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How does rhetoric relate to free will according to Gorgias’ Encomium of Helen, and what
are the implications of this relation?
Tan Rui Zhe, Joel
With the enormous emphasis on the individualistic ideals of capitalism and democracy, we
would like to believe that we have full control over our actions, our decisions, our emotions. Gorgias,
however, seems to suggest otherwise. Using Helen as an example, he shows that whether by divine
will, forcible abduction, persuasion or love, she is a victim who had her free will wrest from her. He
then links his idea of free will closely with that of responsibility by arguing that Helen’s acquittal is
contingent on her lack of free will. Gorgias uses the defence of restraint in the first two cases, and
tries to show that even in the case of persuasion and love she was slave to Paris’ rhetoric. Ergo,
Helen was in fact, innocent in all cases. However, the strength of Gorgias’ defence in the latter two
cases is dubious at best. Hence, this paper would discuss the relationships that exist between
rhetoric and free will according to Gorgias and more pertinently, the implications of these
relationships. Before a proper analysis can be done, a framework defining “free will” has to be
established. In the loosest sense, and the one which will be adopted for the sake of discussion for
this essay, free will is the ability of agents to make choices which are not constrained by any external
factors; ergo, any constraints on the agent during his decision making process would result in the
loss of his free will. A closer reading suggests that Gorgias believes the soul is constrained through
the use of deception and emotion, which results in a loss of free will. This analysis of the Encomium
hence aims to shed light on Gorgias’ views on rhetoric and free will and to make us wonder if his
views are still valid in our daily lives.
A glimpse of Gorgias’ view of the relationship between rhetoric and free will can be seen
by his use of the metaphor for speech being like “sacred incantations”, “witchcraft” and “magic”,
which works through the “errors of soul” and the “deceptions of opinion” (10). In his bipartite
argument, Gorgias argues that since men lack the memory of things past, the awareness of things
present, and the foreknowledge of the future, most men will use opinions as the basis of their
decision making and that these opinions can be influenced through the use of persuasion. He
furthers his argument by declaring that “all who have and do persuade people of things do so by
moulding a false argument” (11). Here, Gorgias explicitly states that falsehood is the key to
persuasion, and by extension persuasion is impossible without falsehood. In other words,
prevarication is the prerequisite for persuasion for Gorgias. How then, does persuasion relate to free
will? According to Gorgias, persuasion springs forth from speech, and “constrain[s] the soul” of the
persuaded “to believe the things said” (12). This is done in three ways: first, by replacing an unclear
opinion with one that only seems true but may not actually be; second, by carefully couching
falsehood within an artfully crafted and given speech; third, through creating and reinforcing the
illusion that opinions are easily discarded and adopted. In each of these ways, speech beguiles,
persuades and alters the soul by “merging with opinion in the soul” (10). This persuasion then
“bewitch[es] the soul” (14) of the persuaded, leading him to cede his free will to the persuader. In a
way, Gorgias is making a point about the use of the rhetorical appeal of logos to persuade others,
with the main difference being that logos usually involves the use of pre-existing beliefs and facts
while the method Gorgias describes always involves deception.
Tied to his ideas about speech are his views on the other rhetorical appeals, especially that
of pathos (with the connotations of suffering, passion and emotion). He states that “through the
agency of words, the soul is wont to experience a suffering [or pathos] of its own” (9). Here, Gorgias
uses pathos in its multiple levels of meaning to illustrate that speech has the power to evoke all
kinds of emotions such as joy, pity, fear and longing. While the mechanism in which speech produces
its effects in the soul cannot be seen, the effects themselves are clear – “The effect of speech upon
the condition of the soul is comparable to the power of drugs over the nature of bodies” (14). With
this metaphor, the different effects of different drugs on the body is compared with the myriad of
effects that different speeches can produce – some to entertain, some to alarm, and others with a
more sinister intent to drug and persuade. The use of rhetoric in speech, then, persuades (and hence
constrains) the soul of the persuaded through the arousing the emotions in the persuaded. The
persuader thus has power over the persuaded by controlling when and what emotions are evoked in
the persuaded.
