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447a-449a
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Gorgias, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The Practice and Goal of Oratory
Justice, Injustice, and the Treatment of the Soul
The Pleasant Life vs. the Good Life
Philosophy vs. Politics
Summary
Analysis
Gorgias says that his craft is oratory. He also confirms that this makes him an orator. He agrees with Socrates that part of his craft is to make others orators, too. Socrates approves of these brief answers and asks Gorgias if he’s willing to continue discussing in this manner, instead of resorting to long speeches like Polus did. Gorgias agrees, adding that nobody is better at brevity than he is.
The Greek term for oratory is rhetorike, or “rhetoric.” Oratory occupied a very important role in Athens in the fifth century B.C.E., as even ordinary citizens could use such persuasive speech to try to influence outcomes in Athens’s political institutions. This also meant that oratory was a key to personal advancement in career and society. Orators often took on students, too.
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Socrates asks what things oratory is concerned with. For example, weaving is concerned with producing clothes; music is concerned with composing tunes. What, then, is the purpose of oratory? Gorgias answers that oratory is concerned with speeches. It also makes other people capable of speaking and of being wise in doing so.
Both of Socrates’s examples name crafts that produce something specific—things that benefit others in some concrete way. Along these lines, he’s trying to understand what oratory produces and how it benefits society.
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Socrates continues his questioning. Doesn’t the medical craft, for example, also make others able to both have wisdom and to speak about those who are sick? Since that’s the case, the medical craft is concerned about speeches, too. The same can be said of other crafts—so why aren’t these referred to as “oratory”? Gorgias says it’s because these other crafts are mostly concerned with various types of manual labor. Oratory, on the other hand, depends entirely on speeches.
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Socrates presses Gorgias further. Precisely what is it that distinguishes oratory from other crafts—such as arithmetic—that exercise influence through speech? For example, the speeches of arithmetic are about numbers, and the speeches of astronomy are about the sun, moon, and stars. Gorgias replies that oratory’s speeches are concerned with “the greatest of human concerns.” Socrates argues that this is debatable—after all, a doctor, a physical trainer, and a financial expert would all assert the same thing about their respective crafts: each would respectively see health, strength, or wealth as the greatest good.
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Gorgias replies that this “greatest good” is humankind’s source of freedom—namely, the ability to persuade through speeches in a public setting, such as a court, council meeting, or other political assembly. Socrates agrees that Gorgias has concisely defined oratory: its goal is to produce persuasion in its audience.
Socrates wants to be perfectly clear what this sort of persuasion is about. After all, if he were inquiring about a particular painter, it wouldn’t be enough to identify that painter as someone who creates pictures—he’d want to know what sort of pictures. So does oratory alone create persuasion, or do people who teach various subjects also persuade people? Gorgias grants that other crafts, like arithmetic, do persuade people about their subjects. What then, Socrates asks, is oratory’s persuasion about? Gorgias replies that oratory is concerned with determining what’s just and what’s unjust.
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Socrates shifts to examining another point. He asks Gorgias if having learned and having been convinced are the same or different. Gorgias grants that they’re different, because there’s such a thing as true and false conviction, but no such thing as true and false knowledge. It follows, then, that there are two types of persuasion—one that asserts of sense of conviction without real expertise, and one that provides others with genuine knowledge on a topic. Which type is oratory? Gorgias concedes that oratory results in persuasion without knowledge, meaning that orators don’t teach about what’s just and unjust, but rather persuade.
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Gorgias goes on to argue that oratory subordinates just about everything else to itself. For example, he’s sometimes accompanied his brother, a doctor, to a patient’s sickbed and successfully persuaded the patient to take medicine or undergo surgery when the doctor’s advice had gone unheeded. In fact, he thinks that if an orator and a doctor spoke before any assembly regarding which of them should be appointed doctor, the orator would win the audience’s approval every time.
Gorgias gives a caveat, however. He says that just because someone trained in boxing or other martial arts might attack his family or friends, that’s no reason to hate and exile teachers of these skills. In the same way, just because a student of oratory might go on to use his skill in an unjust manner, that’s no reason to blame the orator who trained him, with the intention that the imparted skill be used justly.
Socrates replies that he thinks Gorgias is contradicting himself. He wants to pursue this discussion further, but only if Gorgias understands that Socrates isn’t attacking him personally and shares Socrates’s commitment to arriving at the truth. Socrates points out that it's better to be refuted than to persist in arguing something that’s untrue. Chaerephon, Callicles, and other onlookers are eager to hear more, so Gorgias agrees to keep going with the discussion.
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Socrates clarifies the points Gorgias has made so far, concluding that, according to Gorgias, oratory doesn’t need to have expertise about the subjects being spoken about—it only needs to persuade non-experts of its expertise. So, for example, if an orator lacks knowledge about health, then presumably he’s in the same position regarding what is just and unjust. The important thing is that he seems to be knowledgeable about it. Socrates then asks Gorgias if this means that, when a prospective student of oratory comes to him for instruction, that student must already possess knowledge about justice and injustice—or will Gorgias teach him these things? Gorgias says that he will.
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Socrates focuses on this point. He asks whether a person who has learned a particular subject is defined by his expertise” For example, a person who’s learned carpentry is a carpenter, and a person who’s learned medicine is a doctor. Therefore, doesn’t someone who has learned what become a just person? This would mean that an orator is necessarily just and wants to do what’s just, not what’s unjust. Following this line of reasoning, an orator wouldn’t have done what’s unjust, like Gorgias’s earlier example of one who uses his oratorical skill unjustly. Since Gorgias defined oratory as persuasion regarding what’s just and unjust, Socrates had taken it for granted that oratory wouldn’t concern itself with injustice.
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