Dr. Andrew Wood Office: HGH 210; phone: (408) 924-5378 Email: wooda@email.sjsu.edu Web: http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/wooda

This brief excerpt involves a debate about the nature of rhetoric between Socrates (as imagined by Plato, the author of this dialogue) and a visiting expert in oratory, Gorgias, and his friends. We enter this scene as Socrates engages with a young and somewhat impetuous student of Gorgias named Polus. The young man begins by castigating Plato for mocking Gorgias who claims that a student lacking knowledge of right and wrong can be taught that distinction while learning the art of rhetoric. Socrates rebukes Gorgias for stating that a sophist who teaches oratory can teach ethics even though he has no specific training in that area of study. Thus, to Socrates, a student of oratory can hardly expect to gain much wisdom for a speech teacher. At this point, Polus challenges Socrates to define oratory.

Socrates replies that oratory is a knack that produces "a kind of gratification and pleasure" (463). This notion of "knack" may be contrasted with an "art" in that the former fails to possess the value rationality possessed by the latter; an art offers more than merely "what works" - it reflects what is ideal. Socrates continues by explaining that the knack of oratory may be compared to that of cookery - and that both are a subset of pandering, a dishonorable profession that offers pleasure without value. After playing a bit with Polus' youthful inability to grasp the significance of this statement, Socrates turns his attention once more to Gorgias. Here, Socrates differentiates between the reality and appearance of health, either physical or spiritual, and then compares the reality of health assured by a doctor and the appearance of health offered by a cook. The former provides genuine medicine. In contrast, "cookery puts on the mask of medicine and pretends to know what foods are best for the body" even though they may be of dubious nutritional value (465). To Socrates, oratory may be compared with cookery because it also fails to reflect a rational and ideal world but rather concerns itself with what may be considered tasty by a particular gourmand.

Gorgias catches his breath to consider his reply, but Polus leaps back into the contest, asking whether orators should not be more honored given the power they enjoy within society. After all, an orator can convince people to do just about anything. An orator could then seize power and become a tyrant if he wished. Socrates dispatches that argument by replying that orators - like dictators - may appear to have power, but this appearance is only an illusion. Here, we exit the scene, but fairly soon Socrates explains his claim more fully, stating that a person who uses power to do wrong always suffers.