The Timpson Lyceum · History of Philosophy (2024)

Gorgias: The Nihilist – Lecture 13 (History of Philosophy)

Overview

Gorgias of Leontini (c. 483–375 BC) — from the Sicilian city of Leontini, near Syracuse — is the second great Sophist and the one who pushes skepticism to its outer limit: he is remembered as the nihilist. A pupil of Empedocles (whom Aristotle called the father of rhetoric), Gorgias inherited a florid, poetic rhetorical style and made his name as a diplomat, winning a celebrated embassy to Athens in 427 BC on behalf of Leontini against Syracuse. A dazzling public performer who fielded anonymous questions on any subject, he was, like Protagoras, more showman of persuasion than seeker of truth — but where Protagoras made man the measure, Gorgias argues there is nothing to measure at all.

The heart of the lecture is Gorgias' treatise On Nature, or On the Non-Existent (also rendered On Non-Being), a deliberate parody-in-reverse of Parmenides that advances three cascading theses: (1) nothing exists; (2) even if something existed, it could not be known; (3) even if it could be known, it could not be communicated. Each stage concedes the previous one for the sake of argument and pushes further, dismantling metaphysics (being), epistemology (knowledge), and language (communication) in turn. Whether Gorgias meant it as sincere philosophy or as a virtuoso demonstration that one can argue anything, later thinkers took the arguments seriously — and they crystallize the self-undermining character of radical skepticism, since a book that communicates the claim "nothing can be communicated" refutes itself in the act.

Key Concepts

• Gorgias of Leontini — Sicilian Sophist, pupil of Empedocles, master rhetorician; famed for his 427 BC embassy to Athens and for answering audience questions on any topic. Author of On Non-Being.
• Nihilism — The view that nothing has value, nothing can be known, and nothing can be communicated; ultimately, that nothing truly is. Gorgias is the first thoroughgoing nihilist in the tradition.
• Rhetoric over inquiry — Like the Sophists generally, Gorgias prized persuasion and taught it from memorized set-speeches to be deployed when the fitting occasion arose; truth was beside the point.
• The three theses of On Non-Being — (1) Nothing exists; (2) if anything existed, it could not be known/comprehended; (3) if it could be known, it could not be communicated to another. A descending staircase, each step granting the prior for argument's sake.
• Against Being and Non-Being — Thesis 1 proceeds by showing that neither non-being nor being can exist. If non-being existed, it would both be (existing) and not-be (being non-being) — a contradiction; so non-being does not exist.
• Being is neither eternal nor created — If being were eternal it would have no beginning, hence be unbounded, hence occupy no container and no place — and what is nowhere does not exist. If being were created, there was a time before it when only non-being was — but non-being cannot be. So being is neither eternal nor created, and a thing must be one or the other to exist.
• Being is neither one nor many — If being were one, it would have magnitude, and any magnitude is infinitely divisible, hence many — contradiction. If being were many, it would be composed of ones, but there can be no single "one" (just shown); no ones, no many. So being is neither one nor many.
• Comprehension requires being a concept, but concepts are not realities — Whatever is comprehended is a concept of the mind; but the mind can conceive non-realities (a chariot racing on the sea, a man flying). If merely being thought sufficed for reality, these fictions would be real. Since thought does not track reality the way sight tracks the seen, the objects of thought are not realities, and reality is therefore incomprehensible.
• Sense-faculties do not cross over — Sight delivers only the visible, hearing only the audible; we accept the seen-though-unheard and the heard-though-unseen as real. But we do not accept the merely-thought as real — evidence that thought, unlike the senses, is not about existing things.
• Communication fails because speech is not the thing — What exists is grasped through percepts (sight, hearing, touch...), but we communicate by speech (logos), and speech is not the perceptible object. Just as sight cannot convey sound, speech cannot convey the percept: telling you about a dog does not make you see, hear, or touch it. Hence "all speech is about speech," and reality is incommunicable.
• The self-refutation of skepticism — A treatise that communicates "nothing can be communicated," or asserts "nothing can be known," undercuts itself. The consistent skeptic must keep softening every claim ("it is highly probable that it is highly probable that...") — the standing joke about skeptics retreating into a corner.
• Insight vs. absurdity — The arguments occasionally touch real points (e.g., that a hearer relates speech to his own experience, not directly to the speaker's object), yet their conclusions are plainly false; that an argument cannot be immediately faulted is no reason to accept a manifestly absurd conclusion.

