Polus now interferes and takes up the conversation: challenging Sokrates to furnish what he thinks the proper definition of Rhetoric. Sokrates obeys, in a tone of pungent polemic. Rhetoric (he says) is no art at all, but an empirical knack of catering for the pleasure and favour of hearers; analogous to cookery.[14] It is a talent falling under the general aptitude called Flattery; possessed by some bold spirits, who are forward in divining and adapting themselves to the temper of the public.[15] It is not honourable, but a mean pursuit, like cookery. It is the shadow or false imitation of a branch of the political art.[16] In reference both to the body and the mind, there are two different conditions: one, a condition really and truly good — the other, good only in fallacious appearance, and not so in reality. To produce, and to verify, the really good condition of the body, there are two specially qualified professions, the gymnast or trainer and the physician: in regard to the mind, the function of the trainer is performed by the law-giving power, that of the physician by the judicial power. Law-making, and adjudicating, are both branches of the political art, and when put together make up the whole of it. Gymnastic and medicine train and doctor the body towards its really best condition: law-making and adjudicating do the same in regard to the mind. To each of the four, there corresponds a sham counterpart or mimic, a branch under the general head flattery — taking no account of what is really best, but only of that which is most agreeable for the moment, and by this trick recommending itself to a fallacious esteem.[17] Thus Cosmetic, or Ornamental Trickery, is the counterfeit of Gymnastic; and Cookery the counterfeit of Medicine. Cookery studies only what is immediately agreeable to the body, without considering whether it be good or wholesome: and does this moreover, without any truly scientific process of observation or inference, but simply by an empirical process of memory or analogy. But Medicine examines, and that too by scientific method, only what is good and wholesome for the body, whether agreeable or not. Amidst ignorant men, Cookery slips in as the counterfeit of medicine; pretending to know what food is good for the body, while it really knows only what food is agreeable. In like manner, the artifices of ornament dress up the body to a false appearance of that vigour and symmetry, which Gymnastics impart to it really and intrinsically.
[14] Plato, Gorgias, p. 462 C. ἐμπειρία … χάριτός τινος καὶ ἡδονῆς ἀπεργασίας. In the Philêbus (pp. 55-56) Sokrates treats ἰατρικὴ differently, as falling short of the idea of τέχνη, and coming much nearer to what is here called ἐμπειρία or στοχαστική. Asklepiades was displeased with the Thracian Dionysius for calling γραμματικὴ by the name of ἐμπειρία instead of τέχνη: see Sextus Empiric. adv. Grammat. s. 57-72, p. 615, Bekk.
[15] Plato, Gorgias, p. 463 A. δοκεῖ μοι εἶναί τι ἐπιτήδευμα, τεχνικὸν μὲν οὔ, ψυχῆς δὲ στοχαστικῆς καὶ ἀνδρείας καὶ φύσει δεινῆς προσομιλεῖν τοῖς ἀνθρώποις· καλῶ δὲ αὐτοῦ ἐγὼ τὸ κεφάλαιον κολακείαν.
[16] Plato, Gorgias, p. 463 D. πολιτικῆς μορίου εἴδωλον.
[17] Plato, Gorgias, p. 464 C. τεττάρων δὴ τούτων οὐσῶν, καὶ ἀεὶ πρὸς τὸ βέλτιστον θεραπευουσῶν, τῶν μὲν τὸ σῶμα, τῶν δὲ τὴν ψυχήν, ἡ κολακευτικὴ αἰσθομένη, οὐ γνοῦσα λέγω ἀλλὰ στοχασαμένη, τέτραχα ἑαυτὴν διανείμασα, ὑποδῦσα ὑπὸ ἕκαστον τῶν μορίων, προσποιεῖται εἶναι τοῦτο ὅπερ ὑπέδυ· καὶ τοῦ μὲν βελτίστου οὐδὲν φροντίζει, τῷ δὲ ἀεὶ ἡδίστῳ θηρεύεται τὴν ἄνοιαν καὶ ἐξαπατᾷ, ὥστε δοκεῖ πλείστου ἀξία εἶναι.
Distinction between the true arts which aim at the good of the body and mind — and the counterfeit arts, which pretend to the same, but in reality aim at immediate pleasure.
The same analogies hold in regard to the mind. Sophistic is the shadow or counterfeit of law-giving: Rhetoric, of judging or adjudicating. The lawgiver and the judge aim at what is good for the mind: the Sophist and the Rhetor aim at what is agreeable to it. This distinction between them (continues Sokrates) is true and real: though it often happens that the Sophist is, both by himself and by others, confounded with and mistaken for the lawgiver, because he deals with the same topics and occurrences: and the Rhetor, in the same manner, is confounded with the judge.[18] The Sophist and the Rhetor, addressing themselves to the present relish of an undiscerning public, are enabled to usurp the functions and the credit of their more severe and far-sighted rivals.
[18] Plato, Gorgias, p. 465 C. διέστηκε μὲν οὕτω φύσει· ἅτε δὲ ἐγγὺς ὄντων, φύρονται ἐν τῷ αὐτῷ καὶ περὶ ταὐτὰ σοφισταὶ καὶ ῥήτορες, καὶ οὐκ ἔχουσιν ὅ, τι χρήσωνται οὔτε αὐτοὶ ἑαυτοῖς οὔτε οἱ ἄλλοι ἄνθρωποι τούτοις.
It seems to me that the persons whom Plato here designates as being confounded together are, the Sophist with the lawgiver, the Rhetor with the judge or dikast; which is shown by the allusion, three lines farther on, to the confusion between the cook and the physician. Heindorf supposes that the persons designated as being confounded are, the Sophist with the Rhetor; which I cannot think to be the meaning of Plato.
Questions of Polus. Sokrates denies that the Rhetors have any real power, because they do nothing which they really wish.