Gorgias

by Plato

As to the arts generally, they are for the most part concerned with doing, and require little or no speaking; in painting, and statuary, and many other arts, the work may proceed in silence; and of such arts I suppose you would say that they do not come within the province of rhetoric.

What is rhetoric? SOCRATES: Do you mean what sort of an art? POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: To say the truth, Polus, it is not an art at all, in my opinion. POLUS: Then what, in your opinion, is rhetoric? SOCRATES: A thing which, as I was lately reading in a book of yours, you say that you have made an art. POLUS: What thing? SOCRATES: I should say a sort of experience.

Does rhetoric seem to you to be an experience? SOCRATES: That is my view, but you may be of another mind. POLUS: An experience in what? SOCRATES: An experience in producing a sort of delight and gratification.

And if able to gratify others, must not rhetoric be a fine thing? SOCRATES: What are you saying, Polus? Why do you ask me whether rhetoric is a fine thing or not, ...

POLUS: Did I not hear you say that rhetoric was a sort of experience? SOCRATES: Will you, who are so desirous to gratify others, afford a slight gratification to me? POLUS: I will. SOCRATES: Will you ask me, what sort of an art is cookery? POLUS: What sort of an art is cookery? SOCR...

experience. POLUS: In what? I wish that you would explain to me. SOCRATES: An experience in producing a sort of delight and gratification, Polus. POLUS: Then are cookery and rhetoric the same? SOCRATES: No...

the whole of which rhetoric is a part is not an art at all, but the habit of a bold and ready wit, which

knows how to manage mankind: this habit I sum up under the word 'flattery'; and it appears to me to have many other parts, one of which is cookery, which may seem to be an art, but, as I maintain, is only an experience or routine and not an art:—another part is rhetoric, and the art of attiring and sophistry are two others: thus there are four branches, and four different things answering to them.

Rhetoric, according to my

view, is the ghost or counterfeit of a part of politics. POLUS: And noble or ignoble? SOCRATES: Ignoble,

We may assume the existence of bodies and of souls? GORGIAS: Of course. SOCRATES: You would

further admit that there is a good condition of either of them? GORGIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: Which condition may not be really good, but good only in appearance? I mean to say, that there are many persons who appear to be in good health, and whom only a physician or trainer will discern at first sight not to be in good health. GORGIAS: True. SOCRATES: And this applies not only to the body, but also to the soul: in either there may be that which gives

the appearance of health and not the reality? GORGIAS: Yes, certainly. SOCRATES: And now I will endeavour to explain to you more clearly what I mean: The soul and body being two, have two arts corresponding to them: there is the art of politics attending on the soul; and another art attending on the body, of which I know no single name, but which may be described as having two divisions, on...

to gymnastic, as justice does to medicine; and the two parts run into one another, justice having to do with the same subject as legislation, and medicine with the same subject as gymnastic, but with a difference. Now, seeing that there are these four arts, two attending on the body and two on the soul for their highest good; flattery knowing, or rather guessing their natures, has distributed herself into four shams...

she simulates, and having no regard for men's highest interests, is ever making pleasure the bait of the unwary, and deceiving them into the belief that she is of the highest value to them. Cookery simulates the disguise of medicine, and pretends to know what food is the best for the body; and if the physician and the cook had to enter into a competition in which children were the judges, or men wh...

the physician would be starve...

A flattery I deem this to be and of an ignoble sort, Polus, for to you I am now addressing myself, because it aims at pleasure without any thought of the best. An art I do not call it, but only an experience, because it is unable to explain or to give a reason of the natur...

as tiring: gymnastic:: cookery: medicine; or rather, as tiring: gymnastic:: sophistry: legislation; and as cookery: medicine:: rhetoric: justice. And this, I say, is the natural difference between the rhetorician and the sophist, but by reason of their near connection, they are apt to be jumbled up together; neither do they know what to make of themselves, nor do other men know what to make of them. For if the body presided over

And now I have told you my notion of rhetoric, which

is, in relation to the soul, what cookery is to the body.

SOCRATES: Nay, I said a part of flattery; if at your age, Polus, you cannot remember, what will you do by-and-by, when you get older?

zing! Socrates is a jerk sometimes in this one

Is that a question or the beginning of a speech?

