An episode of In Our Time made me think that it would be a good time to read Plato’s Gorgias. I had a fair idea of what to expect. But I didn’t know that there would be a discussion of medical expertise and its opposite:
Socrates: You said just now that even on matters of health the orator will be more convincing than the doctor.
Gorgias: Before a mass audience — yes, I did.
Socrates: A mass audience means an ignorant audience, doesn’t it? He won’t be more convincing than the doctor before experts, I presume.
Gorgias: True.
Socrates: Now, if he is more convincing than the doctor then does he turn out to be more convincing than the expert?
Gorgias: Naturally.
Socrates: Not being a doctor, of course?
Gorgias: Of course.
Socrates: And the non-doctor, presumably, is ignorant of what the doctor knows?
Gorgias: Obviously.
Socrates: So when the orator is more convincing than the doctor, what happens is that an ignorant person is more convincing than the expert before an equally ignorant audience. Is this what happens?
Gorgias: This is what happens in that case, no doubt.
Socrates: And the same will be true of the orator and oratory in relation to all other arts. The orator need have no knowledge of the truth about things; it is enough for him to have discovered a knack of persuading the ignorant that he seems to know more than the experts.
Gorgias: And isn’t it a great comfort, Socrates, never to be beaten by specialists in all the other arts without going to the trouble of acquiring more than this single one?
Plato, Gorgias. Trans. from the Greek by Walter Hamilton and Chris Emlyn-Jones (New York: Penguin, 1974).
comments: 0
Post a Comment