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Plato : GORGIASPersons of the dialogue: Callicles - Socrates - Chaerephon
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Gorgias - Polus = Note by Elpenor |
This Part: 34 Pages
Part 1 Page 9
Soc. Now I was it to know about rhetoric in the same way; - is rhetoric the only art which brings persuasion, or do other arts have the same effect? I mean to say - Does he who teaches anything persuade men of that which he teaches or not?
Gor. He persuades, Socrates, - there can be no mistake about that.
Soc. Again, if we take the arts of which we were just now speaking: - do not arithmetic and the arithmeticians teach us the properties of number?
Gor. Certainly.
Soc. And therefore persuade us of them?
Gor. Yes.
Soc. Then arithmetic as well as rhetoric is an artificer of persuasion?
Gor. Clearly.
Soc. And if any one asks us what sort of persuasion, and about what, - we shall answer, persuasion which teaches the quantity of odd and even; and we shall be able to show that all the other arts of which we were just now speaking are artificers of persuasion, and of what sort, and about what.
Gor. Very true.
Soc. Then rhetoric is not the only artificer of persuasion?
Gor. True.
Soc. Seeing, then, that not only rhetoric works by persuasion, but that other arts do the same, as in the case of the painter, a question has arisen which is a very fair one: Of what persuasion is rhetoric the artificer, and about what? - is not that a fair way of putting the question?
Gor. I think so.
Soc. Then, if you approve the question, Gorgias, what is the answer?
Gor. I answer, Socrates, that rhetoric is the art of persuasion in courts of law and other assemblies, as I was just now saying, and about the just and unjust.
Gorgias part 2 of 3. You are at part 1
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