Sophistry and Political Philosophy : Protagoras' Challenge to Socrates 9780226394312, 9780226639697, 9780226394282

Citation preview

sophistry and political philosophy

sophistry and political philosophy

Protagoras’ Challenge to Socrates

robert c. bartlett

the university of chicago press chicago and london

robert c. bartlett is the Behrakis Professor in Hellenic Political Studies at Boston College. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637 The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London © 2016 by The University of Chicago All rights reserved. Published 2016. Printed in the United States of America 25  24  23  22  21  20  19  18  17  16   1  2  3  4  5 isbn-­13: 978-­0-­226-­39428-­2 (cloth) isbn-­13: 978-­0-­226-­39431-­2 (e-­book) doi: 10.7208/chicago/9780226394312.001.0001 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Bartlett, Robert C., 1964–author. Title: Sophistry and political philosophy : Protagoras’ challenge to Socrates / Robert C. Bartlett. Description: Chicago : The University of Chicago Press, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: lccn 2016002819| isbn 9780226394282 (cloth : alk. paper) | isbn 9780226394312 (e-book) Subjects: lcsh: Plato. Protagoras. | Plato. Theaetetus. | Sophists (Greek philosophy) | Protagoras. | Political science—Philosophy. | Philosophy, Ancient. Classification: lcc b382 .b37 2016 | ddc 184—dc23 lc record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016002819 ♾ This paper meets the requirements of ansi/niso z39.48-­1992 (Permanence of Paper).

contents

Introduction

1

Part One: On the Protagoras Chapter One

7

Chapter Two

40

Chapter Three

73

Part Two: On the  Theaetetus (142a1–­183c7) Chapter Four

109

Chapter Five

157

Conclusion

207

Notes References Index

225 237 243

v

introduction

P

olitical philosophy appears to have been supplanted in our time by the study of the history of political philosophy, on the one hand, and by self-­ described sophistry, on the other.1 The laborious cataloguing of the thought of past masters or the creation of new discourses (“narratives”) that support a given moral-­political agenda but expressly reject any claim to have discovered the eternal truth or to rest on any rock-­solid “metaphysical” founda­ tion—­these seem to be the only serious alternatives available at present to a student of political thought. And sophistry may well be the weightier of them, for its practitioners—­antifoundationalists, postmodernists of various stripes—­are still sufficiently moved by their concern for the eternal truth to acknowledge fully and frankly that they can discern no such thing in the world. As for the historians, while understandably absorbed by the task of arriving at accurate interpretations of the books under study, they too often fail to ask whether those books are, as they claim to be, true. The presence, and the challenge, of sophistry in our time indicates the need to understand it as precisely as possible. This difficult task is made some­ what easier by the fact that it is hardly a newcomer to the world. In addition to its appearance at the senescence of political philosophy, sophistry was also present at its birth or in its youth. This is so at least inasmuch as Socrates is famous, in the pages of Xenophon and Plato, for his confrontations with the sophists; and it is Socrates who is credited with founding what has come to be called “political philosophy,” because he was the first to “have called philosophy down from the heaven and placed it in the cities and introduced it also into households and compelled it to inquire into life and mores and things good and bad” (Cicero Tusculan Disputations 5.4.10–­11). What is more, sophistry was subjected in the time of Socrates to painstaking analysis, above all by Plato; the peculiar accomplishment of Socrates, his altogether 1

2

introduction

new approach to understanding moral and political life, is contrasted in the dialogues of Plato not least with the activity of the sophists. Since Plato chose never to present the mature Socrates in conversation with another philosopher, Socrates’ encounters with the sophists are the closest thing we have to his engagement with his equals or peers, as distinguished from more or less promising youths. To begin to grapple with the phenomenon of sophistry, then, we put ourselves entirely under Plato’s tutelage. This means, among other things, that we do not seek to uncover the “real” or “historical” practice of sophistry apart from the information Plato himself thought it fit for us to have. For even if Plato should prove to have an ax to grind against sophistry or to be “biased,” we could not judge the worth of his case, for or against, without first seeing it as he intended it. There are six Platonic writings that most obviously investigate sophists or sophistry and that would have to be treated in a comprehensive account of Plato’s understanding of sophistry: Protagoras, Theaetetus, Sophist, Hippias Major, Hippias Minor, and Euthydemus. Because a complete interpretation of all of these dialogues is well beyond the scope of the present study, which is necessarily introductory, some principle of selection is needed. A survey of the evidence suggests that, according to Plato, Protagoras is the sophist, at once the greatest and the most revealing embodiment of the type. The Euthydemus presents the comic displays of the brothers Dionysodorus and Euthydemus that are so outrageous as to be, at least to begin with, an obstacle rather than an aid to taking sophistry seriously. As for Hippias, who compares himself—­favorably—­to Protagoras as a sophist (Greater Hippias 282d6–­e8), he proves to be a much less serious thinker than Protagoras; he is in his own way a comic figure. The Sophist is by no means a comedy, but it presents the Eleatic Stranger’s thoughts on the matter of sophistry, as distinguished from those of Socrates, and no sophist properly speaking appears there. The Sophist is in any event the sequel to the Theaetetus and so requires prior knowledge of it. The Theaetetus does deserve our attention, for it turns out that approximately half of it is devoted to Protagoras’ understanding of knowledge. It is thus of fundamental importance. But it too is a sort of sequel: it is set well after and presupposes familiarity with the Protagoras, which one may call the Platonic dialogue treating the sophist. The present study, then, offers an exegesis of the whole of the Protagoras 2 before turning to consider the Theaetetus,3 from the beginning of it through to the conclusion of its extended consideration of the thought, the logos, of Protagoras (Theaetetus 142a1–­183c7). Hence the present study is itself an exercise in the history of political philosophy. Yet it is undertaken in the hope that it may contribute not only to an adequate assessment of

introduction

3

ancient sophistry but also, and by way of contrast, to a correct understanding of the achievement of Socrates or of the meaning of “political philosophy” as founded by him. Only once we achieve such an understanding could we consider eventually the possibility of political philosophy today. Per­haps the greatest observer of modern times, Friedrich Nietzsche, has discerned a kinship between the radical sophistry of antiquity and the moral-­epistemological relativism so characteristic of our era, which has evidently rendered impossible the practice of political philosophy understood as the attempt to grasp the (eternal) truths of moral-­political life or its permanent questions. Nietzsche has discerned, in other words, a link between our reigning categories of thought and ancient sophistry as exemplified especially by Protagoras: “Our contemporary way of thinking is to a great extent Heraclitean, Democritean, and Protagorean: it suffices to say it is Protagorean, because Protagoras represented a synthesis of Heraclitus and Democritus” (Nietz­sche, Will to Power #428 = Nietzsche 1968, 233). Because we are not in a position to grasp this kinship fully, the present study is limited to analyzing, as a necessary preliminary thereto, the evidence judged by Plato to be most important concerning Protagoras, “[b]y far the most famous” sophist of antiquity (Kerferd 1981, 42) and “the senior and most celebrated member of the profession” (Barney 2006, 78).4 This preliminary task is essential in part because the evidence in question has generally been treated either condescendingly or naïvely. It is not enough to say, for example, that sophistic teaching aimed, “[b]y its very principle,” at “practical success” or at opening “careers in public speaking” to all; we suspect that we are not yet at the heart of things if the “intellectual content” of ancient sophistry is understood to have consisted in “a wisdom and experience born of the art of properly conducting one’s thoughts”—­that is, of “knowing how, by means of arguments, to analyze a situation” (Romilly 1988, 23–­ 24). More helpful, once again, is the trenchant observation of Nietzsche in opposition to the scholar most responsible for the modern rehabilitation of sophistry, George Grote: “[T]he sophists verge upon the first critique of morality, the first insight into morality:—­they juxtapose the multiplicity (the geographical relativity) of the moral value judgments;—­they let it be known that every morality can be dialectically justified; i.e., they divine that all attempts to give reasons for morality are necessarily sophistical” (Will to Power #428, emphasis in original).5 This study seeks to uncover what lies at the heart of Protagoras’ teaching in both its moral-­political and its theoretical concerns. It seeks to uncover also what Socrates, in responding to that teaching, begins to reveal of his own understanding and characteristic activity. However much respect

4

introduction

each man proves to have for the other—­and they clearly do respect one an­ other—­they lead manifestly different lives. In the case of thinkers of so high a rank, the difference in ways of life is a sure indication of a difference also in the understanding of things of fundamental importance (consider Aris­ totle Metaphysics 1004b24–­25 and context). Our inquiry into sophistry, then, may help us begin to understand the phenomenon of philosophy as Socrates lived it. h Portions of the interpretation offered here found their first expression in two previously published writings: “Political Philosophy and Sophistry: An Introduction to Plato’s Protagoras” (in American Journal of Political Science 47 [4; October 2003]: 612–­24) and “Sophistry as a Way of Life” (in Political Philosophy Cross-­Examined, ed. Thomas L. Pangle and J. Harvey Lomax [New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013], pp. 5–­16). I am grateful to the Earhart Foundation and its officers, especially Montgomery Brown, for a summer research grant that permitted me the freedom to complete this study. I am indebted to my colleagues at Boston College—­among them Alice Behnegar, Nasser Behnegar, Robert Faulkner, Christopher Kelly, and Susan Shell—­for their invaluable aid and encouragement. With his customary good grace and generosity, Eric Buzzetti read the manuscript and made many helpful suggestions. Finally, I thank the Behrakis family for their philanthropic generosity that has made it possible for me to hold the Behrakis Professorship in Hellenic Political Studies at Boston College.

pa r t o n e

On the Protagoras

chapter one

Introduction to the Protagoras

O

f the thirty-­five dialogues that have been handed down to us as Plato’s, the overwhelming majority—­thirty—­are performed dialogues in which two or more characters address each other directly, as in the text of a play. The remaining five dialogues are narrated either by Socrates (Republic, Lysis, Lovers, and Charmides) or by another (Parmenides). Yet this simple division into performed and narrated is misleading. Some of the so-­called performed dialogues, in fact, feature only a performed beginning or frame that gives way to the narration of a single character, a sort of hybrid case. The Protagoras is one of these hybrids—­as is, in a somewhat different way, the trilogy of which the Theaetetus forms the first part: the performed section with which the Theaetetus begins soon gives way to the narration of a single character, who reads aloud what has been written down as a series of dialogic exchanges in direct discourse.1 (The other “hybrids” are Sym­ posium, Euthydemus, and Phaedo, and perhaps also the Menexenus.) The first and most obvious puzzle that confronts the reader of the Protagoras is surely this: what is Plato’s intention in adding this brief performed section to Socrates’ extensive narration of the conversation he has just had—­a conversation that is manifestly the core of the Protagoras and in comparison with which the opening exchanges may well seem slight or trivial? This brief scene, which takes place, as it were, before our very eyes, must add to our understanding of the long and complex conversation that succeeds it. In what sense, then, is this the appropriate and even necessary preface to the conversation that follows? The opening dialogue features Socrates speaking directly to a man whose name we never learn (he is identified only by the vague title “comrade” or “companion” [hetairos]), together with a group of indeterminate size whose 7

8

chapter one

members are otherwise unidentified—­except, of course, for the fact that they are in the company of the comrade, include in their number someone’s slave (310a3–­4), and cannot include the twenty people who will be mentioned by name as being present at the home of Callias.2 The setting of the dialogue is unclear. It is presumably a more or less public place accessible to a passerby like Socrates but one that nonetheless permits Socrates to narrate undisturbed a story that must have taken a good while to convey. The retelling of the main events of the dialogue takes place in a less private or secluded—­indeed, closely guarded—­place than did the events themselves, in the private home of Callias (311a1–­2, 314c3 and following). In this way, the retelling is a more public act than the original conversation and even takes a step in the direction of publicity. It is not Socrates but rather the comrade who initiates the conversation. Now clearly alone (compare 362a4), Socrates comes across the group apparently by chance: “From where, Socrates, are you making your appearance?” (309a1; consider also 310a2–­3). If the “comrade” is not quite a “friend” of Socrates, with the closeness that the latter term may imply (consider Re­ public 450d10–­11), he is nonetheless friendly toward him and even regards himself as being on strikingly familiar terms with Socrates: the comrade does not hesitate to speak of a quite personal matter “just between ourselves” (309a4), the presence of the others notwithstanding. And after posing his initial question to Socrates, he does not wait for an answer, because he has the strong hunch that Socrates must be returning “from the hunt after Alcibiades in his bloom” (309a1–­2). On the one hand, the comrade regards this hunt as perfectly understandable—­when he himself saw Alcibiades just the other day, he appeared to him a handsome man indeed (consider also 309c2–­10)—­but, on the other hand, Socrates really should desist from his pursuit now that Alcibiades is precisely a man and no longer a boy: he is already getting a full beard! The comrade thus assumes that Socrates’ interest in Alcibiades has nothing to do with either the heart or the head. Here we may pause to note that this indication of Alcibiades’ approximate age (together with several other clues) permits one to date the action of the dialogue to 433–­432 BCE, when Socrates would have been thirty-­six or so.3 And this means, in turn, that the Protagoras offers us one of the ear­ liest portraits of Socrates the political philosopher given to us by Plato (con­ sider 314b5; 317c1–­3), with only the Alcibiades I and Alcibiades II clearly having an earlier dramatic date.4 To be sure, the narrator of the Parmen­ ides presents to us a Socrates who was “very young” (127c5)—­perhaps not twenty—­but the narration proper occurs many years later and, in any case, sets forth a Socrates before he had made his famous “turn” from the inquiry

on the protagoras

9

into nature to the examination of the human concerns characteristic of moral and political life. That is, as Socrates himself indicates in the Phaedo, which takes place on the day of his execution and is the last of the sequence of dialogues that begins with the Theaetetus, there came a time when his extraordinary interest in the inquiry concerning nature, characteristic of his youth, gave way to—­or, at any rate, took the form of—­a new interest in “the speeches.” This turn to “the speeches,” or to certain opinions his fellow human beings expressed in speech, is fully compatible with the most striking features of the portrait of Socrates that we receive in all or almost all the dialogues of Plato—­that of a man who, because he knows that he himself knows nothing, repeatedly asks others, in the marketplace and elsewhere, the “what is . . . ?” questions for which he became, in time, notorious (e.g., Meno 79e7–­80b7). If he himself did not know the answers to those questions, Socrates was nonetheless able to demonstrate to himself and to at least some of his interlocutors that they too were ignorant about the character of virtue and nobility, for example, to which the “what is . . . ?” questions typically point. All this amounts to saying that Socrates’ “turn” from natural philosophy or science to what has come to be called moral and political philosophy—­ to the most important of the “human things” as expressed in our guiding opin­ions about them—­seems to have taken place at some point prior to the Protagoras and perhaps very shortly before it. What may be even more impor­ tant for the present purpose, this new interest in “the speeches” goes together with, and may well be the chief motive behind, his keen interest in the young—­in Alcibiades above all, at least early on, and also in Charmides at about this time (consider Charmides 153a1–­2: the conversation recorded there takes place around 429 BCE, i.e., not long after the one presented in the Protagoras; also Protagoras 315a1–­2).5 As we learn from the Alcibi­ ades I and II, Socrates has indeed been pursuing, and testing and unsettling, Alcibiades—­so much so that his interest in the young man is evidently now a byword among some in Athens: “Or is it indeed clear that you’re back from the hunt for Alcibiades in his bloom?” And to look ahead a little, young Hippocrates, whom Socrates regards as no more than a “comrade” (313b1, c8), feels remarkably chummy with Socrates; for example, he assumes that Socrates has a lively interest in the details of his domestic affairs (310c3–­5), and he feels not the slightest compunction in waking Socrates up before dawn to get him to introduce him to Protagoras, “who alone is wise” (310d5–­6). The comrade assumes that Socrates’ interest in Alcibiades accords with the conventional Greek practice, and it is on the basis of this convention

10

chapter one

that he chides Socrates as he does. Yet in the Symposium, which is the next (the fourth) and final installment in the story of Socrates’ relations with Al­ cibiades, Plato permits us to see the falsity of the comrade’s assumption. There, the mature Alcibiades confesses, in a state likely to induce frankness, that it was he who came to pursue Socrates and that Socrates was amazingly, gallingly indifferent to his charms. At the peak of that would­be courtship, in fact, when Alcibiades finally managed to be together with Socrates, Socrates behaved toward Alcibiades as a father or elder brother would have done (Symposium 219c6–­d2 and context). Yet in the Protagoras, Socrates declines to make the obvious rejoinder to the comrade’s chastisement or the assumption underlying it. Far from asserting outright that his pursuit has nothing whatsoever to do with the usual Greek convention, Socrates implicitly grants that it does (by failing to deny it) but appeals for approval of such deviation as he is apparently guilty of to the convention­al authority, Homer: “Aren’t you a praiser of Homer, who asserted that the most gracious [gratifying] time of life belongs to one who is getting his beard, the age Alcibiades is now?” (309a6–­b2). And this appeal works. The comrade ceases to criticize Socrates (however playfully), and he alters not so much his understanding of the conventional rule as the facts to be judged in light of that rule: if the liaison is licit, then Alcibiades must be not a “man” but a “young fellow” or “lad” still (compare 309a3 with b4). And so the com­ rade proceeds to pursue his general line of inquiry by asking how things stand between the two as he understands them: lover and beloved, pursuer and pursued. Socrates is willing to leave this misunderstanding intact (compare Theaetetus 143e6–­144a1 and context), perhaps because the truth of the matter would be less intelligible, or less acceptable, to the comrade. To understand Plato’s intention in beginning the Protagoras as he has, we must try to take our measure of the comrade. On the one hand, the comrade is certainly friendly toward Socrates, he is excited to learn of Protagoras’ presence in Athens, and he is eager indeed to hear of Socrates’ just-­concluded get-­together with him. One might then say that the comrade not only is well disposed to the philosopher Socrates but also has, himself, a certain interest in things theoretical. He is surely no rube. On the other hand, the comrade’s principal interest in Socrates does not rise above the level of gossip, he is thoroughly conventional in his deference to Homer and in his preference for the homegrown over the foreign (309c9–­10), and he is the last here to learn of Protagoras’ stay in Athens, now in its third day: even young Hippocrates found out the news before he did (compare 309d3–­5 with 310b7–­c7).6 Since neither the comrade nor anyone else present ever interrupts the narrative or comments at its conclusion (compare Euthydemus 290e1–­293a9 and

on the protagoras

11

304c6–­307c4; Phaedo 88c8–­89a8), we cannot know whether the comrade’s initial enthusiasm survived or, more generally, what impression the narration of it made on him (or on the others). What, then, is the source of Socrates’ interest in recounting all that he does to the comrade and the rest? It is undeniable that he has such an interest. He readily agrees to relate the conversation he has just now had, a conversation that must have taken a good many hours to unfold and hence would take a good many more to repeat—­and this despite the fact that Socrates was denied a full night’s sleep and, for all we know, has yet to eat (310a8–­b3). And although it is indeed the comrade who begins the conversation, it is not impossible that Socrates saw the assembled group and headed over to them. There is certainly no indication that they needed to call him over or otherwise constrain him (compare, e.g., Charmides 153a6–­b6, to say nothing of Republic 327b2–­8; Protagoras 335c8–­d1); Socrates states that he would be “grateful” to the group if they should listen to him tell his story (310a5). Could it be that the very qualities of the comrade’s character one can detect in these opening pages make of him not indeed an excellent interlocutor, but an excellent audience? By way of contrast, Socrates shows no independent interest in seeing Protagoras—­whose arrival in Athens two days ago was, of course, known to Socrates immediately (310b8–­9 and context)—­ and is prompted to visit him only on account of Hippocrates’ reckless desire to study with the famed sophist. Yet, to repeat, Socrates clear­ly is willing to comply with the comrade’s request to relate the event thus brought about, and who would deny that Socrates could have skirted that request if he had wished to do so? We return to our question: what is the source of Socrates’ willingness to act as a dutiful reporter? A simple summary of the action of the Protagoras suggests an answer. Socrates accompanies young Hippocrates to the home of Callias, apparently to see about bringing student and sophist together but as it turns out to subject Protagoras to a devastating cross-­examination concerning the very subject—­virtue—­in which he claims expertise; in so doing, Socrates saps any desire of the young people present, Hippocrates among them, to pay handsomely for the privilege of studying with Protagoras. If we accept for now the common view that the sophists as a class are of dubious worth and even uprightness—­a view the Protagoras does much to promote—­we can conclude that, far from “corrupting the young,” Socrates saves them from corruption.7 As the mention of Alcibiades at the beginning of the dialogue also serves to underscore, the Protagoras is concerned from the very beginning with the question of the education or corruption of the young; the Protagoras is concerned in particular with Socrates’ involvement with

12

chapter one

young people, which seemed to have something “not quite right” about it (as the comrade in his way indicates) and which was, in any case, to bring him so much trouble, not least in his associations with Critias and Alcibiades (consider, e.g., Xenophon Memorabilia 1.2.12–­47; Alcibiades enters the home of Callias in the company of Critias: Protagoras 316a4–­5). Because the comrade is both well disposed toward Socrates and gossipy, he makes an excellent conduit to relate to others the story of Socrates’ intervention on behalf of Hippocrates that took the form of his spectacular combat with Protagoras before the (sons of the) cream of Athenian society, in which the aged and renowned sophist got very much the worst of it at the hands of the relatively young Socrates, whose prominence is clearly on the rise (361e2–­ 5) but far from its zenith. And in permitting us to witness this brief drama, Plato encourages us to reflect on the concern Socrates had for his reputation and the steps he sometimes took to secure a good (or better) one; the dialogue as a whole evinces some such concern (consider 343b7–­c3 and p. 213 below). In writing the Protagoras, of course, Plato also took an active part in carrying out that same task. The presence of the comrade can serve, then, as an aid to seeing Socrates’ (and Plato’s) concern with his reputation as a “corrupter” of the young. But it may also be an obstacle to our access to the conversation Socrates had with Protagoras. This is so for a simple reason. Socrates followed with the greatest consistency and self-­awareness the ordinary principle, adopted perhaps unawares by most of us most of the time, that it is only reasonable to adapt what we say and how we say it to the audience with whom we are speaking, whether we do so for the sake of those whom we are addressing or for our own sake or for some combination of these reasons. In any case, it is certain that Socrates spoke differently to different audiences, partly in the manner of that wily man to whom he will soon compare himself, Odysseus (Xenophon Memorabilia 4.6.13–­15 and Protagoras 315b9, c8 and context; consider also Republic 450d10–­11 as well as Protagoras’ sensitivity, from the very beginning, to the question of the audience to be addressed: Protagoras 316b3–­4). And Plato insists that we witness Socrates relating his adventure to the comrade—­that is, to a man of a certain character or type. We do no injustice to the man in saying that, on the basis of the evidence Plato chose to put before us, the comrade does not have the finest character and is not the most outstanding human type. It is only to be expected, then, that Socrates stressed some features of the conversation, and of the actions relating to it, likely to be of interest to or to make the greatest impression on the comrade, for example, while omitting some things altogether: on three occasions, Socrates notes that he made additional arguments, but he

on the protagoras

13

declines to state what they were (314c3–­7, 316a6–­7, 348b1), just as he declines also to convey Protagoras’ remarks in their entirety (e.g., 333d1–­3). And Socrates’ occasional editorial comments are, of course, directed in the first place to the comrade (see, above all, 339e3–­4)—­his impressions of Hippocrates’ courage and impetuosity (310d3), for example, and Protagoras’ dra­­ matic shifts of mood as his fortunes rise and fall in the course of the conversation (e.g., 333e2–­5 and 335a9–­b2). The Protagoras falls into three parts of uneven length. In the first and shortest, we witness Socrates addressing himself to the comrade and the others (309a1–­310a7); in the second and somewhat longer section, Socrates relates his early morning encounter with Hippocrates (310a8–­314e2); in the third and longest section by far, Socrates details his conversation with Protagoras in the home of Callias (314e3–­362a4). Thus the Hippocrates section is literally central. And just as one cannot understand Socrates’ interest in speaking to the comrade without having recourse to Hippocrates, so one cannot understand Socrates’ interest in speaking with Protagoras without again having recourse to Hippocrates: Socrates wishes to save Hippocrates from the clutches of the sophist, and he is eager to repeat and have repeated his success in so doing. Let us therefore turn to consider Hippocrates.

