Why Does Polus Jump Into The Discussion

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Amylyn Ja. De Paz Introduction to Ethics (PHI-240-830CH) Homework for Monday, January 30, 2023 Why does Polus jump into the discussion at this point? (461bc) Polus jumps into the discussion after Socrates has managed to get Gorgias to contradict himself. He does this since he believes that Socrates was unjust towards Gorgias and as a way to express his opinion after listening to Gorgias and Socrates discuss. What attitude does Polus have towards Socrates and the discussion itself? Polus has a defensive, stubborn, unrestrained, wrathful attitude towards Socrates and the discussion itself. This can be portrayed when Polus states ”This man!” (467B). This exclamation was said after Socrates had bested him in the discussion and the tone Polus used can be inferred to be fueled by …show more content…

He then states that politics are for the soul and consist of legislation and justice. For the body, there are gymnastics and medicine. These four values are what flattery tries to adopt and disguise itself as: tries to seem as beneficial and as important as these values. Cookery does the same by trying to present itself as medicine. Food can taste better than medicine but it is not of the best interest of the body. Food seeks to pleasure over best needs, and Socrates states that rhetoric does the same; there is no rationality to rhetoric. Socrates thinks that rhetoric is an imposter that presents itself as the hero of the story only to show its true colors at the end of the story (my analogy). Socrates dives further into this by stating that “beautification is to gymnastics,'' “sophistry to law-making” and “rhetoric is to justice.” All of these values—beautification, sophistry, and rhetoric—are embellishments and frauds of the beneficial ideals. Socrates believes that rhetoricians and sophists are the same. Socrates attests that rhetoric does the same to the soul as cookery does to the