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Gorgias

File:Gorgia_di_Leontini.png · Wikimedia Commons · See Wikimedia Commons

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Gorgias

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Also known as Gorgias of Leontini

Gorgias ( ; ; – ) was an ancient Greek sophist, pre-Socratic philosopher, and rhetorician who was a native of Leontinoi in Sicily. Several doxographers report that he was a pupil of Empedocles, although he would only have been a few years younger. W. K. C. Guthrie writes that "Like other Sophists, he was an itinerant that practiced in various cities and giving public exhibitions of his skill at the great pan-Hellenic centers of Olympia and Delphi, and charged fees for his instruction and performances. A special feature of his displays was to ask miscellaneous questions from the audience and gi

OverviewAI-generated

Gorgias, also known as Gorgias of Leontini, was a male sophist and philosopher active in the 5th and 4th centuries BCE. Born in Lentini, he died in 375 BCE in Larissa. His field of work was philosophy, and he was associated with the movements of sophism and Pre-Socratic philosophy. He studied under Empedocles and Tisias, and his students included Hippocrates, Isocrates, and Polus. Gorgias wrote in Attic Greek, with "Encomium of Helen" listed among his top works.

He is described in sources such as the Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary and The Nuttall Encyclopædia. His name in the native language is Γοργίας. The subject is distinct from Gordias.

Synthesized by Vinony from 30 facts across 6 sources: Wikidata, Crossref, Open Library, Last.fm, Wikiquote, Vinony graph. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.

Person · Open Library

Born
5th cent. BC
Died
4th cent. BC
Works
12

Top works

  • Encomio di Elena
  • Gorgiae Helena
  • (Gorgiae) Helena
  • Encomium of Helen
  • Encomio di Elena ;

via Open Library + Wikidata

Music · MusicBrainz

via MusicBrainz · CC0

Listeners · Last.fm

Listeners
6
Total plays
7

<a href="https://www.last.fm/music/Gorgias">Read more on Last.fm</a>

via Last.fm · Gorgias

Recent publications · Crossref

5 total works indexed

  1. Surface Activity and Critical Aggregation Concentration of Pure Sugar Esters with Different Sugar Headgroups

    · 2000 · cited 129x

  2. Dredging-related mobilisation of trace metals: a case study in The Netherlands

    · 2001 · cited 87x

  3. Quantitative risk assessment of Listeria monocytogenes in ready-to-eat (RTE) cooked meat products sliced at retail stores in Greece

    · 2021 · cited 36x

  4. Hypoxic pretreatment protects against neuronal damage of the rat hippocampus induced by severe hypoxia

    · 1996 · cited 34x

  5. Clonidine Versus Ketamine to Prevent Tourniquet Pain During Intravenous Regional Anesthesia With Lidocaine

    · 2001 · cited 30x

via Crossref · CC0

Quotes

  • “ἄνδρα δὲ καὶ γυναῖκα καὶ λόγον καὶ ἔργον καὶ πόλιν καὶ πρᾶγμα χρὴ τὸ μὲν ἄξιον ἐπαίνου ἐπαίνῳ τιμᾶν, τῷ δὲ ἀναξίῳ μῶμον ἐπιθεῖναι· ἴση γὰρ ἁμαρτία καὶ ἀμαθία μέμφεσθαί τε τὰ ἐπαινετὰ καὶ ἐπαινεῖν τὰ μωμητά.”
  • “λόγος δυνάστης μέγας ἐστίν, ὃς σμικροτάτῳ σώματι καὶ ἀφανεστάτῳ θειότατα ἔργα ἀποτελεῖ· δύναται γὰρ καὶ φόβον παῦσαι καὶ λύπην ἀφελεῖν καὶ χαρὰν ἐνεργάσασθαι καὶ ἔλεον ἐπαυξῆσαι.”
  • “τὸν αὐτὸν δὲ λόγον ἔχει ἥ τε τοῦ λόγου δύναμις πρὸς τὴν τῆς ψυχῆς τάξιν ἥ τε τῶν φαρμάκων τάξις πρὸς τὴν τῶν σωμάτων φύσιν. ὥσπερ γὰρ τῶν φαρμάκων ἄλλους ἄλλα χυμοὺς ἐκ τοῦ σώματος ἐξάγει, καὶ τὰ μὲν νόσου τὰ δὲ βίου παύει, οὕτω καὶ τῶν λόγων οἱ μὲν ἐλύπησαν, οἱ δὲ ἔτερψαν, οἱ δὲ ἐφόβησαν, οἱ δὲ εἰς θάρσος κατέστησαν τοὺς ἀκούοντας, οἱ δὲ πειθοῖ τινι κακῇ τὴν ψυχὴν ἐφαρμάκευσαν καὶ ἐξεγοήτευσαν.”
  • “δισσῶν γὰρ τούτων ἕνεκα πάντες πάντα πράττουσιν, ἢ κέρδος τι μετιόντες ἢ ζημίαν φεύγοντες.”
  • “ἀπάτην, [. . .] ἣν ὅ τ᾿ ἀπατήσας δικαιότερος τοῦ μὴ ἀπατήσαντος καὶ ὁ ἀπατηθεὶς σοφώτερος τοῦ μὴ ἀπατηθέντος.”
  • “τὸ μὲν εἶναι ἀφανὲς μὴ τυχὸν τοῦ δοκεῖν, τὸ δὲ δοκεῖν ἀσθενὲς μὴ τυχὸν τοῦ εἶναι.”

via Wikiquote · CC BY-SA

Key facts

Philosopher.region
Western philosophy
Philosopher.era
Pre-Socratic philosophy
Philosopher.name
Gorgias
Philosopher.birth_place
Leontinoi, Sicily, Magna Graecia
Philosopher.death_date
(aged )
Philosopher.school_tradition
Sophists
Philosopher.main_interests
Ontology, epistemology, rhetoric, moral relativism
Philosopher.notable_ideas
Paradoxologia

via Wikipedia infobox

~29 min read

Encyclopedic overview

17 sections
Contents
  • Life
  • Philosophy
  • Rhetorical innovation
  • ''On Non-Existence''
  • Rhetorical works
  • ''Encomium of Helen''
  • ''Defense of Palamedes''
  • ''Epitaphios'' (or the Athenian funeral oration)
  • Reception and legacy
  • In antiquity
  • Modern reception
  • See also
  • References
  • Bibliography
  • Primary sources
  • Secondary sources
  • External links

Gorgias ( ; ; – ) was an ancient Greek sophist, pre-Socratic philosopher, and rhetorician who was a native of Leontinoi in Sicily. Several doxographers report that he was a pupil of Empedocles, although he would only have been a few years younger. W. K. C. Guthrie writes that "Like other Sophists, he was an itinerant that practiced in various cities and giving public exhibitions of his skill at the great pan-Hellenic centers of Olympia and Delphi, and charged fees for his instruction and performances. A special feature of his displays was to ask miscellaneous questions from the audience and give impromptu replies." He has been called "Gorgias the Nihilist", although the degree to which this epithet adequately describes his philosophy is controversial.

Prominent among his claims to recognition is that he transplanted rhetoric from his native Sicily to Attica, and contributed to the diffusion of the Attic dialect as the language of literary prose.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Gorgias” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.

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via Wikidata sitelinks · CC0