The Beginning of the Narration (310a8–­314c2) The events of the day begin in darkness. Only after his conversation with Socrates is well under way does young Hippocrates begin to appear in the light (310a8, 312a2–­3). It is tempting to say that Hippocrates knows that  he is in the dark and that he is, as a result, eager for enlightenment; it is tempt­ ing to say that he seeks out an education with such admirable zeal because he knows or senses that he is deeply in need of one. And so he turns to the one man among his acquaintances who seems to hold the key to an educa­tion worthy of the name: Socrates. It is truer to the facts to say that Hippocrates regards Socrates more as a friendly fellow than as an actual or potential teacher—­he surely does not regard him as wise (consider again 310d5–­6)—­ and he is pursuing less an education than the acquisition of a certain technical skill; he seeks not, in fact, “wisdom” but the capacity to “speak cleverly” (compare 310d5–­6 with 312d6–­7). Hippocrates knows of Protagoras only that “all praise the man” and (or inasmuch as) they assert that he is “wisest at speaking.” By his own admission, Hippocrates has neither seen nor heard the man, since he himself was too young the last time the great sophist visited Athens (on which occasion Protagoras evidently made Socrates’ acquaintance: 310e3–­5 and 361e2–­5). As is clear from his comic

14

chapter one

entrance into Socrates’ household before dawn—­the first words out of his mouth are the silliest question one can ask a sleeping man—­Hippocrates acts before he thinks; he is indeed “courageous [or manly] and impetuous,” as Socrates reports to the comrade. One might go so far as to say, in anticipation of what is to come, that Hippocrates has as his patron saint Epimetheus, the “After-­thinker,” for when pressed by Socrates to explain what precisely he hopes to learn from Protagoras the sophist, Hippocrates is soon at a loss; he cannot specify even the subject matter about which he might learn to speak cleverly (312e5–­6 and context). Hippocrates is less interested in the substance of the speeches he might make or in their content than he is in their effect: according to Socrates’ initial introduction of the boy to Protagoras, Hippocrates “desires to become renowned [ellogimos] in the city” (316b10–­c1). In the grip of a strong political ambition, then, Hippocrates seeks to use Socrates as a means to enter the circle of that wise or clever speaker Protagoras so as to gain the prized skill of persuasive speech making that is itself the prerequisite of an impressive political career in democratic Athens. Socrates’ tough rebuke of Hippocrates’ desire to learn from the sophist (311a8–­314b4) includes a broader and deeper statement about the dangers inherent in the search for an education, for the “learnings” by which a soul is reared or nourished (313c6–­7), not just from a Protagoras but also “from anyone else whatever” (313e5). In contrast to various foods or drinks that are sold on the promise that they will improve the body—­substances that may be carried off in some container other than the body—­the learning we take in in the course of an education can be held in nothing other than the soul itself, at which point we have already been helped or harmed thereby. Nowhere in this account of the risks of seeking an education does Socrates contend that the goodness or badness, the usefulness (chr�ston) or worthlessness ( pon�ron), of the “learnings” we may acquire is dependent on their truth or falsity (313d2, d8, e3–­4). This fact is at least compatible with the thought that there may be truths that are useless or do some harm and falsehoods that are useful or convey some benefit. It is possible in principle, then, that Hippocrates might learn a truth or truths, from Protagoras or others, that would harm him, just as it is possible that he might acquire a falsehood that would do him some good. It is difficult in our time to take seriously this possibility, perhaps because we hold that the truth will set us free, for example, or—­to limit the consideration to its political dimension—­because we hold deeply to the conviction that there is a perfect harmony between the truth in its entirety and

on the protagoras

15

the requirements of a healthy political order: the discovery and perforce dissemination of every genuine insight into human beings and the world can only accrue to the advantage of each and hence of all together. Yet however much Socrates and Protagoras will prove to differ over fundamental things, they agree as to the riskiness involved in seeking an education—­although Socrates characteristically stresses here the danger posed to the student, Protagoras the danger posed to the teacher, that is, to Protagoras himself (316c5–­ 317c5). It is impossible to enter into the heart of the Protagoras without be­ coming at least open to the thought that an “enlightenment” deserving of the name may find its fullest expression in an individual only and not in a community (to set aside the danger posed by education to the individual as such). Hippocrates, by contrast, seems to assume that whatever he may learn from Protagoras will only redound to the benefit of his political career; he is unaware of the fact that there are students in the sophist’s circle—­indeed, the best of them—­who are studying so as to take up the art of sophistry themselves. “Antimoerus the Mendaean” may hail from Mende (in Chalcidice), but he is no longer of it; he is, like his itinerant teacher in whose train he takes his place, a perpetual foreigner. In fact, “the majority” of Protagoras’ students or followers are foreigners, “bewitched” by his Orpheus-­like voice into following him from town to town and hence into abandoning kith and kin. Because Socrates scarcely left Athens, he had no such effect abroad; but, as Xenophon indicates clearly enough, Socrates did have a comparable effect on young people in Athens (Cyropaedia 3.1.14 and 38–­40; consider also the limited reply to the charge leveled against Socrates at Memorabilia 1.2.9–­11). Part of the difficulty in acquiring an education must be that prospective students as such have not yet attained the very thing necessary to forming sound judgments about the soul and its needs or demands, and for that reason, they cannot be competent to judge the “educations” offered. And this difficulty seems to have no solution: such students cannot judge the worth of the very thing that claims to be what they need most of all. Socrates solves the difficulty in speech by exhorting Hippocrates to seek the advice of his father and brother (but compare 310c6–­d2) and “comrades” (313a6–­b5); so great a matter cannot be entrusted to the likes of Socra­tes and Hippocrates, on the grounds that they “are still too young to decide” it; they must instead examine it together with their “elders” (314b4–­6). Yet the Protagoras records no such examination or consultation in fact. It cannot even be said that, after they listen to Protagoras, Socrates and Hippocrates consult the other “wise men” present—­Hippias and Prodicus among them—­as to the merits of the sophist’s teaching (314b6–­c2). Socrates solves the problem of

16

chapter one

the acquisition of an education in deed by taking on himself the burdens of examining one would-­be teacher. As a matter of fact, then, Socrates supplants the place otherwise held by father and brother and comrades and elders (who seem, in Hippocrates’ case, either powerless or derelict). One reason is clear enough: to consult with elders or family members presupposes that they, in turn, have already received and fully benefited from the education that results in the health of the soul, and there is no reason to presuppose this. According to Socrates, one must be not ( just) a brother or elder but (also) a “skilled physician concerning the soul” in order to judge the worth of a purported education (313e2; consider Xenophon Memorabilia 1.2.51). Whereas in the case of the body, either physical trainer or physician may be of service—­that is, one who knows how to maintain the health of the healthy body or one who knows how to restore the sickly body to health—­in the case of the soul, Socrates mentions only the skilled physician: there is no counterpart to the body’s trainer in the case of the soul (compare 313d4 with 313e2). Could it be that every soul, prior to under­ going the kind of education Socrates regarded as sound, is in an unhealthy state and hence needs something more than the ministrations of a trainer—­ that we all, to begin with, lack health and so are in need of a “skilled phy­ sician concerning the soul”? In watching and listening to Socrates conduct his examination of Protagoras, we witness such a physician perform the work proper to him (consider Socrates’ choice of metaphor at 352a2–­b1). And this means that the Protagoras sketches at least some of the concerns or questions that a genuine education would have to include. Broad though it is, “the education of the young” seems to be the best theme from which to begin to compare the philosopher and the sophist, Socrates and Protagoras. In his attempt to elicit from Hippocrates his understanding of the nature of the sophist and the sophistic education, Socrates proposes examples of teachers that may serve as models for Hippocrates’ answer. One would go to Hippocrates the physician in order to become a physician oneself and to Polyclitus or Phidias to become a sculptor. What, then, is Protagoras, just as we call Phidias “sculptor” and—­Socrates now adds—­Homer “poet” (311b2–­ e4)? Of course, “sophist” is what we call the man, and Protagoras himself is perfectly frank about this fact (317b3–­6). But Hippocrates blushes at the mere thought of frequenting a sophist so as to become a sophist himself; swearing for the fourth but not the last time, Hippocrates admits that he would be ashamed to present himself as such to his fellow Greeks (compare 315a3–­5). Does Hippocrates’ blush suggest that even he regards something about the sophist and his way of life as less than respectable? If this is so,

on the protagoras

17

then it can hardly be the case that “all” praise the man (consider Meno 91b6–­92c5, noting in particular the mention of Protagoras at 91e3). Does Hippocrates thus assume that, in order to succeed in politics, one must learn something unsavory from unsavory types? Perhaps the blush means no more than this: because Protagoras is always a foreigner in foreign places, he has no political power, and Hippocrates recoils from the thought of becoming such a man himself on account of the ambitions he seeks to satisfy. The profession of sophist falls too far short of the highest goal to be a serious object of imitation, then, however much it may contribute to the attainment of that goal, and Hippocrates may be embarrassed by or ashamed at even the thought of settling in such a way. In any case, as Socrates himself immediately suggests, to Hippocrates’ manifest relief, there need be nothing strange about seeking out an education from a given teacher without wishing to become such a teacher oneself: we learn letters not so that we may become teachers of letters ourselves but so that we may read and write as befits a private person who is a free, a truly liberal, human being (312b4). It is undeniably the case that, if one seeks the instruction of a doctor in order to become a doctor, one does not seek the instruction of a Homer in order to become a poet. There is, then, a division, a difference in kind, in Socrates’ list of examples of teachers. Homer teaches something other and more than a specific skill that falls within the capacities of a free human being; he teaches instead the proper or highest uses of such freedom; he teaches the models of human excellence or the proper conduct of hu­ man life in its broad strokes and even in its details (see again 309a6–­b2). The sophists, then, or the best of them, may teach not a specific skill at all, on the model of the sculptor, but rather a comprehensive wisdom that equals or surpasses that of Homer. After all, according to the strange claim that Protagoras will soon make, Homer is, in fact, a crypto-­sophist. And, as we will see, precisely as a crypto-­sophist, Homer has been surpassed in point of “good counsel” by Protagoras himself (316d7 and context).

The Opening Scene at the Home of Callias (314c2–­316a7) As Socrates and Hippocrates arrive outside the home of Callias, the two complete a conversation the substance of which Socrates refrains from reporting to the comrade. Yet Callias’ remarkably feisty eunuch, standing sentry behind the door, does hear that conversation, and it leads him to conclude that they too are sophists: to the mostly ( but not entirely) uninformed, Socrates and the sophists are as one. There is a superficial kinship between

18

chapter one

philosopher and sophist. Socrates, of course, flatly denies the identification (314d8). And so, with the begrudging compliance of the eunuch, Socrates and Hippocrates finally win admittance. It is evidently much easier to enter the home of Socrates at all hours than it is to enter that of Callias at even a decent hour. Socrates appears, by comparison, to be an open book; he seems to have nothing to hide. Does Callias? Socrates surveys the scene inside for the comrade. He first sees Protag­ oras, who is strolling about the portico. Of the three sophists we meet, only Protagoras is in motion, for Hippias is seated and Prodicus is still in bed, wrapped up in many blankets. That Protagoras is in motion is perhaps fitting, because in the Theaetetus we are told, just after Socrates has introduced Protagoras’ account of knowledge for the first time, that learning is itself a sort of motion and that the things we can learn are acquired and preserved through precisely motion: in the Protagorean view of things, learning and motion somehow go together (Theaetetus 153b9–­11). And aged though he is—­he could be, he will tell us, the father of anyone present—­Protagoras is distinguished by a certain vigor, being in this respect at the furthest remove from Prodicus (consider also 317d10–­e2; Plutarch, Whether an Old Man Should Participate in Politics, §15 [791e]). Protagoras also enjoys the greatest number of followers, among whom are some very prominent Athenians: Callias, the host; the two sons of Pericles; and Plato’s uncle, Charmides. Protagoras is surrounded in the first place by an inner circle—­three students on one side, three on the other—­that is shadowed by a chorus constituted mostly of foreigners, together with a few native Athenians. Protagoras thus has a two-­part audience made up of those who are closest to him and those who follow at some remove. It is true that these latter are mostly the foreigners who, “bewitched” by Protagoras’ voice, follow him from city to city and who, one assumes, have had the advantage of listening to Protagoras many times. But that they are not especially close to the sophist is at least suggested by the fact that Antimoerus, whom we had occasion to mention earlier (“the one who is the most highly regarded of Protagoras’ students and is learning the art in order to become a sophist himself” [315a3–­5]) is not in the trailing chorus but rather in the inner circle of auditors. Might it be possible, then, to listen to Protagoras many times, with great pleasure or fascination, and yet still not enter the inner circle by, for example, becoming a sophist oneself? This possibility constitutes the first suggestion that Protagoras may speak differently to different audiences, or it may serve as an early indication of the specific “cleverness” characteristic of his speech. Neither of the other two sophists we meet is said to have a similarly divided audience.

on the protagoras

19

Socrates then sees—­“ ‘[a]fter him, I noticed’ ” (quoting Odyssey 11.601)— Hippias seated on a sort of elevated chair in the portico opposite. He has a smaller retinue that includes two sometime members of the Socratic circle broadly defined, Eryximachus and Phaedrus, as well as the Athenian Andron, who was to become one of the oligarchic Four Hundred that came to power for a short time in Athens in 411 BCE. (Consider also Gorgias 487c, where Andron is said to share Callicles’ view that philosophizing to the point of precision is harmful.) In the third and final place, Socrates sees Prodicus—­ “ ‘[a]nd I espied Tantalus too’ ” (quoting Odyssey 11.582)—­who is also with a mix of Athenians and foreigners, including Pausanias in the company of a quite young lad, one whose nature is, in Socrates’ opinion, noble and good and who is certainly handsome in appearance; Socrates believes his name to be Agathon, who will go on, years later, as we learn in the Symposium, to become a prize-­winning tragedian. After this description of the three sophists and their respective entourages, Socrates notes that Alcibiades enters—­ “Alcibiades the beautiful, as you say and as I am persuaded”—­together with Critias. Neither young man is in the company of a sophist, therefore, but neither could have come to the home of Callias with the knowledge or even the hope that Socrates would be there: absent Hippocrates’ fortuitous intervention, he would not be. As friendly as Alcibiades is with Socrates, and as much as he does indeed come to Socrates’ defense in the course of the day’s conversation (consider 336b7–­d5 and 347b3–­7 in the light of 309b6–­7), he is not in the company of Socrates as is Hippocrates. Alcibiades may even be looking about for sources of guidance other than Socrates at this point—­from the sophists, for example: when we next hear of him, he is in the company of Prodicus (317d10–­e2). There may be, then, a certain cooling, although certainly not a break, detectable already in their relations. If we take a bird’s-­eye view of the way Socrates describes the scene at Callias’ home, we see that, perhaps because he is distracted by the delightfully comic chorus that attends Protagoras, Socrates neither describes Protagoras himself (beyond his capacity to transfix people with his voice) nor indicates the subject matter of his discourse to which all are so attentive. Only in the case of Prodicus, a man whom Socrates describes as “altogether wise and divine,” does Socrates make known his (unfulfilled) desire to hear what is being said, for Prodicus’ deep voice was hard to hear distinctly (consider also 340e8–­341a4). And only in the second and therefore central case does Socrates state the subject matter of the discussions: Hippias is giving detailed responses to certain astronomical questions pertaining to “nature and the things aloft” (315c5–­6; note also the mention of astronomy at 318d9–­e4).

20

chapter one

By quoting from Odysseus’ remarks in the course of his famous passage through the House of Hades, the Greek underworld, Socrates implies that he himself is another Odysseus, that Hippias is akin to Heracles, that Prodicus is akin to Tantalus, and, more generally, that the house of Callias is akin to the House of Hades. This last implication does make some sense, according to the logic of the comedian: Callias and Hades enjoy the dubious distinction of having maintained a household with their respective wives and the mothers of their wives.8 As for Socrates, if he presents himself as the wily or versatile Odysseus who is eager to know the minds and ways of human beings, that is not so strange. The identifications of Hippias and Prodicus are harder to fathom. They may well be simply playful. Could it be that Prodicus, like Tantalus, was somehow admitted to the company of the gods as an equal, despite being merely a human being, and yet divulged the secrets of the gods on account of his “licentious [unchecked: akolaston] tongue” (Euripides Orestes 8–­10; consider Protagoras 341e6–­7 and context)? He surely seems to make no such divulgences here. As for the identification of Hippias with Heracles, this is harder still to explain. The proximity of the mentions of Prodicus-­Tantalus and Hippias-­Heracles does bring to mind Prodicus’ most famous speech, paraphrased at length in Xenophon’s Mem­ orabilia, in which Prodicus sets forth the choice that Heracles must face between Virtue and Vice and hence the two different ways of life represented by each. There Prodicus permits each of these—­both of them portrayed as beautiful or at least alluring women—­to make a case for her way of life. Vice argues that, whatever her enemies may say, her true name is Happiness, and she describes a path that promises the enjoyment of both pleasure and whatever is truly good or advantageous. Virtue, who does not so much as allude to what her enemies call her, promises in the first place the attainment of whatever is noble and august, through the dedication to gods, friends, city, and Greece itself. Only after she is interrupted by Vice (Memorabilia 2.1.29) does Virtue make clear that the path of nobility, while demanding labors and the sweat of the virtuous, promises also the enjoyment of the most pleasant sounds and sights and even the most pleasant enjoyment of food and drink and sleep—­in short, “the most blessed happiness” of the virtuous themselves (2.1.33, end). It seems that Heracles chooses the path of Virtue. At any rate, he was educated by her or learned something from her. In the two dialogues of Plato that bear Hippias’ name, it is clear that Hippias chose the path of virtue as Virtue herself describes it—­he is, for example, an outstanding diplomat in the service of his native city—­and this despite the fact that he remains manifestly confused about the meaning of, or the source of

on the protagoras

21

the deep attractiveness of, the nobility or beauty that is central to Virtue as she presents herself or to the life she advocates. In this unorthodox underworld that is the home of Callias, filled to capacity with sophists and their devotees and fiercely guarded by a eunuch, that exotic creature characteristic of barbarian lands, foreigners with their foreign ways mix easily with the best of Athenian society or its youth—­ including a budding poet (Agathon), two would-­be “tyrants” (Critias, Charmides), a future oligarch (Andron), a spectacular traitor to Athens (Alcibiades), and of course a philosopher who will die a convicted criminal. In the unconventional and even decadent atmosphere made possible by the profligacy of Callias (Apology of Socrates 20a4–­6 and Xenophon Symposium 1.5), it would seem that the hold of the merely homegrown laws or ways or customs (nomoi ) is loosened considerably (consider again 309c9–­10). Here, apparently, one can enjoy the freedom or license necessary to dis­cuss openly the gravest matters, including “the things aloft” with their fixed “nature”: here the things aloft are assumed to be not divine, not willful gods, but natural things—­dumb stones and dirt, for example (Apology of Socrates 26d1–­5 and context; on the connection between “astronomy” and “atheism,” see Laws 967a1–­5). And here one can openly venture the view, as Hippias does later on, that those present are governed and united by nature—­the wise, as such, constitute a distinct community by nature—­and not at all by the “tyrant” nomos (337c6–­e2).

Meeting Protagoras The “sophisticated” atmosphere we are thus introduced to makes all the more striking both the caution with which Protagoras speaks and the delicacy, marked by a Promethean “forethought,” with which Socrates first approaches him ( prom�th�i: 316c5; 318d5–­7). Socrates does so in the company of Hippocrates, of course, and perhaps with Alcibiades and Critias too, who have just entered behind them (316a3–­b1: the “we” is ambiguous); Callias, the host, who forms a part of Protagoras’ chorus (314e5), is listening to at least the end of their opening exchanges (consider 317d5–­6). In any case, even in what is a private gathering, if ultimately a fairly sizeable one, Protagoras’ first concern is with the nature of the audience he is to address (316b3–­4; compare 317c6–­d1): do Socrates and Hippocrates wish to speak to him alone or together with the others? When Socrates replies that to them it makes no difference, Protagoras himself decides in effect to turn the conversation into a grand display before both his competitors (Hippias and

22

chapter one

Prodicus) and the extraordinarily attractive potential students (the two sons of Pericles) (consider 328c6–­d2)! But before Protagoras makes this fateful decision, he asks why it is that Socrates and Hippocrates have come to see him. At this, Socrates offers what proves to be the first of his two introductions of Hippocrates. In this initial one, intended chiefly for Protagoras’ ears, Socrates indicates these facts about the boy: he is an Athenian of a great and prosperous or fortunate (eudaimonos: 316b9) house; opinion has it that his nature is on par with the natures of his age-­mates; and, in Socrates’ own opinion, Hippocrates desires to become noteworthy in the city. In short, Socrates declines to vouch for the boy’s nature, except for the political ambitions that guide him, and he affirms that he is rich—­rich enough, surely, to pay Protagoras’ impressive fees. It must seem to Protagoras that Socrates has kindly delivered up a “promising” student on a silver platter. Protagoras does not reply directly to any of these facts. In particular, he seems not at all concerned with the nature of Hippocrates or therefore his potential as a student. At any rate, when Socrates thus gives Protagoras this opening to speak, Protagoras uses it, still out of earshot of the others, to offer some reflections on the great danger to which his practice of sophistry subjects him and, above all, on the difference between him and his pre­ decessors in grappling with that danger. It would be hard to overstate the importance of these reflections for understanding both the man and the dialogue that bears his name. Whereas all previous sophists endeavored to conceal, by means of one sort of “cloak” ( prosch�ma: 316d6) or another, the very fact that they were sophists, Protagoras is perfectly open about his being a sophist. Yet Hippias and Prodicus—­to give just the two most obvious examples—­also seem to be known as sophists. That cat evidently leapt out of the bag some time ago. Perhaps, then, Protagoras stands out as the innovator in just this regard: he was evidently the first to call himself a sophist and to have this fact broadcast to “all the Greeks,” while the others still concealed their art of sophistry, and he was certainly the first to charge a fee for the service he provides, as Socrates himself confirms (see 348e6–­349a4). Thus, by what must be a happy coincidence, “Protagoras” was aptly named: “first to speak out.” In this way, Protagoras establishes his distance from all the earlier sophists, with their clumsy and even counterproductive efforts at concealment. At best, those efforts were effective only with “the many” (hoi polloi) who “perceive as it were nothing” (317a4–­5), as distinguished from the powerful few among human beings, who discovered not only the covert practice of sophistry but therewith also the sophists’ penchant for lying.9 Yet Protagoras nowhere claims to have removed the necessity dictating the use of

on the protagoras

23

such concealment: the dangers that confronted his sophistic predecessors remain what they were. About this fact, he is perfectly clear. Protagoras also faces the threat of “envy” and “ill will and hostile plots” (epiboulai; 316d2–­3) when, as a foreigner, he enters large cities and there convinces the best of the young people to abandon the company of kin and others, older and younger, in favor of his company. Accordingly, we cannot be surprised to learn that Protagoras’ openness about his practice of sophistry is itself a precaution (317b5), a product of calculation, meant to protect him, and he mentions but fails to specify certain other means of concealment that, “to speak with god,” keep him from suffering harm as a result of agreeing that he is a sophist and of being in the practice of that art a good many years (317b3–­c3).10 Put another way, Protagoras’ openness—­important and impressive and novel though it is—­is only a partial openness, and it too is motivated by the persistent need for self-­protection. As the results of Socrates’ cross-­examination of Hippocrates already suggest, Protagoras is frank about the fact that he is a sophist who, as such, teaches human beings; he is not at all frank about what he teaches them (consider also 352a8–­b1). Protagoras’ revelation of the true nature of his predecessors, the crypto-­ sophists, is strange. If one means by “sophist” nothing other than one who is wise, or perhaps a wise man who teaches others (consider, e.g., Xenophon Cyropaedia 3.1.14), who would ever deny that Homer was a wise teacher and so a “sophist” in this broad or loose sense? Yet Protagoras must have another sense of the term in mind, for he contends that the “poets” Homer, Hesiod, and Simonides, out of fear of the hostility that arises from the practice of sophistry, felt the need to conceal themselves by means of poetry: in the greatest cases, at least, poetry is a means to conceal one’s wisdom. Soph­ istry must consist in part, then, in the possession of a wisdom that de­mands concealment, even if, in Protagoras’ view of it, an openness greater than any previously imagined is possible and even prudent. The strangeness of the revelation of the true profession of a group that proves to include not only poets but poet-­prophets, gymnastic trainers, and musicians, is compounded by the fact that, of the nine crypto-­sophists whom Protagoras mentions by name, not a single one is known as a sophist—­hence the need for Protagoras to reveal their identities, a revelation repeated by Socrates to the comrade and his company. If the “powerful few” succeeded in smoking out the crypto-­sophists—­a fact of which we have, incidentally, no proof—­what they truly were remained unknown to most, to “the many.” But this means, in turn, that the old or old-­fashioned secrecy policy worked quite well; and Protagoras is surely reckless in blowing the cover not just of those long dead but even of a living practitioner, one Herodicus of Selymbria, who is inferior

