Virtue & Power - Hertog Foundation

All Western philosophy is said to be a “series of footnotes to Plato.” For the inaugural week of the Political Studies Program, fellows will be divided into two seminars, both devoted to close reading of the Gorgias.

Young people with ambitions often want to lead politically successful lives that are also morally serious lives. Is this possible? Can we both do well and be good? Or do the demands of political life, the needs of the community, and the dilemmas of leadership make ordinary morality impossible for those who seek power and influence? We will reflect on the ethical dilemmas implied by the pursuit of power, in politics and other realms, and on how we should conduct ourselves in a world in which the demands of justice and the demands of political necessity often seem to conflict.

Image Credit: Acropolis of Athens by Leo von Klenze, 1846, Wikipedia Commons

Kevin Kambo on reading the Gorgias

This course is part of our residential Political Studies Program. Fellows participate in morning seminars and meet prominent men and women in public life over afternoon and evening sessions. Up to 32 fellows will be selected.

Faculty

Kevin Kambo

Kevin Kambo is an assistant professor of philosophy at The University of Dallas. He specializes in ancient Greek philosophy, particularly Platonic psychology. He also has scholarly interest in philosophy of technology, liberal education, and philosophy and literature.

Benjamin Storey

Benjamin Storey is a senior fellow in Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), and co-director of AEI’s Center for the Future of the American University. He is concurrently an SNF Agora Fellow at Johns Hopkins University and a research fellow at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas at Austin.

Preview the Syllabus by Week/Session

Plato's Gorgias

Socrates & Gorgias

Readings:

Introduction; Plato, Gorgias, 447A–461B

Discussion Questions:

What is the context of the conversation described in Plato’s Gorgias, insofar as you can discern it from the details of the text? Who are the characters?
What does Socrates hope to learn from Gorgias?
What is the power of rhetoric, according to Gorgias?
Socrates continually refers to “our speech,” in his conversation with Gorgias; what does he mean and why does he insist upon it?
What are the two kinds of persuasion, according to Socrates?
What is the relationship between rhetoric and justice?
How does Gorgias ultimately contradict his own argument?

Socrates & Polus

Readings:

Plato, Gorgias, 461B–486D

Discussion Questions:

Why does Polus interject himself into the conversation at 461B?
What does Polus believe to be the source of Gorgias’ self-contradiction?
How does Socrates define rhetoric?
Make a chart of Socrates’ analogy of the true and spurious arts of body and soul.
What does Socrates mean by his distinction between a human being “doing what seems good to him” and “doing what he wants”?
Upon what, according to Socrates, does human happiness depend?
What is Polus’ example of Archelaus intended to prove?
How does Socrates bring Polus to agree that the proper use of rhetoric is to bring accusations against one’s loved ones or oneself, if they are guilty of any injustice, although, as Polus says, “it seems crazy”? Is it in fact crazy?
Why does Callicles doubt whether Socrates is serious? Do you think Socrates is serious?
What, according to Callicles, is Socrates’ technique for getting people to refute themselves? Does he accurately describe what goes on in the conversational portions of the dialogue?
What, according to Callicles, is “just by nature”?
What does Callicles believe to be the proper place of philosophy in the life of an anḗr, a “real man”?

Socrates & Callicles

Readings:

Plato, Gorgias, 486D–506B

Discussion Questions:

What characteristics does Socrates attribute to Callicles in describing him as a touchstone upon which to test his own soul? Does Callicles truly seem to possess these characteristics?
Socrates easily finds examples to disprove Callicles’ argument that “the one who’s greater should carry off the things that belong to the lesser.” What would be the best version of Callicles’ argument?
What is Callicles’ definition of “virtue and happiness”?
Callicles likens the life Socrates recommends to that of a “stone or a corpse,” that is, to something that is not alive at all. Socrates likens the life Callicles recommends to the continual replenishing of an urn full of holes. Is there such a thing as a life that is something better than continual succession of filling and emptying?
Callicles rapidly tires of answering what he calls Socrates’ “shriveled little questions.” Why does Gorgias encourage him to go on?
How does Socrates finally bring Callicles to admit that the pleasant and the good are not the same thing?
Is there an art of seeking the human good?
What, according to Socrates, would be the aim of a healthy art of rhetoric?
What is Socrates’ critique of the greatest Athenian statesmen—Themistocles, Miltiades, Cimon, and Pericles?

Socrates

Readings:

Plato, Gorgias, 506B–527E

Discussion Questions:

What, according to Socrates, produces the good of a thing?
What does Socrates mean when he suggests that the source of Callicles’ error is his neglect of geometry?
What must one do to avoid suffering injustice in a city, on Socrates’ account?
Why does Callicles find it “galling” that “someone who’s worthless” can take “a good and beautiful life” from an innocent man? Given his previously stated opinions, shouldn’t he find that state of affairs natural and unobjectionable?
How, according to Socrates, is rhetoric akin to helmsmanship?
How does the comparison Socrates makes between rhetoric and medicine at 512D compare to the relation between the two indicated by the larger analogy he makes at 465B–D?
Callicles remarks that “something about what you’re saying seems good to me, Socrates—I don’t know what it is—but I’m having the experience most people do: I’m not entirely persuaded by you.” Do you share his experience of being divided in your reactions to Socrates? What is the source of this division?
How can Socrates claim to be “one of a few Athenians, not to say the only one, to make an attempt at the political art in the true sense,” although he famously steers clear of Athenian politics (521B)?
Socrates concludes the dialogue with a speech he calls a “logos” but says that Callicles will consider a “mythos.” What is the difference?
What, according to Socrates’ story, is death?

