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May 31, 2010
Jun 3, 2010
October 26, 2013
Plato's "Gorgias" (380 BC)
The direction Plato leads off with Translated by Benjamin Jowett
in the dialog Gorgias is remarkably
weak. Rhetoric uses words, and yet
there are other fields that also
use words, but are regarded as If you weren't sold on the idea of
primarily concerned with something rigid, well-defined categories, you
else, so what is it that Rhetoric might just say that there's overlap
is concerned with? between these fields, and that
sometimes these other professions
The question they're are also concerned with Rhetoric.
trying to get at is
"what use of words is
rhetoric concerned with?"
In reading Gorgias, I formed, as I
I would have guessed Socrates remember it, two impressions:
would answer that rhetoric is
concerned with lies, but Throughout, I remember Plato relying
instead he answers "persuasion". on his usual weak sock-puppet
"dialog", where people answer
Or a *sort* of persuasion, in Socrates precisely as Plato needs
politics and law, it is them to, no matter how fantastic.
regarded as the "greatest
art" because it translates But I also have a note that I thought
into power... the personality of Socrates
disputants comes through well, and
Rhetoric is inferior because you can (usually) imagine real people
it is not concerned with taking the line that they take.
knowledge, but merely belief.
It's purpose is persuasion of At the moment I don't know
the ignorant multitude. how to resolve both impressions.
(Aka "marketing".) (Maybe I should assign them
to two different *characters*,
and write a dialog about the
dialog... or maybe not.)
FALSE_KNOWLEDGE
THAT_WHICH_KNOWLEDGE_MAKES
STANDARDS_OF_BEAUTY
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