drive toward the formation of metaphors is the fundamental human drive,

aesthetic relation:

dissolve an image into a concept.

but we do know of countless individualized and consequently unequal actions which we equate by omitting the aspects in which they are unequal and which we now designate as "honest" actions.

and yet we possess nothing but metaphors for things--metaphors which correspond in no way to the original entities

copy

he will always exchange truths for illusions.

first laws of truth

within a proud, deceptive consciousness,

They are deeply immersed in illusions and in dream images

And is it necessary to think them not men, but gods in all things?

method

wretchedly spent on false conjectures about these disciplines?

capacity

duty

unarmed against falsehood

We must not, therefore, start from any and every accepted opinion, but only from those we have defined -- those accepted by our judges or by those whose authority they recognize

uneducated more effective than the educated when addressing popular audiences

things that are true and things that are just have a natural tendency to prevail over their opposites,

pervert the judge by moving him to anger or envy or pity -- one might as well warp a carpenter's rule before using it.

the better sort of man will be just without being forced to be so, and the written laws depend on force while the unwritten ones do not

disposition

as if you had failed to do right rather than actually done wrong. You may be able to trust other people to judge you equitably.

(b) they invest a speech with moral character.

character is affected

Emulation.

make his audience feel

Gorgias said that you should kill your opponents' earnestness with jesting and their jesting with earnestness;

after all, it is more fitting for a good man to display himself as an honest fellow than as a subtle reasoner."

Appropriateness. An appropriate style will adapt itself to (1) the emotions of the hearers, (2) the character of the speaker, (3) the nature of the subject. Tact and judgement are needed in all varieties of oratory.

paean

Four faults of prose style, with illustrative examples: (1) misuse of compound words; (2) employment of strange words; (3) long, unseasonable, or frequent epithets; (4) inappropriate metaphors.

the right thing in speaking really is that we should fight our case with no help beyong the bare facts; and yet the arts of language cannot help having a small but real importance, whatever it is we have to expound to others

powers of persuasion most of all enhanced by a knowledge

prompted by the worse disposition

special, i.e. the law of a particular State

we are in no respect superior to other living creatures; nay, we are inferior to many in swiftness and in strength and in other resources; but, because there has been implanted in us the power to persuade each other and to make clear to each other whatever we desire, not only have we escaped the life of wild beasts, but we have come together and founded cities and made laws and invented arts; and, generally speaking, there is no institution devised by man which the power of speech has not helped us to establish.

For if I have had the affection of men who have received rewards in recognition of excellence, but have nothing in common with the sycophant, then how, in all reason, could you judge me to be a corrupter of youth?

urging all his fellow-countrymen to be nobler and juster leaders of the Hellenes

And let no one suppose that I claim that just living can be taught;(25) for, in a word, I hold that there does not exist an art of the kind which can implant sobriety and justice in depraved natures. Nevertheless, I do think that the study of political discourse can help more than any other thing to stimulate and form such qualities of character.

but according as any one of the things which I have mentioned is lacking, to this extent must their disciples of necessity fall below the mark

For ability, whether in speech or in any other activity, is found in those who are well endowed by nature and have been schooled by practical experience

For I note that the bad repute which results therefrom does not affect the offenders only, but that all the rest of us who are in the same profession share in the opprobium.

practical experience or to the native ability of the student, but undertake to transmit the science of discourse as simply as they would teach the letters of the alphabet, not having taken trouble to examine into the nature of each kind of knowledge

For the latter have no interest whatever in the truth

they hold their hands out for a trifling gain and promise to make their disciples all but immortal!

who devote themselves to disputation,(2) since they pretend to search for truth, but straightway at the beginning of their professions attempt to deceive us with lies?

If all who are engaged in the profession of education were willing to state the facts instead of making greater promises than they can possibly fulfill, they would not be in such bad repute with the lay-public.

making greater promises than they can possibly fulfill

evil

Then you must prove that the rhetorician is not a fool, and that rhetoric is an art and not a flattery

Rhetoric, according to my view, is the ghost or counterfeit of a part of politics.

SOCRATES: And in the same way, he who has learned what is just is just?

those who know

POLUS: O Chaerephon, there are many arts among mankind which are experimental, and have their origin in experience, for experience makes the days of men to proceed according to art, and inexperience according to chance, and different persons in different ways are proficient in different arts, and the best persons in the best arts. And our friend Gorgias is one of the best, and the art in which he is a proficient is the noblest.

SOCRATES: I had that in my admiring mind, Gorgias, when I asked what is the nature of rhetoric, which always appears to me, when I look at the matter in this way, to be a marvel of greatness.

I do not know what my own meaning is as yet

SOCRATES: Shall we then assume two sorts of persuasion,—one which is the source of belief without knowledge, as the other is of knowledge?

false knowledge

SOCRATES: And that, Gorgias, was what I was suspecting to be your notion; yet I would not have you wonder if by-and-by I am found repeating a seemingly plain question; for I ask not in order to confute you, but as I was saying that the argument may proceed consecutively, and that we may not get the habit of anticipating and suspecting the meaning of one another's words; I would have you develope your own views in your own way, whatever may be your hypothesis. GORGIAS: I think that you are quite right, Socrates.

To the greatest, Socrates, and the best of human things.

POLUS: O Chaerephon, there are many arts among mankind which are experimental, and have their origin in experience, for experience makes the days of men to proceed according to art, and inexperience according to chance, and different persons in different ways are proficient in different arts, and the best persons in the best arts. And our friend Gorgias is one of the best, and the art in which he is a proficient is the noblest.

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

For the incantation's power, communicating with the soul's opinion, enchants and persuades and changes it, by trickery.

for it is equal error and ignorance to blame the praiseworthy and to praise the blameworthy.

hence it is not now easy to remember the past or consider the present or foretell the future; so that most people on most subjects furnish themselves with opinion as advisor to the soul.

will of a god cannot be hindered by human forethought.

Fortune and plans of the gods and decrees of Necessity she did what she did, or abducted by force, or persuaded by speeches, <or conquered by Love>

Encomium

lying

democratic

And I don't say that wisdom and virtue are teachable, but that these proofs do not satisfy me.

And even if a particular man did not teach, this would not prove anything, but if a single man did teach, this would be evidence that teaching is possible.

"Does he exist with respect to some particular thing, or just in general?" Then if someone denies that the man exists, he is mistaken, because he is treating (the particular and) universal senses as being the same. Because everything exists in some sense.

And we ought to bring up the question whether it is the sane or the demented who speak at the right moment. For whenever anyone asks this question they answer that the two groups say the same things, but that the wise speak at the right moment and the demented at the wrong one. (10) And in saying this, they appear to be making a small addition, "(the) right moment" or "the wrong one," so that the situation is no longer the same.

A talent is heavier than a mina and lighter than two talents; therefore the same thing is both heavier and lighter.

But to this too an opposite argument is put forward: that the just and the unjust are different things, and that as the name differs, so does the thing named.

Some say that the good is one thing and the bad another, but others say that they are the same, and a thing might be good for some persons but bad for others, or at one time good and at another time bad for the same person.