Complete Works (172 page)
[358]
“This is how we would have answered the many. Now, I ask you, Hippias and Prodicus, as well as Protagoras—this is your conversation also—to say whether you think what I say is true or false.” They all thought that what I said was marvelously true.
“So you agree that the pleasant is good, the painful bad. I beg indulgence of Prodicus who distinguishes among words; for whether you call it ‘pleasant’ [b] or ‘delightful’ or ‘enjoyable,’ or whatever way or manner you please to name this sort of thing, my excellent Prodicus, please respond to the intent of my question.” Prodicus, laughing, agreed, as did the others.
“Well, then, men, what about this? Are not all actions leading toward living painlessly and pleasantly honorable and beneficial? And isn’t honorable activity good and beneficial?”
They agreed.
“Then if the pleasant is the good, no one who knows or believes there [c] is something else better than what he is doing, something possible, will go on doing what he had been doing when he could be doing what is better. To give in to oneself is nothing other than ignorance, and to control oneself is nothing other than wisdom.”
They all agreed.
“Well, then, do you say that ignorance is to have a false belief and to be deceived about matters of importance?”
They all agreed on this.
“Now, no one goes willingly toward the bad or what he believes to be [d] bad; neither is it in human nature, so it seems, to want to go toward what one believes to be bad instead of to the good. And when he is forced to choose between one of two bad things, no one will choose the greater if he is able to choose the lesser.”
They agreed with all of that too.
“Well, then, is there something you call dread or fear? And I address this to you, Prodicus. I say that whether you call it fear or dread, it is an expectation of something bad.”
Protagoras and Hippias thought that this was true of both dread and [e] fear, but Prodicus thought it applied to dread, but not to fear.
“Well, it does not really matter, Prodicus. This is the point. If what I have said up to now is true, then would anyone be willing to go toward what he dreads, when he can go toward what he does not? Or is this impossible from what we have agreed? For it was agreed that what one fears one holds to be bad; no one goes toward those things which he holds to be bad, or chooses those things willingly.”
They all agreed.
[359]
“Well, Prodicus and Hippias, with this established, let Protagoras defend for us the truth of his first answer. I don’t mean his very first answer, for then he said that while there are five parts of virtue, none is like any other, but each one has its own unique power or function. I’m not talking about this now, but about what he said later. For later he said that four of them [b] are very similar to each other, but one differs very much from the others, namely courage. And he said that I would know this by the following evidence: ‘You will find, Socrates, many people who are extremely impious, unjust, intemperate, and ignorant, and yet exceptionally courageous; by this you will recognize that courage differs very much from all the other parts of virtue.’ I was very surprised at his answer then, and even more so now that I have gone over these things with you. I asked him then if he said that the courageous were confident. And he said, ‘Yes, and ready [c] for action too.’ Do you remember giving this answer?”
He said he did.
“Well, then, tell us, for what actions are the courageous ready? The same actions as the cowardly?”
“No.”
“Different actions?”
“Yes.”
“Do the cowardly go forward to things which inspire confidence, and the courageous toward things to be feared?”
“So it is said by most people.”
[d] “Right, but I am not asking that. Rather, what do
you
say the courageous go boldly toward: toward things to be feared, believing them to be fearsome, or toward things not to be feared?”
“By what you have just said, the former is impossible.”
“Right again; so, if our demonstration has been correct, then no one goes toward those things he considers to be fearsome, since not to be in control of oneself was found to be ignorance.”
He agreed.
[e] “But all people, both the courageous and the cowardly, go toward that about which they are confident; both the cowardly and the courageous go toward the same things.”
“But, Socrates, what the cowardly go toward is completely opposite to what the courageous go toward. For example, the courageous are willing to go to war, but the cowardly are not.”
“Is going to war honorable or is it disgraceful?”
“Honorable.”
“Then, if it is honorable, we have agreed before, it is also good, for we agreed that all honorable actions were good.”
“Very true, and I always believed this.”
[360]
“And rightly; but who would you say are not willing to go to war, war being honorable and good?”
“The cowardly.”
“If a thing is noble and good, is it also pleasant?”
“That was definitely agreed upon.”
“So, the cowardly, with full knowledge, are not willing to go toward the more honorable, the better, and more pleasant?”
“If we agree to that, we will undermine what we agreed on earlier.”
“What about the courageous man: Does he go toward the more honorable, the better, and more pleasant?”
“We must agree to that.”
