Gorgias, part 1

Initially, I found the conversation between Socrates and Polus fairly frustrating.  Polus has this wonderful answer, but it's an answer that dances circles around the question.  And I found it interesting how that isn't a problem that happened over 2000 years ago, how it still happens (probably more commonly) today.  Part of me was glad when Gorgias decided to answer the questions because I thought, finally, a straight answer.  It was silly of me to think that, of course, because we were reading Plato, and if he had allowed Gorgias to answer plain and simply, we probably wouldn't still be talking about him.  So I quickly crushed my hopes, and continued reading.

So then Socrates was allowed to talk directly to Gorgias.  His main question was basically, which aspect of life does rhetoric have to do with?  Gorgias replied simply with 'speech', and Socrates starts debating about how all areas of expertise involve speech (specifically medicine and physical education), so Socrates adds on to his original question what other areas of life are involved with rhetoric.  Gorgias replied with the most important aspect of human life, which is politics.  But Socrates then complains that there are other things that would argue they have the most important aspect of life (the doctor with health, trainer with beauty, and businessman with wealth).  So Gorgias continues to modify his answer by adding that he has the ability to persuade with the spoken word.  Socrates then talks about two different types of persuasion, one that confers conviction without understanding, and the other that confers knowledge.  A little bit later, Socrates almost tricks Gorgias into saying that he isn't necessarily concerned with what is right or wrong, only in persuading his audience.  This is evident when Socrates makes the argument that a rhetorician must behave morally, and can therefore never do wrong, but Gorgias said he didn't care about right and wrong, which seems to contradict himself.

I thought it was interesting how, when we were still in our small groups, the four of us thought we really understood where Socrates was going with his arguments (although the transitions were a little unclear), and we understood that Gorgias simply seemed slightly less than willing to answer all of Socrates debateful questions.  But it was weird how, as soon as we tried to debate 'Gorgias' as a group, it seemed like nothing fit, and that none of the arguments matched up.  For me (and my other group members, I'm assuming), that was frustrating.  But I did like the idea and the theory of how it should have worked.  We should try to do it again (not necessarily with this text) because now that we somewhat have an idea of what we're supposed to be doing, I think it will run a little more smoothly.  Also, if we split up the groups because none of the Polus/Socrates response to Polus were able to speak, and I think the discussion/debate would have been more effective in the smaller group setting.