The craftsman of persuasion. Zeuxis
SocratesNow, Gorgias, I think you have come closest to showing what art you consider rhetoric to be; and, if I understand anything, you are saying that rhetoric is a craftsman of persuasion, and that its whole business and the sum of it end in this. Or can you say that rhetoric has the power to do anything more than produce persuasion in the souls of those who listen?
GorgiasNot at all, Socrates; rather, I think you define it adequately, for that is the sum of it.
SocratesListen, then, Gorgias. For you may be sure of this: as I persuade myself, if anyone ever converses with another wanting to know the very thing the discussion is about, I too am one of those who do; and I expect you to be one as well.
GorgiasWhat is it, then, Socrates?
SocratesI will tell you now. As for the persuasion that comes from rhetoric—what exactly the persuasion you speak of is, and what matters it is persuasion about—you may be sure that I do not clearly know; and yet I do suspect which one I think you mean, and about what. Nonetheless I will ask you what exactly you mean by the persuasion that comes from rhetoric, and what you say it is about. Why, then, am I going to ask you, when I suspect it myself, and not say it myself? Not for your sake, but for the argument’s, so that it may go forward in the way that would make what we are talking about most plain to us. For see whether I seem to you to be questioning you justly. It is as if I happened to be asking you who Zeuxis is among the painters: if you had told me, “The one who paints figures”, would I not justly have asked you, “The one who paints what kind of figures, and where?”
GorgiasCertainly.
SocratesIs that because there are other painters too, who paint many other figures?
GorgiasYes.
SocratesBut if no one other than Zeuxis painted, your answer would have been a good one?
GorgiasHow could it not?