Summary of Gorgias
Summary of Socrates’ Attack on Rhetoric in Plato’s Gorgias
Socrates: What are we to call you, Gorgias, and what is your art?
Gorgias: I am a rhetorician and a teacher of rhetoricians. Rhetoric is my art.
Socrates: With what is rhetoric concerned?
Gorgias: With discourse. Rhetoric makes men able to speak, and to understand what t hey are speaking about.
Socrates: Is it the only art that deals with discourse? What about medicine, or gymnastic?
Gorgias: Rhetoric is the art which takes effect only through the art of discourse.
Socrates: Is it the only art which does so? Do not other arts take effect through discourse, such as arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy?
Gorgias: The discourse wit which rhetoric is concerned is persuasion.
Socrates: Is rhetoric the only artificer of persuasion? What about these othr arts already mentioned? Do they not persuade about their subject areas?
Gorgias: Rhetoric is the art of persuasion in courts of law, political councils, and public assemblies. Its primary subject is justice.
Socrtaes: Is rhetoric the art of persuasion which results in belief about justice, or knowledge about justice?
Gorgias: Rhetoric is the art which imparts belief about justice, but gives no instruction about it.
Socrates: Are rhetoricians advisors about all fields?
Gorgias: Yes, the rhetorician can advise about any given field better than the experts in that field, though the rhetorician should not use rhetoric unjustly. But if they do us e rhetoric unjustly, the teacher of that rhetorician should not be blamed.
Socrates: So rhetoric has powers of persuasion in a given field greater that the experts in that field?
Gorgias: Yes, with the multitude.
Socrates: So the rhetorician, who is ignorant of a given field, can persuade the multitude, who are also ignorant. The ignorant is more persuasive with the ignorant, than the expert.
Gorgi8as: Yes, and this is a great comfort, to to be able to persuade concerning the other arts without knowing the truths about them.
Socrates: Do your pupils understand justice before you teach them rhetoric?
Gorgias: The pupil either understands justice, or is taught it by me.
Socrates: Is a person trained in justice a just person?
Gorgias: Yes, a person trained in justice will always do the just thing, and will be unwilling to do anything unjst.
Socrtaes: But you have now contradicted yourself. For earlier you claimed that the rhetorician may use rhetoric unjustly, though is teacher is not to blame. Now you claim that the rhetorician is taught about justice by his teacher, and must therefore always be just.
Polus: Do you believe what you are saying, Socrates? You are rudely forcing Gorgias to contradict himself.
Socrates: Then show me where I am wrong.
Polus: What is rhetoric, Socrates? What sort of an art?
Socrates: Rhetoric is not an art. It is an experience of producing a sort of delight and gratification. In short, rhetoric is a species of flattery.
Polus: What part of flattery is rhetoric?
Socrates: Rhetoric is the counterpart of a part of politics. As a species of flattery, it aims at the giving of pleasure, not with men’s higher interests. It does not give knowledge.
Socrates: What are we to call you, Gorgias, and what is your art?
Gorgias: I am a rhetorician and a teacher of rhetoricians. Rhetoric is my art.
Socrates: With what is rhetoric concerned?
Gorgias: With discourse. Rhetoric makes men able to speak, and to understand what t hey are speaking about.
Socrates: Is it the only art that deals with discourse? What about medicine, or gymnastic?
Gorgias: Rhetoric is the art which takes effect only through the art of discourse.
Socrates: Is it the only art which does so? Do not other arts take effect through discourse, such as arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy?
Gorgias: The discourse wit which rhetoric is concerned is persuasion.
Socrates: Is rhetoric the only artificer of persuasion? What about these othr arts already mentioned? Do they not persuade about their subject areas?
Gorgias: Rhetoric is the art of persuasion in courts of law, political councils, and public assemblies. Its primary subject is justice.
Socrtaes: Is rhetoric the art of persuasion which results in belief about justice, or knowledge about justice?
Gorgias: Rhetoric is the art which imparts belief about justice, but gives no instruction about it.
Socrates: Are rhetoricians advisors about all fields?
Gorgias: Yes, the rhetorician can advise about any given field better than the experts in that field, though the rhetorician should not use rhetoric unjustly. But if they do us e rhetoric unjustly, the teacher of that rhetorician should not be blamed.
Socrates: So rhetoric has powers of persuasion in a given field greater that the experts in that field?
Gorgias: Yes, with the multitude.
Socrates: So the rhetorician, who is ignorant of a given field, can persuade the multitude, who are also ignorant. The ignorant is more persuasive with the ignorant, than the expert.
Gorgi8as: Yes, and this is a great comfort, to to be able to persuade concerning the other arts without knowing the truths about them.
Socrates: Do your pupils understand justice before you teach them rhetoric?
Gorgias: The pupil either understands justice, or is taught it by me.
Socrates: Is a person trained in justice a just person?
Gorgias: Yes, a person trained in justice will always do the just thing, and will be unwilling to do anything unjst.
Socrtaes: But you have now contradicted yourself. For earlier you claimed that the rhetorician may use rhetoric unjustly, though is teacher is not to blame. Now you claim that the rhetorician is taught about justice by his teacher, and must therefore always be just.
Polus: Do you believe what you are saying, Socrates? You are rudely forcing Gorgias to contradict himself.
Socrates: Then show me where I am wrong.
Polus: What is rhetoric, Socrates? What sort of an art?
Socrates: Rhetoric is not an art. It is an experience of producing a sort of delight and gratification. In short, rhetoric is a species of flattery.
Polus: What part of flattery is rhetoric?
Socrates: Rhetoric is the counterpart of a part of politics. As a species of flattery, it aims at the giving of pleasure, not with men’s higher interests. It does not give knowledge.