And I tell you, Polus, that rhetoricians and tyrants have the least possible power in states, as I was just now saying; for they do literally nothing which they will, but only what they think best.

And would you maintain that if a fool does what he thinks best, this is a good, and would you call this great power?

why, the rhetoricians who do what they think best in states, and the tyrants, will have nothing upon which to congratulate themselves, if as you say, power be indeed a good, admitting at the same time that what is done without sense is an evil.

Do men appear to you to will that which they do, or to will that further end for the sake of which they do a thing? when they take

medicine, for example, at the bidding of a physician, do they will the drinking of the medicine which is painful, or the health for the sake of which they drink? POLUS: Clearly, the health. SOCRATES: And when men go on a voyage or engage in business, they do not will that which they are doing at the time; for who would desire to take the risk of a voyage or the trouble of business?—But they will, to have the wealth for the sake of which they go on a voyage.

Are these indifferent things done for the sake of the good, or the good for the sake of the indifferent? POLUS: Clearly, the indifferent for the sake of the good.

in doing something for the sake of something else, we do not will those things which we do, but that other thing for the sake of which we do them?

if the act is not conducive to our good we do not will it; for we will, as you say, that which is our good, but that which is neither good nor evil, or simply evil, we do

not will.

But does he do what he wills if he does what is evil?

Because you ought not to envy wretches who are not to be envied, but only to pity them. POLUS: And are those of whom I spoke wretches? SOCRATES: Yes, certainly they are.

he who slays any one whom he pleases, and justly slays him, is pitiable and wretched? SOCRATES: No, I do not say that of him: but neither do I think that he is to be envied. POLUS: Were you not saying just now that he is wretched? SOCRATES: Yes, my friend, if he killed another unjustly, in which case he is also to be pitied; and he is not to be envied if he killed him justly.

POLUS: At any rate you will allow that he who is unjustly put to d...

to be pitied? SOCRATES: Not so much, Polus, as he who kills him, and not so much as he who is justly killed. POLUS: How can that be, Socrates? SOCRATES: That may very well be, inas...

POLUS: Then clearly, Socrates, you would say that you did not even know whether the great king was a happy man? SOCRATES: And I should speak the truth; for I do not know how he stands in the matter of education and justice. POLUS: What! and does all happiness consist in this? SOCRATES: Yes, indeed, Polus, that is my doctrine;

men and women who are gentle and good are also happy, as I maintain, and the unjust and evil are miserable.

For, indeed, we are at issue about matters which to know is honourable and not to know disgraceful; to know or not to know happiness and misery—that is the chief of them. And what knowledge can be nobler? or what ignorance more disgraceful than this? And therefore I will begin by asking you whether you do not think that a man who is unjust and doing injustice can be happy, seeing that you think Archelaus

unjust, and yet happy? May I assume this to be your opinion?

But in my opinion, Polus, the unjust or doer of unjust actions is miserable in any case,—more miserable, however, if he be not punished and does not meet with retribution, and less miserable if he be punished and meets with retribution at the hands of gods and men.

For such purposes, Polus, rhetoric may be useful, but is of small if of any use to him who is not intending to commit injustice; at least, there was no such use discovered by us in the previous discussion.

rhetoric : shield of the unjust

And he may have strength and weakness in the same way, by fits?

If then there be anything which a man has and has not at the same time, clearly that cannot be good and evil—do we agree?

Do you see the inference:—that pleasure and pain are simultaneous, when you say that being thirsty, you drink? For are they not simultaneous, and do they not affect at the same time the same part, whether of the soul or the body?—which of them is affected cannot be supposed to be of any consequence: Is not this true?

Does not a man cease from his thirst and from his pleasure in drinking at the same time?

And if he is hungry, or has any other desire, does he not cease from the desire and the pleasure at the same moment?

But he does not cease from good and evil at the same moment, as you have admitted: do you still adhere to what you said?

Why, my friend, the inference is that the good is not the same as the pleasant, or the evil the same as the painful; there is a cessation of pleasure and pain at the same moment; but not of good and evil, for they are different. How then can pleasure be the same as good, or pain as evil?

Are not the good good because they have