Callicles (/ˈkælɪkliːz/; Greek: Καλλικλῆς; c. 484 – late 5th century BC) is thought to have been an ancient Athenian political philosopher.
The absence of contemporaneous sources external to this single text attesting to his existence has suggested to some that he may be no more than a character created by Plato for the dialogue.
[2] In this vein, it has also been proposed that Callicles may have been devised by Plato as he imagined what kind of intellectual he might have become had he not met with Socrates and undergone his formative philosophical life under the latter's tutelage.
[2] Despite the scant surviving sources for his thought, he can be viewed as a precursor to modern political philosophers, notably including Niccolò Machiavelli[3] and Friedrich Nietzsche[4] (although the latter does not explicitly cite him anywhere in his works[4]).
Callicles poses an immoralist argument that consists of four parts: “(1) a critique of conventional justice, (2) a positive account of ‘justice according to nature’, (3) a theory of the virtues, and (4) a hedonistic conception of the good.”[2] For the first aspect of the argument, Callicles supports the ruling of strong individuals and criticizes the weak for trying to undermine them.