Rhetoric (Plato's Two Faces)

Plato gives rhetoric two opposed treatments that must be held together. In the Gorgias it is condemned as a knack of flattery (empeiria/kolakeia) — not a craft (technē) at all, because it "has no account (logos) of the nature… is able to state the cause" (465a); it produces conviction without knowledge and aims at the pleasant, not the good, standing to justice as pastry-baking to medicine. In the Phaedrus a genuine, philosophical rhetoric is licensed — psychagōgia, "leading the soul," which requires knowing the kinds of soul and matching kinds of speech to them, grounded in dialectic. The difference is exactly the presence or absence of knowledge of the truth and of the soul: rhetoric is either applied dialectic or cosmetic flattery, with nothing in between.

Key Points

Gorgias: rhetoric is a knack, not a craft (462b–465e). A craft has a rational account of its object's nature and good; flattery only "guesses at what's pleasant." The fourfold grid: cosmetics : gymnastics :: cookery : medicine (body); sophistry : legislation :: rhetoric : justice (soul).
Conviction without knowledge (454c–455a): oratory produces pistis (belief), not epistēmē (teaching), and is more persuasive than the expert only among non-knowers (459a–c).
Phaedrus: true rhetoric is psychagōgia — it must "know the truth about each thing it speaks… define each thing in itself," divide souls and speeches by kind, and is thus applied dialectic (Phaedrus 271c–272b, 277b–c). Handbook rhetoric that catalogues the parts of a speech is rejected as not yet an art.
The deficiency is the same in both: rhetoric without knowledge of its subject (justice) and of the soul is empty; the Gorgias shows the empty case, the Phaedrus the filled one.
Real rhetoric requires collection-and-division: the Phaedrus makes the method of dividing kinds "the soul of true rhetoric" — rhetoric becomes a branch of dialectic, not its rival.
The Apology enacts the distinction (a third locus): Socrates disclaims rhetorical technē ("I am not an accomplished speaker," 17b) yet delivers a counter-rhetoric grounded in truth — redefining the orator as "the man who speaks the truth," refusing the pity-supplication the courts expect, and insisting the juror's office is "to teach and persuade," not "to give justice as a favor" (35c). The Gorgias/Phaedrus axis put into practice in a real defense.
The three counterfeits of logos (Euthydemus): rhetoric is one of three knowledge-less doubles — rhetoric (crowd-flattery, the statesman's sham), eristic (Q&A combat, the dialectician's sham), and logography (the forensic speech-writer "between philosopher and statesman," 305c) — each parasitic on a different genuine art. See claims#plato-three-counterfeits-of-logos.
The Menexenus adds the epideictic face (the display genre): the funeral oration "casts a spell over our souls" (235a) and is trivially persuasive before "the very people you're praising" (235d) — flattery of a captive audience, psychagōgia with the valence inverted to critique. With the Gorgias (deliberative flattery), Phaedrus (handbook technique), and Apology (forensic counter-rhetoric), the critique becomes genre-complete, unified by one criterion: knowledge-directed speech vs. soul-charming spell. See claims#plato-rhetoric-critique-genre-complete (live claim).

What the Concept Does

Tests practices for craft-status by the criterion of logos — whether they can give a rational account of the nature and good of their object; rhetoric-as-flattery fails, rhetoric-as-psychagōgia (grounded in dialectic) passes.
Re-locates the value of persuasion in its direction — persuasion toward the good of the soul (the doctor's regimen) vs. persuasion toward its pleasure (the pastry-chef's gratification); the same skill is virtue or vice by what it serves.

What It Rejects

Sophistic and handbook rhetoric — the catalogue of speech-parts (Preamble, Statement, Refutation) mistaken for the art (Phaedrus 266d–267d); persuasion as a self-standing power indifferent to truth.
Gorgias' boast that the orator need not know his subjects, only "some device to produce persuasion" that makes him appear to know (459c).

Stakes

Rhetoric is the site where Plato's craft-knowledge criterion does its political work: the difference between the demagogue and the statesman is the difference between flattering the city's appetites and improving its soul — which is why the Gorgias ends by claiming Socrates alone practices "the true political craft" (521d). The two faces also map a tension in the corpus: the Gorgias' "unrelievedly negative picture" (Cooper) of rhetoric vs. the Phaedrus' rehabilitation. Holding both prevents reading Plato as a simple enemy of rhetoric: he opposes knowledge-less persuasion and licenses dialectically-grounded persuasion.

Connections

contrasts across two dialogues — plato-gorgias (flattery/knack) vs. plato-phaedrus (philosophical psychagōgia): Plato's two faces of rhetoric.
requires collection-and-division — the Phaedrus makes dividing kinds of soul and speech the soul of true rhetoric; rhetoric becomes applied dialectic.
is a sham double of the political art — in the Gorgias' grid, rhetoric is to corrective justice what cookery is to medicine, "an image of a part of politics" (463d).
contrasts with socratic-intellectualism — rhetoric produces conviction without knowledge, the opposite of virtue-as-knowledge.
related to the craft/technē analogy (see motifs §"craft / technē analogy / craft-knowledge (Plato)") — rhetoric is the test-case that fails the criterion of a rational account (logos).
is enacted against forensic flattery by plato-apology — Socrates' counter-rhetoric: truth-telling and "teach, don't supplicate" (35c) in a real courtroom.
is one of three counterfeits with eristic — rhetoric (crowd-flattery) and eristic (Q&A combat) are distinct knowledge-less doubles of logos; the Euthydemus adds logography as a third. See claims#plato-three-counterfeits-of-logos.
is completed as an epideictic critique by plato-menexenus — the funeral-oration parody supplies the display genre (rhetoric-as-enchantment, 235a); the four genres unified by knowledge-vs-spell. See claims#plato-rhetoric-critique-genre-complete (live claim).
shares the disclaimed-authorship device with poetic-inspiration — the device's instances are Socrates' own self-disclaimers (the Menexenus' Aspasia, secular-ironic; Cratylus/Phaedrus, quasi-theological); the Ion's Muse-possession is their cousin possession-theory, about the poet rather than Socrates. See claims#plato-disclaimed-authorship-device (live claim).

Open Questions

Are the Gorgias and Phaedrus views compatible (negative judgment on actual rhetoric, positive on an ideal one) or a genuine development in Plato's estimate of rhetoric? Cooper notes the Gorgias is "unrelievedly negative."
If real rhetoric just is applied dialectic, is "rhetoric" anything distinct from philosophy at all, or does the Phaedrus dissolve it into dialectic?
How does Plato's verdict relate to the historical Gorgias' own Encomium of Helen (the power of logos over the soul) — appropriation, inversion, or refutation?

Sources

plato-gorgias — rhetoric as flattery/knack with no logos (462b–466a); conviction without knowledge (454c–455a); "the true political craft" (521d).
plato-phaedrus — psychagōgia and the requirement of knowing the truth and the kinds of soul; rhetoric as applied dialectic (271c–272b, 277b–c).
plato-apology — the truth/flattery distinction enacted: counter-rhetoric, "teach not supplicate" (17b, 35c).
plato-euthydemus — eristic distinguished from rhetoric; the three-counterfeits topology (305c).
plato-menexenus — the epideictic genre: rhetoric as enchantment of a captive audience (235a, 235d); the Aspasia disclaimer (235e–236c).