24

chapter one

to no one as a sophist and who is pretending to be a gym teacher! In this way, the alleged superiority of Protagoras’ own procedure, his own prudence or (to anticipate) his “good counsel” as applied to his own affairs, becomes an important subtheme that runs throughout the dialogue. In light of his confident assertion of the superiority of his policy, Protag­ oras declares that he would find it “much the most pleasant thing” to fashion a speech “about these things” before all those gathered inside. It is Pro­tagoras, then, who takes responsibility for upping the stakes of the conversation that follows. And Socrates reports to the comrade his impression of Protagoras’ motive: he wished to put on a display before Prodicus and Hippias and to boast of, to “preen himself on” (kalli�pisasthai: 317c7), the fact that Socrates and Hippocrates have come as his “lovers.” Some mix, then, of professional one-­upmanship and vanity goads Protagoras on. Will this potent mix lead him at some points to let down his guard or abandon the “precautions” he has indicated that he takes? It should be remembered that only a small group, including Socrates and Hippocrates, has heard Protagoras’ account of both the danger the practice of sophistry exposes him to and the prudent measures he has implemented as a result—­although surely everyone present (Hippocrates, of course, included) already knows of Protagoras’ reputation, not just as a sophist, but also as a wise or clever speaker. If wise or clever speech entails altering either the content or the character of one’s speech (or both) so as to suit a given audience, it must be said that Socrates, too, is a wise or clever speaker. Now that the entire house­ hold has gathered around them, Protagoras invites Socrates to repeat or offer a reminder of what it is that he had just said on behalf of the young fellow. Here is what we might call Socrates’ second introduction of Hippocrates: “My beginning point is the same, Protagoras, as the one I just now made concerning the reasons why I’ve come. For Hippocrates here happens to be in the grip of a desire for your company. So he says that he would gladly learn what will result for him if he is together with you.” “Such,” Socrates then adds, “was the extent of our speech” (318a1–­5). Socrates’ remark is decep­ tive by reason of what it includes and especially of what it excludes, for it includes an affirmative statement that this was the extent of their earlier speech, which is false, and it is false because it excludes any mention of the boy’s patronymic, the wealth of his household, the reputation regarding his nature, or Socrates’ own opinion about his political ambition. Socrates’ “beginning point” is therefore not the same at all. Still, the differences between the two introductions are not difficult to explain. Protagoras already has all the information about the boy he needs, and it would be indelicate or impolite of Socrates to say, before everyone, that the young fellow is both

on the protagoras

25

ambitious and rich; he conveys to Protagoras information that he conceals from the others. Here, then, is irrefutable evidence that Socrates is also a “clever” speaker, although without pernicious intent. And the second introduction does serve the useful purpose of putting greater stress on exactly what Hippocrates will learn from Protagoras or, more precisely, what will result for him from time spent in the sophist’s company. Attention thus turns to Protagoras. His opening pitch to Hippocrates runs as follows: “[I]t will be possible for you, if you associate with me, on the day you do get together with me, to go home in a better state, and the same holds for the next day as well. In fact, every day you will continually take steps toward improvement” (318a6–­9). Yet Socrates finds this description of so wonderful a state of affairs oddly wanting, for what Protagoras describes is doubtless true—­the prospect of Hippocrates’ becoming better and better, in every way and every day—­but in regard to what, about what precisely, will Hippocrates make such progress and toward what ultimate end? It is, then, only under some, admittedly modest, pressure from Socrates that Protagoras states more or less candidly the nature of his instruction; had Socrates not been present, Protagoras presumably would have been content to leave it at that. Here, then, is Protagoras’ revelation of what he teaches: “The subject in question is good counsel [euboulia] concerning one’s own affairs—­how one might best manage one’s own household—­and, concerning the affairs of the city, how one might be most powerful [dunatotatos] in carrying out and speaking about the city’s affairs” (318e5–­319a2; consider also Alcibiades I 125e6 and context). The successful student of Protagoras, we thus discover, will learn how best to “manage” or “administer” (dioikoi ) his household, his private affairs. This skill naturally enough redounds to the student’s own benefit. But Protagoras does not speak of “managing” or “administering” the city’s affairs, only of the student’s exercising a very great power over them, in deed and speech; evidently, excellence in speech is required, and it comes most fully into its own, in the conduct of politics as distinguished from the management of the household. The lack of parallelism in Protagoras’ statement leaves unclear the precise end his student will aim at when exercising preeminent power in the city: will he be guided by the desire to benefit the city or himself? Will that student become an expert public servant dedicated to the common good, for example, or will he come to master the common good for his own ends? Socrates himself wonders out loud whether he has understood Protagoras’ argument or statement, and reasonably so: it is ambiguous. Now, it is certainly true that Socrates immediately imposes on Protagoras the most respectable, the most innocent, interpretation of his remarks

26

chapter one

possible—­to the effect that Protagoras teaches “the political art” and undertakes to “make men good citizens.”11 It is true also that Protagoras happily concedes this to be the very thing that he publicly pronounces or “professes” (to epangelma ho epangellomai: 319a6–­7; consider also Aristotle Art of Rhetoric 1402a24–­26 [Protagoras’ epangelma and the reaction of “the hu­ man beings” to it]; compare Protagoras 318d9–­e5, where the sophist had denied teaching “arts” [technai]). Yet the words “the political art,” to say nothing of “good citizenship,” never crossed Protagoras’ lips. And since we have just been alerted to the dangerous character of Protagoras’ activity, to the “envy” and “ill will and hostile plots” to which it can give rise here and now (316d2–­3), as well as to his necessary recourse here and now to arts of concealment, we must be especially wary of becoming, like “the many who perceive as it were nothing,” his dupes. Could it be that Protagoras prom­ ises to teach his students how to benefit themselves in matters public as well as private or that he teaches them how to gain preeminent power in order to use the common good for the sake of their own good? Is not Protagoras’ claim to bestow very great political power on his students—­that is, on anyone who can pay the tuition (consider again 316b8–­9), whatever his nature—­at least a little troubling? All this suggests that, when Socrates raises the question of whether what Protagoras claims to teach is in fact teachable, we must keep on the table the prior and more fundamental question of precisely what Protagoras teaches and whether or to what extent it is truly public spirited. This suggestion as to the decided ambiguity of Protagoras’ statement is open to an objection. It is certainly true that, by raising the question of whether what Protagoras claims to teach is in fact teachable, Socrates does challenge the sophist: he threatens his business prospects in the room, for who would be willing to pay a good deal of money to be taught the unteachable? But if our suspicion is even partly correct—­that is, if Protagoras has not yet set forth as frankly as he might have done that the content of his teaching is far from being truly public spirited—­it has to be said that Socrates fails to go for the jugular in the immediate sequel; he is remarkably, even unsettlingly, gentle with Protagoras here. Perhaps Socrates is happy to give Protagoras the benefit of the doubt at this early point in their conversation, and as the later parts of their conversation will show beyond all doubt, Socrates is willing to take the gloves off when he must. To support his view that the political art or good citizenship (319a4–­5, 8–­ 9) cannot be taught, Socrates offers two pieces of evidence. First, when some technical matter requiring expert advice arises—­say, shipbuilding, a matter of no small importance to imperial Athens—­the democratic assembly

on the protagoras

27

of Athens refuses to hear from any but the acknowledged experts. Whenever deliberation is required concerning the city’s management (dioik�se�s: 319d1; compare 318e6) more generally, however, any and every citizen is permitted to speak because—­according to Socrates—­all believe such political expertise to be unteachable and thus all citizens to be equally capable (or incapable) of offering advice; no special expertise in politics is attainable through instruction, and hence it cannot be demanded of anyone. And, according to Socrates, the Athenian people are aware of this limitation. The “wisdom” of the Athenian masses bears a slight but striking resemblance to Socrates’ own knowledge of ignorance. In any case, if the evidence Socrates offers is uncontroversial, his interpretation of it surely is, for would not the Athenians in the assembly claim, rather, that all citizens are equally capable of giving political advice because all—­all gentlemen, at the very least, all the “noble and good” among the people—­not only possess the relevant expertise but can and do teach it to their fellow citizens, to their sons above all (see, e.g., Meno 92e3–­6 and context)? Democratic politics proceeds on the basis of the thought, perhaps often unstated and only occasionally considered, that all citizens as such have the requisite training or skill to participate in the public life of the city, at least such participation as extends to a simple vote. Socrates’ remarks here defend Athenian democratic practice, it is true, but they do so on grounds that would be objectionable to democrats themselves. Socrates would appear to be on more solid ground when he notes, in the second place, that even “our wisest and best citizens” cannot bestow on their own kin the expertise they possess, an expertise he now, and for the first time, calls “virtue” (319e2; also 320a3, b5). Pericles, for example, has as yet been unable to educate his young ward Cleinias, let alone turn him into another Pericles. It is clear on reflection that Socrates has in mind two quite different conceptions of “the political art” or political excellence: the one being characteristic of the good or dutiful citizen and the other of the greatest statesmen. “[G]ood citizenship” differs from “the political art” at its peak, as it is embodied by Pericles, for example, and whether or not the latter can be taught, does not every city claim, at least, to teach the former? But what does it mean to deny that something can be taught? If something depends for its existence on nature, it cannot be acquired by teaching: either nature has bestowed the given trait or quality or capacity on us or it has withheld it (consider Meno 89a5–­7 and context), and as Protagoras will plausibly contend, the talents of a Pericles depend decisively on nature and hence cannot be conveyed by teaching, even to a beloved son, although teaching may, of course, help reveal a natural capacity or develop it (consider

28

chapter one

326e6 and following, especially 327b8 and c1). Hence Protagoras is not so indifferent to the importance of nature in determining a student’s prospects as his silence concerning this in Hippocrates’ case suggests (316b9–­10): the boy’s ability to pay the tuition trumps any natural limitation, which suggests, at least, that Protagoras must have one course of study available for the student with a less promising nature and another for one with greater natural promise. As for virtue or the rest of virtue—­in the sense of good citizenship or what might be called ordinary decency, that is, the disposition to obey the laws or customs in a spirit of patriotic service—­its teachability proves to rest on its being knowledge in the strict sense (epist�m�: 361a6–­ c2; Meno 87b1–­c7). Here, at this point in the Protagoras, Socrates obviously stakes out the position that “the political art” or (political) “virtue” cannot be taught, and he does so after telling Protagoras that he will say to him nothing other than what he thinks or understands of the matter (319a8–­10). Does Socrates mean to cast doubt, then, on the rationality of what is conveyed in and through the “education” to good citizenship? Socrates’ challenge to Protagoras concerning the teachability of virtue certainly undermines the sophist’s business prospects, but it also introduces the question of what properly constitutes virtue and whether, in all its various forms or guises, it is knowledge (or rational) and hence teachable. The ways in which Protagoras chooses to respond to this challenge are, to say the least, remarkable, since it is in response to Socrates’ question concerning the teachable character of virtue that Protagoras gives his longest speech, for which the dialogue is surely best known: Protagoras decides to tell what has become his justly famous myth of Prometheus and Epimetheus.12

Introduction to Protagoras’ Long Speech As we have just seen, Protagoras is prompted to give his long and complex speech in response to Socrates’ question concerning whether “virtue is some­ thing teachable.” As we have seen as well, Socrates has restated Protagoras’ principal account of what it is he teaches in such a way that it includes good citizenship, the political art or expertise characteristic of a Pericles, and finally “virtue” (319e2; 320a3, b5): “[I]f you are able to demonstrate to us more plainly [more effectively: enargesteron] that virtue is something teachable, don’t be begrudging but demonstrate it” (320b8–­c1). When Protagoras asks whether he is to address those present, as an older man speaking to those who are younger, by means of a “myth” or a logos (that is, a reasoned account, an argument), the majority of the young people seated nearby naturally defer to his preference, as he might well have anticipated they would

on the protagoras

29

do. The decision to proceed as he does is, in any case, Protagoras’ own: he regards it as more gratifying or gracious (chariesteron; compare 309b1) for an older man to make such a demonstration to younger ones by stating a myth (320c2–­7). Protagoras does not otherwise explain himself. Perhaps Protagoras holds it to be the duty of, or in some other way appropriate for, an elder to pass on to the young the wisdom specific to myth, a form that may also be more immediately appealing to them than a (reasoned) account would be. It will turn out that, by speaking to the young by means of a myth, Protagoras imitates the city; it is the city as he presents it that first teaches the young of such beings as Zeus and Athena and Hephaestus, for example, and of their importance to us. Before he turns to speak in nonmythical terms of the nature of the education all citizens as such receive, Protagoras imitates or apes, while altering for his own purposes, the “mythical” education in deed. In any event, in thus choosing the form his speech is to take, he seems to follow in the footsteps of Homer and Hesiod, the principal architects of the tradition, because his myth contains several traditional elements, including a central role for Titans (Prometheus, Epimetheus) and for the Olympian gods (Zeus, Hermes, Athena, Hephaestus); at one point, his speech simply repeats “what is said” about a certain event (322a1–­2). Yet there is much that is novel here, too, including the importance to human beings, to human life, of certain unnamed subterranean gods—­who are clearly different from Hades or Tartarus or Demeter, for example—­and of Epimetheus, who is much less renowned in the tradition than is his brother Prometheus. Protagoras’ deference to the tradition, then, is far from total. In sovereign freedom, one might even say, he combines old and new in a manner apposite to his own purpose. If Homer and Hesiod were in truth sophists, as Protagoras would have it, then the sophist Protagoras is in truth also a poet, a “maker” of myths. We recall once again that, for all his greater frankness, Protagoras also makes use of “precautionary measures” such that—­“to speak with god” (317b7; compare Theaetetus 151b4)13—­he has come to no harm in the many years he has practiced his art: by choosing to speak with, or of, a god or gods, Protagoras, too, wraps himself in a sort of “cloak” or “screen” that gives him license to teach what he wishes to teach (317b3–­c5). But what precisely is Protagoras’ purpose in combining old and new as he does? It soon becomes clear that the man has other, and bigger, fish to fry than the demonstration that virtue (as he understands the term) is teachable—­or even that he himself teaches it, important though these certainly are for the practical purpose at hand. The simple message of the myth makes this greater ambition clear, for a moment’s reflection indicates how badly Protagoras carries out his lesser or immediate aim for much of the speech:

30

chapter one

according to him, Zeus made possible political life, and therewith the pre­ servation of the human species, by bestowing on all human beings “the political art,” which proves to mean, in the first place, justice and a sense of shame. But insofar as each human being is already thus equipped—­by divine dispensation, no less—­with the traits of soul said to be requisite to political life, there seems to be no important task left for a teacher of good citizenship or the political art or virtue, however masterful, to carry out. Zeus has already done what we expected Protagoras alone, or at least best, to do. By the end of the myth proper, Protagoras appears to have talked himself out of a job. That Protagoras’ purpose is more complicated than it might first appear is also suggested by the fact that his long speech unexpectedly expands to include not only the myth (320c8–­324d1) but also a logos, explicitly identified as such (324d2–­328c2; see also the conclusion at 328c3–­d2 that makes plain the twofold character of his speech).14 Toward the end of the section officially designated as a myth, Protagoras endeavors to establish these propositions: that the Athenians believe virtue to be teachable and how in fact or practice they teach it to all such that all reasonably par­ ticipate in the democratic assembly and that they believe virtue to be teachable in that they become angry at, admonish, and punish the practice of vice. In then unexpectedly abandoning the more graceful, “mythical” way of speaking in favor of a logos, Protagoras continues to respond to the challenge or challenges set for him by Socrates: how it could be that “the good men,” like Pericles, have evidently failed to teach those they most care for, their own sons, the political art they themselves possess and how Protagoras himself is better than others at advancing virtue and so deserves the fee he charges, as his students confirm by oath and by deed. Yet all of this serves only to underscore our original question that may be restated this way: what purpose or purposes guide Protagoras in first choosing, and then abandoning, the myth such that his speech taken as a whole contains two parts of very different character that contribute clumsily at best to his most manifest purpose? To prepare for an answer to this question, it is necessary to sketch the most important features of the myth.

The Myth Proper Once there was a time when there were gods but no mortal species. That the appointed time came for these mortal species “too” (320d1) to come into being suggests, at least, that there was a time when there were no gods either. Who or what, then, might have brought the gods into being? What cause could be more fundamental than, because responsible for the genesis of, the

on the protagoras

31

very gods? The myth begins from the distinction between “gods” and “mortals”: the gods are, of course, immortal. It is difficult to understand how that which is immortal or deathless could have come into being at some point, as distinguished from being eternal, for it is a part of our experience, confirmed by observation of precisely the “mortal species,” that all that comes into being necessarily also perishes. Perhaps these gods, having once come into being, persist forever. They certainly seem, in any event, inferior to what is determined by destiny or fate (heimarmenos at 320d1 and heimarmen� at 321c7). Adding to our perplexity is the fact that the gods in question, who dwell beneath the earth, remain nameless—­Protagoras does not address them by proper names—­and this despite the fact that it belongs to human beings as such to give names to things (322a5–­6 and context). These nameless gods are not and indeed cannot be worshiped by human beings; they have no altars dedicated to them or likenesses made of them (compare 322a4–­5). It would seem that it is in fact Protagoras who first describes them. The darkness that attends the question of the origin of these gods is characteristic also of their surroundings as they do their characteristic work, for being subterranean, they work without benefit of light. It is the mortal species, not these gods, that come up into the light eventually (320d4, 321c7). The work of the gods is to fashion, under the earth, the mortal species, which are made up of earth and fire and the compounds of these. The mortal species, then, are altogether material, earth being the heaviest kind of matter and fire being the lightest. The mortal species thus have no immaterial soul or spirit, let alone an immortal one. We are, for so long as we are, matter in motion. “Mind,” too, would thus seem to be subsequent to and hence dependent on matter. And at the outset, the mortal species must be largely indistinct from one another because the subterranean gods gave them no powers or capacities, and it is these powers that prove to constitute the “nature” of a thing (consider 320e2 as well as 321a7). The gods subsequently ordered Prometheus and Epimetheus to distribute such powers, or natures, as appropriate to the several species that are thereby made distinct. If Prometheus is indeed “foresighted,” he in his kindness or soft-­ heartedness is also too easily swayed from the sensible course, for he accedes to his erring brother’s request to be allowed to make the distributions of the various powers. Epimetheus proceeds methodically to distribute those powers to all the nonrational animals (ta aloga: 321c1, the reading of two of the manuscripts); does this fundamental division, between the rational and irrational animals, between human beings and brutes, alone precede the distribution of the powers? In any case, Epimetheus carries out that distribution in an “equalizing” way, keeping in mind the goal of the preservation

32

chapter one

not of the individuals of the species but of the species themselves. And so relatively defenseless animals are granted the capacity to reproduce in great numbers, for example. Lacking even the manifestly limited foresight of his brother, Epimetheus then discovered that he had used up all the (finite) powers on the mortals other than the human race: humans remained altogether unprovided for, “naked and unshod and without bedding and unarmed” (321c5–­6). It then fell to Prometheus to undo the damage done unawares or with the best of intentions by his brother. He first stole from Hephaestus and Athena the “technical wisdom” held by them—­that is, the “wisdom concerned with livelihood [bios],” presumably smithing and the art of weaving, for example—­together with fire, the prerequisite to the development of the arts (321d1, d3–­4, and e1–­2); he entertained, but rejected, the thought of stealing from Zeus himself (321d5–­7). There is then fire beneath human beings, in the earth below, and above them, in the common dwelling of Athena and Hephaestus, and even within them, for fire is part of the stuff of which they are made; but prior to Prometheus’ philanthropic theft, they were without the use of it or of all that it makes possible. So it was that the human race “had a share in the divine allotment” or a “kinship with the god”—­that is, a share in technical art or the capacity for it (322a3–­4). Yet that capacity must, in turn, point to, because it requires, the possession of the potential for reason or the formulation of articulate speech, as Protagoras brings out in this context (322a5; consider again ta aloga at 321c1). In contrast to the other mortal species, then, some of which by nature (i.e., instinct) are driven to find dwellings (320e4) and all else required for their survival, human beings were compelled to rely on their artful cleverness to devise, for themselves, their shelter and food and clothing; from their experience hard-­won over time, human beings alone are able to deduce a techn�, the rules of a practice that are expressible in speech. But “first,” Protagoras strikingly claims, human beings, “on account of their kin­ship with the god,” alone among the animals believed in or recognized “gods” and undertook to erect altars to and statues of gods (322a3–­5); “subsequently” (epeita), they quickly devised, through art, names for things to which they gave voice, and they provided for themselves the basic necessities of life, mere life. It is difficult to credit this order of things.15 How could one worship altogether nameless gods and do so even before the satisfaction of basic bodily needs? But by this chronology or list, Protagoras indicates how deeply imbedded in us is the impulse, at or near the very beginning of things, to “look up,” to erect likenesses of beings before whom we bow down: in a word, to worship gods. Yet all three activities or groups of activities listed here are united by the importance to us of technical skill

on the protagoras

33

or art, developed and deployed in response to the astounding harshness of our original condition. For cannot the devising of means to attain food and shelter, the need to worship at the altar of gods, and even the imposition on the world of the order that the giving of names to things implies—­cannot all of these be traced to the same desire for security in a world fundamentally inhospitable to human beings such as they are originally or by nature? Are these activities not united by the need to make of the light-­filled domain an ordered world, a cosmos, habitable by human beings, who are—­apart from their godlike potential for speech or reason and hence for figuring things out in an artful manner—­so utterly abandoned by nature? Does not Protagoras here mean to suggest that “the gods” are every bit as much the product of human making as are the products of the various technical arts, on the one hand, and the specifics of a given language, on the other?16 If this is so, then we are less pious beings by nature than we are orphans by nature, so to speak, but nonetheless equipped—­by nature or indeed “chance” (323d1 and d5)—­with logos, what one might call a “god” (in the singular); and these two facts or circumstances together prompt us to create gods (in the plural) who, even or precisely by threatening us, seem to protect us: such threats are but a sign of their lively concern for us. One can perhaps say that once human beings are equipped with fire and the technical arts, they can, like the subterranean gods, make their own compounds of earth and fire. But their creations, or the most important of them, differ from those of the subterranean gods in two respects. First, human beings may fashion the products of their artfulness not in darkness but in the light: they may see what they are doing or need not act blindly. Hence they can respond far better to human needs, or desires, than did the subterranean gods. In truth they, and not Zeus, taught the art of war, the need for which is itself an indication of the limits of the art of politics said to reside with Zeus and that he gave to humans (recall 321d4–­5 and 322b5). Second, the useful things human beings create include not mortal species but an immortal or, at any rate, divine species: just as human beings, alone among the animals, create statues of and altars to the gods, so they alone create the very gods in the first place. This may be done “naïvely” or knowingly. Is it not Protagoras who creates, through his masterful art of mythmaking, the subterranean gods? Just as Hermes here is a messenger of Zeus to all human beings, bringing justice and a sense of shame and therewith the possibility of political life, so Protagoras is a super-­ Hermes who is a messenger of the whole divine realm, from the depths of the earth to the peaks of Mount Olympus, but to a few select human beings only, bringing them what will prove to be a new teaching about justice and shame and hence also about political life.

