What seems likely
SocratesThey say we should not make so much of this art or seek such distant foundations for it. As we said at the start, a person need know nothing of the truth about just or good acts, or about people who are just or good by nature or upbringing, to become a capable rhetorician. In court, no one cares about the truth; they care only about what persuades. And what persuades is the probable, and that is what anyone who means to speak by an art must follow. Sometimes you should not even report what really happened, if it does not seem likely. Accuser and defender alike should tell a plausible story. In every speech you should pursue probability and bid truth farewell; follow that rule from beginning to end, and you have the whole art.
PhaedrusYou have set out exactly what those who claim to be skilled in speeches say, Socrates. I remember that we touched on it briefly before. It seems to be the most important thing to them.
SocratesBut you have studied Tisias himself closely. Let Tisias tell us this: by probability, does he mean anything other than what the crowd believes?
PhaedrusWhat else could he mean?
SocratesThat seems to be the ingenious and artful device he discovered and wrote down. Suppose a weak but brave man beats up a strong coward, takes his cloak or something else, and is brought to court. Neither should tell the truth. The coward should deny that the brave man beat him alone. The other will prove that only the two of them were there, and then ask: “How could someone like me have attacked a man like him?” The coward will not admit his cowardice; he will try another lie and perhaps give his opponent an opening to expose him. Such are the devices that pass for speaking by an art. Is that not so, Phaedrus?
PhaedrusIt is.
SocratesGood heavens, how deeply hidden this art must have been until Tisias discovered it—or whoever he is, wherever he comes from and whatever name he likes to be known by! But my friend, shall we say this to him?
PhaedrusWhat is that?