ABSTRACT
The Gorgias, which rightly has been called the most modern of Plato's dialogues, ends with a curious tale of divine judicial reform. Law is central to the network of ideas that the Gorgias presents and represents. In these circumstances, judgment was merely the effect of the impressive on the impressionable. Situating the tale of Zeus' reform in the dialogue as a whole is problematic, however, because of the dialogue form, the particular preoccupation with rhetoric, and Socrates' explicit characterization of the story. First, the dialogue form weaves philosophical argument into a very complex fabric. Second, the pervasiveness of rhetoric in the Gorgias dialogue adds a further interpretive complication. Third, the characterizations of the story within the dialogue testify to its uncertain status. Socrates introduces the story by observing that Callicles will think it a mythos, a myth, but that he, Socrates, considers it a logos, an account. Socrates' conception of craftsmanship involves a distinctive relationship between intellect and action.