34

chapter one

The Mythical Beliefs of “the Human Beings” Protagoras ends his account of the gods in their relation to human beings with a quotation from Zeus himself, to the effect that anyone found in violation of the “law” of Zeus must be killed (322d1–­5), and by addressing Socrates by name (322d5–­6; also 323a4). He does not yet turn to his logos, however, the beginning of which is clearly marked as such (324d6–­7). A section of text (322d5–­324d1) follows, then, that must be classified as a part of the myth, even if it is free of the usual features of a mythical tale. In this section, Protagoras begins to draw such conclusions or lessons as he will from the myth thus far and so to respond to some of the particulars of Soc­ rates’ challenge. First, Protagoras defends the democratic practice of the Athenians (and others) of permitting any and every citizen to share in the giving of advice bound up with “political virtue,” as distinguished from a matter requiring technical expertise; this accords fully with Protagoras’ earlier indications that the possession of the technical arts does not imply the possession of the political art (consider 321d3–­5 and 322b5). The practice of democracy in Athens is sensible, not because the Athenians know that no political expertise is possible and hence that none can be demanded (as Socrates had contended), but rather because they “believe” that every man actually does share in such political virtue and so is well equipped to share in deliberation: the fact of the existence of cities is here treated as decisive confirmation of the belief of the Athenians that every man shares in political virtue, the latter being believed to be the necessary condition for the former. But in fact, Protagoras is at pains here to establish, not the truth of the matter, but what the Athenians (and “the human beings” generally: 322d6; 323a2, a5–­6, c2, c8, d5, d7; 324a2, a5) “believe”—­the first of seven such refer­ences in this section to what human beings as such “believe” (323a5, c4, c5, c8; 324a5, c4, c7). And given the place in his speech where Protagoras chooses to convey this evidently universal belief in the possession of political virtue, we must conclude that it properly belongs to—­that is, it has the status of—­“myth” according to him. It is also on the basis of this universal belief that Protagoras is now permitted to praise, more fully than had Socrates, the actual practice of Athenian democracy—­he who a short while earlier had noted derisively, and imprudently, that hoi pol­ loi, “the many” or the backbone of any democracy, “perceive as it were nothing” (317a4–­5; consider also 353a7–­8). Far from being blockheads, “the many” now come to be seen as conducting themselves sensibly by putting to use the “political virtue” that they believe to be possessed by all!

on the protagoras

35

Protagoras now outdoes Socrates in his praise of the actual practice of Athenian democracy and so has been rendered rather more cautious or prudent. In addition, as Protagoras proceeds to demonstrate, the Athenians also believe such virtue to be produced not naturally or spontaneously but through teaching and present in us through a kind of diligence or care. Here is the evidence Protagoras adduces to support (the existence of) this belief: no one becomes angry at or admonishes those who have some failing—­ugliness or weakness or puniness—­traceable to nature or chance (see again 323d1 and d5), but everyone does become angry at and admonishes those who are unjust or impious (presumably less so if they are only immoderate, since immoderation exacts a penalty of its own). Human beings act this way on the supposition that (h�s) the virtues in question can be acquired through our own diligence and through learning them: “human beings believe” (324a5) that we deserve blame and hence punishment for falling short in these respects. It is sensible to become angry only at that for which we ourselves are responsible; we are responsible for what is within our power to acquire; what is due not to nature or chance (or the spontaneous) but to learning is up to us or within our power to acquire; human beings, as a matter of fact, become angry at injustice (and impiety) or at the failure to practice virtue so understood; hence virtue so understood must be learnable, and the learnable is teachable. In brief, because people get angry at vice, virtue is teachable. This relies on a good many undemonstrated premises, among them that one’s capacity to learn is not in any important way limited by precisely nature or chance and that the anger of “the human beings” is always and only sensible. From here, Protagoras is able to offer, still under the rubric of his “myth,” a remarkably rational account of punishment. According to that account, only a wild beast would ever punish another for the sake of vengeance or retribution concerning a past injustice. Punishment is meant only to “correct” the wrongdoer and, above all, to prevent future wrongs: rehabilitation and deterrence are the only sensible purposes of punishment and hence the only ones pursued in fact. This may well be a true account of the reasonable ends of punishment—­here Protagoras may give voice to his own wish grounded in his own understanding (note the otherwise anomalous appearance in this context of logos: 324b1 and 324c3–­4)—­but this would seem not to be the view of punishment shared by Zeus, for one, who must be accounted a strong proponent of the death penalty, or by the Athenians in practice, as Socrates himself was to learn. Protagoras considers this reasonable account of punishment to be a myth, inasmuch as it is a myth that the Athenians, or indeed “the human beings,” accept it as reasonable.17

36

chapter one

To the myth of our creation, then, Protagoras appends, first, a statement of the beliefs of the Athenians and “the other human beings” about virtue as they understand it—­beliefs that are properly seen as mythical because they fall below what is rational. And he appends, second, an account of punishment that, being rational, soars above the beliefs (to say nothing of the practice) of “the human beings.” The very evidence adduced to establish that the Athenians believe virtue to be teachable—­their anger at vice—­belies their supposed motive for punishment: moral anger or indignation demands not rehabilitation or deterrence but vengeance above all.

The Teaching of the Myth With this much as an account of Protagoras’ myth, treating the human and the divine, we may now wonder what intention guided him in the telling of it. Protagoras’ choice surely permits him to demonstrate to the assembled group, his competitors Hippias and Prodicus among them, his dazzling abilities as a speaker. Asked a relatively straightforward question by Socrates, Protagoras sketches nothing less than the origins of the human race and the truth about the operation of the world from its subterranean origins to the peaks of Mount Olympus. But his choice of a myth is surely also guided by the desire for self-­protection, as we have already suggested: anyone who might suspect that Protagoras does not believe in the existence of the law-­ giving Zeus, for example, could be easily refuted, for Protagoras obviously maintains that Zeus himself is directly responsible for what might be called our moral sense. This implies, of course, that someone might have reason in the first place to suspect Protagoras of heterodoxy or even atheism. Protagoras’ choice is guided above all by his desire to speak differently to different audiences, as exemplified, perhaps, by the strictly political interests of a Hippocrates, on the one hand, and the more theoretical ones of an Antimoerus, on the other. At any rate, a clear indication of the complexity of Protagoras’ speech begins to appear when one compares the most manifest conclusion of the myth—­to repeat, that Zeus the lawgiver gave all human beings justice and a sense of shame so as to make political life possible—­with the subject matter treated at greatest length in the logos: the account of our education to “political virtue” that begins at the time we first perceive articulate speech and extends throughout our adult lives. Protagoras’ account of the latter education explains at remarkable length and in surprising detail how it is that we come to possess justice and moderation and piety—­in sum, the “political virtue” that belongs as much to women and children as to men (compare 325a2 with a6)—­and this amounts to saying that Zeus did

on the protagoras

37

not in fact give us these traits or dispositions. One cannot accept both accounts as literally true. In other words, Protagoras’ long account of the altogether mundane origin of our beliefs about and practice of “political virtue” is meant to take the place of the mythical account. As a matter of fact and in practice, nursemaids, mothers, fathers, teachers, and magistrates or the laws make use of exhortations, forced memorization, commands, threats, and beatings—­“corrections”—­to bend our “warped” nature very much against our grain. Far from being just by divine decree or dispensation or gift, then, we must be so habituated over years, a habituation that requires constant vigilance and continual reinforcement. If Protagoras’ logos supplants the explanation given in the myth of the origin of our “moral sense,” what does he mean for the myth properly speaking to accomplish? It seems that Protagoras believes not only that Zeus exists, of course, but that he is a divinely beneficent lawgiver—­a Zeus who cares for the whole human race, who in his care for us gave justice and a sense of shame to all, and who made political life possible by setting it down as a law, a divine law, that anyone who does not share in these will be killed on the grounds that he is an “illness” in the city (322d1–­5). But in truth—­even if one ignores the fact that all this is conveyed in what is explicitly a myth largely of Protagoras’ creation—­the details of it suggest a rather dark picture of the human condition. This is true even of the surface of the myth, once one begins to examine it. Zeus cares for the human race (that is, he is indifferent to the fate of individuals); his concern for the race extends only so far that it not perish entirely (321a2, b6 and especially 322c1); he is so little involved in the welfare of human beings that he is unaware of and so must be told by Hermes how the all-­important arts have been distributed among human beings (322c5–­d1); and such care of us as he exercised was subsequent to and required by the fact that our well-­being had been entrusted (by the subterranean gods) to two bunglers, for, as we have seen, even Prometheus’ forethought did not prevent him from allowing Epimetheus to distribute the various powers to all the mortal species except us (320d4–­8). Indeed, one can sum up well enough the message of the myth by saying that, according to Protagoras, our world is fundamentally “Epimethean”: as mind is subsequent to matter in us, so thought follows rather than precedes “creation” altogeth­er. There is no intelligent design discernible in the world, least of all as it might improve the condition of human beings (consider, e.g., the harsh seasons that come “from Zeus”: 321a2–­4). To capture the human condition in the language of the myth, the nameless subterranean gods did their work in darkness and hence blindly; we attained fire, the prerequisite of the development of the arts that alone saved us, solely through an act of rebellion

38

chapter one

against the gods, for which, “it is said,” Prometheus was later made to pay dearly (322a1–­2); and the only means of survival we human beings have, to say nothing of our only comforts, were invented by us through arts of our own devising. The message of even the surface of the myth, then, once one reflects on it, proves to be this: there is nothing and no one above or below us exercising a divine care for us. Human beings are alone in the world, and the world as it is of necessity hardly favors us. Our true condition according to Protagoras, then, is one of utter abandonment or, since this may imply an original or primordial care, perpetual isolation. There is only the natural order that (at most) favors the continuation of the human species; it is quite indifferent to the fate of individuals. Even the brute animals are better off by nature than we are, for in addition to possessing natural defenses, the gregarious among them easily come together to form communities of a kind, whereas we fell to slaughtering one another almost as soon as we drew together. Thus nature has it that human beings cannot live in isolation from one another but cannot live in communities either. And to restrain ourselves, to make political life possible, it was necessary not that there exist a being named “Zeus” who actually became a lawgiver but that “all” believe him to have done so. Protagoras’ myth thus puts before our eyes the kind of conviction that all human beings must have if they are to restrain themselves sufficiently to form lasting political communities, against their natural bent: justice and moderation and piety are all different names for the inclination in differing circumstances to say “no” to oneself, out of a sense of duty either to one’s fellow human beings or to the gods (or both). Just as we are not by nature political animals according to Protagoras, so we are not by nature just or moral beings.18 Yet we are the sorts of animals capable of believing in gods—­in a legislating and punishing god possessed of “the political art.” It is not quite correct, however, to say that, in Protagoras’ view of it, “all” human beings must believe in a punishing Zeus if there are to be political communities, or that all must be just in practice and moved by a sense of shame. Protagoras notes, as if in passing, in a passage crucial to his overarching teaching, that not all human beings are in fact just and that it would be “madness” to admit to one’s injustice or to fail to pretend to possess justice (323a5–­c2). He does not say that it would be madness to be unjust, and he omits mention of the fatal wrath of Zeus extending to such unjust dissemblers. The open avowal of injustice is madness; the silent exercise of it is not. Political societies require, not the universal agreement as to the goodness of justice and the awesome power of the divine sanctions attending its violation, but the near-­universal agreement; it is sufficient if “the many,

on the protagoras

39

who perceive as it were nothing,” agree to these propositions that may be literally beaten into them. Political society will endure perfectly well if only a few understand the truth about justice or “political virtue”—­especially if these few also happen to be clever enough to conceal their true thoughts (310e5–­7; 317b5–­c1) by “speaking with god” or by using such artful devices as myth and poetry to that same end (339a3–­6). In the course of his myth, then, Protagoras intimates to his potential students in the room—­Alcibiades, Critias, and Charmides among them—­ the truth of what he (truly) teaches, even as he takes measures to shore up the conventional opinions that he and his best students will see through, some of them perhaps also exploiting those opinions or pieties in their quest to become “most powerful” in the city. It is certain that Protagoras takes advantage of a residual piety in at least some of his students, who must first go to a temple and there swear how much they think Protagoras’ instruction to be worth, if they are unwilling to pay the advertised price (328b6–­c2; also Polansky 1992, 119 n. 70). The very failure of the lesser students to be liberated from conventional piety may do Protagoras some service: their dissatisfaction would at least have to be honestly stated and not exaggerated for economic reasons. As for the better cases, a garden-­variety gratitude for being liberated from the chains of convention, of law and its demands, may render students happy to pay the fee Protagoras charges: what is a little money—­father’s money to boot (consider 326c3–­5)—­in return for having the world as it is and as one’s oyster?

c h a p t e r t wo

Socrates’ Cross-­Examination of Protagoras

S

ocrates confesses to the comrade that he, too, felt “bewitched” by Protagoras’ speech, the same effect that, on first entering Callias’ home, Socrates had observed in those who had fallen under Protagoras’ spell (compare 328d4–­5 with 315a8). But Socrates is able to gather himself together, if with some difficulty, in part because he expected Protagoras to continue, as he tells the comrade; only at length did he perceive that Protagoras really had come to a halt: what, in Socrates’ view, is missing from Protagoras’ long speech? It is safest to try to answer this question by considering Socrates’ subsequent treatment of it. Socrates begins by thanking Hippocrates for having urged or incited him to come (328d9): he evidently would not have come on his own initiative and so would have missed hearing the things he has heard from Protagoras—­ things he very much values. Previously, he believed or held that “the good become good” as the result of no “human care” or diligence (epimeleia), but now, as things stand, he has been “persuaded” of it. It is not clear that Pro­ tagoras has taught Socrates anything, strictly speaking, or that Socrates has learned something from him, for persuasion (together with its common concomitant, obedience: peith�) need not stem from knowledge or understanding (consider, e.g., 325d5–­6 and context; also 329b8–­9) or be the product of teaching (352e5–­6). After all, as we have seen, Socrates claims to be, or to have been, in a state of “bewitchment” as a result of Protagoras’ speech, and Socrates needed a moment to return to himself: in this case, “bewitchment” accompanied or gave rise to “persuasion.” In any case, it is striking that Socrates here does not speak of “the political art” or “good citizenship” or even “virtue”—­though surely the goodness of those who are good is virtue. To judge from the topic with which Protagoras chose to conclude his long 40

on the protagoras

41

speech, “the good” in question are the great statesmen, counterparts to the great sculptor Polyclitus, whom Protagoras mentions explicitly as one of the “skilled practitioners” (328c6; compare 311c3, c6): under Protagoras’ tutelage, the sons of Pericles may yet share in the skill of their august father. If Socrates too has the great statesmen in mind, then the other-­than-­human cause of their goodness he had until now held to be at work in them may well have been nature. There is no compelling reason to suppose that Socrates had in mind, as that other-­than-­human care, the “divine dispensation” that unteachable virtue is said to be at the end of the Meno. There, Soc­rates is addressing, through Meno, an angry and offended Anytus, and the argument in question is explicitly intended to make Anytus “gentler,” provided Meno could somehow “persuade” him of it (Meno 100b4–­c2). Socrates does admit to having a certain small difficulty with what Protagoras said. What immediately follows is not (not yet) a remark on the sub­ stance of Protagoras’ speech but instead a gracefully stated criticism of its manner: skilled orators, Pericles among them, can speak at great length about “these very matters” too, but if one asks them about something beyond what they have said, then they have nothing to say, nor can they themselves pose a question; if one asks only about the things they have said, then they go on at great length in response, like struck bronze. As is now clear to ev­­ eryone, Protagoras can give long and beautiful speeches, but he can also reply briefly when asked something, just as he is a capable questioner too. The implication is clear: Protagoras should keep his remarks brief. Enough with the long display speeches. Will Socrates ask him about the things that he has said, or about things that go beyond his speech? And if the latter, will he prove superior to those orators who, “like books” (329a3), have nothing to say in response? The “small” thing (329b6 and 328e4) about which Socrates seeks clari­ fication is this: on the one hand, Protagoras was saying that Zeus sent justice and a sense of shame to human beings; on the other, in many places he stated that justice and moderation and piety were some one thing taken together—­ namely, “virtue.” Is then “virtue” some one thing, with justice and moderation and piety being parts of it, or are these particulars just names for one and the same thing? “This,” Socrates says, “is what I still desire” (329d1–­2). Presumably, it is this point of information, then, that he had expected Protagoras to turn to at just the moment when he in fact ceased to speak altogether. In any case, by posing this question as he does, Socrates alludes to the clear division in Protagoras’ speech between the “myth” and the “logos”—­between Zeus’s concern for justice and a sense of shame, on the one hand, and the im­ portance of justice, moderation, and piety, on the other—­and therewith to

42

chapter two

the two very different sources of what the sophist eventually called “political virtue.” Moreover, the first half of Socrates’ question, dealing with Zeus, does not seem strictly necessary to posing the principal question concerning the nature of virtue or the virtues, understood as justice, moderation, and piety; with such a beginning, Socrates could well have gone on to press Protagoras about the details of his (anti-­) theological myth. But he does no more here than allude to these delicate matters. Accordingly, Protagoras’ sigh of relief is almost audible: “But that, at least, is easy, Socrates, to answer” (329d3–­4). He must at this point agree with Soc­ rates that the latter’s question is a “small” one. Indeed, it is hard to see at first blush what important human question is at stake in this rather technical question somehow bound up with naming or classifying virtue or the virtues. But that something more than a technical matter is at stake becomes clear no later than in Socrates’ statement, made fairly early on in the proceedings, that Protagoras is finding his line of argument “annoying” or “obnoxious” (duscher�s: 332a2). It is confirmed that something of great importance to Protagoras himself is at issue, not only when we learn that he can agree with a certain proposition only “very unwillingly” (333b3–­4), but also when he himself labels the argument “annoying” or “obnoxious” (duscher�: 333d2). These events prove to be but way stations toward the destination that is presented by Socrates to the comrade in these terms: “By this time Protagoras was in my opinion feeling riled up for a fight and contentious, and he stood prepared, as for battle, to answer me. So when I saw him in this state, I proceeded with caution and gently asked him . . .” (333e2–­5). What is it about Socrates’ seemingly innocuous, not to say boring, opening question that ultimately renders Protagoras ready to do battle with Socrates? To that opening question, Protagoras gives this answer: “The things you ask about are parts of virtue, which is one” (329d3–­4). But “parts” proves to be ambiguous, for there are some parts (parts of a piece of gold, for example) that may differ in size from one another but that are all essentially the same, just as there are other “parts” (of the face, for example: mouth as well as nose and eyes and ears) that, while going together to form a certain whole, are as parts quite distinct from one another in character and capacity. Protagoras does not hesitate to say that the parts of virtue are like parts of the face, and he does so for a good reason, or at least a compelling one: he contends not that if someone has one part of virtue, he necessarily has the rest, but that the virtues are, as distinct parts, separable one from the other. The metaphor of the face, then, is not quite apt, superior though it is to that of gold. And now, perhaps because Socrates has up to this point seemed so accommodating an ally and so friendly an interlocutor, Protagoras takes a liberty. He volunteers,

on the protagoras

43

as an example of the separable character of the several virtues, this: “[M]any are courageous but unjust, and just, in turn, but not wise” (329e5–­6). As courage may go together with injustice (successful bank robbers, say), so justice may go together with lack of wisdom—­or foolishness. Protagoras thus points to the fundamental question: if lack of wisdom and justice are a possible combination, does justice ever go together with wisdom? Will the wise as such ever be just?1 Or is justice the preserve of fools? That Protagoras’ argument has just taken a crucial turn is signaled by Socrates’ surprised question (whether that surprise is real or feigned): “So then these too are parts of virtue . . . wisdom as well as courage?” This ques­ tion prompts us to see or to recall that, in the whole of Protagoras’ long speech, he had spoken first only of justice and a sense of shame, then of justice, moderation, and piety, which together he carefully labeled “political virtue” (322e2–­3; 323a6–­7, b2, c3–­4 [“this virtue”]; the apparent exceptions to the rule—­325a2–­6; 325c1; 326e2, e4; 327d2; 328a7, b1—­are shown by their contexts to be no exceptions at all). The speech as a whole deals not with virtue unmodified but with political virtue only. This is now confirmed by the fact, to which Socrates again draws our attention, that Protagoras has carefully separated wisdom and courage from the other three virtues or, more precisely, from the three political virtues. In fact, the closest he had come to speaking of courage in his long speech had been a single reference to the avoidance of cowardice, for now that the mind has been rendered serviceable, through the forced memorizations and threats it has endured, it must be married to a body stout enough to avoid cowardice “in the wars and in the other actions”—­that is, in service to the city (326c1 and context). It will be important later to remember that Protagoras had here declined to call this avoidance of cowardice, in the service of the city, “courage.” As for “wisdom,” Protagoras had strictly limited himself to speaking of the “technical wisdom” (321d1) stolen from Hephaestus and Athena—­such as smithing or weaving (consider 321e1–­2, which equates “technical wisdom” and “art”; al­so 322b3)—­or the “wisdom pertaining to [human] livelihood” (321d4). Similarly, the “political [wisdom]” (321d5) or art (322b5, b7–­8) that the early human beings were without resided with Zeus and proved to consist in justice and a sense of shame. But wisdom and justice are fundamentally separable according to Protagoras: political wisdom is not wisdom proper. With a few deft questions, then, Socrates has permitted or encouraged Protagoras to make clearer than before the chasm between political virtue—­ those unnatural qualities of soul that prompt us always to prefer the good of others or of the whole to our own good, in the name of justice and moderation and piety—­and virtue simply, which comprises only wisdom (unmodified)