The Gorgias

Review the Gorgias in its entirety

Discussion Questions:

What happens in Plato’s Gorgias? Does anyone learn anything?
How does Socrates manage to get people to bear witness against themselves?
For the last fourth of the dialogue, Socrates speaks almost alone, and Callicles has long since given up on the conversation. Why does Socrates continue? Is he beating a dead horse?
Throughout the Gorgias, Socrates makes extreme arguments. Are there moderate versions of Socrates’ arguments that seem more plausible? If so, why does he take such extreme positions?
What can this dialogue, set in a strange context and a distant time, teach us about power, virtue, and the proper use of speech in politics?

WHO SHOULD APPLY

Any college or university undergraduate, or very recent graduate (2025 or 2026) not already pursuing an advanced degree, may apply to the Political Studies Program.

Admission is extremely competitive, and every year we decline admission to many highly qualified applicants simply due to lack of space. A typical competitive applicant will have:

An undergraduate GPA > 3.7
A statement of purpose that tells us how the applicant’s interests and ambitions relate to the preferred program. The statement of purpose is very important and deserves careful attention.
An academic writing sample that demonstrates the applicant’s powers of analysis and independent thought, and not only their ability to do scholarly research or comment on a text.

APPLICATION REQUIREMENTS

CV OR RÉSUMÉ
PERSONAL STATEMENT

Describe, in 1,000 words or less, the political questions you find most interesting, your future ambitions, and how these relate to your preferred program(s).
A COLLEGE TRANSCRIPT

Unofficial
AN ACADEMIC WRITING SAMPLE

12 pages maximum; double-spaced. Please send academic writing that best showcases your ability to invent and sustain a persuasive argument, no matter the subject-matter.
ACADEMIC LETTER & REFERENCE

Standard applicants will submit one letter of recommendation. Nominated applicants will submit two references & contact info.

Apply Now

Alumni Spotlight

Hannah Carrese

Hannah Carrese graduated from Yale University, where she majored in humanities. She studied classics, grand strategy, and statecraft in pursuit of her focus on the nexus between political theory and human rights. She attended the 2014 Political Studies Program and is a 2017 Rhodes Scholar.

“The crucial crises of our time have to be solved by people who have an understanding of the ideas that came before us and the theories that underpin our own thought. To know the canon in the way that Hertog taught us and then inspired us to do at our own universities is a great gift for people who want to go into public policy and public service.”

Hannah Carrese

Current Position:

Associate, Holland & Hart
Past:

Rhodes Scholar, Yale Parker Huang Fellowship
Education:

University of Oxford | Yale Law School

HOW DID YOU FIRST HEAR ABOUT THE HERTOG FOUNDATION? WHY DID YOU DECIDE TO APPLY?

While at Yale, Professors Norma Thompson and Steven Smith in the Humanities Program recommended me for Political Studies. They suggested that it would be a way to supplement my study of the Great Books and to think more deeply about political conversations—all in DC, which is an exciting place to think about those things. And then it just became obvious that this was what I should do with my summer.

DO YOU THINK HERTOG PROGRAMS ARE BENEFICIAL FOR YOUNG PEOPLE INTERESTED IN PUBLIC POLICY?

Of course! I’m going to do an MPhil in Politics at Oxford, with a focus on refugees, migration, and the political theories that underpin our ideas of human rights and state order. The degree isn’t directly related to what I studied at Hertog, but all that I studied at Hertog is implicit in it.

These crucial crises of our time have to be solved by people who have an understanding of the ideas that came before us and the theories that underpin our own thought. T. S. Eliot talks about knowing the canon before you can change it, and it’s the same idea with politics. To know the canon in the way that Hertog taught us and then inspired us to do at our own universities is a great gift for people who want to go into public policy and public service.

WHAT STICKS OUT IN YOUR MEMORY ABOUT YOUR EDUCATIONAL EXPERIENCE WITH HERTOG PROGRAMS?

The Gettysburg staff ride was really memorable. By the time we got to the field where Pickett’s Charge happened, it was pouring rain. We were running across this muddy battlefield, and it felt like we were really examining the relationship between the American history we learned about when we were younger and the great ideas we were discussing at Hertog. Pickett’s Charge was enmeshed in a broader discussion about strategy: It’s about Lee’s moral vision of the war and Lincoln’s language of the war.

After we came back from Gettysburg, a group of us ran down to the Lincoln Memorial and just sat there for a bit. It felt wonderful to be there in that city reading those books, feeling the presence of those figures. That’s what Hertog does best: They bring these texts, ideas, and events alive. All this was evident throughout the Program, but especially on that day.

OVERALL, WHAT IS YOUR IMPRESSION OF HERTOG PROGRAMS?

The intellectual community at Hertog is really special. There’s this sense that everybody’s done the reading, so when we go into discussion, there’s an ability to focus on what’s really being said. It’s sometimes rare to get an unfiltered look at a great book or a great person.

WHERE DO YOU SEE YOURSELF IN 10 YEARS? IN A SIMILAR JOB, OR EMBARKING ON SOMETHING DIFFERENT?

My current plan after Oxford is to return to the United States and attend law school to study asylum law, problems of refugee movement, and general migration. Then I want to use the theoretical training I’ll gain from Oxford and the legal training I’ll have as well to make policy on these issues.

I think matters of migration touch aspects of our politics that go beyond humanitarian factors. Refugees flee political crises, and we have to solve the conflicts that they flee through political means. The first step is to understand refugee crises as inherently political, and that’s what I want to work towards.