Protagoras
Socrates concludes by professing his disinterested love of the truth,
and remarks on the singular manner in which he and his adversary had
changed sides. Protagoras began by asserting, and Socrates by denying,
the teachableness of virtue, and now the latter ends by affirming that
virtue is knowledge, which is the most teachable of all things, while
Protagoras has been striving to show that virtue is not knowledge, and
this is almost equivalent to saying that virtue cannot be taught. He is
not satisfied with the result, and would like to renew the enquiry with
the help of Protagoras in a different order, asking (1) What virtue is,
and (2) Whether virtue can be taught. Protagoras declines this offer,
but commends Socrates' earnestness and his style of discussion.
The Protagoras is often supposed to be full of difficulties. These
are partly imaginary and partly real. The imaginary ones are (1)
Chronological,--which were pointed out in ancient times by Athenaeus,
and are noticed by Schleiermacher and others, and relate to the
impossibility of all the persons in the Dialogue meeting at any one
time, whether in the year 425 B.C., or in any other. But Plato, like
all writers of fiction, aims only at the probable, and shows in many
Dialogues (e.g. the Symposium and Republic, and already in the Laches)
an extreme disregard of the historical accuracy which is sometimes
demanded of him. (2) The exact place of the Protagoras among the
Dialogues, and the date of composition, have also been much disputed.
But there are no criteria which afford any real grounds for determining
the date of composition; and the affinities of the Dialogues, when they
are not indicated by Plato himself, must always to a great extent remain
uncertain. (3) There is another class of difficulties, which may be
ascribed to preconceived notions of commentators, who imagine that
Protagoras the Sophist ought always to be in the wrong, and his
adversary Socrates in the right; or that in this or that passage--e.g.
in the explanation of good as pleasure--Plato is inconsistent with
himself; or that the Dialogue fails in unity, and has not a proper
beginning, middle, and ending. They seem to forget that Plato is a
dramatic writer who throws his thoughts into both sides of the argument,
and certainly does not aim at any unity which is inconsistent with
freedom, and with a natural or even wild manner of treating his subject;
also that his mode of revealing the truth is by lights and shadows, and
far-off and opposing points of view, and not by dogmatic statements or
definite results.
The real difficulties arise out of the extreme subtlety of the work,
which, as Socrates says of the poem of Simonides, is a most perfect
piece of art. There are dramatic contrasts and interests, threads of
philosophy broken and resumed, satirical reflections on mankind, veils
thrown over truths which are lightly suggested, and all woven together
in a single design, and moving towards one end.
In the introductory scene Plato raises the expectation that a 'great
personage' is about to appear on the stage; perhaps with a further view
of showing that he is destined to be overthrown by a greater still, who
makes no pretensions. Before introducing Hippocrates to him, Socrates
thinks proper to warn the youth against the dangers of 'influence,'
of which the invidious nature is recognized by Protagoras himself.
Hippocrates readily adopts the suggestion of Socrates that he shall
learn of Protagoras only the accomplishments which befit an Athenian
gentleman, and let alone his 'sophistry.' There is nothing however in
the introduction which leads to the inference that Plato intended to
blacken the character of the Sophists; he only makes a little merry at
their expense.
The 'great personage' is somewhat ostentatious, but frank and honest.
He is introduced on a stage which is worthy of him--at the house of the
rich Callias, in which are congregated the noblest and wisest of the
Athenians. He considers openness to be the best policy, and particularly
mentions his own liberal mode of dealing with his pupils, as if in
answer to the favourite accusation of the Sophists that they received
pay. He is remarkable for the good temper which he exhibits throughout
the discussion under the trying and often sophistical cross-examination
of Socrates. Although once or twice ruffled, and reluctant to continue
the discussion, he parts company on perfectly good terms, and appears to
be, as he says of himself, the 'least jealous of mankind.'
Nor is there anything in the sentiments of Protagoras which impairs this
pleasing impression of the grave and weighty old man. His real defect
is that he is inferior to Socrates in dialectics. The opposition between
him and Socrates is not the opposition of good and bad, true and false,
but of the old art of rhetoric and the new science of interrogation and
argument; also of the irony of Socrates and the self-assertion of the
Sophists. There is quite as much truth on the side of Protagoras as
of Socrates; but the truth of Protagoras is based on common sense and
common maxims of morality, while that of Socrates is paradoxical
or transcendental, and though full of meaning and insight, hardly
intelligible to the rest of mankind. Here as elsewhere is the usual
contrast between the Sophists representing average public opinion and
Socrates seeking for increased clearness and unity of ideas. But to a
great extent Protagoras has the best of the argument and represents the
better mind of man.
