The True Nature of Rhetoric

Adam Bittenson

Rhetoric 103A

GSI: Jerilyn Sambrooke

October 8, 2016

The True Nature of Rhetoric

At the end of the first and the beginning of the second agon of Plato’s Gorgias, Socrates makes the argument that the concept of rhetoric does not imply justice. In order to prove this point, throughout Socrates’ interactions with Gorgias and Polus in both agons, he forces them to doubt their own understandings of rhetoric. Socrates is able to manipulate their doubt to his own advantage by morphing both Gorgias’ and Polus’ conceptualizations of rhetoric into ideas that comport with his own arguments.

            Throughout the first agon, one recurring trope is redefining “rhetoric.” Throughout the course of Socrates’ and Gorgias’ argument in the first agon, the bounds of rhetoric are constantly toyed with as Socrates persistently points out the flaws in Gorgias’ various perceptions of rhetoric. One of Socrates’ most effective methods for doing this is in asking closed-ended questions requiring short, often one-word answers. This allows Socrates to push and pull Gorgias’ understanding of rhetoric to the point at which Gorgias’ eventually reduces his definition to imply all rhetoricians being men who exemplify justice. Socrates then makes the argument, “the whole of which rhetoric is a part is not an art at all, but the habit of a bold and ready wit”(Plato). This statement allows Socrates to argue that rhetoric is not an art form, but a mere mechanism to produce a quick retort to an opponent. By making such arguments, Socrates opens the door to offer an alternative underlying purpose of rhetoric, as he does in the second agon.

 At the beginning of the second agon, Socrates, now addressing Polus, states, “as cookery: medicine:: rhetoric: justice”(Plato). In so doing, Socrates pares down his understanding of rhetoric to what he calls a “flattery,” meaning that rhetoric is not an art in itself, but an imitation of that art. Socrates’ argument in this excerpt is that cookery is a “flattery” of medicine in that a chef might think he know what is best for the body but, in reality, food cannot heal or maintain the body to the same degree as medicine. As seen in the first agon, Socrates again creates a link between rhetoric and justice. Socrates shows that rhetoric is a form of flattery towards justice, and that rhetoricians act as if they are inherently just, while in reality, rhetoric’s very nature is completely divorced from justice itself, as cookery is as unrelated to medicine. This comparison serves as Socrates’ foundational argument in demonstrating the inherent nature of rhetoric.

 Taking together the central arguments as to the nature of rhetoric as laid out in the two agons, Socrates poses several powerful oppositions against Gorgias’ and Polus’ ever-shifting conceptualizations of rhetoric. Socrates uses his argument as laid out in the first agon to initially convince Polus and Gorgias to subscribe to a particular understanding of rhetoric as implying justice. Socrates then debases his own argument from the first agon with the one he subsequently lays out in the second agon. This juxtaposition forces Gorgias and Polus to take a step back from their newfound understandings of rhetoric as they had been convinced to believe by Socrates, and to engage in yet another process of redefinition. Socrates convinces Gorgias and Polus to completely uproot and redefine their understandings of rhetoric, as rhetoric only enabling a façade of an art form as opposed to the art itself. This text helps to illustrate how a rhetorician can work to define and redefine others’ understandings of the world based on persuasive arguments alone.