The Rhetor can persuade the people upon any matter, even against the opinion of the special expert. He appears to know, among the ignorant.
The Rhetor (says Gorgias) or accomplished public speaker, will give advice about all the matters that you name, and others besides. He will persuade the people and carry them along with him, even against the opinion of the special Expert. He will talk more persuasively than the craftsman about matters of the craftsman’s own business. The power of the Rhetor is thus very great: but he ought to use it, like all other powers, for just and honest purposes; not to abuse it for wrong and oppression. If he does the latter, the misdeed is his own, and not the fault of his teacher, who gave his lessons with a view that they should be turned to proper use. If a man, who has learnt the use of arms, employs them to commit murder, this abuse ought not to be imputed to his master of arms.[11]
[11] Plato, Gorgias, pp. 456-457.
You mean (replies Sokrates) that he, who has learnt Rhetoric from you, will become competent not to teach, but to persuade the multitude:—that is, competent among the ignorant. He has acquired an engine of persuasion; so that he will appear, when addressing the ignorant, to know more than those who really do know.[12]
[12] Plato, Gorgias, p. 459 B. Οὐκοῦν καὶ περὶ τὰς ἄλλας ἁπάσας τέχνας ὡσαύτως ἔχει ὁ ῥήτωρ καὶ ἡ ῥητορική· αὐτὰ μὲν τὰ πράγματα οὐδὲν δεῖ αὐτὴν εἰδέναι ὅπως ἔχει, μηχανὴν δέ τινα πειθοῦς εὑρηκέναι, ὥστε φαίνεσθαι τοῖς οὐκ εἰδόσι μᾶλλον εἰδέναι τῶν εἰδότων.
Gorgias is now made to contradict himself. Polus takes up the debate with Sokrates.
Thus far, the conversation is carried on between Sokrates and Gorgias. But the latter is now made to contradict himself — apparently rather than really — for the argument whereby Sokrates reduces him to a contradiction, is not tenable, unless we admit the Platonic doctrine that the man who has learnt just and unjust, may be relied on to act as a just man;[13] in other words, that virtue consists in knowledge.
[13] Plato, Gorgias, p. 460 B. ὁ τὰ δίκαια μεμαθηκώς, δίκαιος. Aristotle notices this confusion of Sokrates, who falls into it also in the conversation with Euthydemus, Xenoph. Memorab. iv. 2, 20, iii. 9, 5.
Polemical tone of Sokrates. At the instance of Polus he gives his own definition of rhetoric. It is no art, but an empirical knack of catering for the immediate pleasure of hearers, analogous to cookery. It is a branch under the general head flattery.