44

chapter two

and courage. Hence there are the courageous and unjust and the just and unwise. Before they begin what will prove to be their joint examination of virtue, Socrates establishes that, in Protagoras’ view of the matter, the powers or capacities of the various virtues are distinct from one another, just as are those of the parts of the face: none of the other parts of virtue is like knowledge (which Socrates here equates to wisdom) or like justice or courage or moderation or piety. Protagoras would thus seem to be at the furthest remove from Socrates’ famous dictum that “virtue is knowledge.” Or is he? For if he denies that justice, moderation, and piety are deserving of the name “virtue,” he would surely agree that wisdom is (a kind of) knowledge. But what about courage? That courage proves to be of particular importance to Protagoras and hence to the dialogue as a whole is suggested by the fact that Socrates orchestrates the conversation so as to silently omit all discussion of courage here and to reserve the treatment of it to the final and climactic section of the dialogue, in which Protagoras at a certain point in their consideration of it refuses to continue. And so it is that the discussion of courage brings the Protagoras to an end. One of the most important puzzles of the dialogue is to discover why courage alone is of such importance that the proceedings come to a halt as a result of the treatment of it. Socrates’ overarching goal in the section before us is clear. He seeks to establish, contrary to Protagoras’ stated view, that virtue does not have several different parts but is, in some sense, one. He proceeds by attempting to force Protagoras to agree that justice is or is closely akin to piety, wisdom to moderation, and the unit justice-­piety to the unit wisdom-­moderation. If Socrates proves successful in this, he will thus have compelled the sophist to agree that the various virtues, far from being essentially distinct from one another, are essentially the same: virtue is one, like a piece of gold. He will thus have proved that the sophist, that famous teacher of virtue, does not know what he is talking about. But, as we will try to bring out, Socrates comes very close indeed to exposing Protagoras entirely as a teacher of injus­ tice, a step that is potentially much more damaging to him than being seen as confused or incompetent. Indeed, any sensible fellow would, if forced to do so, choose the reputation for confused incompetence over that of clear-­ sighted viciousness. As if to encourage Protagoras, Socrates now joins forces with him to answer the questions of an unnamed interlocutor, conjured up by Socrates for the purpose. Socrates states his own opinion, just prior to the first appearance of their anonymous questioner, that justice is something (pragma) rather than no thing at all (ouden pragma: 330c1).2 Protagoras agrees, for what would it

on the protagoras

45

mean to deny it? Even if Protagoras were to contend openly that justice is by law or convention alone and not by nature, and hence is not in any serious sense but in the element of opinion only, he would for that very reason have to grant or insist that almost all human beings have a lively concern for justice, evidenced not least in the heated debates or quarrels to which that concern can give rise: justice is indeed a pragma, a thing with which we are concerned or with which we deal. Socrates adds to this agreement about justice two more, now in response to their anonymous questioner: both men agree that justice (dikaiosun�) is itself a just thing (dikaion), which means that justice is such as to be like, to be the same sort of thing as, the just. Socrates proceeds in a similar manner with the virtue of piety: piety too is said to be something (tina: 330d2)—­that is, a thing of concern to us ( pragma: 330d4)— ­and it is “naturally” such as to be like or the same sort of thing as the pious. Yet at the mere posing of this question, Socrates professes to be “indignant” and hushes the anonymous questioner: scarcely anything else would be pious, if piety itself will not be (330d4–­e2)! Protagoras’ easy agreements here may be traceable to a genuine conviction on his part, but it is more likely that they stem from indifference: what really is at stake in these hairsplitting questions of dubious logic? In the case of both justice and piety, the questioner puts on the table the possibility that justice is itself either just or unjust, piety itself either pious or impious. The strangeness of contending that justice is itself just, or piety pious, has been noted by many scholars; that strangeness appears also if we compare these to the extrapolitical virtues as Protagoras understands them: is courage itself courageous or wisdom itself wise? Predication of this kind (“self-­predication”) seems unintelligible—­with the possible exception of the Ideas themselves, about which Socrates is in any case perfectly silent here. According to Vlastos, “[T]o say of any universal that it is just or unjust, pious or impious, brave or cowardly would be sheer nonsense: these are moral predicates, and for that reason they are as impredicable of a logical entity, like a universal, as of a mathematical entity, like a number or a geometrical figure” (1981, 252). More striking still is the other possibility the questioner entertains: that justice may itself be unjust, piety impious. It is difficult to see how wisdom itself, for example, could be unwise. A clue is perhaps supplied by the fact that, in the case of piety, the questioner adds “nature” as a consideration ( pephukenai: 330d6). Precisely because, as Protagoras has presented them, justice and piety are essentially political, because they are the dispositions of soul that permit us to live in communities, very much against our natural tendency, the specific content of the virtues called “justice” and “piety” is conventional according to him and hence may vary widely from

46

chapter two

place to place and epoch to epoch. Accordingly, the specific content of what is “justice” here could well be regarded as unjust there, just as what “piety” demands here could well be regarded as impious there. If the nature of the world and of human beings is such that all communities, if they are to survive, must agree to call some things just and unjust, pious and impious, this affords insufficient reason to say that justice and piety are by nature, for these political virtues would be largely without stable content: “piety itself” would rightly be (regarded as) pious or impious—­that is, demanding of us what is at one time or place pious, at another impious. Still, Protagoras agrees with the more acceptable or respectable alternatives put before him at every stage. At this point, Socrates informs their anon­ ymous questioner of a misunderstanding: not Socrates but rather Protago­ ras had contended (as he is here forced to agree) that the parts of virtue are related to one another so as not to be like any other part. Having thus ventured out on a limb with Protagoras, Socrates retreats to a safe distance and begins to saw it off, for the questioner now presses Protagoras with greater tenacity than logic: “Piety, then, is not a thing such as the just, nor is justice such as the pious, but rather such as that which is not pious; and piety is such as that which is not just, but therefore unjust, the just being impious?” (331a7–­b1). If, as Protagoras contends, the various virtues are distinct from each other, then piety is not like what is just, nor is justice like what is pious. From here, we can see the conclusion toward which Socrates (in the guise of the questioner) had been heading, one too hasty to be convincing but offensive nonetheless: piety must be unjust and the just impious! This might be true only if everything “not pious” were, by that very fact, impious, as distinguished from being neither pious nor impious, and everything “not just” were, as such, unjust. Socrates, for his part, contends that “justice is pious and piety just,” for “either justice is the same thing as piety or it is as similar as possible, and above all else justice is such as piety and piety such as justice” (331b1–­6). The looseness of this formulation is clear enough: justice may be the same thing as piety, but then again, it may not be. In fact, Socrates never proves here that justice and piety are even similar, let alone the same thing. But this section as a whole does serve the important purpose of stressing the possible linkage between the two virtues or their particular closeness. In the Euthyphro, the dialogue devoted to examining the question “what is piety?” Socrates experiments with the thought that piety falls under the heading of justice or is a province within it (Euthyphro 12d1–­4). And here, toward the end of his treatment of the question, Socrates expresses amazement or wonder at Protagoras’ view that justice and piety have only some small similarity (331e4–­6). It is surely the

on the protagoras

47

case that, for Socrates, the relation of justice to piety is of great importance. This contrasts sharply with the attitude of Protagoras,3 who must be put off, or alarmed, by the recklessly flippant manner of “the questioner” in so sensitive a matter and who, for the first time in this section, openly disagrees with Socrates—­with Socrates himself, now that the fiction of “the questioner” is dropped altogether: “It’s really not my opinion, Socrates . . . that it is so simple as for me to concede that justice is pious and piety just. In my opinion there is a distinction there. But what difference does this make? [ . . . ] If you like, let justice be pious for us and piety just” (331b8–­c4). Protagoras can see nothing of theoretical importance at stake in the question of the relation of piety to justice, these two facets of merely “political virtue,” and he would be very happy to drop the question. Socrates’ response is striking, underscoring as it does the peculiar importance of the question (to which we will return) of justice in its relation to piety: “That won’t do for me [M� moi] . . . For I have no need to put to the test this ‘if you like’ and ‘if that’s your opinion,’ but rather me and you” (331c4–­6). Socrates also notes, at the conclusion of their treatment of justice and piety, how “annoying” Protagoras is finding this line of inquiry (332a2). Socrates then turns to examine wisdom and moderation (sophrosun�), the two remaining virtues now that courage has been dropped without comment. Both men agree that foolishness is the contrary of wisdom: surely the wise man is at the furthest remove from the fool. In addition, those who act foolishly—­which Socrates here defines, with Protagoras’ approval, as the con­trary of acting correctly and advantageously—­are not being moderate in so acting. As a result, acting foolishly is the contrary of acting mod­­ erately. Socrates then establishes, again with Protagoras’ approval, that there is one and only one contrary of each thing or quality: strength and weakness; speed and slowness; noble and shameful; good and bad; high-­pitched and low-­pitched. That which is done foolishly, then, is done in a manner contrary to what is done moderately, and since the former is done with foolishness, the latter with moderation, foolishness and moderation are contraries. Yet they have already agreed that foolishness is the contrary of wisdom. Since each thing has one and only one contrary, and foolishness is the contrary of both moderation and wisdom, moderation and wisdom must be the same! In other words, because moderation and wisdom share a single contrary—­foolishness—­they must be identical. Socrates is permitted to make this rhetorical move—­which Protagoras agrees to only “very unwillingly” (333b3–­4)—­partly on account of the ambiguity of “moderation” (sophrosun�). “Moderation” means having a general good sense, a level-­headedness, just as its contrary or absence, “foolishness”

48

chapter two

(aphrosun�), has a comparable range of meanings. Moreover, the two men give no definition or description of “wisdom” here, except to assert that foolishness is its “complete contrary.” But if one contends that wisdom is the possession of knowledge or science of the most important things—­for example, knowledge of the best or most honorable things by nature that as such outstrip the human things altogether and include even the nature of the cosmos or its constituents (consider Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics 6.7)—­whereas “moderation” is or is bound up with “acting correctly and advantageously” (Protagoras 332a6–­8), then “moderation” and “wisdom” are very different indeed. Accordingly, “foolishness” could point in the direction of either having false opinions about the highest (the eternal) things or mistaking the disadvantageous for the advantageous here and now. It is conceivable, in other words, that one without wisdom in the higher sense could be possessed of an all-­but-­infallible practical judgment or good sense, just as, on the other side, people deny that “Anaxagoras, Thales, and the wise of that sort are prudent when they see them being ignorant of the things advantageous to themselves” (Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics 1141b3–­6). Does Protagoras’ easy agreement in most of this argument indicate that, for him, wisdom too is bound up with or is even exhausted by knowledge of the advantageous for oneself? Might that agreement suggest that the supposedly higher wisdom is unavailable to us according to him? But this possibility makes all the stranger his separation, in his long speech, of moderation from wisdom. Why, in his original estimation of it, did moderation properly belong with justice and piety as parts of political virtue merely? The more obvious grouping would be justice, piety, and cour­ age—­qualities of soul that, taken together, both prompt us to do our duty to human beings and gods and permit us the stuff needed to do it well—­while moderation and wisdom would seem to belong together as the correct apprehension, practical and theoretical, of the world, human and suprahuman. Such apprehension is naturally beneficial and even pleasing to the mod­ erate and wise themselves. Protagoras’ estimation of courage will be set forth only in the final section of the dialogue, but we offer this suggestion concerning moderation: Protagoras initially saw moderation as closely akin to justice (see its first mention at 323a1–­2), as the disposition to be “sen­ sible” in the sense of being willing to defer or decline the satisfaction of our desires. This sense of moderation is certainly compatible with its use in the description of the “education” of boys at the hands of the cithara (or music) teachers, who are diligent about instilling “moderation” in the boys and seeing to it that they do nothing wrong or bad (326a4–­5 and context): moderation here amounts to doing what one is told or minding one’s p’s and

on the protagoras

49

q’s. But Protagoras does use the term in a rather different sense once in his long speech: in an apparent “digression” whose importance we have already stressed, Protagoras notes that, while it would be “moderation” (sensible) to admit the fact that one is not a good aulos player, in the case of one who is unjust, it would be not “moderation” but “madness” to admit it and so not to pretend to be just (323a5–­c2, noting especially b2–­5). In this case, “moderation” would demand lying about one’s injustice in order to avoid the “madness” of frankly admitting that injustice. Just as there is a kind of moderation that marks boys who do as they are told, so there is a kind of moderation that guides the unjust in their prudent deceptions. Still, this latter usage of moderation does not equate it with wisdom—­wisdom presumably consisting in part in the awareness of the true character of justice, moderation being the good sense to conceal that awareness—­and the moderation that is thus linked with wisdom is not stressed nearly as much in Protagoras’ long speech as is the moderation of dutiful children. Socrates does not immediately draw the conclusion that moderation and wisdom are one. Instead, he offers Protagoras a choice: they must get rid of either the premise that one thing has only one contrary or Protagoras’ contention that wisdom is different from moderation. But rather than exploring the possibility that some things may have more than one contrary, or permitting Protagoras to do so, Socrates forces the conclusion he seeks: hence wisdom and moderation must be the same. In other words, Socrates states in effect that either A or B must be the case: therefore B! Precisely “foolishness” may have two different contraries—­wisdom or good sense—­just as courage may be the contrary of recklessness (overboldness) or cowardice (compare also 332e2 with d4, noting the odd use of the plural “contraries” in the latter). Socrates’ highhandedness continues here, for he adds to his conclusion a faulty recollection of the result of the argument concerning justice and piety that considerably overstates the conclusion they had reached: “And then justice and piety, in turn, became manifest to us previously as being pretty much the same thing” (335b5–­6). With justice-­piety and wisdom-­moderation now established as, or rather asserted to be, units, Socrates proceeds to investigate their relation. One can imagine him doing so by arguing that piety is equivalent to wisdom, for example (compare 361b1–­2), or justice to moderation. What he chooses to argue instead is revealing of the point of the entire cross-­examination up to this point: Socrates chooses to press Protagoras on the possibility that it is “moderate” (sensible) to commit injustice! Naturally, Protagoras refuses to admit this: “I for my part would be ashamed . . . to agree to this, since many of the human beings do assert it” (333c1–­3).4 Socrates politely refuses to

50

chapter two

direct his questioning to the many or their opinion: “I am equally examining both myself as questioner and the one answering,” namely, Protagoras. It is no wonder, then, that here Protagoras himself calls the argument “annoying” (or “obnoxious”). Socrates now hammers away at the wonderful good­ ness of injustice: it is moderate to be unjust—­hence sensible, hence to be of good counsel, to fare well, to attain the things good and therefore advantageous to human beings! Beginning as the very model of politeness and even deference, Socrates has rather suddenly become impolite and even hostile. Protagoras refuses to give his own opinion (“Let it be so”: 333d4, d6), except as regards the good: he does indeed say that some things are good and hence advantageous. This refusal is perfectly intelligible. It would, by his own ac­­ count, be “madness” to admit to one’s injustice, and so he could hardly agree to the goodness of injustice. Still, it should be noted that Protagoras does not take this opportunity flatly to deny that the practice of injustice makes for good policy, for to do so might harm his business prospects with such students as Critias and Alcibiades. He thus finds himself between the rock of admitting his praise of injustice and the hard place of having publicly to deny the most daring feature of his true teaching. Socrates goes so far as to include here, in the list of the advantages of injustice, a clear echo of Protagoras’ own advertisement: to be unjust is to be of “good counsel” (eu bouleuesthai: 333d6), the very thing Protagoras had claimed to be able to teach his students (euboulia: 318e5).

The Aftermath: Protagoras on the Good Socrates’ impudence is intolerable. It prompts the sophist to utter his first and only oath of the dialogue (“yes by Zeus!”) and to make what can fairly be called an outburst (334a3–­c6). What clearer sign could there be of Socrates’ effectiveness in discombobulating the man renowned the world over for his clever speaking? To repeat, Socrates is here pushing the argument that injustice is sensible in that it permits us to “fare well,” and to fare well is to attain for oneself the good or advantageous things; the analysis or cross-­ examination comes to a halt when Protagoras vehemently denies that the good things are as such only the things advantageous to human beings: “and even if they aren’t advantageous to human beings, I at least call them good!” It is at this point that Socrates, seeing Protagoras being riled up for a fight, tells the comrade that he proceeded cautiously and posed the next question gently: do you mean that there are some goods that are not advantageous to any human being, or do you mean that there are some goods that are not advantageous (for anything or anyone)? This latter possibility would

on the protagoras

51

presumably mean that Protagoras accepts some notion of “the good” that is separate from all advantage and therefore from any discernible need (compare Xenophon Memorabilia 3.8.2–­3); it might mean, with the official doctrine of the Platonists, that “the good is something else, by itself, apart from these many good things, which is also the cause of their all being good” (Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics 1095a26–­28). Now Protagoras, for all his annoyance, makes clear immediately that he, too, understands the good to be the advantageous and hence the advantageous for something or someone: he insists only that that something need not be a human being. He therefore does not disagree with at least the end of the line of argument Socrates had been pressing just prior to the sophist’s outburst: to fare well is to attain the good—­that is, advantageous—­things for a human being. It is, of course, easy to be distracted by the present fireworks and so lose sight of this agreement. Protagoras gives a surprisingly lengthy elaboration of the point, which seems obvious enough, that one can speak of the advantageous in reference to beings other than human beings. He begins by distinguishing among the species of animals (human beings are followed by horses, cattle, and dogs) and then takes up the case of trees. And here Protagoras speaks for the first time of the parts of a single whole as distinguished from the animals indicated, all of whom live in groups or herds or packs: he notes that what is good for the roots of trees—­manure, for example—­is harmful to their young shoots. One cannot say, then, that so foul smelling or repulsive a thing as manure is simply bad (or good); its goodness depends not on its origin or appearance or reputation but on its efficacy in meeting the needs of a particular kind of thing. Protagoras notes too that what may be harmful to the young (shoots or buds) is excellent for the mature (the established roots). Similarly, olive oil, pleasant smelling and attractive as it is, is bad for all plants and for the hair of animals except for that of human beings: for human beings, olive oil is in fact an aid to bodily health generally. (Protagoras thus observes this order: human beings, [other] animals, plants, [other] animals, human beings.) What is more, the good “is something so complicated and varied that the same thing that is good for things outside the human body is worst for things within it” (334b6–­c2). Protagoras speaks now not just of the parts of a human being, as in the case of trees, but of the outside and the inside of the human being; the visible body is accompanied by the invisible body, not the invisible soul, and hence he is concerned here only with what nourishes the body (compare 313c5–­6). Protagoras’ general observation about the good’s complexity prompts him to note that even olive oil can be harmful if digested in any significant quantity by those human beings who are in a weakened condition: at most, it can

52

chapter two

be used in small amounts to mask the “annoying” or irksome (duschereian: 334c4; compare 332a2 and 333d2) odors coming from their food and drink, presumably such food and drink as are needed by the sickly. What is ugly or repulsive, then, can be good, at least for the mature; and what is attractive can be bad, at least for the sickly, unless, of course, it is used to conceal something in order to benefit the sickly. To be mature and healthy, then, is to be able to benefit from the ugly and the attractive alike: there is no necessary connection between the good (the advantageous) and the beautiful. One can say more generally that, goaded by Socrates’ impertinence, Protagoras gives an indirect but still revealing account of his own activity and concern for the good understood strictly in terms of advantage, not just for human beings as such, but also and above all for the human being in his maturity and health. Indirectly, too, he seems to concede the main thrust of Socrates’ line of cross-­examination or attack, if “injustice” may be likened to “manure,” even as he ably defends himself by delivering a clever speech. And to judge at least by the crowd’s reaction, Protagoras has thereby regained whatever ground he might have lost immediately before: “[T]hose present burst out in applause, because he had spoken well” (334c7–­8).

The First Interlude or Intervention There follows the first of two “interventions” on the part of others present, the purpose of which is to keep the conversation from breaking up prematurely or to guide its course so that it will not break up. It is clear enough by now that when Protagoras is able to make a long speech, he gains the crowd on his side, just as when Socrates is able to subject him to questioning, Soc­­ rates ascends. Now Socrates claims, immediately prior to the interven­tion proper, that he is simply incapable of following long speeches: he is a forgetful sort of human being (he who is “narrating this entire dialogue verbatim to his friends”! [Pangle 2014, 158]), and if the conversation is to continue, Protagoras must agree to speak briefly, something he is, of course, capable of doing, as Socrates soon points out (334c8–­d5; 334e4–­335a3). Is Soc­rates thus demanding that Protagoras give answers briefer than those that are required, in his opinion? Were he to have complied with such a request in the past, he would hardly have come to be seen as better than anyone, and the name “Protagoras” would not be as well known among the Greeks as it is. Here Socrates remarks to the comrade that he judged Protagoras to have been dis­­ satisfied with his own answers up to that point and that he would no longer be willing to converse by answering Socrates’ questions: the difficulty, then, is not in fact the length or brevity of his speech—­Alcibiades will soon

on the protagoras

53

say what is obvious enough, that Socrates is not forgetful at all (336d2–­4; compare 309b6)—­ but rather the difficulty or obnoxiousness of Soc­ rates’ questions. And once Socrates reaffirms both his own inability to follow long speeches and Protagoras’ ability to speak briefly, he claims that, since Protagoras is unwilling to converse in the only way Socrates can and since he himself in his lack of leisure (tis ascholia: 335c4) has somewhere else he ought to be, the get-­together must end. Just as Socrates is not truthful when he says that he is forgetful, so he is not truthful when he says that he is not now at leisure, for as soon as this lengthy conversation ends—­it has not yet reached its midpoint—­Socrates meets up with the comrade and of course re­ peats the conversation in more or less its entirety, a luxury unavailable to a man with pressing business to attend to. Hence Socrates is capable not only of remembering but also of making very long speeches, and he is, so to speak, always at leisure. Socrates’ lies—­for that is what they are—­may be justified by recourse to their manifest purpose: the protection of Hippocrates, and those like him, against the allure of the great sophist. In the “intervention” that follows, five people speak: Callias, Alcibiades, Critias, Prodicus, and Hippias. They debate the practical question of how best to arrange the rest of the conversation such that it will be satisfactory to both Socrates and Protagoras. This debate culminates in a sort of vote that evidently permits the conversation to continue. We thus witness, in minia­ ture, a political community in action—­a community that happens to have within it both a sophist and a philosopher. To be sure, the scene has its comic touches. For example, the central speaker in these democratic deliberations is the future oligarchic thug Critias, who is critical of both Callias and Alcibiades for their zealous partisanship! The scene also pokes fun at the linguistic precision of Prodicus and the pompous “wisdom” of Hippias, who contends that those present are, by nature and not mere custom or law, the peak of the peak of the peak: they are Greeks, in Athens, in Callias’ house, “the very hall of wisdom in Greece” (337d3–­e2). Now this communal deliberation is preceded, as we have seen, by the crowd’s hearty approval of Protagoras (he is applauded), but it is succeeded by an amendment offered by Socrates that, in effect, entirely undoes the com­ munity’s resolution. Together, the group decides to elect a sort of referee who will see to it that neither speaker indulges in either excessive brevity or prolixity—­this is the practical proposal of “Hippias the wise” (337c6–­7)— ­but Socrates explains why that is simply impractical. Among other reasons, Protagoras is wise, and no one wiser than he could or should be elected as overseer: Socrates here acts on the basis of the principle that wisdom is the title to rule, and we are, by that very fact, made witnesses to this

54

chapter two

principle in action. Socrates suggests instead that the requirement of brevity be retained but that now Protagoras should be the one to pose questions, with Socrates acting as the model respondent: he will show Protagoras how to answer briefly. (Of course, Socrates ends up delivering, uninterrupted, the second longest speech in the Protagoras—­although it should be said that he does so with the ready permission of all present: 342a4–­5 and context.) This “amendment,” which actually annuls the prior resolution, is approved of by “everyone” (338e2; compare 337c5 and 338b2)—­with the excep­tion of Protagoras, who is “very unwilling” to proceed but is nonetheless “compelled” to do so. To judge from this playful scene, Socrates the philosopher both deserves to rule and does rule. He not only ably argues why the conversation must proceed on the grounds satisfactory to him, but he (in contrast to the sophist) also marries speech and deed or reinforces speech with deed: he stands up as if to leave (335c7, d6). Surely Socrates would never identify the political art with rhetoric or, still less, rank rhetoric above it, as the sophists in general were inclined to do according to Aristotle (consider Nicomachean Ethics 1181a12–­17). Socrates is thus responsible for Protagoras’ swift fall from popular acclaim, and he manages things so that the conversation proceeds on terms entirely agreeable to himself and with the approval of every­one else present—­everyone, that is, except Protagoras, of course. In this com­ munity writ small, wisdom rules, although even here it must appear to bow to the popular will; this community, of course, is not Athens but a most unusual, and comparatively small, gathering in a private home. Still, it seems that not Protagoras but Socrates is the master of “good counsel concern­ ing one’s own affairs” (318e5–­319a2).

