In their quest to discover exactly what rhetoric is, Socrates compares rhetoric with cookery, stating that they both pursue the same ends (Gorgias 462e). Socrates places rhetoric well below the 'political art' in the hierarchy of human activities. Rhetoric, cookery and cosmetics are all activities that use experience as their paradigm. Specifically, for Socrates, rhetoric concerns itself with the experience of grace and pleasure (462cd). It takes immediate pleasure and gratification as the highest good and thus does not contemplate the actual good life. The good life, which, as he intimates in the Protagoras, is the harmony between the soul and the life as a whole, necessitates contemplation that reaches beyond the pleasures and experiences of the here and now (P&M 313a). The good life requires patience, diligence, and responsibility that has not only listened to itself but to others as well. Socrates develops, then, a dichotomy between rhetoric and philosophy that implies that philosophy is neither governed, nor involved in experience. Hence, if one follows this to its limit, the 'true political art' learns nothing from experience; for the experience of pleasure and pain should not dictate the pursuit of the good.
This throws the question of the good life into a strange light, and I question whether it is possible to conceive of the good life without reference to experience either of pleasure or of pain. I think, at this point, Socrates is quick to draw strict lines between rhetoric and the 'political art.' Furthermore, I believe that Socrates actually foreshadows what may be a certain softening to the skill of rhetoric when he indicates that "whether the rhetoric that Gorgias pursues is this, I do not know," (Gorgias 463a). For now, he leaves the question of a better type of rhetoric open as a possibility, a rhetoric that may have higher pursuits in mind. Thus, I do agree with Nicolas in that Socrates may be open to a certain appropriation of rhetoric within philosophy. Indeed, it seems impossible for philosophy to leave some understanding of pleasure behind.
This does not mean, however, that Socrates paints rhetoric in an appealing light. Rhetoric is a skill, but it is not an art. It "is skilled at guessing, courageous, and terribly cleaver by nature at associating with human beings;" it is "not an art but experience and routine" (463b). Rhetoric's object is human beings, studying them in order to control them, in order to know their desires and reciprocate those desires. At worst and on its own, it attempts little at understanding human beings by listening and understanding, but structures a routine response and treatment of them. Rhetoric is a self enclosed skilled; its goal is to produce pleasure and its response is to give pleasure. In other words, its results will always attempt to correlate directly with what it thinks the other's desires are. This, at least, is my understanding of Socrates' ascription of the term flattery to rhetoric. It should be noted, however, that he, again, refuses to condemn and reduce rhetoric completely to flattery (466a).
Socrates' claim that rhetoric "is a phantom of a part of politics," also sheds light on his understanding of the relationship between rhetoric and the true political art. He seems to ascribe a certain mimesis to rhetoric, but not a mimesis that learns and expands, nor one that simply betrays itself by becoming another; indeed, posing is its occupation. Rhetoric is a deceitful imposter. Like flattery, "it pretends to be... and gives no heed to the best but hunts after folly with what is ever most pleasant, and deceives, so as to seem to be worth very much," (464d). Rhetoric can be like a parasite on the possibilities of the 'political art.' Rather than genuinely debating and "giving a reasoned account," of what it claims to tend to or its own project, rhetoric promotes blindness to both itself and the very question of the good - its only concern being the search for pleasure.
Yet, it seems implausible that Socrates would deny that the pleasurable and the good could coincide. It seems the very question of turning oneself toward the good life must also necessitate a cultivated desire for the good life, a desire that views the good life as agreeable and is always striving to attain that pleasure. Moreover, experience and art cannot be so easily dichotomized, especially if part of the art of philosophy is to "give a reasoned account," one must assume that experience and its relation to pleasure has its place in this discussion. Basically, Socrates' speech brings to light the dangers of rhetoric, but at this point, in his analogies with cookery and cosmetics, he does not give rhetoric a fair discussion. Not to mention, as a side note, his speech is full of rhetoric, insisting that rhetoric is shameful, and flattering Polus repeatedly(463c-467c).
In closing I would like to remind how at the beginning of our semester, when discussing the opening pages of the Protagoras, Professor Long noted the playfulness of the exchange between friends, and Socrates' 'defense' of his erotic love for Alcibiades. If I remember correctly, Professor Long suggested that, according to the Greek conceptions of love and knowledge, the pursuit of wisdom begins with erotic love. It seems to me that this love must have some connection to the experience of pleasure. And, while this is not the highest form of love, it does have its place in the pursuit of wisdom. It recognizes at bottom that human beings are embodied and must always remain connected to the earthly body in their pursuit of the realm of the good. To dichotomize them completely would ignore what sparked the quest in the first place. Thus, I do not believe that Socrates can completely dismiss rhetoric, even though he dismisses rhetoricians. What he condemns, in fact, is the lack of movement beyond the pursuit of pleasure alone. Any search must necessarily combine itself with new experiences and sidestep its own project, and in that, it moves beyond its original paradigm to a new more enriched one. Socrates (and perhaps Plato) wants to remind, however, that the question concerning the good life should always be the projected goal. In that way, philosophy, as an attempt to give a rational account of its project and its objects of discourse - its rationale fundamentally grounded in the contemplation of the good life - can combine with disciplines such as rhetoric to enrich both of their projects. As a phantom, or image of true politics, then, rhetoric, at worst and on its own, is a degenerated form of the true political art. It is, however, not necessarily extricable from the practice of politics, and is an important step in the process of conceptualizing the good life.
