Note: we'll probably discuss this in class today, so if you don't want to get bored, you can wait until after to take in this blog.
The first reading question was impossible to answer. Almost like a Socratic question, in fact, or a rhetorical question. "Where does Gorgias stumble and why?" is like asking, "Does Gorgias have a shot at winning the argument?"
I caught at least four instances where Gorgias does some major stumblage. I don't think that this is the one we'll discuss in class, but the first instance I noticed is just below 454 on page 799. Gorgias assents with Socrates that, "oratory isn't the only producer of persuasion," and with that loses all hope of producing a coherent definition of oratory for old So-crates.
What will oratory be for Gorgias if not the foundation of persuasion? Socrates's "proof" of how arithmetic also persuades apparently stands on the idea that mathematics are self-evident and incontrovertible (ha). This sort of black-white thinking is, of course, what Plato simultaneously leans on and deconstructs as his dialogues progress, and it excises all trace of the sort of flexible worldview we saw Protagoras forward last week (a view I assume can be identified with many sophists of the time). The likely words of the real Gorgias's don't come out of the Platonic Gorgias's mouth. Surprise, surprise.