The Fight by Proxy: Simonides v. Pittacus (338e6–­347a5) Thus “forced” or compelled to continue the conversation, Protagoras changes tack. He now contends that a great part of a man’s education consists in be­ ing clever when it comes to poetry—­that is, in understanding what has been said, “correctly” or “incorrectly,” by the poets and knowing how to go through the poems and to give an account of them when asked to do so. Protagoras surely has in mind something other than the early and formative education of boys at their benches, who are “forced” to memorize “the works of the good poets” that contain “many admonitions and many detailed descriptions and praises and encomia of the good men of old” and so serve to inspire the boys to behave properly (325e4–­326a4). Protagoras’ literary questions are instead

on the protagoras

55

meant to test nothing less, evidently, than Socrates’ possession of an education properly belonging to a “man” (compare 325a6 with 338e7). Protagoras’ recourse here to poetry is striking.5 As we have seen, he had earlier identified three great poets—­Homer, Hesiod, and Simonides—­as sophists of old who concealed their sophistry by means of poetry (316d7 and context), a practice of which Protagoras was quite critical: he judged his own (relative) frankness to be superior in point of prudence to their reticence. But now that the conversation with Socrates has become not just “annoying” but infuriating, now, subsequent to Protagoras’ manifest readiness for a fight, he retreats. That is, he responds in deed to the difficulty that his rhetorical self-­presentation encounters, at least under questioning from so agile an examiner as Socrates, by resorting to the art of poetry, that old-­fashioned refuge of the old-­fashioned sophists. Does this not indicate that Protagoras’ openness is seriously flawed or that he must accept in practice the wisdom of the older poets? Yet Protagoras’ retreat—­if that is what it is—­is only partial. It may well be a feint, for he tells Socrates, and hence the group, that exactly the same question—­“about virtue”—­will be at stake, but transferred into the realm of poetry: “that will be the only difference” (339a3–­6). Accordingly, we expect Protagoras to pursue, indirectly or obliquely, the question of the rank of “political virtue” in its relation to virtue unmodified—­to wisdom and perhaps also courage—­and especially the place of justice in a good life, one conducted in all things by the dictates of wisdom. In short, we expect Protagoras to fight back somehow, ei­ ther by defending his own account of the wisdom of injustice or by attacking Socrates in some way. Quoting from a poem of Simonides addressed to Scopas, a member of the ruling clan of Thessaly, Protagoras charges that Simonides contradicts himself because he criticizes Pittacus, a “wise mortal,” for having said exactly the same thing that he, Simonides, says.6 While Simonides contends that “a good man truly to become is difficult,” he then turns around and rebukes Pittacus for having said that it is “difficult to be noble.” The bearing of all this on Socrates himself is far from clear. If the question of what virtue is amounts to the question of how one becomes good or noble, the two men have not been directly discussing, let alone disagreeing over, the question of the difficulty or ease of becoming virtuous. And in fact, Protagoras is less immediately concerned with the precise content of each man’s assertion than he is with the fact of Simonides’ gall. He asks Socrates, is it not galling when Simonides “criticizes Pittacus for saying the same things that he himself says . . . and refuses to accept it when Pittacus says the same things as he himself does? And yet whenever he criticizes one who says the same things as he himself does, it’s clear that he criticizes himself as

56

chapter two

well, so that, either in what came before or in what came later, he doesn’t speak correctly” (339d5–­9). Thus the first topic Socrates and Protagoras discuss is whether a good or wise poet would ever contradict himself. And despite some difficulties in the text as it has come down to us, while Socrates clearly agrees that a poem could not be “nobly” or “beautifully” (kal�s) written if it contained such a self-­contradiction, he does not so clearly deny that it might nonetheless be “correctly” (orth�s) written (339a7–­10; recall 339a2; consider also 352d4: what is noble is not necessarily true). An unintentional self-­contradiction is a blunder, but a “wise” man, such as Socrates clearly holds Simonides to be (345d9–­e4), may well intentionally contradict himself if doing so promotes a sound pedagogical purpose or other reasonable end (consider also the case of Theognis at Meno 96a3–­4 and context; Protagoras 361a6–­8). Protagoras himself, at any rate, cannot consistently condemn intentional self-­contradiction, for he availed himself of just such a device in his long speech, which he surely regards as having been correctly stated: he there contended, we recall, both that Zeus is responsible for our sense of justice and shame and that all human beings in a given community instill this sense in us in altogether mundane ways. Still, it is hard to see how any of this is meant to affect Socrates. What skin is it off his nose if a dead poet (foolishly) contradicts himself? In upbraiding Simonides as he does, Protagoras focuses on the fact that one wise man publicly criticizes another wise man for holding exactly the same opinion that he himself holds: if Simonides is not simply confused, then he is a rank hypocrite. In this way, Protagoras signals that he is being treated as shabbily by Socrates as Pittacus was by Simonides: you, Socrates, agree with me about virtue—­you think (even if you don’t quite say) the same thing I do about the superiority of wisdom to all other virtues or about the place of justice in a truly good life—­and yet you are pretending that you don’t by raking me over the coals in public! (Hence Protagoras must hold that there are instances of intentional self-­contradiction that are not even correct, let alone noble or beautiful. Or does he object above all to the ignobility of Socrates, of his actions here? Protagoras delights in answering those who ask questions in a “noble” manner [318d5–­7].) This interpretation of Protag­ oras’ remark helps make sense of Socrates’ otherwise extraordinary reaction to it, for although Socrates had stated only tentatively that the remarks of Simonides “appear” to be consistent, “at least to me” (he confesses his uncertainty about even this much to the comrade [339c8–­9]), he now claims that, in hearing Protagoras’ criticism of Simonides, it was “just as if I’d been struck by a good boxer”: he felt “dizzy and woozy by what he’d said and by

on the protagoras

57

the uproar of the others” (339e1–­3). It stands to reason, then, that Socrates took Protagoras’ criticism to be a direct blow aimed at himself. It is now Socrates’ official task to vindicate Simonides from the charge of self-­contradiction. He pursues three different strategies in order to do so. The first two are brief and, to all appearances, utter failures; the third is a long speech—­of just the kind Socrates had claimed was beyond his capacity—­that begins in a lighthearted way but, in its account of the intention of the whole poem, becomes quite serious and even grave. Here we may note again that, after Protagoras’ longish account of the good understood as the advantageous, the assembled crowd gave its tumultuous approval (334c7–­8): whatever progress Socrates may have made up to that point had thus been undone. After his tour de force interpretation of Simonides’ intention, Socrates clearly gains or regains the ascendency, even if he is not applauded: he dictates the terms of the conversation to come and dispenses with even the trappings of democratic deliberation (with Alcibiades supplying the necessary muscle) in what we have called the second intervention (consider 347b3–­7 and 348b2–­8; compare 336e1–­2 and context, where Alcibiades’ partisanship was still subject to censure). However odd and circuitous the path that Socrates takes proves to be, he does ultimately prevail in vindicating Simonides, and thereby himself, according to the judgment of those present. Here, too, one cannot help but be impressed by Socrates’ own “good counsel,” evident as much in short exchanges as in long speeches. Socrates begins by telling the comrade that he called on Prodicus for aid not because he really needed the linguistic expertise of that “altogether wise and divine” man but “to tell you”—­the comrade—­“the truth” so that he could gain a little time for himself to ponder what the poet meant (339e3–­ 340a2). Socrates thus deceived Prodicus into thinking that he needed him and even that it was his just duty (dikaios: 340a1) to comply with his request, a deception in keeping with Socrates’ somewhat playful treatment of the man throughout (consider, above all, 341d7–­9). Comparing himself to the river Scamander and Prodicus to Scamander’s brother Simois, Socrates implicitly compares Protagoras, no longer to Orpheus, but now to Achilles, in his dramatic battle with the river (Iliad 21.308–­9 and context). Achilles won that battle, albeit narrowly, through the intervention of a most artful god, Hephaestus. Will Protagoras also win this battle, through the superiority of his art, whether or not Socrates calls on Prodicus? At the very least, Soc­ rates seems quite uncertain of what the poet intended and hence whether he can clear him of the charge of self-­contradiction. Can he do so? Does he really wish to do so?

58

chapter two

Socrates’ first approach to the problem seems promising. Making a show of his reliance on the expertise of Prodicus, Socrates draws attention to the fact that the verbs in the two controversial statements differ: whereas Simonides had spoken of “becoming” (good), Pittacus had spoken of “being” (noble); and, as Prodicus with his prodigious learning helps us understand, “to be” and “to become” are different—­“by Zeus!” (This is compatible, at least, with the thought that not all is becoming or in flux according to Prodicus.) But of course Protagoras, as will be confirmed in the Theaetetus, was well aware of the distinction between being and becoming. Socrates goes one step further in his argument from authority: Hesiod also affirms that it is difficult to become good—­for “before virtue the gods placed sweat”—­ but whenever someone “reaches the apex of it, then it is easy to possess, difficult though it was” (Works and Days 289–­92). On this reading, Simon­ ides was correct to say that it is difficult to become good (which here must be equivalent to “virtuous”), and Pittacus was wrong to say that it is dif­ ficult to be noble (which also must be equivalent to “virtuous”) once one has ascended that peak. In other words, Pittacus took too gloomy a view of the maintenance, as distinguished from the acquisition, of true human excellence. Since Socrates has mentioned the poem’s nominal addressee, the politically powerful Scopas of Thessaly, we may wonder whether Scopas, assuming that he regarded himself as virtuous, would not have been pleased to hear from Simonides that it is not difficult for those who are virtuous to be—­that is, to remain—­such (consider 346b5–­8). In any case, in the preface to and elaboration of his first suggestion, Socrates relies on Simonides, He­ siod, and Homer—­the three crypto-­sophists cited, and criticized, by Protagoras for their use of poetry as a “cloak.” To this extent, Socrates thus aligns himself with them and against Protagoras. But Protagoras will have none of it, for the position Socrates sketches imputes “great ignorance” to “the poet”—­he must have Hesiod in mind—­if he is made to contend that virtue is easy, since it is the opinion of “quite all human beings” that virtue is “most difficult” of all. Here the undemocratic and rather snobbish Protagoras appeals to, evidently because he shares, the opinion of “all human beings”—­he who will later aver of precisely “the human beings” that they say much that is incorrect and even any random opinion they may happen upon, just as he has already noted in passing that “the many” merely parrot whatever the powerful few in the cities proclaim (352e3–­4 and 353a7–­8; 317a4–­6). The steps the city must take in order to instill “political virtue” in its citizens certainly suggest the great difficulty in becoming virtuous in this sense, and more important, the persistent necessity of relying on laws backed up with punishment suggests the difficulty

on the protagoras

59

involved in remaining virtuous: in these respects, Protagoras does agree with “the human beings,” who after all are the principal recipients or victims of that virtuous formation. It is undeniable that, in this instance at least, Socrates belongs together with Simonides and Hesiod and Protagoras belongs with “all human beings.” Might he have more in common with them than he realizes (consider also 351c2–­3)? Yet Hesiod may not be guilty of “great ignorance” if his statement is somehow part of a “cloak” intended to conceal his thoughts. At any rate, a glance at Hesiod’s poem indicates an ambiguity in the character of the “virtue” Hesiod describes, for he gives a long and powerful account, to his wayward brother especially, of the path of justice, of right action—­what Protagoras would call “political virtue”—­just as he gives a no less powerful, although briefer, account of the “way” that leads to the understanding of “all things” or to wisdom (compare Works and Days 216–­17 with 288–­93). And the original context of the line quoted by Socrates indicates that Hesiod had in mind the difficulty on the path not to justice or righteousness or “political virtue” but to wisdom. Hesiod therefore speaks of the relative ease of the maintenance of wisdom or understanding once achieved: standing on that summit is relatively easy, however difficult it may be to scale it. Moreover, the possession and use of hard-­won wisdom may well bring pleasures not obviously characteristic of the possession and use of justice, or of compliance with stern duty. Socrates’ remarkable unwillingness to fight for his first suggestion meant to vindicate Simonides is for all that less remarkable than the speed with which he drops his second and therefore central one. According to it, Simon­ ides meant by chalepon not “difficult” but “either ‘bad’ or something else you don’t understand” (341b5–­7), a suggestion that receives the approval of Prodicus (341c2): chalepon does indeed mean “bad.” As Socrates proceeds to explain, this interpretation of chalepon would result in Simonides’ criticizing Pittacus “for saying that ‘it’s difficult to be noble,’ just as if he heard him say, ‘it’s bad to be noble’ ” (341c3–­5). Invited by Socrates to object to this, Protagoras does. He again relies on what everyone says, or at any rate on what Simonides as well as “the rest of us” say: that chalepon means not “bad” but what isn’t easy and therefore comes about with many troubles. So much, then, for the authority of Prodicus—­who, Socrates says, was merely joking and putting Protagoras to the test, to see whether he could come to the aid of his own argument. Here Prodicus does not speak, but there is no obvious reason to think that he had been joking. What is more, Socrates himself will soon use chalepon in precisely the sense of “bad”: a “difficult” (i.e., a “bad”) season may bring down even a knowledgeable farmer (344d4).

60

chapter two

If, then, we resist Protagoras’ quick dismissal or if we rely on the wisdom of Prodicus, we may ask, what does this new suggestion, apparently so clumsy or ineffective, really amount to? It is certainly strange. To begin with, by substituting “bad” for “difficult” in the lines of both authors, Socrates, for that very reason fails, to free Simon­ ides from the charge of self-­contradiction! Perhaps, then, Socrates means to concede or confirm that a wise poet may well contradict himself if he has cause to do so (consider again 339b9–­10 and context). That the subject matter now on the table is sensitive, and so may call forth such caution, becomes explicit, for if Simonides took Pittacus to be saying that it is “bad to be noble,” Simonides is objecting to a most ignoble thought on the part of Pittacus. And the connection of this thought to the core of Protagoras’ teaching about politics is not so difficult to see: it is surely noble to do what is just and pious (consider 325d3–­5), but it is, for that very reason, bad in the sense of being disadvantageous for oneself, which is, of course, what Protagoras means by the term bad (see again 334a3–­c6). Wisdom alone, or wisdom buttressed by courage, is “the greatest” of the virtues. As Socrates proceeds immediately to bring out, there is indeed something jarring, not to say offensive, about the sentiment Pittacus is thus made to voice—­a fact that here serves as a “great indication” or “proof” that he could not possibly have meant the very thing Socrates had just suggested: “god alone might have that prize.” On Socrates’ suggested reading of Simonides, then, a reading that is withdrawn as soon as it is tendered and developed even as it is being withdrawn, Pittacus would be warning human beings away from being noble: allot that “prize” to the god alone (341e5–­6). One could well criticize Simonides for shining a light on such a thought, especially when we learn subsequently that Pittacus had circulated his utterance only “in private” and with the approval of “the wise”: in fact, Pittacus had never addressed himself to everyone indiscriminately—­“O Human Beings . . .”—­as Socrates’ presentation of Simonides seems to suggest (343b5–­7 and 343e6), and he had not stated a logos at all but rather a pithy remark (r�ma: 343c1–­2 and 344b5) that is, by its nature, open to varying interpretations and hence rather cryptic (consider 347e3–­7). Perhaps this is why Socrates states that it would be a mark of licentiousness or immoderation for Simonides to say what Soc­ rates momentarily suggests, when one might have expected Socrates to say this of Pittacus (consider 341e6–­7). Of course, Simonides emphatically renounces Pittacus’ sentiment after having given voice to it. But then again, if we are open to the possibility that Simonides intentionally contradicts himself when he criticizes Pittacus, since he himself had said essentially the same thing (“it is bad to become good” in the sense of being noble or

on the protagoras

61

virtuous), he would be implicitly agreeing with a thought that he thus puts on the table even as he ostentatiously distances himself from it. This might then lead, in turn, to the unacceptable thought that Socrates’ ostentatious quarrel with Protagoras is more apparent (rhetorical) than real on precisely the question of the character or content of virtue—­a thought unacceptable not least on account of its rendering us unable to explain the manifest differences in the lives led by the two men. The first of Socrates’ two attempts at vindicating Simonides puts into question the precise meaning of the term virtue, imported by Socrates from Hesiod: “virtue” may refer to political virtue or to wisdom, as Protagoras would put it, or, as Hesiod has it, “virtue” may be the path of just action or that of the understanding of “all things” arrived at on one’s own.7 Socrates’ second attempt goes very far in stating a core contention of Protagoras, according to which it is “bad to be noble” in the sense of being dedicated to the common good at some real cost to one’s own good. Socrates’ two strategies taken together thus point toward what would otherwise be a glaring omission in his analysis. The first such strategy reasonably drew our atten­ tion to a clear difference in the verbs used in each of the lines, the second to the presence in each of the same word; Socrates is perfectly silent about the most obvious difference: Simonides speaks of becoming “good” (agathos), Pittacus of being “noble” (esthlos). Evidently, Protagoras takes these terms to amount to the same thing. Did Simonides? Does Socrates? To be sure, esthlos is an ambiguous term, and it is ambiguous in the most important respect. It means, in the first place, a thing good of its kind, but it came to have the sense, when applied to human beings, of being brave or stout, and as a result, it sometimes carries a moral weight or significance (consider, e.g., Xenophon Cyropaedia 1.5.9; compare, however, Alcibiades II 143a1 and 150e3 with 148c2–­3). Depending on the context, then, esthlos may tend more in the direction of “noble” (kalos) than “good” (agathos).8 Accordingly, Simonides said only that it is difficult to become good; Pittacus had con­ tended that it is difficult to be noble. Pittacus was wrong to do so, for “god alone could [or would or might] have that prize.” Socrates does not avail himself of this most obvious means to clear Simonides of the charge of self-­contradiction, because he does not wish to state so clearly, or perhaps be forced to explore so directly, the possible tension between esthlos and agathos. But if we do not follow Protagoras in simply equating esthlos with agathos or in judging what is esthlos strictly in terms of what is good (ad­­ vantageous)—­if, that is, we entertain the possibility that the two terms do differ—­precisely that difference may point to the heart of Protagoras’ position: it amounts to the difference between being in possession of “political

62

chapter two

virtue,” on the one hand, or in possession of wisdom, on the other, either an ultimately unnatural and hence forcibly acquired simulacrum of true excellence or “the greatest” virtue (330a2). Socrates now turns to his third, last, and by far longest response (342a6–­ 347a5). In it, he goes through for the group (humin: 342a7; consider also 343c6) his opinions about the poem. He first gives a comic treatment of a proposition that he nonetheless proves to take seriously indeed, that virtue is wisdom (or knowledge) (342a6–­343b7). Second, he demonstrates that Simonides had a consistent intention throughout the poem, one that served his overarching ambition to be (known as) wise: he sought to refute, to bring down, the saying of wise Pittacus. Here we learn of the fact that goodness, understood as acting or faring well, consists solely in the possession of knowledge but that precisely virtue-­as-­knowledge is necessarily exposed to “misfortune” and to the consequences of our mortality such that we cannot “be”—­that is, remain over time, let alone forever—­good (343b7–­345c3). Third, Socrates draws out the consequences of this understanding of virtue for praise and especially blame; knowing that it is impossible to find a human being wholly without blemish (anam�mon: 345c9; compare 346d4), Simonides was disinclined to blame anyone: “With necessity, not even gods do battle.” Yet, in the fourth and final section, Socrates sketches the reason why Simonides, in the end, does have cause to reproach Pittacus. To return, then, to the first section of Socrates’ long speech, we are surprised to learn that the Lacedaemonians (Spartans) owe their supremacy in the world not, as everyone thinks, to their courage or manliness and unri­ valled prowess in battle but to their wisdom. Not Athens but Sparta is the true school of Hellas; not Athens but Sparta is the true home of those who love wisdom, who philosophize. Socrates now, in effect, retracts his earlier affirmation of the view of “the other Greeks” that it is the Athenians who are “wise” (see 319b3–­4; also 337d5–­7). When one understands the truth of the matter, then, one sees that virtue really does amount to wisdom or knowl­edge. In this way, the thesis that Socrates had attempted, by means fair or foul, to foist on Protagoras here returns. And if the world knew that wisdom is the source of faring so well in the world, all would make a practice of it rather than “laconizing” and hence laughably imitating the false show the Spartans put on for the world, with their short cloaks and cauliflower ears. Accordingly, the Spartans carefully guard the secret that they make a practice of wisdom; they consult from time to time with the sophists away from the prying eyes of all foreigners, whom they are forced to expel from the city. So it is too that they have mastered the art of “laconic” speech in the form of pithy, javelin-­like utterances, of which only a “perfectly educated human

on the protagoras

63

being” is capable (342d4–­343a1). Just as Protagoras had blown the cover of the crypto-­sophists of old (and of one contemporary), so Socrates here draws back the veil that conceals the secret wisdom of the Spartans. And this means, in turn, that everyone we meet or hear of in the Protagoras who is said to be wise—­the Spartans, Pittacus, Homer, Hesiod, Simonides, indeed all the old-­ fashioned sophists, the seven Greek wise men or sages (343a1–­b3)—­ agrees that wisdom demands concealment or that the wise do not, because they cannot, simply present themselves as what they are to the world. All the wise, that is, practice some version or other of “laconic” speech—­even Socrates in his very long speech in praise of precisely “laconic” speech. Thus Protagoras stands alone against “the wise” on the question of frankness or outspokenness. It was, in part, to emphasize this thought that Socrates had again reminded us of Protagoras’ outspokenness by describing, in his second attempt to vindicate Simonides, the very ancient character of the wisdom of Prodicus: Prodicus is as far as possible from any newfangled wisdom. And it was in this same context and for this same reason that Socrates had presented himself as a student of the wisdom of Prodicus, Protagoras being without experience of it (340e8–­a4, especially in light of 343b3–­5). Socrates’ portrait of the supremely philosophic Spartans, eager for the company of sophists, is of course a joke.9 Being a good joke, it has a point worth making. In the prior section that led to the first breakdown of the conversation, Socrates and Protagoras had been disagreeing over whether the various virtues are distinct from one another or are different names for the same thing. Protagoras had, of course, adopted the former view, Socrates the latter. If Socrates had succeeded in getting his way, we would have arrived at the proposition that virtue is one or, more precisely, that justice, piety, moderation, and wisdom are one—­a proposition that can easily be rephrased so as to accord with Socrates’ famous dictum that virtue is knowledge (or wisdom). Continuing here the neglect of courage that we had seen also in his cross-­examination of Protagoras—­the Spartans aren’t actually courageous!—­ Socrates now proceeds on the basis of (a version of ) his dictum: to repeat, virtue is knowledge (or wisdom). And Protagoras also holds to an understanding of virtue that bears some familial relation to this, for if Socrates could never countenance Protagoras’ debunking treatment of justice, moderation, and piety, he surely must agree with Protagoras that wisdom is somehow the peak, the constitutive core, of what is properly meant by “virtue.” The comic character of the treatment notwithstanding, or because of the license such a treatment allows, Socrates will now set forth some of the consequences of the view that “virtue is knowledge.” Because Socrates attributes the Spartans’ place in the world solely to

