"gorgias" - читать интересную книгу автора (Plato)

Soc. As to the arts generally, they are for the most part
concerned with doing, and require little or no speaking; in
painting, and statuary, and many other arts, the work may proceed in
silence; and of such arts I suppose you would say that they do not
come within the province of rhetoric.

Gor. You perfectly conceive my meaning, Socrates.

Soc. But there are other arts which work wholly through the medium
of language, and require either no action or very little, as, for
example, the arts of arithmetic, of calculation, of geometry, and of
playing draughts; in some of these speech is pretty nearly
co-extensive with action, but in most of them the verbal element is
greater-they depend wholly on words for their efficacy and power:
and I take your meaning to be that rhetoric is an art of this latter
sort?

Gor. Exactly.

Soc. And yet I do not believe that you really mean to call any of
these arts rhetoric; although the precise expression which you used
was, that rhetoric is an art which works and takes effect only through
the medium of discourse; and an adversary who wished to be captious
might say, "And so, Gorgias, you call arithmetic rhetoric." But I do
not think that you really call arithmetic rhetoric any more than
geometry would be so called by you.

Gor. You are quite right, Socrates, in your apprehension of my
meaning.

Soc. Well, then, let me now have the rest of my answer:-seeing
that rhetoric is one of those arts which works mainly by the use of
words, and there are other arts which also use words, tell me what
is that quality in words with which rhetoric is concerned:-Suppose
that a person asks me about some of the arts which I was mentioning
just now; he might say, "Socrates, what is arithmetic?" and I should
reply to him, as you replied to me, that arithmetic is one of those
arts which take effect through words. And then he would proceed to
ask: "Words about what?" and I should reply, Words about and even
numbers, and how many there are of each. And if he asked again:
"What is the art of calculation?" I should say, That also is one of
the arts which is concerned wholly with words. And if he further said,
"Concerned with what?" I should say, like the clerks in the
assembly, "as aforesaid" of arithmetic, but with a difference, the
difference being that the art of calculation considers not only the
quantities of odd and even numbers, but also their numerical relations
to themselves and to one another. And suppose, again, I were to say
that astronomy is only word-he would ask, "Words about what,
Socrates?" and I should answer, that astronomy tells us about the
motions of the stars and sun and moon, and their relative swiftness.