s a consistent criticism of rhetoric reflected in both the Phaedrus and Gorgias. Socrates argues that rhetoric is an art and not just an artless practice. The extant manuals of rhetoric offer the preliminaries of the true art of rhetoric, not the thing itself. Socrates goes on to outline that to engage in good rhetoric one must possess an intimate knowledge of the kinds of souls, the kinds of rhetoric, and the effect of rhetoric on the soul. One must understand the consequences of the human soul in relation to nature, desire, and the relation to the gods. Socrates states that we cannot, "acquire any appreciable knowledge of the nature of the soul without knowing the nature of the whole man" (P, 270c). Knowing the nature of man ties the skills of a good rhetor to the knowledge of philosophers. For Socrates to understand the outside world means a constant journey of truth seeking and questioning. These are the actions of a philosopher. The consequence to rhetoric is that the art of rhetoric requires the discourse of philosophy and embracing dialectic interaction. Dialectic speech is productive because it is accompanied by knowledge, able to defend itself, and engages in knowledge production for both the audience and the speaker.
             The common question of the two dialogues concerns how one should live one's life (G, 500c). While on face it appears that Socrates is only critiquing rhetoric in Gorgias, he
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