The Gorgias: Rhetoric Analysis

Plato’s novel, The Gorgias, depicts a great discussion regarding Rhetoric, the ability to persuade by means of speech. Although Socrates primarily discusses rhetoric with his interlocutors, it evidently leads to other controversial topics such as: the nature and limits of expertise, nature and convention, hedonism (the pursuit of pleasure) – to name a few. In my justified opinion, the biggest contrast in this novel was the discussion on the nature and limitations of power. Based on the dialogue found in this novel, it can be concluded that Plato, the author, was troubled over the two conceptions of power, the ability to have unlimited power (being unanswerable to anything) or a power that can only be achieved through the acceptance of one’s limitations. Socrates values the first whereas his interlocutors value the second. His conversers believed that power is the ability to recognize …show more content…
During their discussion Polus questions Socrates on what he believes rhetoric is. Socrates states that it’s a “thing” and when asked to elaborate, he says “an experience in producing a sort of delight and gratification” (Plato, 1997). Socrates also believes rhetoric is a model of the arts and flattery. Socrates describes the concept of art as the ability to give a rational account; to be able to recount something with a sound, clear mind. Whereas, in Socrates’ mind, a skill/ knack is the ability to achieve a result. Socrates believes that rhetoric is a skill because it can give “no explanation of the thing it’s catering for, nor the nature of the thing’s it is providing, and so it can’t tell you the cause of each” (Plato, 1997). Socrates in the above quote is depicting that the biggest difference between an art and a skill is the fact that an art requires an understanding of the causes, instead of just a knack of obtaining results. The distinction between them is correlated to the two conceptions of