Gorgias

SOCRATES: So, if someone were to ask us what kind of persuasion and about what it is, we would presumably answer him that it is the teaching kind, the one about how many even and odd numbers there are. And would we not also be able to show that all the other arts we were just speaking of are producers of persuasion, and of what kind and about what? GORGIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: So rhetoric, then, is not the only producer of persuasion. GORGIAS: What you say is true. SOCRATES: Since, then, it is not the only one that performs this work, but others do so too, just as in the case of the painter, would we not be justified in asking the speaker next: ‘Of what kind of persuasion, and of persuasion about what, is rhetoric the art?’ Or does it not seem to you justified to ask this further? GORGIAS: To me it does. SOCRATES: Answer then, Gorgias, since indeed it seems so to you too. GORGIAS: Well then, Socrates, I am speaking of that persuasion which takes place in law courts and in other crowds, just as I was saying just now, and concerning those things which are just and unjust. SOCRATES: Indeed, Gorgias, I too was suspecting that you meant this persuasion and about these things. But so that you may not wonder if, a little later, I ask you another such question, which seems to be clear, but which I ask again—for as I say, I ask in order that the argument may be carried through in an orderly sequence, not for your sake, but so that we may not get into the habit of snatching away each other’s words in anticipation of what is suspected, but that you may complete your own thoughts according to your hypothesis in whatever way you wish. GORGIAS: And you seem to me to be doing quite rightly, Socrates. SOCRATES: Come then, let us also consider this. Do you call something ‘having learned’? GORGIAS: I do. SOCRATES: And what about ‘having believed’? GORGIAS: Yes, indeed. SOCRATES: Do you, then, think that having learned and having believed, and learning and belief, are the same thing, or something different? GORGIAS: I, for my part, think they are different, Socrates. SOCRATES: And you think rightly; you will know it from this. For if someone were to ask you: ‘Is there, Gorgias, a false belief and a true one?’ you would say there is, as I think. GORGIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: And what about knowledge? Is there a false and a true knowledge? GORGIAS: Not at all. SOCRATES: So it is clear, then, that they are not the same. GORGIAS: What you say is true. SOCRATES: And yet, both those who have learned and those who have believed are in a state of having been persuaded. GORGIAS: That is so. SOCRATES: Do you wish, then, that we posit two kinds of persuasion, the one providing belief without knowing, and the other providing knowledge? GORGIAS: Certainly. SOCRATES: Which of the two persuasions, then, does rhetoric produce in law courts and other crowds concerning just and unjust things? The one from which believing arises without knowing, or the one from which knowing arises? GORGIAS: It is clear, of course, Socrates, that it is the one from which believing arises.