Gorgias: Very true.
Socrates: Then rhetoric is not the only artificer of persuasion?
Gorgias: True.
Socrates: Seeing, then, that not only rhetoric works by persuasion, but that other arts do the same, as in the case of the painter, a question has arisen which is a very fair one: Of what persuasion is rhetoric the artificer, and about what?—is not that a fair way of putting the question?
Gorgias: I think so.
Socrates: Then, if you approve the question, Gorgias, what is the answer?
Gorgias: I answer, Socrates, that rhetoric is the art of persuasion in courts of law and other assemblies, as I was just now saying, and about the just and unjust.
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 develop your own views in your own way, whatever may be your hypothesis.
Gorgias: I think that you are quite right, Socrates.
Socrates: Then let me raise another question; there is such a thing as “having learned”?
Gorgias: Yes.
Socrates: And there is also “having believed”?
Gorgias: Yes.
Socrates: And is the “having learned” the same as “having believed,” and are learning and belief the same things?
Gorgias: In my judgment, Socrates, they are not the same.
Socrates: And your judgment is right, as you may ascertain in this way:—If a person were to say to you, “Is there, Gorgias, a false belief as well as a true?”—you would reply, if I am not mistaken, that there is.
Gorgias: Yes.
Socrates: Well, but is there a false knowledge as well as a true?
Gorgias: No.
Socrates: No, indeed; and this again proves that knowledge and belief differ.
Gorgias: Very true.
Socrates: And yet those who have learned as well as those who have believed are persuaded?
Gorgias: Just so.
Socrates: Shall we then assume two sorts of persuasion—one which is the source of belief without knowledge, as the other is of knowledge?
Gorgias: By all means.