64

chapter two

their (true) virtue, he places before us the thought that virtue, whatever its precise character, is the necessary and sufficient condition to fare well in the world. Virtue is enough. Now, in his treatment of the Spartans, Soc­ rates did not mention Simonides so much as once (342a7–­343b7), and after Socrates has engaged in some (fairly strained) textual interpretation,10 meant to establish that the whole of Simonides’ poem was intended as an attack on, as a “refutation” of, Pittacus’ utterance (343c6–­344b5), we see that Simonides has a rather different point in mind from that of Socrates thus far. Simonides wishes to stress this: to become a good man is truly difficult, but Pittacus is wrong to say that it is merely difficult to be good in the sense of remaining good over time. It is in fact impossible to remain so. (The importance of the difference in the verbs “to be” and “to become”—­ seen in Socrates’ first strategy—­is thus restored, if with a new result.) “[U] nmanageable misfortune” (am�chanos sumphora: 344c5) will bring down precisely those who are faring well by rendering impotent the sole thing permitting them so to fare: their knowledge. A great storm may bring down an expert pilot of a ship, and a bad season may bring down a knowledgeable farmer. Indeed, it is precisely one who is “wise and good” (344e2) who can be brought low by “unmanageable misfortune,” since those who are not wise and good have always been unable to manage. And so we come up against the harsh thought that knowledge or wisdom is vulnerable in the face of misfortune. Virtue is not enough, in fact; knowledge is weak. By itself, it secures us too little. The joke about the supposedly wise but actually mar­ tial and manly Spartans takes on a different cast. From here, we can surmise that virtue ordinarily understood, not as knowledge but as political virtue, promises to do for the virtuous what is here denied to virtue-­as­knowledge—­namely, to win for us an inviolable protection against both misfortune and time or mortality. Now, in this section, Socrates does a surprising thing: he momentarily attributes to Pittacus the view that it is difficult to be good (agathos), and so he fails to observe strictly enough the difference between the two lines (344b7 and c1; consider also 344a2; compare 344e4–­5). Socrates may, of course, regard the respective terms, agathos and esthlos, as synonymous. Certainly, Protagoras held that the sayings of Pittacus and Simonides were the same, as we have noted. But synonymy must share in the ambiguity of the terms thus equated. Accordingly, esthlos may be synonymous with good, if we mean by “good human being” someone who possesses the things or qualities truly best for himself, what is truly most beneficial or advantageous, a kind of health. Or esthlos may be synonymous with good, if we mean by

on the protagoras

65

“good human being” one who in all things gives to others their due or who in all things seeks to serve the common good, come what may for himself: a “noble [kalos] and good” man or “gentleman.” To make use of an earlier formulation, and at the risk of beating a dead or dying horse, we note that esthlos can tend in the direction of either agathos (good) or kalos (noble). This ambiguity may be preserved in the line Socrates here quotes from an unnamed poet, according to which “a good man is at one time bad, but at another esthlos” (344d8): did the poet have two conditions in mind (good = esthlos; bad) or three? Is the good man as such necessarily esthlos, or might a good man be, from the point of what is esthlos, sometimes also bad? Whatever the original intent of the anonymous poet (consider again 347e3–­7; Xenophon Memorabilia 1.2.19–­20), Socrates introduces the line in such a way as to seem to equate esthlos with agathos—­that is, to have the former collapse into or be subsumed by the latter (344d5–­7). At any rate, in the section of the text now under discussion, Socrates mostly drops esthlos in favor of agathos because he has in mind one who is, to repeat, “wise and good,” virtue here being equivalent of course to knowledge (344b7, c1, e3; 345a1–­3, a6, b3, b7, c1–­3; compare 344d5 and e4–­5). In accord with this usage, Socrates stresses the importance of such acting or faring well as consists entirely in, or stems solely from, the possession of knowledge. The man good at letters, the good physician, and the good builder are all “good” in the sense that they do what they do well on account of knowledge. They thrive in the world, to the extent that they do, inasmuch as they are knowers. And here we also learn that a good man may become bad “through time or through toil or through illness or through some other calamity”; it is not just misfortune, then, that can ruin us but also the necessary weaknesses of our mortal bodies, “for this alone constitutes faring badly [ bad action]: being deprived of knowledge” (345b2–­5). Human goodness or excellence, then, vulnerable as it is, is understood here strictly in terms of the possession of knowledge and, by extension, of wisdom, of that which belongs to the “perfectly educated human being.” “Badness” is not so much injustice or impiety or licentiousness, then, as it is the loss either of knowledge or of the capacity to live in accord with knowledge (of the good): the knowledge that characterizes the “wise and good” or the good understood as the wise. In the third part of Socrates’ remarks, he draws from this understanding of virtue its consequences for praise and blame. Here he stresses that, according to Simonides, it is impossible to find a human being “wholly without blemish”: again, Pittacus was wrong to contend that it is merely difficult to remain virtuous. Moreover, Socrates suggests (on the basis of a

66

chapter two

highly questionable reading of the Greek) that Simonides was not so uneducated as to maintain that there are any human beings who willingly or voluntarily do anything “shameful,” a term perhaps to be understood here as equivalent to “bad” (consider the restatement of 345d5 at 345e2, where one might take the kai as epexegetical; also 345e4, where “shameful” is dropped; but compare 345e2). Most striking is Socrates’ statement of what is emphatically his own view (eg� . . . oimai), according to which “none of the wise men holds that any human being willingly [voluntarily] errs or carries out things both shameful and bad. Rather, they know well that all who do the shameful things and the bad things do them unwillingly [involuntarily]” (345d9–­e4). The unanimous position of the wise is that if virtue is knowledge, then vice must be ignorance—­ignorance, that is, of what is truly good or, to avoid the redundancy (343d6–­e2), good. And no human being would willingly be or remain in the grip of such ignorance, for it necessarily carries a high price: ignorance of the good condemns one to live a bad (or worse) life, something no one would voluntarily accept. Yet the present passage is less concerned with the motivation of all human beings than it is with the praise or blame allotted, “willingly,” by Simonides: since all human beings do nothing bad willingly (345e4–­6), Simon­ ides cannot single them out for praise, willingly or otherwise. As the flow of the argument implies, at least, Simonides instead praises a “noble and good” man who compels himself to feel friendly affection for and to praise his fatherland or parents from whom he has become alienated through their doing rather than his own: one could say that such a person acts out of filial piety or duty to behave decorously. Such, then, is one motive to “compel oneself” (345e7). After a brief encounter with “the wicked”—­those who positively delight in, and exaggerate, the failings of their parents or fatherland because they can, as a result, free themselves not only from the burdens of dutiful service but also from reproach for having done so (346a3–­b1)—­ Socrates speaks of “the good” (346b1–­5). “The good” differ from the “noble and good” in two respects: only the good are said to compel themselves to practice concealment (epikruptesthai: 346b2), and only they are said to be able to talk themselves out of ( paramutheisthai ) any anger they may feel at the injustices done to them by their fatherland or parents and to be reconciled with them (diallattesthai ) (346b3–­4); the good are in possession of an argument that does away with anger at injustice. The motive of this sort of “self-­compulsion” differs from that of the “noble and good” man because an understanding of the truth of things is at work in the former, as distinguished from the sense of duty most effective in the latter. And this

on the protagoras

67

difference is underscored by the case to which Socrates turns next, that of Simonides. Simonides went so far (“often”!) as to praise and to write encomia of a tyrant, or someone else of that sort, not willingly but by compelling himself to do so (346b5–­8). (He did not, of course, go so far as to compel himself to love or feel friendly affection for those same tyrants.) This third case of self-­compulsion is at the furthest remove from that at work in the “noble and good” man, for it was surely a calculation of Simonides’ own good or advantage—­perhaps his survival, probably his comfort or pleasure—­that led him to praise Scopas and other unsavory types. “Compulsion,” then, is a complicated thing. It may come largely from without (e.g., external force) or from within, as “self-­compulsion.” And this internal compulsion may take the form of the conviction that the avoidance of shameful things (or the performance of noble ones) is a supreme good; or it may take the form of the dictates of the truth also understood to be good; or, finally, it may take the form of calculations of one’s own advantage, in the manner of Simonides. Yet “none of the wise men” would maintain that any of these do anything bad voluntarily; the bad they do is involuntary. And to take the obverse of the same coin, the wise would presumably maintain that all are doing what seems best to them and doing it willingly, to be sure, but, in a sense, involuntarily too: even praising a tyrant must have appeared the better course to Simonides, all things considered, so in light of that appearance, he compelled himself to offer the praise he did. That the press of the necessity he felt was rather different from that felt by the noble and good man to praise his deficient parents, for example, does not free either from the power of necessity—­with which not even gods do battle (345d5; compare Laws 818b106 and d8–­e2). In the sequel, we will see that Protagoras is compelled by the power of “shame” to act in a manner contrary to what he must regard as best for himself (see 348c1; consider also the force of necessity or compulsion at work on him at 338e4). The necessity in question would seem to limit severely the scope of all moral praise and blame, inasmuch as they require that those praised and blamed be not forced or compelled to act as they do but free and hence responsible. All this makes the turn the argument now takes, in what will prove to be its final section (346b8–­347a5), somewhat surprising. Socrates reproduces Simonides’ case against Pittacus, a case that includes and even cul­ minates in censure ( pseg�: 346c1, d3; 347a3), despite the fact that Simonides goes out of his way to explain why he is not given to leveling such criticism. Not only we are reminded here that it is impossible to find, “among us who reap the fruit of this broad land,” a human being “wholly without blemish,”

68

chapter two

but we are also told that “infinite are the generations of the fools”: on what grounds could one possibly blame (as distinguished from pitying) a fool? And yet Simonides regards Pittacus, “wise mortal” though he is (339c4), as “over reckless” (agan apalamnos: 346c4;11 the striking formulation suggests that the poet would tolerate one who is merely “reckless” from the point of view of the city) because Pittacus does not understand of justice, in particular, that it is “benefactor of the city,” such as a “sound [or healthy: hygi�s] man” would know it to be (346c3–­5). We suggest that the criticism Simonides thus levels against Pittacus (according to Socrates, of course) is in truth meant by Socrates to apply to Protagoras above all. For all his intelligence, Protagoras is blind to his dependence on the political community, on the city, even or precisely as a habitual stranger among strangers. Protagoras understands that “reciprocal justice and virtue” are profitable “for you all” (humin: 327b1–­2, with the reading of the principal manuscripts), but he does not understand—­or at any rate, he does not take seriously enough his understanding—­that they are profitable also for himself. Even if Protagoras refuses to acknowledge the inner dignity of what Aristotle went on to call moral virtue, even if he wishes consistently to equate esthlos with advantage (good) or to distinguish good from noble and choose always the former and never the latter, at least not for its own sake, he should nevertheless avoid the crude error of supposing that justice is purely a burdensome imposition masterminded by infallible craftsmen of their own advantage that is always and necessarily exacted at the price of the good of those who are just and noble—­that is, the “fools.” Protagoras is surely not “wicked,” but there is something “unsound” about him. To put this in stronger terms, to be a parasite is one thing; to be a parasite that actively undermines the things most needed by its host to survive and thrive is quite another: it is (among other things) extremely imprudent. Like Pittacus, then, Protagoras is held to be speaking the truth, to be a wise or clever speaker (recall 310d5–­6, e5–­6), when in fact he is stating falsehoods about “the greatest things.” For this he needs to be, if not blamed, then censured (346b8–­347a5). After all, Protagoras himself had suggested that punishment carried out, not in a bestial spirit of vengeful anger, but for the sake of correction, is perfectly sensible. And what could be more cautious, or more graceful, than Socrates’ upbraiding of Protagoras through the medium of the interpretation of a dispute be­­ tween two foreign wise men of an earlier time? We might note here also, in connection with the question of Socrates’ relation to Protagoras, that So­c­ rates indicates clearly enough his own motive, or one of them, for taking on the great sophist as he does (and for taking the trouble to publicize the fact):

on the protagoras

69

like Simonides, he knew that if  he could get the better of so distinguished an opponent, he would gain an outstanding reputation “among the human beings of that time” in the manner of a champion athlete (consider 343b7–­c5). By the conversation’s end, even a Hippocrates could no longer say that, of all those known to him, Protagoras “alone” is wise (310d5–­6). There is a feature of Socrates’ long speech that we have passed over but that deserves to be mentioned now. In the context of making clear that, even if virtue is indeed knowledge, virtue is vulnerable either in the face of misfortune or on account of our mortal bodies, Socrates makes the following remark, on which he otherwise declines to elaborate: “And best for longest are those whom the gods love [ phil�sin]” (345c3). Socrates does not say, thereby, that goodness is bestowed on us by gods, for the context makes clear that goodness consists in the possession of knowledge (consider 345b5), and there is no reason to think that we come to possess knowledge because we are loved or befriended by gods; still less does Socrates say that, as a result of such love or friendship, we are good forever. Something of the harshness of our mortal condition as it is set forth in his long speech surely remains. By making this statement without much preparation or any elaboration (or indeed argument), Socrates points less to something necessarily true about the world than to something crucial that is missing from Protagoras’ lengthy account of gods. Protagoras had stressed that Zeus is a fearsome god who gives “law” to human beings and who demands that its violators pay with their lives. As we have seen, Protagoras means to put before us the kind of argument that “political virtue” requires if it is to be respected: such virtue must present itself as, or as being demanded by, a divine law accompanied by unfailing divine sanction, and it must be believed to be such by the vast majority of citizens. The political art does indeed reside with Zeus: such morality as a stable community requires is aided immensely by the shared belief in gods of the character of a Zeus. One may conclude, then, that the heart of piety, according to Protagoras, is an infinitely useful fear, not to say terror, deployed in the face of our staggeringly precarious position in the world. Socrates’ correction or addition indicates that there is something else that brings us to the gods, understood not as our frightening punishers but as our friends—­that is, as our loving protectors. It is not or not only, in other words, the repulsive fear characteristic of our natural condition that drives us toward the gods: it is also the hope to retain such goods as are available to us here and now, against the disasters of misfortune and the decrepitude brought on by time’s passage. It is also the elevated and elevating experience of loving dedication that

70

chapter two

is at work in pious worship. We are thus prompted to believe in gods who exercise their care for us, not or not only by means of punishment, but in loving friendship too.

The Second Interlude or Intervention (347a6–­348c4) Socrates brings his interpretation of Simonides to a close by addressing himself directly to Prodicus and Protagoras, the former presumably because Socrates had involved him in the proceedings. The other sophist present, Hippias—­whose proposal to elect an overseer was first adopted by everyone and then unceremoniously shot down by Socrates—­evidently does not like to be left out. He praises Socrates’ efforts but offers to give his own interpretation, which is, he informs the group, “good”—­by which he surely means “better.” And here we see one signal reason why Socrates told the comrade, at the very beginning of the Protagoras, that Alcibiades had come to his aid that day (309b6): Alcibiades thanks Hippias for the generous offer but firmly insists that Protagoras and Socrates have the just claim to speak, whether Protagoras still wishes to question Socrates or whether they revert to having Socrates question Protagoras (347a6–­b7). We are thus spared another example of Hippias’ puffed-­up talk (consider 337e2–­338b1)—­in fact, Hippias does not speak up again on his own for the rest of the dialogue (see 358a1–­359a1). In the immediate sequel, Socrates avows that he is willing to do whichever is more pleasing to Protagoras, to ask or to answer. But he does indicate a preference to bring to a conclusion the matters he had asked Protagoras about initially (347c1–­2; also 348a7–­9), and to that end, Socrates issues a fairly stinging criticism of the exercise they have just conducted, at Protagoras’ suggestion. According to Socrates, they ought to leave aside the analysis of poets, who, after all, are cited by the many in their speeches, some claiming a poet meant one thing, others that he meant another. Socrates and Protagoras ought rather to “imitate” (348a3) those symposiasts who are “noble and good” (gentlemen) and who have been educated—­not all the noble and good have been educated—­for these men do not need the foreign sound of musical instruments or other distractions at their get-­togethers, as do paltry and common human beings. Rather, they can delight in the orderly giving and receiving of accounts, just by themselves, even if they drink a great deal of wine. The comparison to symposia, high and low, is odd, even if Plato’s choice of characters in the Protagoras indicates some connection to his own Symposium (see pp. 216–­17 below); there is no wine drinking, for example,

on the protagoras

71

at this morning gathering. Socrates’ most obvious point is that the detour through Simonides’ poem amounts to a distraction—­which men of their qualities should bypass altogether—­from the main destination. And when Alcibiades, again coming to Socrates’ aid, asks Callias the host whether what Protagoras is doing now “too” is noble, in failing to make plain what he wishes to do (consider Callias’ earlier remark at 336b4–­6 in defense of Protagoras), Socrates tells the comrade that—­in his opinion, at least—­ Protagoras felt ashamed. Alcibiades’ characteristically brash remarks, then, together with the request of Callias and “almost” everyone present to con­ tinue—­surely Hippias made no such request—­force Protagoras at length to agree to go on, once again submitting to Socrates’ questions. We note, for now, only that Protagoras managed to talk himself into the position of continuing a conversation very much against his wish or better judgment, because he felt the goad of shame. Socrates immediately seeks to reassure Protagoras. He does so by twice quoting Homer—­and this just after he has criticized the many for relying on quotations of the poets in their speeches! As one has to take with a grain of salt Socrates’ passing criticism of books—­that they have nothing to say in response to a question posed to them (329a3)—­so one cannot take too seriously his criticism of poetry here. After all, Socrates claims to have given Simonides’ poem considerable attention and in fact to “know” or “understand” it (epistamai: 339b5; 339c1; compare 339e3–­5), a claim he rarely makes about anything. The least that one could say is that, if not Socrates, then Plato managed to write books that do respond to the questions posed to them, in the first place by guiding the reader to see what the right questions are, and Plato himself must be accounted a poet of the first order. As for Socrates, the first quotation of Homer he offers runs as follows: “Two going together, and the one observes [eno�sen] before the other” (Iliad 10.224). In the original context, it is Diomedes who makes this remark, after he accepts Nestor’s challenge to infiltrate the battle lines of the Trojans, and he then chooses Odysseus from among the many volunteers wishing to accompany him. Socrates, in effect, thus suggests that the two now join forces and venture behind enemy lines, the one aiding the other, Socrates-­Diomedes and Protagoras-­Odysseus: Socrates no longer presents himself as the wily Odysseus (compare 315b9 and c8) but bestows that honor on Protagoras.12 What is more, “ ‘if one alone observes [no�s�i],’” then he immediately seeks out another, with whom he may make certain what he thinks he understands. In accord with this, Socrates has made it clear that he is motivated by the desire to investigate thoroughly the things that he himself is perplexed by. We tentatively conclude from this that the remainder of the conversation

72

chapter two

will be concerned less with the fate of Hippocrates, or those like him, than with Socrates’ own understanding of things, which he will test or confirm with Protagoras or by means of Protagoras. If Socrates had shown no independent interest in seeking out Protagoras, he is nonetheless willing to take full advantage of such opportunities as fall into his lap.

chapter three

Protagoras and the Problem of Courage

S

ocrates now repeats a version of the question he had asked Protagoras before, immediately after the latter’s long speech (349a8–­d1; compare 329c6–­d2). Among the changes Socrates makes is this one: he now lumps together all five of the virtues, thus blurring the sharp distinction Protago­ ras had drawn between “political virtue,” on the one hand, and wisdom to­ gether with courage, on the other. Socrates also “repeats” Protagoras’ earlier claim that the virtues are parts of a whole, as the parts of the face are parts of a whole, but this time he leaves the door wide open for Protagoras to al­ ter that position, which had led him into so much trouble: “For I wouldn’t wonder if you were saying those things then just to test me” (349c8–­9). Protagoras does avail himself of the opportunity thus granted him. He claims now that the four virtues apart from courage are “reasonably compa­ rable to one another”—­a clear abandonment of his earlier position, it should be noted—­but that courage is “very different” from them. In this way, the one virtue left untreated in the prior sections of the dialogue returns, and on it Protagoras rests the whole of his case for the multiplicity of virtue.1 Protagoras and Socrates thus still disagree. He adduces in support of the special status of courage this fact: it is possible to find human beings who are very unjust, impious, licentious, and ignorant (unlearned)—­and yet who are “very courageous to a distinguished degree” (349d2–­8). Courage is not justice or piety or moderation—­we saw before Protagoras’ suggestion that courage and injustice can easily go together (329e5)—­but he stresses now that it is not (a kind of) knowledge or wisdom either, and this is despite the fact that he had originally presented courage in the company of wisdom, separate from “political virtue” (330a1 and context). But this fact is compat­ ible with courage being in his eyes complementary to, and hence different 73

74

chapter three

from, wisdom, and this makes a certain sense at first glance: the tough re­ solve or “gutsiness” that seems to belong to courage above all is not obvi­ ously identical to or reducible to knowledge. And does Protagoras here rely on courage to make his case concerning virtue merely because it alone of the five virtues has been left undiscussed and hence unyoked to the oth­ ers? This might be plausible if we could be confident that Socrates had not orchestrated the course of the conversation such that it would not only re­­ turn to but also culminate in the examination of courage. We suspect that Socrates had some good reason, or a compelling hunch, to orchestrate things in this way, and the rest of the dialogue will confirm that courage does have a special significance for the sophist. In any case, much of the rest of the dia­­ logue will test Protagoras’ ability consistently to maintain this separation of courage from knowledge, even as he somehow or for some reason presents them together. The conversation that follows falls into three easily distinguishable parts. In the first, Socrates attempts, but fails, to compel the sophist to agree that courage is (a kind of ) knowledge or wisdom (349e1–­351b2). In the second and longest part by far (351b1–­359a1), Socrates abruptly drops the explicit inquiry into courage and takes up instead the question of whether it is pos­ sible to conceive of the good we seek in all things as something other than pleasure. This central section, in other words, is an inquiry into hedonism, and for much of it Socrates and Protagoras make common cause against “the many” or “the (mere) human beings.” According to Socrates’ presenta­ tion of them, “the many” are deeply confused inasmuch as they think they are concerned with some ultimate good other than pleasure, and this confu­ sion goes together with their low view of knowledge, of its being susceptible to being slavishly dragged about by pleasure especially and hence of its be­ ing different from and at odds with pleasure. Finally, after briefly broaden­ ing the conversation so as to secure the (mostly) unanimous agreement of all those present concerning these and related points, Socrates suddenly re­ turns to the question of courage and to Protagoras in particular, in what constitutes this section’s third part (359a2–­360e5). This is followed by a brief concluding statement and exchange that together bring about the end of the Protagoras (360e6–­362a4). From this overview, we see that the two-­part investigation of courage is separated by a lengthy inquiry into pleasure or hedonism: courage/he­ donism/courage. Moreover, in the first part, Protagoras seems not only to deflect Socrates’ challenge but even to get the better of him on a point of logic; in the second, they are in happy agreement with one another as they together criticize and instruct “the many.” These facts make all the more

on the protagoras

75

surprising the speed with which Protagoras becomes so rattled or annoyed in the final section that he finally refuses to answer Socrates’ questions any longer—­“finish it off yourself!” What occurs in this third section that un­ does Protagoras, and what contributions do the first two sections make to Socrates’ ultimate triumph over, which includes the silencing of, the great sophist?

