Complete Works (167 page)

“Starting when they are little children and continuing as long as they [d] live, they teach them and correct them. As soon as a child understands what is said to him, the nurse, mother, tutor, and the father himself fight for him to be as good as he possibly can, seizing on every action and word to teach him and show him that this is just, that is unjust, this is noble, that is ugly, this is pious, that is impious, he should do this, he should not do that. If he obeys willingly, fine; if not, they straighten him out with threats and blows as if he were a twisted, bent piece of wood. After this [e] they send him to school and tell his teachers to pay more attention to his good conduct than to his grammar or music lessons. The teachers pay attention to these things, and when the children have learned their letters and are getting to understand writing as well as the spoken language, they are given the works of good poets to read at their desks and have to
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learn them by heart, works that contain numerous exhortations, many passages describing in glowing terms good men of old, so that the child is inspired to imitate them and become like them. In a similar vein, the music teachers too foster in their young pupils a sense of moral decency and restraint, and when they learn to play the lyre they are taught the [b] works of still more good poets, the lyric and choral poets. The teachers arrange the scores and drill the rhythms and scales into the children’s souls, so that they become gentler, and their speech and movements become more rhythmical and harmonious. For all of human life requires a high degree of rhythm and harmony. On top of all this, they send their children to an athletic trainer so that they may have sound bodies in the service [c] of their now fit minds and will not be forced to cowardice in war or other activities through physical deficiencies.

“This is what the most able, i.e., the richest, do. Their sons start going [d] to school at the earliest age and quit at the latest age. And when they quit school, the city in turn compels them to learn the laws and to model their lives on them. They are not to act as they please. An analogy might be drawn from the practice of writing-teachers, who sketch the letters faintly with a pen in workbooks for their beginning students and have them write the letters over the patterns they have drawn. In the same way the city has drawn up laws invented by the great lawgivers in the past and compels them to govern and be governed by them. She punishes anyone who goes beyond these laws, and the term for this punishment in your city and [e] others is, because it is a corrective legal action, ‘correction.’

“When so much care and attention is paid to virtue, Socrates, both in public and private, are you still puzzled about virtue being teachable? The wonder would be if it were not teachable.

“Why, then, do many sons of good fathers never amount to anything? I want you to understand this too, and in fact it’s no great wonder, if what I’ve just been saying is true about virtue being something in which no one
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can be a layman if there is to be a city. For if what I am saying is true—and nothing could be more true: Pick any other pursuit or study and reflect upon it. Suppose, for instance, there could be no city unless we were all flute-players, each to the best of his ability, and everybody were teaching everybody else this art in public and private and reprimanding the poor players and doing all this unstintingly, just as now no one begrudges or [b] conceals his expertise in what is just and lawful as he does his other professional expertise. For it is to our collective advantage that we each possess justice and virtue, and so we all gladly tell and teach each other what is just and lawful. Well, if we all had the same eagerness and generosity in teaching each other flute-playing, do you think, Socrates, that the sons of good flute-players would be more likely to be good flute-players than the sons of poor flute-players? I don’t think so at all. When a son happened to be naturally disposed toward flute-playing, he would progress [c] and become famous; otherwise, he would remain obscure. In many cases the son of a good player would turn out to be a poor one, and the son of a poor player would turn out to be good. But as flute-players, they would all turn out to be capable when compared with ordinary people who had never studied the flute. Likewise you must regard the most unjust person ever reared in a human society under law as a paragon of justice compared [d] with people lacking education and lawcourts and the pervasive pressure to cultivate virtue, savages such as the playwright Pherecrates brought on stage at last year’s Lenaean festival. There’s no doubt that if you found yourself among such people, as did the misanthropes in that play’s chorus, you would be delighted to meet up with the likes of Eurybatus and [e] Phrynondas
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and would sorely miss the immorality of the people here. As it is, Socrates, you affect delicate sensibilities, because everyone here is a teacher of virtue, to the best of his ability, and you can’t see a single one. You might as well look for a teacher of Greek; you wouldn’t find a
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single one of those either. Nor would you be any more successful if you asked who could teach the sons of our craftsmen the very arts which they of course learned from their fathers, to the extent that their fathers were competent, and their friends in the trade. It would be difficult to produce someone who could continue their education, whereas it would be easy to find a teacher for the totally unskilled. It is the same with virtue and everything else. If there is someone who is the least bit more advanced in virtue than ourselves, he is to be cherished.

”I consider myself to be such a person, uniquely qualified to assist others [b] in becoming noble and good, and worth the fee that I charge and even more, so much so that even my students agree. This is why I charge according to the following system: a student pays the full price only if he [c] wishes to; otherwise, he goes into a temple, states under oath how much he thinks my lessons are worth, and pays that amount.

“There you have it, Socrates, my mythic story and my argument that virtue is teachable and that the Athenians consider it to be so, and that it is no wonder that worthless sons are born of good fathers and good sons of worthless fathers, since even the sons of Polyclitus, of the same age as [d] Paralus and Xanthippus here, are nothing compared to their father, and the same is true for the sons of other artisans. But it is not fair to accuse these two yet; there is still hope for them, for they are young.”

Protagoras ended his virtuoso performance here and stopped speaking. I was entranced and just looked at him for a long time as if he were going to say more. I was still eager to listen, but when I perceived that he had really stopped I pulled myself together and, looking at Hippocrates, barely [e] managed to say: “Son of Apollodorus, how grateful I am to you for suggesting that I come here. It is marvelous to have heard from Protagoras what I have just heard. Formerly I used to think there was no human practice by which the good become good, but now I am persuaded that there is, except for one small obstacle which Protagoras will explain away, I am
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sure, since he has explained away so much already. Now, you could hear a speech similar to this from Pericles or some other competent orator if you happened to be present when one of them was speaking on this subject. But try asking one of them something, and they will be as unable to answer your question or to ask one of their own as a book would be. Question the least little thing in their speeches and they will go on like bronze bowls that keep ringing for a long time after they have been struck and prolong the sound indefinitely unless you dampen them. That’s how [b] these orators are: Ask them one little question and they’re off on another long-distance speech. But Protagoras here, while perfectly capable of delivering a beautiful long speech, as we have just seen, is also able to reply briefly when questioned, and to put a question and then wait for and accept the answer—rare accomplishments these.

