At this point we need to ask, given the two examples of Gorgias’s students –Polus and Callicles –does Gorgias do as he asserts? Notice what Polus says when he intervenes:
what’s this, Socrates? Do you too actually hold such an opinion about rhetoric as you are now saying? Or do you think–because Gorgias was ashamed not to agree further with you that the rhetorical man also knows the just, noble, and good things, and if he came to him not knowing these things, that he himself would teach them, and then from this agreement perhaps some contradiction came about in the speeches ...–for who do you think would utterly deny both that he knows the just things and that he would teach others?
But deny knowing and teaching these things is exactly what Socrates does it his trial.
Polis goes on to try to turn the tables on Socrates, asking him questions, including asking him to define rhetoric. In Socrates’s opinion, rhetoric is not an art, but rather “a certain experience” whereby one produces a certain grace and pleasure to gratify human beings.