Dialectic and the Structure of Argument

Abstract

There is a passage early in the Gorgias in which Socrates points out one of the differences between rhetoric and dialectic. Polus has been scoffing at an unpopular view which Socrates holds, and Socrates says to him:

...you are trying to refute me orator-fashion like those who fancy they are refuting in the law courts. For there one group imagines it is refuting the other when it produces many reputable witnesses to support its statements whereas the opposing party produces but one or none. But this method of proof is worthless toward discovering the truth, for at times a man may be the victim of a false witness on the part of many people of repute. And now practically all men, Athenians and strangers alike, will support your statements, if you wish to produce them as witnesses that my view is false Yet I, who am but one, do not agree with you, for you cannot compel me to: you are merely producing many false witnesses against me in your endeavor to drive me out of my property, the truth. But if I cannot produce in you yourself a single witness in agreement with my views, I consider that I have accomplished nothing worth speaking of in the matter under debate; and the same, I think, is true for you also, if I, one solitary witness, do not testify for you and if you do not leave all these others out of account.¹