Jim Barcelona's Philosophy and Food Blog

There's a little cafe on California and Sansome in downtown San Francisco that makes really good desserts for afternoon coffee breaks. It's called Cafe Madeleine and it's on 300 California Street by Sansome. A math friend introduced me to the place, and I know when she's in downtown because she parks her dark green bicycle with a brown basket on it right in front.

Anyway, the night before, I stopped reading the Gorgias up until the point where Socrates talks about the afterlife. The feeling that I get is after all that talking and argument, Socrates' interlocutors (Gorgias, Pollas and Callicles), aren't at all convinced. They were forced into agreeing with Socrates, and didn't really expect such a rhetorical beating from a sculptor. Socrates' cash cow job was sculpting.

The dialogue starts off so simply. Socrates just wants to know what Gorgias does, and how what he does benefits the city. "What do you do?" is a question that I always here at parties, and many people resent the question, whereas others glory in their answer. I'm neither of these. With pride and a smile, I'll say, I'm a programmer.

Gorgias was smart. He's a famous sophist, and within getting beat on two or three points, he quickly withdraws and cuts his losses. Pollas butts into the conversation and loses the argument because "he was ashamed to say what he thought." (482e) Callicles gives a summary of the argument so far, and intends to best Socrates by exposing a distinction apparently abused by Socrates: the morality of nature and the morality of human beings, i.e. convention. (482e - 483a).

If you've steeped yourself in the Iliad, the tragedies, and the histories of Herodotus and Thucydides, I totally recommend reading the Gorgias next, especially the following part:

Socrates: Pericles was in charge of human beings?
Callicles: Yes.
Socrates: Well then, if Pericles looked after them as a good statesmen should, ought not his charges to have become more virtuous and less vicious under his influence? That is what we agreed just now.
Callicles: Certainly.
Socrates: And according to Homer the virtuous are gentle. What do you say? Ins't this so?
Callicles: Yes.
Socrates: And yet Pericles made his charges fiercer than when he took them on, and, what is more fiercer towards himself, which is the last thing he would have wished.
Callicles: Do you want me to agree?
Socrates: If what I am saying seem true to you.
Callicles: Very well, let it be so.
Socrates: Now, if they were fiercer, they were more vicious and less good.
Callicles: Granted.
Socrates: Then by this reason Pericles was not a good statesman.
Callicles: That is what you say.

(516b - 516d)

I fully felt the shock of dialectics after having read Pericles' Funeral Oration and the Melian dialogue first, and then the Gorgias.

At Madeleine Cafe, all I had left to read was the part about the afterlife. I think that ending was tacked on because the interlocutors were forced to admit things that they couldn't believe. A cup of tiramisu with an espresso bean on top and cocoa powder, a double espresso, and a bottle of seltzer water ran me $7.38. It was a bit stiff, but well worth it because the tiramisu was delicious.

Over at Thoughts Arguments Rants there's an interesting proof for the notion that every truth is necessary. The simplicity of the proof which assumes a controversial set of modal logic called S5 made me say, "Ooh, neat."

Note: S5 is controversial because it can be used to make a simple and logically rigorous proof of God's existence, which I provide below for fun:

1. g --> N(g)
2. N(g) v ~N(g)
3. ~N(g) --> N(~N(g))
4. N(g) v N(~N(g))
5. N(~N(g)) --> N(~g)
6. N(g) v N(~g)
7. ~N(~g)
8. N(g)
9. N(g) --> g
Therefore, g.