The text begins with an attempt to arrive at a definition of rhetoric. Let me offer you a striking example of this. And if after having become a rhetorician he makes a bad use of his strength and skill, his instructor surely ought not on that account to be held in detestation or banished. For he was intended by his teacher to make a good use of his instructions, but he abuses them. And therefore he is the person who ought to be held in detestation, banished, and put to death, and not his instructor.
Rhetoric enables one to speak persuasively on any topic.
Johns Hopkins UP, 1991. Garver, Eugene . Rhetoric and Philosophy in Conflict . Plato's Ethics . Oxford UP, 1995.