“Gorgias” How is oratory not a craft? A craft is defined as a skill in planning, making, or executing. Gorgias provides the statement that rhetorical oratory is cable of convincing a crowd on almost any subject, even though they are not an expert of any one particular facticity other than the ability to persuade. Socrates even goes as far as to say an orator would be more effective in convincing a crowd without any prior knowledge than an expert in their given field. Socrates states to Polus, “To tell you the truth, Polus, I don’t think it’s a craft at all. … In the treatise that I recently read, it’s the thing that you say has produced craft.” (462b) This statement is the first indication that Socrates does not think of