The relationship between emotion and free will must now be demonstrated. Here, Gorgias
broaches the link between emotion and free will through his argument that even if it was love that
made Helen leave with Paris, she would still be innocent of sin. For Gorgias, being in love was one of
the ways in which Helen could be absolved of her sin as love is an emotion in which she had no
control of, and her lack of control would hence absolve her of her culpability. While speech is the
vehicle by which persuasion acts on the persuaded, sight is the vehicle in the case of emotion.
Gorgias claims that “sight engraves upon the mind images of things which have been seen” (17), and
these impressions that are cut into the mind produces a rapid emotional response in the beholder’s
heart. The sudden torrent of emotion leaves the beholder thoroughly stupefied, leaving him
vulnerable to the persuasions of others, or it spurs him to immediate action without first considering
the options before him. In other words, these emotions causes the beholder to “[loose] presence of
mind for the present moment” (17), impairing his decision making process. In this way, the soul is
constrained by the need to act at that moment (whether or not such action is actually required) or
kairos and the beholder reverts back to relying on instinct rather than conscious choice to make his
decision, resulting in his subsequent loss of free will.
While Gorgias’ arguments are masterfully delivered through his skills as a rhetor and we
are almost swayed by his confident ethos as a speaker, there are glaring flaws that riddle Gorgias’
argument which prevent us from being absolutely convinced of Helen’s innocence; if Helen was not
innocent, then rhetoric does not have absolute power unlike what Gorgias seems to imply. If we
adopt his view that persuasion is based on moulding a false argument, then Gorgias’ own use of
persuasion to defend Helen, too, would have to be based on false arguments, which would be selfdefeating. Next, Gorgias also contradicts himself when he says that “persuasion has the form of
necessity, but it does not have the same power” (12). Here, he clearly admits that the force of
persuasion is weaker than that of physical force, which would lead us to wonder why Helen did not
attempt to resist Paris’ persuasion. Using Gorgias’ metaphor of speech being like drugs, most people
have the power to decide if they want to take the drug in the first place, and in the same way Helen
could have willingly chose to be “drugged” by Paris’ speech. Only if Helen was too weak to resist
Paris’ persuasions can she be cleared of blame. Otherwise, she was a consenting party by allowing
herself to be persuaded and was still able to make decisions to certain extents.
Gorgias’ view on emotion too, raises a few issues. Why did Helen not simply walk away
whenever Paris tried to seduce her with speech? Surely, she must have known and felt the
emotional effects Paris had on her, and could have found a way to resist his charms if she chose to.
However, since she chose otherwise, she became blame-worthy, and has only herself to blame for
her shame. Next, the inevitability of her final decision to leave with Paris remains questionable. Her
decision to leave Sparta for Troy must have aroused in her a multitude of other emotions such as the
fear of leaving everything she had known behind, and the shame of being seen as an eloper or
betrayer. Why then, did love take precedence? Could these other emotions not have alarmed her
soul such that she would be paralyzed into staying? It thus seems plausible that Helen allowed her
love to trump all her other emotions, hence casting doubt on Gorgias’ assertion that Helen is
guiltless in all possible scenarios.
Throughout his speech, Gorgias never makes clear his opinions if he believes free will to be
desirable. He does however imply that free will is bound to responsibility, and that rhetoric has
absolute power over its audience. By utterly acquitting Helen of all charge, he assumes that Paris’
use of rhetoric was an irresistible force which hence absolves her of misdemeanour by virtue of her
lack of free will. Furthermore, the validity of his assumptions is also contingent on whether or not his
audience was convinced by him. Since the Encomium was crafted and delivered with rhetoric, if
must be able to persuade the entirety of its audience before Gorgias’ argument is valid. Just as we
are not fully convinced about Helen’s innocence, others too may not be persuaded simply with
speech and emotions. True persuasion is thus determined by skill of the rhetor, and more
importantly the audience’s willingness to be persuaded. Nevertheless, we have already been
subjected to rhetoric since we were born (such as our belief in things our parents teach us due to
their ethos as our parents), and hence we do not have absolute “free will” to being with. Every
decision we make is a product of our past experiences with other people and things around us.
However, rhetoric is still relevant in our understanding of how others use it as a method of
persuasion to fulfil a certain goals, especially if that goal impacts us in some way.