For example: (1) one of the noblest statements to be found in antiquity
about the preventive nature of punishment is put into his mouth; (2) he
is clearly right also in maintaining that virtue can be taught (which
Socrates himself, at the end of the Dialogue, is disposed to concede);
and also (3) in his explanation of the phenomenon that good fathers have
bad sons; (4) he is right also in observing that the virtues are not
like the arts, gifts or attainments of special individuals, but the
common property of all: this, which in all ages has been the strength
and weakness of ethics and politics, is deeply seated in human nature;
(5) there is a sort of half-truth in the notion that all civilized men
are teachers of virtue; and more than a half-truth (6) in ascribing
to man, who in his outward conditions is more helpless than the other
animals, the power of self-improvement; (7) the religious allegory
should be noticed, in which the arts are said to be given by Prometheus
(who stole them), whereas justice and reverence and the political
virtues could only be imparted by Zeus; (8) in the latter part of the
Dialogue, when Socrates is arguing that 'pleasure is the only good,'
Protagoras deems it more in accordance with his character to maintain
that 'some pleasures only are good;' and admits that 'he, above all
other men, is bound to say "that wisdom and knowledge are the highest of
human things."'
There is no reason to suppose that in all this Plato is depicting an
imaginary Protagoras; he seems to be showing us the teaching of the
Sophists under the milder aspect under which he once regarded them.
Nor is there any reason to doubt that Socrates is equally an historical
character, paradoxical, ironical, tiresome, but seeking for the unity
of virtue and knowledge as for a precious treasure; willing to rest this
even on a calculation of pleasure, and irresistible here, as everywhere
in Plato, in his intellectual superiority.
The aim of Socrates, and of the Dialogue, is to show the unity of
virtue. In the determination of this question the identity of virtue and
knowledge is found to be involved. But if virtue and knowledge are
one, then virtue can be taught; the end of the Dialogue returns to the
beginning. Had Protagoras been allowed by Plato to make the Aristotelian
distinction, and say that virtue is not knowledge, but is accompanied
with knowledge; or to point out with Aristotle that the same quality may
have more than one opposite; or with Plato himself in the Phaedo to deny
that good is a mere exchange of a greater pleasure for a less--the unity
of virtue and the identity of virtue and knowledge would have required
to be proved by other arguments.
The victory of Socrates over Protagoras is in every way complete when
their minds are fairly brought together. Protagoras falls before him
after two or three blows. Socrates partially gains his object in the
first part of the Dialogue, and completely in the second. Nor does
he appear at any disadvantage when subjected to 'the question' by
Protagoras. He succeeds in making his two 'friends,' Prodicus and
Hippias, ludicrous by the way; he also makes a long speech in defence
of the poem of Simonides, after the manner of the Sophists, showing, as
Alcibiades says, that he is only pretending to have a bad memory, and
that he and not Protagoras is really a master in the two styles of
speaking; and that he can undertake, not one side of the argument only,
but both, when Protagoras begins to break down. Against the authority of
the poets with whom Protagoras has ingeniously identified himself at
the commencement of the Dialogue, Socrates sets up the proverbial
philosophers and those masters of brevity the Lacedaemonians. The poets,
the Laconizers, and Protagoras are satirized at the same time.
Not having the whole of this poem before us, it is impossible for us
to answer certainly the question of Protagoras, how the two passages of
Simonides are to be reconciled. We can only follow the indications given
by Plato himself. But it seems likely that the reconcilement offered
by Socrates is a caricature of the methods of interpretation which
were practised by the Sophists--for the following reasons: (1) The
transparent irony of the previous interpretations given by Socrates.
(2) The ludicrous opening of the speech in which the Lacedaemonians are
described as the true philosophers, and Laconic brevity as the true form
of philosophy, evidently with an allusion to Protagoras' long speeches.
(3) The manifest futility and absurdity of the explanation of (Greek),
which is hardly consistent with the rational interpretation of the rest
of the poem. The opposition of (Greek) and (Greek) seems also intended
to express the rival doctrines of Socrates and Protagoras, and is a
facetious commentary on their differences. (4) The general treatment in
Plato both of the Poets and the Sophists, who are their interpreters,
and whom he delights to identify with them. (5) The depreciating
spirit in which Socrates speaks of the introduction of the poets as a
substitute for original conversation, which is intended to contrast
with Protagoras' exaltation of the study of them--this again is hardly
consistent with the serious defence of Simonides. (6) the marked
approval of Hippias, who is supposed at once to catch the familiar
sound, just as in the previous conversation Prodicus is represented as
ready to accept any distinctions of language however absurd. At the same
time Hippias is desirous of substituting a new interpretation of his
own; as if the words might really be made to mean anything, and were
only to be regarded as affording a field for the ingenuity of the
interpreter.
This curious passage is, therefore, to be regarded as Plato's satire on
the tedious and hypercritical arts of interpretation which prevailed in
his own day, and may be compared with his condemnation of the same arts
when applied to mythology in the Phaedrus, and with his other parodies,
e.g. with the two first speeches in the Phaedrus and with the Menexenus.
Several lesser touches of satire may be observed, such as the claim of
philosophy advanced for the Lacedaemonians, which is a parody of
the claims advanced for the Poets by Protagoras; the mistake of the