Callicles

Callicles (Greek: Καλλικλης) is a character in Plato’s dialogue Gorgias. He is an Athenian citizen, who is a student of the sophist Gorgias. In the dialogue, he argues the position of an oligarchic, proto-"Nietzschean" amoralism: it is natural and just for the strong to dominate the weak and that it is unfair for the weak to resist such oppression by establishing laws to limit the power of the strong (483 - 484 BC).

Callicles argued that the institutions and moral code of his time were not established by gods but by men who naturally were looking after their own interests.

Literature

• Plato, Gorgias.

External links

• Callicles and Thrasymachus
• Socrates v. Callicles