‘a pioneering argument about moral responsibility’ (Barney 2016), which anticipates the Socratic principle ‘nemo sua sponte peccat’ (Calogero 1957; Ariza 2022).

11 Gorgias may appear here as a precursor of the political–philosophical position known as ‘weak thought’ (Vattimo 2010; Vattimo and Zabala 2011), whose concern is a systematic defence of the weaker parts of society against the abuse of power.

12 See the guidelines for projects in human rights traced by the Council of Europe 2020: ‘vulnerable groups’, i.e. dispositional victims, are in principle bearers of special juridical attention, as ‘HRA [human rights approach] thinks in terms of duty-bearers and rights-holders, with a particular focus on vulnerable groups’ (2020, 6).

13 DK82B11, 15. Shaffer 1998 especially stresses this aspect, noting that it establishes a close connection between verbal and visual arts.

14 DK82B11, 19. Shaffer 1998 notes that Gorgias proves Helen’s innocence by ‘by transforming her from a voluntary subject into a passive object. Because she was overcome by Eros caused by visual stimuli she cannot be held responsible for the consequences of her action’. Gorgias’ ‘radical feminism’ is nothing else than the ‘fake feminism’ of patriarchal thought. It is a suggestive criticism, but I am not sure it is the last word.

15 As, long after, Nietzsche 1989 categorically stated.

16 Two fundamental principles of any gender-sensitive philosophy (in general, of ‘weak thought’, intended as ‘the thought for weak people’, as in Vattimo 2010) are active: the discovery of a specific political subject: the weak, victim of social iniquity; and the denounce of the logic-linguistic order within which discrimination, violence and oppression are justified. Contrary to ‘anti-logical’ feminist positions (and by the version of ‘weak thought’, as established in Vattimo and Zabala 2011), we have an implicit defense of ‘the other use of logic’, grounded on a different conception of truth. The inversion of the direction of power, whereby we combat power over- (dominion) with the force of logical power to- (disposition, capacity) is warranted by the dialectical duplicity of the aletheia. On this distinction: Warnke 2023.