Page - 166 - in The Complete Plato

SOCRATES: And there is also ‘having believed’? GORGIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: And is the ‘having learned’ the same as ‘having believed,’ and are learning and belief the same things? GORGIAS: In my judgment, Socrates, they are not the same. SOCRATES: And your judgment is right, as you may ascertain in this way: — If a person were to say to you, ‘Is there, Gorgias, a false belief as well as a true?’—you would reply, if I am not mistaken, that there is. GORGIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: Well, but is there a false knowledge as well as a true? GORGIAS: No. SOCRATES: No, indeed; and this again proves that knowledge and belief differ. GORGIAS: Very true. SOCRATES: And yet those who have learned as well as those who have believed are persuaded? GORGIAS: Just so. SOCRATES: Shall we then assume two sorts of persuasion,—one which is the source of belief without knowledge, as the other is of knowledge? GORGIAS: By all means. SOCRATES: And which sort of persuasion does rhetoric create in courts of law and other assemblies about the just and unjust, the sort of persuasion which gives belief without knowledge, or that which gives knowledge? GORGIAS: Clearly, Socrates, that which only gives belief. SOCRATES: Then rhetoric, as would appear, is the artificer of a persuasion which creates belief about the just and unjust, but gives no instruction about them? GORGIAS: True. SOCRATES: And the rhetorician does not instruct the courts of law or other assemblies about things just and unjust, but he creates belief about them; for no one can be supposed to instruct such a vast multitude about such high matters in a short time? GORGIAS: Certainly not. 166