Worked Example

The three-stage argument of On Nature, or On Non-Being, set out formally. Let $E(x)$ = "$x$ exists," $K(x)$ = "$x$ can be known," $C(x)$ = "$x$ can be communicated."

Stage 1 — Nothing exists: $\ \neg\exists x\,E(x).$

1. Consider non-being. Suppose non-being exists. Then it both is (it exists) and is-not (it is non-being): $E(\text{nb}) \wedge \neg E(\text{nb})$ — a contradiction. Hence non-being does not exist.
2. Consider being, and suppose it exists. Being must be eternal or created. If eternal, it has no beginning, so it is unbounded; the unbounded is in no container, hence in no place; what is nowhere does not exist — contradiction. If created, there was a prior time containing only non-being; but non-being cannot be (step 1) — contradiction. So being is neither eternal nor created, and therefore does not exist.
3. Being must also be one or many. If one, it has magnitude, and magnitude is infinitely divisible, hence many — contradiction. If many, it is a collection of ones, but no single "one" is possible — contradiction. So being is neither one nor many, and does not exist.
4. Since neither being nor non-being exists, nothing exists:

$\neg E(\text{being}) \wedge \neg E(\text{non-being}) \;\Rightarrow\; \neg\exists x\,E(x).$

Stage 2 — If anything existed, it could not be known: $\ \forall x\big(E(x) \rightarrow \neg K(x)\big).$

1. To comprehend $x$ is for $x$ to be a concept of the mind: $K(x) \rightarrow \text{Concept}(x)$; contrapositive, $\neg\text{Concept}(x) \rightarrow \neg K(x)$.
2. But the mind conceives non-realities (a chariot on the sea): if concepts were realities, these fictions would exist. Since they do not, concepts are not realities — the objects of thought fail to track what is. Hence, granting $E(x)$ for argument, $x$ is not captured as a concept, so $\neg K(x)$.

Stage 3 — If anything were known, it could not be communicated: $\ \forall x\big(K(x) \rightarrow \neg C(x)\big).$

1. Existing things are grasped through percepts; communication runs through speech (logos); and speech is distinct from the perceptible object: $\text{Speech} \neq \text{Percept}$.

2. Faculties do not transfer content across kinds — sight cannot deliver sound. Likewise speech, being its own kind, delivers only speech, never the percept: hearing "the dog is thirty feet long" conveys no perception of any dog. Therefore what is known cannot be handed to another: $\neg C(x)$.

3. Chaining the three stages:

$\neg\exists x\,E(x)\ \wedge\ \big(E(x)\!\rightarrow\!\neg K(x)\big)\ \wedge\ \big(K(x)\!\rightarrow\!\neg C(x)\big).$

Nothing is; if it were, it could not be known; if known, it could not be told. Radical skepticism reaches its terminus — and, by being written down and read, performatively refutes its own third thesis. $\blacksquare$

Summary

• Gorgias of Leontini, pupil of Empedocles and celebrated for his 427 BC embassy to Athens, is the Sophist nihilist who carries skepticism to its extreme.
• His treatise On Non-Being argues three cascading theses: nothing exists; if it did, it could not be known; if known, it could not be communicated.
• Thesis 1 dismantles being by dilemmas — being is neither eternal nor created, neither one nor many — while non-being is self-contradictory, so nothing exists.
• Thesis 2 turns on the gap between thought and reality (the mind conceives fictions), and thesis 3 on the gap between speech and percept (words are not the things), yielding incomprehensibility and incommunicability.
• The position is self-refuting: to write and communicate "nothing can be communicated" defeats itself, illustrating that a clever, hard-to-fault argument for an absurd conclusion is still no reason to accept it.