Complete Works (164 page)

8
. Reading
akou
ō
men nun ei
at e5.

9
. Accepting the addition of
<
ton
>
before
tou
at a5.

10
. As the father of Zeus whom Zeus dethroned, Cronus is a symbol of the out-of-date.

11
. Removing the brackets in c3 and accepting the emendation of
g’ou
for
t
ō
i
.

12
. In
Odyssey
iv.456 ff. Proteus, a sea deity, refuses to assume his proper shape until he has transformed himself into a lion, a dragon, a panther, an enormous pig, into water, and into a tree.

13
. At 280d, although the point made was more general.

14
. The reference is probably to
Seven Against Thebes
, 2.

15
. Writing
Oukoun
with acute accent on the first syllable rather than circumflex on the second in d4.

16
. Removing the brackets in a1.

17
. Cf. 281d–e.

18
. The expression was proverbial for any sort of vain repetition.

19
. For the first two, see 292a and 292d–e. The Heavenly Twins (Dioscuri) were regarded as protectors of seamen.

20
. Reading
panta legeis
at d3.

21
. A plant with both poisonous and medicinal properties, a proverbial treatment for mental disorders.

22
. Briareus was a hundred-handed monster who aided Zeus against the Titans. Geryon was a three-headed or three-bodied monster whose cattle were stolen by Heracles.

23
. The Scythians’ habit of using the gilded skulls of their enemies as cups is described by Herodotus, iv.65.

24
. The Greek phrase translated “capable of sight” here can be understood as either active (capable of seeing) or passive (capable of being seen). The argument to follow exploits this ambiguity.

25
. Reading
horan auta
in that order at a6.

26
. The “speaking of the silent” here, like the “silence of the speaking” just below, must be heard as ambiguous between “speaking done by the silent” and “speaking about silent things.” The argument to follow exploits this ambiguity.

27
. The Greek here is ambiguous between “it’s proper for a cook to cut up and skin” and “it’s proper to cut up and skin a cook.” This English must be heard as having the same two readings.

28
. The Greek word translated “ancestral” here and in the following was applied in different parts of the Greek world to the specific divinities worshipped there as “hereditary” protectors, the “fathers” of the people. But it also had a different application to Zeus in particular, as protector of the rights of ancestors. The argument to follow exploits this ambiguity.

29
. Ion was the son of Apollo by Creusa. (Cf. Euripides,
Ion
61–75.)

30
. Omitting
to sophon
at a1.

31
.
Olympian
I.1.

PROTAGORAS

Translated by Stanley Lombardo and Karen Bell.

This is the dramatic masterpiece among Plato’s ‘Socratic’ dialogues. It depicts
Socrates debating the great sophist Protagoras, with Hippias and Prodicus, two
other very famous sophists, in active attendance. An excited flock of students
and admirers looks on. Plato gives us deep and sympathetic portraits of both
his principal speakers—and neither comes off unscathed.

