THE GORGIAS AND SV

Unlike the Apology and Crito, the Gorgias is not concerned with determining what a person or people should do in a particular situation. In the Apology, Socrates not only cites various specific actions of his own and explains how they were always done in accordance with SV, but he is also engaged in attempting to persuade the jury to perform a particular action. The jury must make concrete decisions then and there about what is to be done with Socrates and he calls on them to hold to the standard of SV as well. In the Crito, as we have seen, Socrates attempts to persuade Crito that to escape is to do an injustice, while to remain in prison is not. There again a concrete decision about what the virtuous action is must be made in the hic et nunc of the dialogue. No such context is present in the Gorgias. Nor, at least at the beginning, does the heavy atmosphere of Socrates' impending execution weigh over the dialogue.

Although there are these differences between the Apology and Crito on the one hand, and the Gorgias on the other, there are even more important similarities. Although usually considered “early” or “Socratic” dialogues, all three lack some typical criteria for inclusion in that group: none ends in aporia and none attempts to determine in general terms what virtue or a virtue is.