“Now, then, Protagoras, I need one little thing, and then I’ll have it all, if you’ll just answer me this. You say that virtue is teachable, and if there’s [c] any human being who could persuade me of this, it’s you. But there is one thing you said that troubles me, and maybe you can satisfy my soul. You said that Zeus sent justice and a sense of shame to the human race. You also said, at many points in your speech, that justice and temperance
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and piety and all these things were somehow collectively one thing: virtue. [d] Could you go through this again and be more precise? Is virtue a single thing, with justice and temperance and piety its parts, or are the things I have just listed all names for a single entity? This is what still intrigues me.”

“This is an easy question to answer, Socrates,” he replied. “Virtue is a single entity, and the things you are asking about are its parts.”

“Parts as in the parts of a face: mouth, nose, eyes, and ears? Or parts as in the parts of gold, where there is no difference, except for size, between parts or between the parts and the whole?”

“In the former sense, I would think, Socrates: as the parts of the face [e] are to the whole face.”

“Then tell me this. Do some people have one part and some another, or do you necessarily have all the parts if you have any one of them?”

“By no means, since many are courageous but unjust, and many again are just but not wise.”

“Then these also are parts of virtue—wisdom and courage?”

“Absolutely, and wisdom is the greatest part.”
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“Is each of them different from the others?”

“Yes.”

“And does each also have its own unique power or function? In the analogy to the parts of the face, the eye is not like the ear, nor is its power or function the same, and this applies to the other parts as well: They are not like each other in power or function or in any other way. Is this how it is with the parts of virtue? Are they unlike each other, both in themselves [b] and in their powers or functions? Is it not clear that this must be the case, if our analogy is valid?”

“Yes, it must be the case, Socrates.”

“Then, none of the other parts of virtue is like knowledge, or like justice, or like courage, or like temperance, or like piety?”

“Agreed.”

“Come on, then, and let’s consider together what kind of thing each of [c] these is. Here’s a good first question: Is justice a thing or is it not a thing? I think it is. What about you?”

“I think so too.”

“The next step, then: Suppose someone asked us, ‘Protagoras and Socrates, tell me about this thing you just named, justice. Is it itself just or unjust?’ My answer would be that it is just. What would your verdict be? The same as mine or different?”

“The same.”

“Then justice is the sort of thing that is just. That’s how I would reply to the questioner. Would you also?”

“Yes.”

“Suppose he questioned us further: ‘Do you also say there is a thing [d] called piety?’ We would say we do, right?”

“Right.”

“ ‘Do you say this too is a thing?’ We would say we do, wouldn’t we?”

“That too.”

“ ‘Do you say that this thing is by nature impious or pious?’ Myself, I would be irritated with this question and would say, ‘Quiet, man! How [e] could anything else be pious if piety itself is not?’ What about you? “Wouldn’t you answer in the same way?”

“Absolutely.”

“Suppose he asked us next: ‘Then what about what you said a little while ago? Maybe I didn’t hear you right. I thought you two said that the parts of virtue are related to each other in such a way that no part resembles
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any other.’ I would answer, ‘There’s nothing wrong with your hearing, except that I didn’t say that. Protagoras here said that in answer to my question.’ If he were to say then, ‘Is he telling the truth, Protagoras? Are you the one who says that one part of virtue is not like another? Is this dictum yours?’ how would you answer him?”

“I would have to admit it, Socrates.”

“Well, if we accept that, Protagoras, what are we going to say if he asks next, ‘Isn’t piety the sort of thing that is just, and isn’t justice the sort of thing that is pious? Or is it the sort of thing which is not pious? Is piety [b] the sort of thing to be not just, and therefore unjust, and justice impious?’ What are we going to say to him? Personally, I would answer both that justice is pious and piety is just, and I would give the same answer on your behalf (if you would let me), that justice is the same thing as piety, or very similar, and, most emphatically, that justice is the same kind of thing as piety, and piety as justice. What do you think? Will you veto this answer, or are you in agreement with it?”

[c] “It’s not so absolutely clear a case to me, Socrates, as to make me grant that justice is pious, and piety just. It seems a distinction is in order here. But what’s the difference? If you want, we’ll let justice be pious and piety just.”

“Don’t do that to me! It’s not this ‘if you want’ or ‘if you agree’ business I want to test. It’s you and me I want to put on the line, and I think the argument will be tested best if we take the ‘if’ out.”

[d] “Well, all right. Justice does have some resemblance to piety. Anything at all resembles any other thing in some way. There is a certain way in which white resembles black, and hard soft, and so on for all the usual polar opposites. And the things we were just talking about as having [e] different powers or functions and not being the same kinds of things—the parts of the face—these resemble each other in a certain way, and they are like each other. So by this method you could prove, if you wanted to, that these things too are all like each other. But it’s not right to call things similar because they resemble each other in some way, however slight, or to call them dissimilar because there is some slight point of dissimilarity.”

I was taken aback, and said to him, “Do you consider the relationship between justice and piety really only one of some slight similarity?”

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“Not exactly, but not what you seem to think it is either.”

“Well, then, since you seem to me to be annoyed about this, let’s drop it and consider another point that you raised. Do you acknowledge that there is such a thing as folly?”