Plato Gorgias 454

Then if we are asked what kind of persuasion, and dealing with what, we shall reply, I suppose: The instructive kind, which deals with the amount of an odd or an even number; 454a and we shall be able to demonstrate that all the other arts which we mentioned just now are producers of persuasion, and what kind it is, and what it deals with, shall we not?

Yes.

Hence rhetoric is not the only producer of persuasion.

You are right.

Since then it is not the only one that achieves this effect, but others can also, we should be justified in putting this further question to the speaker, as we did concerning the painter: Then of what kind of persuasion, and of persuasion dealing with what, is rhetoric the art? 454b Or do you not consider that such a further question would be justified?

Yes, I do.

Then answer me, Gorgias, since you agree with me on that.

Well then, I mean that kind of persuasion, Socrates, which you find in the law-courts and in any public gatherings, as in fact I said just now; and it deals with what is just and unjust.

I, too, I may tell you, had a suspicion that it was this persuasion that you meant, and as dealing with those things, Gorgias; but you must not be surprised if I ask you by-and-by some such question as may seem to be obvious, though I persist in it; 454c for, as I say, I ask my questions with a view to an orderly completion of our argument—I am not aiming at you, but only anxious that we do not fall into a habit of snatching at each other’s words with a hasty guess, and that you may complete your own statement in your own way, as the premises may allow.

And I think you are quite right in doing so, Socrates.

Come then, let us consider another point. Is there something that you call having learnt.

There is.

And again, having believed?

Yes.

Then do you think that having learnt and having believed, or learning and belief, are the same thing, or different?

In my opinion, Socrates, they are different.

And your opinion is right, as you can prove in this way: if some one asked you—Is there, Gorgias, a false and a true belief?—you would say, Yes, I imagine.

I should.

But now, is there a false and a true knowledge?

Surely not.

So it is evident again that they ¹ are not the same.

You are right.

But yet those who have learnt have been persuaded, as well as those who have believed.

That is so.

Then would you have us assume two forms of persuasion—one providing belief without knowledge, and the other sure knowledge?

Certainly.

Now which kind of persuasion is it that rhetoric creates in law courts or any public meeting on matters of right and wrong? The kind from which we get belief without knowledge, or that from which we get knowledge?

Obviously, I presume, Socrates, that from which we get belief.