A sophist is an educator. Protagoras offers to teach young men ‘sound deliberation’
and the ‘art of citizenship’—in other words, as Socrates puts it, human
‘virtue’, what makes someone an outstandingly good person. But can this
really be taught? Is virtue—as it ought to be if it
can
be taught—an expertise,
a rationally based way of understanding, deliberating about and deciding
things for the best? Socrates doubts that virtue can be taught at all, and all the
more that Protagoras can teach it. Protagoras is committed to holding that it
can be—by him—and he expounds an extremely attractive myth about the original
establishment of human societies to show how there is room for him to do
it. But he is also deeply cautious in the practice of his educator’s art—almost
his first words in the dialogue are a long oration on the importance to a sophist
of caution as he offers himself publicly as the teacher of a city’s youth. Can
he then be bold enough to answer Socrates’ questions about human virtue in
such a way as to articulate an account that will sustain his claims to teach it?
In the protracted dialectical exchange that follows, Protagoras distinguishes several
virtues, all parts of that human virtue that he teaches, and insists, against
Socrates’ urging, that not all of these (in particular, not courage) are to be
thought of as knowledge or wisdom. That, after all, is the popular view of the
matter—so, in his caution, Protagoras sticks with that, or tries to, to the bitter
end, resisting as long as he can Socrates’ elaborate efforts to show that courage,
too, like the rest of virtue, is nothing but wisdom. But if Protagoras is right,
how can virtue in general, and courage in particular, be the sort of rationally
based expertise that it has to be if it can be taught? It appears that Protagoras
would have done better to follow his own convictions about virtue—that all of
it is teachable—riding roughshod over popular opinion where necessary to
show how all the parts of human virtue are wisdom or knowledge. In fact, Socrates
shows himself to be much more an ally of Protagoras on the question of
the nature of human virtue than at first appears. He is deeply committed, more
deeply indeed than Protagoras, to Protagoras’ initial claim that virtue is a rationally
based expertise at deliberation and decision. But how, then, can he have
been right to doubt whether virtue is teachable? Aren’t all rationally based
expertises acquired by teaching? (In reflecting on this question, readers will
want to consult also the
Meno
.)

Thus both speakers get their comeuppance—Socrates for denying that virtue
is teachable, Protagoras for denying that it is wisdom. The whole matter has to
be rethought. At the end, we are sent back to the beginning, to go over the old
ground once more, as Socrates himself has just done in retelling the events of
the day to his unnamed friend and to us readers. One thing has been established,
though—precisely what Socrates set out to discover in accompanying
his friend Hippocrates to Callias’ house to confront Protagoras: even if virtue
can
be taught, no one should entrust himself to Protagoras to learn it, since he
does not even have a coherent view of what it is.

This Socrates, like that of
Gorgias,
has more substantial theoretical commitments
than the Socrates of other ‘Socratic’ dialogues. He does not limit himself
to examining the opinions of others, but argues, as something he is committed
to, however revisably, that all virtue is one, namely a single knowledge, that
acting against one’s own convictions—’weakness of will’—is impossible, and
that our ‘salvation in life’ depends upon an ‘art of measurement’ that will overcome
the power of appearance and get us to act rightly always. The dialogue invites
us to ponder these theses, to work out for ourselves Socrates’ reasons for
holding to them—and to question whether he is right to do so.

J.M.C.

F
RIEND
: Where have you just come from, Socrates? No, don’t tell me.
[309]
It’s pretty obvious that you’ve been hunting the ripe and ready Alcibiades.
¹
Well, I saw him just the other day, and he is certainly still a beautiful man—and just between the two of us, ‘man’ is the proper word, Socrates: his beard is already filling out.

S
OCRATES
: Well, what of it? I thought you were an admirer of Homer, [b] who says that youth is most charming when the beard is first blooming
²
—which is just the stage Alcibiades is at.

F
RIEND
: So what’s up? Were you just with him? And how is the young man disposed towards you?

S
OCRATES
: Pretty well, I think, especially today, since he rallied to my side and said a great many things to support me.
³
You’re right, of course: I
was
just with him. But there’s something really strange I want to tell you about. Although we were together, I didn’t pay him any mind; in fact, I forgot all about him most of the time.

[c] F
RIEND
: How could anything like that have happened to the two of you? You surely haven’t met someone else more beautiful, at least not in this city.

S
OCRATES
: Much more beautiful.

F
RIEND
: What are you saying? A citizen or a foreigner?

S
OCRATES
: A foreigner.

F
RIEND
: From where?

S
OCRATES
: Abdera.

F
RIEND
: And this foreigner seems to you more beautiful than the son of Clinias?

S
OCRATES
: How could superlative wisdom not seem surpassingly beautiful?

F
RIEND
: What! Have you been in the company of some wise man, Socrates?

[d] S
OCRATES
: The wisest man alive, if you think the wisest man is—Protagoras.

F
RIEND
: What are you saying? Is Protagoras in town?

