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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. Gorgias describes bad rhetoric as delivering a response in what way?

2. What does Socrates regard as better than being cured of sickness?

3. What subjects does Socrates specify rhetoricians have the ability to speak about?

4. Socrates makes the comparison: medicine is to sickness and justice is to _____.

5. In Socrates' philosophy, in an unjust act, who feels greater evil?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why does Socrates believe that it is important for a wrongdoer's soul be brought to justice?

2. Why does Socrates compare medicine and gymnastics to legislation and justice?

3. What role does knowledge and justice play in learning and practicing rhetoric?

4. What is Socrates' differentiation between pleasures and gratifications in different skills?

5. Why does Socrates favor Gorgias' answers more than Polus'?

6. How does Gorgias see rhetoric as a means for great power?

7. Is Polus' claim that even unjust people like Archelaus are happy correct or incorrect? Why?

8. How does Gorgias see rhetoric aiding to the common good of humans?

9. In Socrates' opinion, why do rhetoricians and Sophists find it difficult to define themselves?

10. What are the similarities and differences between learning and acquiring a belief?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss the nature of pleasure and pain as it is addressed by the different philosophers.

Essay Topic 2

How is the ideology presented in "Gorgias" something that we see in our society today?

Essay Topic 3

Discuss Gorgias' fixation on the prevalence of language in all things.

(see the answer keys)

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