“So, generally, when the courageous fear, their fear is not disgraceful; nor when they are confident is their confidence disgraceful.”
[b] “True.”
“If not disgraceful, is it honorable?”
He agreed.
“If honorable, then also good?”
“Yes.”
“Whereas the fear and confidence of the cowardly, the foolhardy, and madmen are disgraceful?”
He agreed.
“Is their confidence disgraceful and bad for any reason other than ignorance and stupidity?”
“No, it isn’t.” [c]
“Now then; that through which cowardly people are cowardly, do you call it cowardice or courage?”
“Cowardice.”
“And aren’t cowards shown to be so through their ignorance of what is to be feared?”
“Absolutely.”
“So they are cowards because of that ignorance?”
He agreed.
“You agreed that it is through cowardice that they are cowards?”
He said he did.
“So, can we conclude that cowardice is ignorance of what is and is not to be feared?”
He nodded.
“Now, courage is the opposite of cowardice.” [d]
He said yes.
“So then, wisdom about what is and is not to be feared is the opposite of this ignorance?”
He nodded again.
“And this ignorance is cowardice?”
He nodded again, very reluctantly.
“So the wisdom about what is and is not to be feared is courage and is the opposite of this ignorance?”
He would not even nod at this; he remained silent.
And I said, “What’s this, Protagoras? Will you not say yes or no to my question?”
“Answer it yourself.”
“I have only one more question to ask you. Do you still believe, as you [e] did at first, that some men are extremely ignorant and yet still very courageous?”
“I think that you just want to win the argument, Socrates, and that is why you are forcing me to answer. So I will gratify you and say that, on the basis of what we have agreed upon, it seems to me to be impossible.”
“I have no other reason for asking these things than my desire to answer these questions about virtue, especially what virtue is in itself. For I know
[361]
that if we could get clear on that, then we would be able to settle the question about which we both have had much to say, I—that virtue cannot be taught, you—that it can.
“It seems to me that our discussion has turned on us, and if it had a voice of its own, it would say, mockingly, ‘Socrates and Protagoras, how ridiculous you are, both of you. Socrates, you said earlier that virtue [b] cannot be taught, but now you are arguing the very opposite and have attempted to show that everything is knowledge—justice, temperance, courage—in which case, virtue would appear to be eminently teachable. On the other hand, if virtue is anything other than knowledge, as Protagoras has been trying to say, then it would clearly be unteachable. But, if it turns out to be wholly knowledge, as you now urge, Socrates, it would be very surprising indeed if virtue could not be taught. Now, Protagoras maintained at first [c] that it could be taught, but now he thinks the opposite, urging that hardly any of the virtues turn out to be knowledge. On that view, virtue could hardly be taught at all.’
“Now, Protagoras, seeing that we have gotten this topsy-turvy and [d] terribly confused, I am most eager to clear it all up, and I would like us, having come this far, to continue until we come through to what virtue is in itself, and then to return to inquire about whether it can or cannot be taught, so that Epimetheus might not frustrate us a second time in this inquiry, as he neglected us in the distribution of powers and abilities in your story. I liked the Prometheus character in your story better than Epimetheus. Since I take promethean forethought over my life as a whole, I pay attention to these things, and if you are willing, as I said at the beginning, I would be pleased to investigate them along with you.”
[e] “Socrates, I commend your enthusiasm and the way you find your way through an argument. I really don’t think I am a bad man, certainly the last man to harbor ill will. Indeed, I have told many people that I admire you more than anyone I have met, certainly more than anyone in your generation. And I say that I would not be surprised if you gain among men high repute for wisdom. We will examine these things later, whenever you wish; now it is time to turn our attention elsewhere.”
[362]
“That is what we should do, if it seems right to you. It is long since time for me to keep that appointment I mentioned. I stayed only as a favor to our noble colleague Callias.”
Our conversation was over, and so we left.
1
. Alcibiades (c. 450–404
B.C.
), Athenian general, noted in his youth for his beauty and intellectual promise. See his encomium of Socrates in
Symposium
215a ff. for more details on their relationship, as Plato understood it.
2
.
Iliad
xxiv.348;
Odyssey
x.279.
3
. See below, 336b and 347b.
4
. This Hippocrates is known to us only from this one dialogue.
5
. For Charmides (d. 403
B.C.
), see the
Charmides
and its Introductory Note.
6
.
Odyssey
xi.601. Socrates’ reference below to “seeing Tantalus” is another quotation from the same passage, in which Odysseus reports what he saw in his descent into the underworld.