S
OCRATES
: And has been for two days.

F
RIEND
: And you’ve just now come from being with him?

[310]
S
OCRATES
: That’s right, and took part in quite a long conversation.

F
RIEND
: Well, sit right down, if you’re free now, and tell us all about it. Let the boy make room for you here.

S
OCRATES
: By all means. I’d count it a favor if you’d listen.

F
RIEND
: And vice versa, if you’d tell us.

S
OCRATES
: That would make it a double favor then. Well, here’s the story. [b] This morning just before daybreak, while it was still dark, Hippocrates,
⁴
son of Apollodorus and Phason’s brother, banged on my door with his stick, and when it was opened for him he barged right in and yelled in that voice of his, “Socrates, are you awake or asleep?”

Recognizing his voice, I said, “Is that Hippocrates? No bad news, I hope.”

“Nothing but good news,” he said.

“I’d like to hear it,” I said. “What brings you here at such an hour?”

“Protagoras has arrived,” he said, standing next to me.

“Day before yesterday,” I said. “Did you just find out?”

[c] “Yes! Just last evening.” As he said this he felt around for the bed and sat at my feet and continued: “That’s right, late yesterday evening, after I got back from Oenoë. My slave Satyrus had run away from me. I meant to tell you that I was going after him, but something else came up and made me forget. After I got back and we had eaten dinner and were about to get some rest,
then
my brother tells me Protagoras has arrived. I was [d] getting ready to come right over to see you even then, until I realized it was just too late at night. But as soon as I had slept some and wasn’t dead-tired any more, I got up and came over here right away.”

Recognizing his fighting spirit and his excitement, I asked him: “So what’s it to you? Has Protagoras done anything wrong to you?”

He laughed and said, “You bet he has, Socrates. He has a monopoly on wisdom and won’t give me any.”

“But look,” I said, “if you meet his price he’ll make you wise too.”

”If only it were as simple as that,” he said, “I’d bankrupt myself and [e] my friends too. But that’s why I’m coming to you, so you will talk to him for me. I’m too young myself, and besides, I’ve never even seen Protagoras or heard him speak. I was still just a child the last time he was in town. He’s such a celebrity, Socrates, and everyone says he’s a terribly clever
[311]
speaker. Why don’t we walk over now, to be sure to catch him in? I’ve heard he’s staying with Callias, son of Hipponicus. Come on, let’s go.”

“Let’s not go there just yet,” I said. “It’s too early. Why don’t we go out here into the courtyard and stroll around until it’s light? Then we can go. Protagoras spends most of his time indoors, so don’t worry; we’re likely to catch him in.”

So we got up and walked around the courtyard. I wanted to see what [b] Hippocrates was made of, so I started to examine him with a few questions. “Tell me, Hippocrates,” I said. “You’re trying to get access to Protagoras, prepared to pay him a cash fee for his services to you. But what is he, and what do you expect to become? I mean, suppose you had your mind set on going to your namesake, Hippocrates of Cos, the famous physician, to [c] pay him a fee for his services to you, and if someone asked you what this Hippocrates is that you were going to pay him, what would you say?”

“I would say a physician,” he said.

“And what would you expect to become?”

“A physician.”

“And if you had a mind to go to Polyclitus of Argos or Phidias of Athens to pay them a fee, and if somebody were to ask you what kind of professionals you had in mind paying, what would you say?”

“I would say sculptors.”

“And what would you expect to become?”

“A sculptor, obviously.”

”All right,” I said. “Here we are, you and I, on our way to Protagoras, [d] prepared to pay him cash as a fee on your behalf, spending our own money, and if that’s not enough to persuade him, our friends’ money as well. Suppose someone notices our enthusiasm and asks us: ‘Tell me, Socrates and Hippocrates, what is your idea in paying Protagoras? What [e] is he?’ What would we say to him? What other name do we hear in reference to Protagoras? Phidias is called a sculptor and Homer a poet. What do we hear Protagoras called?”