Early in his discussion with Socrates, Callicles makes an ominous warning to Socrates:
If someone should arrest you or someone like you and take you off to prison, claiming that you had committed injustice though you had done no such thing, you know that you wouldn’t be able to help yourself, but your head would spin and you would stand there with your mouth open not knowing what to say, and when you came up to the courtroom and faced your good-for-nothing accuser, you would be put to death, if he wished to impose that penalty on you. (486a-b)
Toward the end of the dialogue, Socrates comes back to the warning. He compares himself to a doctor being accused by a confectioner before a jury of children. He is accused of abusing the children by making them hunger and thirst, giving them nasty-tasting food. The accuser, on the other hand, delights them with desserts and sweets and caters to their every whim. Yes, Socrates might be condemned for doing the citizens of Athens good, but in that case he would be judged for benefiting them rather than harming them (521e-522a).
In this setting, Socrates makes a startling claim:
I think I am one of but few Athenians, not to say the only one, to undertake[23] the true political art, and the only one of the present generation to practice politics. (521d)
Here, in the only place in Plato’s Socratic dialogues, Socrates professes to have the political art, to be an expert at something. Perhaps it would be better to render hē politikē technē as ‘the social art’: the art of making society better, more cohesive, rational, and well-behaved.[24] Socrates, who always disavows any special knowledge, even here in the Gorgias (see 506a, 509a), now reveals that he alone is a real statesman. Socrates’ examinations, he seems to imply, remove false beliefs from people and enable them to see what is true and what really matters in life. Like a good physician, he offers strong medicine to his patients, but he does it in their own best interests and for their ultimate salvation. His aim is not to give them pleasure but to heal them of their infirmities.
Being a statesman in this way does not, and will not, necessarily make Socrates popular or welcome among the masses or pave the way for him to ascend to a position of power and influence. But it will make him a benefactor, unlike virtually all the politicians Athens has produced. Socrates makes his associates gentle and law-abiding and helpful to others. He takes away their tendencies to violence and oppression. His methods of inquiry and self-examination eliminate evil traits and inculcate good attitudes and behavior.
[23].There is a debate over whether epicheirein is to be taken as “undertake” or “attempt” ( Irwin, 1979, 240, or as “engage in, perform,” as Vlastos, 1991, 240 n. 21, has it. For our purposes, the following assertion is adequate to show that he is seriously involved in politics.
[24] Aristotle declares that the state exists by nature and (because) “man is by nature a political animal (politikon zōion)” (Politics 1253a2-3). This might be rendered “a social animal.” Given the social tendencies of human beings, the state is an inevitable result.