The preliminaries and the art itself
SocratesSo Sophocles would say that the man displaying these skills knows the preliminaries to tragedy, but not tragedy itself; and Acumenus would say he knows the preliminaries to medicine, but not medicine.
PhaedrusCertainly.
SocratesAnd what do we suppose honey-voiced Adrastus or Pericles would say if they heard of the lovely devices we have just listed: brevities, likenesses, and the rest that we said should be brought into the light? Would they lose their tempers as we did and rudely abuse those who write about such things and teach them as the art of rhetoric? Or, being wiser than we are, would they reproach us too? “Phaedrus and Socrates,” they might say, “you should not be angry. If some people cannot reason dialectically and so cannot define rhetoric, show them some understanding. They have learned the necessary preliminaries and imagine they have discovered the art itself. They teach these things to others and think they have taught them rhetoric in full. How to use each device persuasively and put the whole together, they suppose, is no work at all: their pupils can provide that for themselves when they come to speak.”
PhaedrusThat does seem, Socrates, to be the art these men teach and write about under the name of rhetoric. I think you are right. But how, and from where, could anyone acquire the art of a speaker who truly knows how to persuade?