Socrates: | Now take this point. You would agree that there is such a thing as 'knowing'? |
Gorgias: | Certainly. |
Socrates: | And such a thing as 'believing'? |
Gorgias: | Yes. |
Socrates: | Well, do you think that knowing and believing are the same thing, or is there a difference between knowledge and belief? |
Gorgias: | I should say that there is a difference. |
Socrates: | Quite right; and you can prove it like this. If you were asked whether there are such things as true and false beliefs, you would say that there are, no doubt. |
Gorgias: | Yes. |
Socrates: | But are there such things as true and false knowledge? |
Gorgias: | Certainly not. |
Socrates: | Then knowledge and belief are certainly not the same thing. |
Gorgias: | True. |
Socrates: | Yet men who believe may just as properly be called convinced as men who know? |
Gorgias: | Yes. |
Socrates: | May we then posit the existence of two kinds of conviction, one which gives knowledge and one which gives belief without knowledge? |
Gorgias: | Certainly. |
Socrates: | Now which kind of conviction about right and wrong is created by oratory in courts of law and elsewhere, the kind which engenders knowledge, or the kind which engenders belief without knowledge? |
Gorgias: | The kind which engenders belief, obviously. |
Socrates: | So it appears that the conviction which oratory produces about right and wrong is of the kind which is followed by belief, not the kind which arises from teaching? |
Gorgias: | Yes. |
Socrates: | And the orator does not teach juries and other bodies about right and wrong -- he merely persuades them; he could hardly teach so large a number of people matters of such importance in a short time. |
Gorgias: | Of course he couldn't. |