Nothing Exists: Nonbeing as a Man-Made Image (Eikon). A Gorgianic Argument

Abstract

There have been three different approaches to Gorgias’ texts. According to the first approach, Gorgias’ treatise On What is Not is just a rhetorical parody of philosophical doctrines (philological or rhetorical approach). According to the second approach, Gorgias is just a nihilist (or a negative dogmatic or a forerunner of scepticism) attacking the doctrines of the Eleatics and the Presocratics (ontological approach). On the third approach (which attributes to Gorgias an interesting philosophical position): a) Gorgias is seriously interested in the problems of predication and meaning (linguistic interpretation), and b) he wants to show that “nothing exists” in the sense that nonbeings like chimeras are manmade imaginary entities, i.e. mental images, icons (eikones), as he characterizes them (phenomenological/perceptual interpretation). Based on these philosophical interpretations, it will be shown that, in the 5th century BCE treatise On What is Not, Gorgias argues that nonbeing does exist in the form of mental images. An interpretation that is corroborated by Plato as well