7
. Eryximachus is a doctor; he appears in Plato’s
Symposium
, as does his friend Phaedrus, on whom see also the dialogue
Phaedrus
.
8
. Pausanias and Agathon are among those who give speeches in praise of love in the
Symposium
.
9
. The first of these is unknown, the second was later an Athenian general in the Peloponnesian War.
10
. For Critias (c. 460–403) see the
Charmides
and its Introductory Note.
11
. The great Athenian statesman and general (c. 495–429).
12
. Historical persons, conventional paradigms of viciousness.
13
. The Greek term is
s
ō
phrosun
ē
. For Plato,
s
ō
phrosun
ē
was a complex virtue involving self-control and moderation of the physical appetites, as well as good sense and self-knowledge.
14
. The Greek term is
s
ō
phronein
, a verb related to the noun
s
ō
phrosun
ē
(temperance).
15
.
Iliad
xxi.308.
16
.
Works and Days
289, 291–92.
17
. The first line of Simonides’ ode, “For a man to become good truly is hard,” is in fact introduced with a contrasting particle, not translated here. Socrates does not quote the continuation (and the lines have not survived elsewhere), so we do not know what sort of contrast was intended.
18
.
Iliad
x.224.
19
. The Greek translated “for the sake of” here is
anti
: it might alternatively be translated “in exchange for.”
Translated by Donald J. Zeyl. Text: E. R. Dodds, Oxford (1959).
Gorgias was a famous teacher of oratory and the author of oratorical display pieces. He had served his native Leontini in Greek Sicily on embassies, including one to Athens in 427
B.C.
,
when his artistically elaborate prose style made a great and lasting impression. We loosely consider him a ‘sophist’, like the intellectuals whom Plato gathers together at Callias’ house in
Protagoras,
but Plato pointedly reports Gorgias’ teaching as restricted to the art of public speaking: he did not offer to instruct young people in ‘virtue’—the qualities, whatever they were, that made a good person overall and a good citizen. Nonetheless, as Plato also makes clear, he praised so highly the speaking abilities that his own teaching imparted that one could pardon ambitious young Athenians like Callicles if they thought that, by learning oratory from him, they would know everything a man needs in order to secure for himself the best life possible. And, as we learn from
Meno,
he did have striking things to say about the nature of, and differences between, virtue in men and women, old persons and young, and so on. So in the end not much separates him from the other itinerant teachers that, with him, we classify as ‘sophists’.
Socrates begins by skeptically seeking clarification from the elderly, respected Gorgias about the nature and power of his ‘craft’—the skill at persuading people massed in assemblies and juries about what is good and what is right. Gorgias is trapped in a contradiction when he admits that the true, skilled orator must
know
(and not merely speak persuasively on) his most particular subjects—right and wrong, justice and injustice in the lawcourts. When Gorgias bows out, a fellow rhetorician takes over his side of the argument—the young and rambunctious Polus, a real person. His name means ‘colt’—almost too good to be true! Polus is intoxicated with the thought that rhetoric gives the power to do what one pleases, even injustice if that suits the situation. Against him, Socrates insists that in fact it is better to suffer injustice than to do it—and, unable to deny this consistently, Polus in his turn falls to Socrates’ dialectic. In the remainder of the dialogue—more than half—Socrates contends with Callicles, apparently also a real person, though we hear nothing about him outside this dialogue. The discussion develops into a contentious and sometimes bitter dispute about which way of life is best—the selfish, domineering, pleasure- seeking one that Callicles associates with his own unbounded admiration for rhetorical skill, or the philosophical life that Socrates champions, committed to the objective existence of justice and the other virtues and devoted to learning about and living in accordance with them. Socrates struggles and struggles to undermine Callicles’ views. He tries to bring Callicles to admit that some of his own deepest convictions commit him to agreeing with Socrates: Socrates thinks he knows better than Callicles what Callicles
really
believes. In giving vent to strongly worded assertions of his own moral commitments, he seems to adopt a conception of ‘irrational’ desires like that of
Republic
IV, incompatible with the views he works with in the other ‘Socratic’ dialogues. Callicles, though personally well disposed, is equally vehement and contemptuous in rejecting Socrates’ outlook—he refuses to succumb to the toils of Socratic logic. If the methods of argument Socrates employs here produce at best an uneasy standoff, the different methods of
Republic
II–IX may seem to Plato to offer a resolution.