Soc.
Now, do you mean, to make him carry conviction to the crowd on all subjects, not by teaching them, but by persuading?
Gorg.
Certainly I do.
Soc.
You were saying just now, you know, that even in the matter of health the orator will be more convincing than the doctor.
Gorg.
Yes, indeed, I was—meaning, to the crowd.
Soc.
And
to the crowd means
to the ignorant? For surely, to those who know, he will not be more convincing than the doctor.
Gorg.
You are right.
Soc.
And if he is to be more convincing than the doctor, he thus becomes more convincing than he who knows?
Gorg.
Certainly.
Soc.
Though not himself a doctor, you agree?
Gorg.
Yes.
Soc.
But he who is not a doctor is surely without knowledge of that whereof the doctor has knowledge.
Gorg.
Clearly.
Soc.
So he who does not know will be more convincing to those who do not know than he who knows, supposing the orator to be more convincing than the doctor. Is that, or something else, the consequence?
Gorg.
In this case it does follow.
Soc.
Then the case is the same in all the other arts for the orator and his rhetoric: there is no need to know
459c
the truth of the actual matters, but one merely needs to have discovered some device of persuasion which will make one appear to those who do not know to know better than those who know.
Gorg.
Well, and is it not a great convenience, Socrates, to make oneself a match for the professionals by learning just this single art and omitting all the others?
Soc.
Whether the orator is or is not a match for the rest of them by reason of that skill, is a question we shall look into presently, if our argument so requires: for the moment let us consider first whether the rhetorician is in the same relation to what is just and unjust,
459d
base and noble, good and bad, as to what is healthful, and to the various objects of all the other arts; he does not know what is really good or bad, noble or base, just or unjust, but he has devised a persuasion to deal with these matters so as to appear to those who, like himself, do not know to know better than he who knows. Or is it necessary to know,
459e
and must anyone who intends to learn rhetoric have a previous knowledge of these things when he comes to you? Or if not, are you, as the teacher of rhetoric, to teach the person who comes to you nothing about them—for it is not your business—but only to make him appear in the eyes of the multitude to know things of this sort when he does not know, and to appear to be good when he is not? Or will you be utterly unable to teach him rhetoric unless he previously knows the truth about these matters? Or what is the real state of the case,
460a
Gorgias? For Heaven’s sake, as you proposed just now, draw aside the veil and tell us what really is the function of rhetoric.
Gorgias. Plato. Walter Rangeley Maitland Lamb (Translator). Cambridge, MA. 1925.
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