The First Treatment of Courage (349e1–­351b2) It is, of course, Socrates’ wish to refute Protagoras’ contention that courage is “very different” from knowledge or wisdom, for in this way he will de­ fend his proposition that virtue is somehow “one,” a unity. He proceeds by first getting the sophist to agree that the courageous are as such confident or bold (tharraleous: 349e2): they are even eager, Protagoras volunteers, to go up against the things that frighten “the many.” The courageous thus form a sort of elite, apart from “the many,” according to Protagoras. Socrates then speaks of virtue generally: do you contend that virtue is something noble (kalon), and do you present yourself (sauton parecheis) as a teacher of it, on the sup­ position that it is noble? That Socrates here reminds Protagoras of his activity as a teacher—­as one who must present himself in a certain way (319a6–­7 and context; compare 312a4–­6: sauton . . . parech�n)—­may color, and be intended to color, Protagoras’ response. At any rate, he gives this ambiguous reply: “A most noble thing [ . . . ] unless, that is, I am mad [mainomai ge]!” This formulation recalls Protagoras’ earlier remark to the effect that the unjust should always claim or pretend to be just, for those who would admit the truth about themselves would be “mad” (mania at 323b5 and mainesthai at b7). In presenting himself to “all the Greeks” as a teacher of virtue (349a1–­3), a group that must include “the many,” Protagoras does, of course, claim that the virtue he teaches is “noble.” What else could he say?! Yet Protagoras’ position here, as it has been gradually revealed by Socra­ tes, may be said to consist in this: the wisdom that constitutes (true) virtue must be sharply distinguished from the “political virtue” (justice, piety, mod­ eration) that is literally and figuratively beaten into us, against our natural inclination, for (true) virtue alone is or leads to the good understood as the advantageous for oneself—­that is, the good properly speaking. The virtue that deserves the name, then, is indeed good but, for that very reason, much re­ moved from what is held to be “noble”—­that is, the sort of “good” that may come at great cost to oneself. As we saw in the poetry section, Protagoras was inclined to conflate what is esthlos with what is good or to deny that what is esthlos transcends the advantageous. Earlier still in the conversation

76

chapter three

(332c3–­6), Socrates had unobtrusively brought out Protagoras’ conviction—­as further and apparently superfluous evidence of a general conclusion that had been established clearly enough already (332c1–­3)—­that there is only one contrary of the noble (namely, the shameful) and only one of the good (namely, the bad). But to agree to this is to hold that the noble and the good are altogether distinct from one another, which may, in turn, mean that no­ bility is bad (“it is bad to be noble”): one could do what is shameful but good, for example, or what is noble but bad. Protagoras seems to regard only certain goods of the body as “noble things” by nature (or chance): good looks, height, strength (see 323c8–­d6). In accord with all this, Socrates at one point sug­ gests that Protagoras does not just (monon) suppose himself to be “noble and good,” a “perfect gentleman,” as one could put it (others make that claim but are unable to render other human beings such as they are); rather, he is “good” and is able to make others “good,” too. Protagoras does not suppose himself to be “noble and good” at all, and though he may perhaps “claim” to make his students “noble and good,” or perfect gentlemen (328b3), in fact or practice he makes them “good” only (348e2–­5; consider also 318a6–­9: Protag­ oras appeals to Hippocrates strictly in terms of the good that will be his if he signs up). To return to the discussion of courage, Socrates now links up the ques­ tion of the boldness of the courageous with the nobility of virtue and hence of courage. Using three examples of those who act boldly—­one domestic, so to speak, and two military (well-­divers, cavalry men, and peltasts)—­Socrates gets Protagoras to agree that all these act as they do (boldly) on account of some knowledge they possess. “And as for all the other cases,” Protagoras adds, “if this is what you are seeking [ . . . ] the knowers are bolder than the non-­knowers, and they themselves are more so once they’ve learned some­ thing than prior to having learned it” (350a6–­b1). This is compatible with the thought that, not the whole of boldness, but its enhancement or increase is traceable to the possession of knowledge. But to be bold at all in the face of such activities without the requisite knowledge would be “excessive” bold­ ness and would make for a “shameful” or ugly courage, according to Protago­ ras. And since he has just agreed that virtue as such is noble, such shameful “courage” would not be courage at all. Protagoras therefore distinguishes noble boldness, which he calls courage, from ignoble or shameful boldness, which he denies is courage but is rather “madness” (350b6); and what distin­ guishes the noble from the ignoble or crazy boldness is the presence of the knowledge proper to the expert diver, cavalry man, or peltast, for example. To repeat, this boldness that is the virtue of courage is not simply re­ ducible to or identical to knowledge. Surely there are some possessed of a

on the protagoras

77

“theoretical” grasp of well-­diving, for example, who nonetheless lack what it takes to make the leap. Protagoras’ argument here does, however, link noble boldness or courage to knowledge—­a clear step in the direction of Socrates’ main argument and a clear problem for Protagoras’ opening contention that one can be both “very courageous” and “very ignorant” (see again 349d6–­8). That opening contention, of course, had been made prior to Socrates’ intro­ duction of the nobility of virtue and hence of courage (compare 349d4–­8 with e3–­9). From this agreement and apparent concession, Socrates attempts to demonstrate that, in the examples given, it is the wisest who are boldest and, being boldest, most courageous. So, he concludes, “according to this argu­ ment, the wisdom [in question] would be courage” (350c1–­5). Showing much boldness or at least confidence himself, Protagoras calmly declines to be force-­fed this highly compressed argument: Socrates’ recollec­ tion isn’t a noble one (350c6–­7; compare 318d5–­6). Protagoras’ rebuttal has two main parts, and to say the least, each has its complications. In the first, he contends that, although he had agreed that the courageous are bold, he never said and does not now say that the bold as such are (all of them) coura­ geous. The French are indeed Europeans, but not all Europeans are French. Second, Protagoras indicates that, while the knowers are bolder than the non­ knowers, he denies that “courage and wisdom are the same thing” (350d5). His argument relies heavily on the elaboration of a parallel case meant to illus­ trate the relation between courage and boldness—­namely, that between strength and power (or capacity: dunamis). The gist of the second argument is this: The strong are powerful (ca­ pable), and since those who learn how to wrestle are more powerful than the nonknowers or indeed than they themselves were before having learned to wrestle, the wisdom or knowledge in question would be (an increase in) strength. As strength is to courage, then, so power (capacity) is to boldness; those among the powerful who are such on the basis of knowledge are prop­ erly called the strong, just as those among the bold who are such on the ba­ sis of knowledge are properly called the courageous. Protagoras thus seems to grant, again, the necessary connection between courage and some sort of wisdom or knowledge. But, he claims, “I do not agree, here or elsewhere, that the powerful are strong, although the strong are powerful. For I don’t agree that power and strength are the same thing” (350e6–­351a1). If we take the first part of this remark literally or strictly, the parallel just constructed breaks down, for Protagoras should have said that not all the powerful are strong, just as not all the bold are courageous, rather than that the powerful are not strong: if all the strong are powerful, some of the powerful must be strong, for the same reason that if all the courageous are bold, some of the

78

chapter three

bold must be courageous. In other words, Protagoras here seems momen­ tarily to separate power and strength entirely—­and, by implication at least, boldness and courage. In the next step of his argument, Protagoras identifies as possible sources or causes of power (1) knowledge, (2) madness, and (3) spirited anger, while the sources of strength are “nature and the good nourishment [rearing: eu­ trophias] of bodies” (351a2–­4; compare 326c3–­4 for an additional source of power). If any overlap is to remain between the powerful and the strong, then the “good nourishment of bodies” that gives rise to strength must in­­ clude the knowledge from which power may stem. Protagoras does not make this connection explicitly. Returning finally to the original case, Protagoras contends that boldness is not the same as courage, for although the cou­ rageous are bold, not all the bold are courageous. Boldness can arise from (1) art (techn�, i.e., a kind of knowledge) as well as from (2) spirited anger and (3) madness, just as power can, whereas courage arises from “nature and the good nourishment [rearing: eutrophias] of souls,” in a manner parallel to strength. And if any overlap is to remain between boldness and courage, an overlap Protagoras’ formulation here requires (“not all the bold are coura­ geous,” i.e., some of them are), then the “art” that can give rise to boldness must be equivalent to the “good nourishment of souls” that gives rise to courage. Either Protagoras must separate strength and power, courage and boldness, the one from the other, or he has to acknowledge that both a part of power (namely, strength) and a part of boldness (namely, courage) stem from knowledge or art—­and hence that one can be neither strong nor courageous without some sort of knowledge or artful expertise. Protagoras seems to in­­ sist only that, even granting all this, “courage and wisdom are not the same thing” (350d5). One can agree or concede that courage and wisdom are not two different words for the same thing, for some one particular “being” (349b4). But is it really possible for Protagoras still to maintain that one can be both “very courageous” and “very ignorant”? It is difficult to know what to make of these challenging exchanges. As for the first part of Protagoras’ presentation, in which he charges Socrates with committing a logical fallacy, Socrates is not guilty of it in fact. He had concluded that those who are wisest and boldest together—­that is, that subset of the bold distinguished by their wisdom or knowledge—­were most courageous, not that all the boldest as such are most courageous (see again 350c1–­5). But Socrates does not rebut this charge,2 either immediately or eventually, and his silence has the effect of bolstering Protagoras’ confidence or boldness: we see before our eyes the marriage of boldness and (what is taken to be) wisdom issuing in the courage to stand one’s ground or to fight

on the protagoras

79

back, at least in argument. Here we note that, although “madness” is listed as the central cause of power, “spirited anger,” or “spiritedness” (thymos), is the central cause of boldness (compare 351a2 with b1); as his “outburst” regarding the good or advantageous also suggested, Protagoras is not with­ out a certain feistiness, old man though he is, and here his certainty that he has caught Socrates in a logical blunder serves to support that feistiness. In his first account of courage, we remember, Protagoras had distin­ guished noble boldness from its shameful or “mad” counterpart, the former but not the latter being guided by knowledge. Now, in the examples Socrates gives, the effect of the knowledge or expertise is to lessen the danger to each expert. In other words, for a nonexpert, an ignoramus, to dive into a well is “shameful” or ugly boldness in the sense of being sheer “madness”; for an expert to do so is “noble”—­that is, admirable — because it is sensible. Some risk to the expert diver remains, to be sure, but it is much lessened as a result of his knowledge. And this understanding of sane boldness or courage is of a piece with Protagoras’ self-­understanding thus far, for, as he tells Socrates and Hippocrates early on (316c5–­317c5), his activity as an avowed sophist is risky: the practice of it must require precisely courage or a kind of boldness. Protagoras, that is, clearly prides himself on his ability to take such risks as are absolutely necessary to his life or to his living well; he, a foreign man (an�r: 316c6), is willing to enter large cities and there entice the best of the young—­the sons of those who are nobody’s fools, the wealthiest and most pow­­erful human beings in each city (consider 326c3–­5 and 317a1–­4)—­to leave the company of kith and kin in favor of his own (expensive!) tutelage (316c5 and following). This activity of his can give rise to no little envy and other instances of ill will and hostile plotting, as he notes (316d1–­3). In this impor­ tant respect, then, courage—­that is, a particular sort of courage—­does have a special place in the economy of the sophist’s life. Moreover, and in the same breath, Protagoras indicates that he has come up with a better rhetoric, a bet­ ter set of “precautionary measures,” such that he has suffered no trouble in his many years as a sophist: his expertise diminishes greatly the risks, the nec­ essary risks, he runs. There is, then, little that is noble in any ordinary sense in the “noble boldness” he praises here, for the courage that usually elicits our admiration for its nobility is that which knowingly runs the greatest risks in the service of the most selfless causes, above all in war. The courage Pro­ tagoras admires seems to be that which, being marked by knowledge, most diminishes the risks taken by the courageous themselves, and in his case at least, it is in the service of his own good or advantage above all. How, then, can one account for the apparent inconsistency in Protago­ ras’ presentation of courage—­that is, of its connection to knowledge that

80

chapter three

he seems both to insist on and perhaps to deny (349d7–­8) or at least seri­ ously qualify? A clue is supplied by the one clearly new consideration he introduces in the second part of his rebuttal—­that of “nature” (351a3 and b2). Neither Socrates in his opening questions nor Protagoras in his initial responses had so much as mentioned nature. As it seems to me, Protago­ ras’ true or comprehensive view of courage can be reconstructed along the following lines. There is a certain natural courage—­call it boldness, call it gutsiness—­that, as such, cannot be taught but is either present or absent in one by nature. That natural gutsiness can be developed, however, in one of two ways. First, it may be developed by the city, so as to become a soldier’s noble, self-­sacrificing courage such that he never need succumb to coward­ ice “both in the wars and in the other actions” of concern to the city (recall 326b6–­c2). Yet Protagoras explicitly presents this as the training or devel­ opment of the body, through physical exercise; it therefore cannot be the “good nourishment of souls” that, together with nature, he now presents as the source or sources of courage. (Such training of souls as the city effects is traceable to the forced memorization of patriotic poetry and the like, which renders the boys “tamer” and their “understanding” [dianoia: 326b7] more “useful” or “serviceable” to the city: 326b4 and b7.) Presumably, it is for this reason that, as we noted at the time, Protagoras fails to call the avoid­ ance of such martial or physical cowardice “courage” (see again 326c1 and p. 43 above). Second, natural gutsiness can be developed also through the “good nour­ ishing of souls”—­that is, through wisdom or an education to the truth. This is why Protagoras initially presented courage in the company of wisdom. In other words, natural gutsiness can be married to insight into the world as it is in truth. This marriage permits one to be able to benefit oneself, as Pro­ tagoras prides himself on doing. And, it can be added, such gutsiness per­ mits one also to face up to the truth in the first place—­the truth that, for the “mortal species,” has its harshness or ugliness as Protagoras presents it. Wisdom, then, requires a natural gutsiness or toughness—­a genuinely noble or admirable or impressive courage—­even as it also tutors that gutsiness, guiding it to serve the natural good or goal that is the attainment of the most advantageous things for oneself in one’s maturity and health. What usually goes by the name “noble courage” is in fact an unwise (“mad”) habituation to obedience, achieved through bodily training and exercised especially in the face of the grave risks the city compels citizens to take, as in the case of cavalry men and peltasts (as distinguished from well-­divers, who do what they do for gain). If these risks are diminished by the possession of knowl­ edge, then for that very reason their nobility may be diminished in the eyes

on the protagoras

81

of the many—­but not in the eyes of Protagoras. The many admire as noble what Protagoras regards as insanely excessive daring. And yet he insists on a central place in the good life for a kind of boldness or gutsiness. For Protagoras, then, there is a natural courage that has nothing to do with knowledge and that is by its nature ambiguous. It can be unnaturally developed in service to the city—­what is usually but wrongly called “noble courage”— ­or it can be harnessed to wisdom and make possible the best life for a human being such as Protagoras himself, he who of necessity takes cer­ tain risks, to be sure, not in the spirit of selfless dedication to the city but in clear-­eyed pursuit of the goods available to him here and now. In Socrates’ apparently very abrupt turn to discuss hedonism, or the view that the good is pleasure, he will explore Protagoras’ understanding of the good, in service to which good he puts his natural gutsiness to work.

The Turn to Hedonism (351b3–­359a1) Introduction Socrates easily obtains from Protagoras the agreements that some human beings live well, others badly; that one who lives his life in discomfort and pain would not live well; and that one who “should come to the end, hav­ ing lived his life pleasantly” would have thus lived well. Protagoras then comes close to agreeing to the proposition, which would seem to follow, that “living pleasantly is good, unpleasantly, bad” (351b7–­c2 and context): “If, that is, it’s in the noble things that he takes pleasure” in the course of his life (emphasis more or less original [eiper tois kalois g’: 351c1–­2]). As Socrates brings out in the immediate sequel, Protagoras declines to agree that pleasure is not merely (a) good but the good: one should pursue and indulge in only those pleasures that are noble, and this means, in turn, that “the noble” is the standard to which we must look in selecting from among the many pleasures available to us. There are then, according to Protagoras, some pleasures one should forgo and, presumably, some pains one should accept on the grounds that the former are ignoble, the latter noble. This sudden recourse to the noble is surprising. Socrates himself is sur­ prised by it or by the division within pleasure it suggests. He asks, surely you too don’t call some pleasures bad and some pains good—­as do “the many” (hoi polloi)? Thus playing on Protagoras’ inegalitarian or snobbish inclina­ tion, Socrates gently taunts him: are you really going to agree with the riff-­ raff about this? As Socrates here presents them, most human beings do not

82

chapter three

understand themselves to equate the pleasant life with the good life. They would forgo some pleasures on the grounds that, pleasant or not, they are not noble; that is, most human beings do not think of themselves as hedo­ nists. Protagoras’ reply is striking: “I don’t know, Socrates [ . . . ] if I ought to answer so simply, as the question you pose suggests, that all the pleas­ ant things are good and the distressing things bad” (351c7–­d2). And what consideration guides Protagoras’ response here? In his opinion, he should reply not merely with a view to the present question but rather with a view to “the whole rest of [his] life” (or perhaps “livelihood”: bios at 351d4)—­for this is what is “safer”! When Socrates presses him still further, Protagoras dodges the entire business: “Just as you always say, Socrates [ . . . ] let’s ex­­ amine it, and if the inquiry seems to be reasonable and the same thing ap­­ pears to be both pleasant and good, we’ll agree to it. But if not, then at that point we’ll dispute it” (351e3–­7). In other words, Protagoras first flatly re­ jects hedonism in favor of what is noble; then he says that the answer he gives has to be whichever is “safer” for himself over the long haul; and then that hedonism is an altogether open question. One cannot follow the arguments or the drama of this section without accepting the extremely high probability of Protagoras’ understanding him­ self to be a hedonist, but one who has been rendered by Socrates too cau­ tious to admit it.3 It is a small step from his view of the conventional char­ acter of justice, and his debunking of such nobility as transcends the good for oneself, to the thought that the good for myself that I naturally seek is my own pleasure. Note in this connection that, when it came to deciding the size of the audience he wished to address at Callias’ home, Protagoras did so by considering what would be “much the most pleasant thing for me” (317c4–­5), just as, after the poetry section, Socrates had left it to Protago­ ras to determine, between asking or answering questions, whichever of the two would be “more pleasing to him” (347b8–­9; consider also 361d6). One might well criticize Protagoras here for his timidity or, more to the point, his cowardice in refusing to give a straightforward answer: “clever speak­ ing” can sometimes just be weaseliness. This criticism, however, would be­ tray one’s failure to have understood Protagoras’ initial account of courage. To cop to being a hedonist now, now that Socrates has shown himself to be no friend or ally, would be to run a stupid risk, a sure sign of “madness,” and Protagoras admires as “noble” only such boldness as is accompanied by risk­reducing knowledge in the service of a sensible end. Heroic stands and frank professions of faith are not his cup of tea. This introductory section comes to a close with Socrates’ offer either to allow Protagoras to lead the inquiry or to lead it himself. Protagoras, nicely

on the protagoras

83

deferring to the demands of justice, urges Socrates to lead it, and in so do­ ing, he declines to take any responsibility for it himself: “for you are in fact leading [katarcheis] the argument” (351e10–­11; also 353b6).

The Stripping of Protagoras: On the Status of Knowledge (352a1–­356c3) That Protagoras has not managed to get himself off the hook so easily is suggested by the metaphor Socrates chooses to characterize what will be their shared inquiry into pleasure as the good. Comparing Protagoras to a patient undergoing a physical, who is asked by the physician to uncover his back and chest, “so that [the physician] may make a clearer examination,” Socrates says the following, now that he has observed what Protagoras as­ serts concerning the good and the pleasant: “Come, Protagoras, uncover for me this aspect of your thought as well” (352a8–­b1). What follows, then, is an examination of Protagoras in fact and will amount to a (further) stripping or uncovering of his understanding of things. Socrates now acts as a “skilled physician of the soul,” with Protagoras as his patient (recall 313e2 and context). The immediate subject matter is knowledge or, more precisely, knowl­ edge in its relation to pleasure. Socrates is curious to know whether, in this respect “too,” Protagoras shares the opinion of “the many”—­Socrates thus recurs to Protagoras’ initial rejection of hedonism—­according to which knowledge is a weak thing, characterized by neither strength nor rule within us. Instead, “the many” think, knowledge often does not rule in a human be­­ ing when it is present; what holds sway instead is now spirited anger, now pleasure, now pain, sometimes erotic love, often fear. In brief, “the many” think that knowledge is like a slave, being dragged around by much else. As Socrates presents it, then, “the many” hold that, although we can know that one thing is better than another, we nonetheless often do or pursue that other, worse thing, being dragged toward it by anger or pleasure or the rest. He presents to Protagoras the alternative in these terms: is it rather the case that knowledge is a noble thing (kalon) and is such as to rule a human being, “and if in fact someone recognizes the good things and the bad, he isn’t over­ powered by anything such that he does things other than what knowledge commands, but instead prudence is sufficient to come to the human be­­ ing’s aid?” (352c2–­7). The phenomenon Socrates here discusses proves to be that of “giving in to temptation”: we know that x is the better course, noth­ ing prevents us from doing it, and yet we end up doing y instead, under the influence of one passion or another.

84

chapter three

Here, in contrast to his reticence concerning hedonism, Protagoras hap­ pily announces his disagreement with the many, as accords also with his usual taste or preference: “I think [ . . . ] that the human beings say many other things too that aren’t correct” (352e2–­3; see also 353a7–­8). After all, for him of all people, it would be a shameful or ugly thing to deny that wisdom and knowledge are the strongest, the most excellent (kratiston), of the hu­ man things; because Socrates had equated the “nobility” of knowledge with its capacity to identify the good and bad things for oneself, Protagoras easily agrees to it. In this way, then, both Protagoras and Socrates agree, in opposi­ tion to the many, that knowledge is a strong thing within us and that, when we know what is best and are able to do it, we are never overcome by plea­ sure or any of the other passions such that we fail to do what we know to be the better course. Accordingly, Socrates and Protagoras together now begin to converse with “the many,” whom Socrates conjures up for the purpose. But in response to Protagoras’ puzzlement concerning Socrates’ marked in­ terest in the opinions of the addle-­brained “many,” Socrates suggests that the present line of inquiry in fact bears on courage and on how it stands in rela­ tion to the other parts of virtue: the apparent digression regarding knowl­ edge (and hedonism) is related not only to courage but also to courage’s al­ leged status as a virtue separate from all the others (353b1–­3; consider also Socrates’ rather cryptic remark at 354e7–­8). In other words, and as will be seen in the sequel, “courage” is somehow related to the capacity to stick to one’s better knowledge and therefore bears a close relation to knowledge. Socrates proceeds to give a detailed and consistent hedonistic calculus, one that proved influential in the subsequent development of hedonism as a philosophic doctrine.4 In his own name, and in that of Protagoras too, he purports to explain to the many—­with the patience they evidently require and hence at considerable length (354e4–­5)—­what they really mean when they say they have been overcome by food or drink or sex (353c2), for exam­ ple, and therefore do what they know to be base or bad when it is otherwise possible for them to do what they regard as better. If pressed, according to Socrates, the many would in fact be unable to identify any other good they seek than pleasure or any other bad they flee from than pain. The core of the position is this: in truth, “bad” means only “productive of greater pain or lesser pleasures,” just as “good” means only “productive of greater pleasure or lesser pain”—­ all this is to be judged, of course, over the long term. And so, when the many claim that the pleasures of food, drink, and sex are pleasant but (as the case may be) bad, they are not, as they think they are, separating the pleasant from the good; all they are saying (unawares) is that these are productive of lesser pleasure in the end: to choose them may, of course, be to

on the protagoras

85

choose what is worse in that sense, guided by their ignorance in the given case of the genuinely more pleasant thing. Similarly, when the many claim that physical exercise, military campaigns, and medical treatments are pain­­ ful but (as the case may be) good, they fail in fact to separate the painful and the bad as they suppose; all they are saying (again, unawares) is that these are good and hence productive of greater pleasures (or lesser pains) eventually. A necessary medical procedure, then, is good because, while painful here and now, it permits the enjoyment of far greater pleasures over the long haul. (That Socrates is addressing himself to “the many” is suggested also by the nature of the only pleasures [i.e., food, drink, and sex] and goods [i.e., bodily health, wealth, military victories, and empire] he here speaks of: 354b2–­5 and context; compare McCoy 2008, 67.) On the basis of this agreement with the absent many, Socrates proceeds to show how “laughable” (355b4, d1) their original position becomes: they say that they do what they know to be bad (i.e., painful) because they have been overcome by pleasure (i.e., the good). Hence they do the bad things because they are overcome by the good things! Or, as one could also put it, they do what is painful because they are overcome by pleasure. Once we at­ tach the proper names to things—­to the good things, “pleasure,” and to the bad things, “pain”—­we see that, actually, to be “overcome” by pleasure is never a bad thing: what deserves to win out in us more than does pleasure, which is, of course, the good? Nothing. Socrates explains to the many the er­ rors they make (for they do make them) as follows: when you err, you err by choosing greater pains in place of greater pleasures, and this error arises be­ cause you make mistakes in judging the quantity of the pleasures and pains at stake, the greater and the lesser, the more and the less numerous. To be “overcome,” then, is to be in the grip of ignorance as to what is most pleas­ ant or least painful; when one has knowledge or a science of the pleasant, it is authoritative in us and cannot be undone by the prospect of pleasure: that very prospect can only reinforce the power of the knowledge within us! Now, as “someone” points out, addressing Socrates by name—­he need not belong to “the many”—­“immediate pleasure differs a great deal from subsequent pleasure as well as pain” (356a5–­7), the former being vastly more attractive than the latter is either attractive or repulsive. For example, the terrible illness one endures decades hence often counts for nothing in the pre­­ sence of the immediate pleasure offered by a vice indulged in here and now. To live well, one can see now, is to live as pleasantly as possible, but this ob­­ jector helps us see, too, that the challenges in doing so must be great. One would have to judge correctly, of course, both the quantity and intensity of pleasures and pains attending each action or choice, in matters great and

86

chapter three

small (356d6–­7). This judgment would have to include, among other things, correcting for the distorting lens that is the presence of immediate pleasure; and it would have to include even the ability to predict the future—­nothing less than that. The sacrifice of the lesser pleasure now makes sense only if the hoped-­for greater pleasure actually comes into being—­and, of course, if one happens to live to experience it. For these reasons, at least, judging pleasures is actually quite different from accounting for distances when we judge different magnitudes, thicknesses, numbers, and sounds, despite what Socrates wishes to maintain or to have “the many” believe (356c5–­8). It is in response to the general difficulty of judging pleasures and pains correctly that Socrates introduces the “art of measurement” that has at­ tracted much scholarly attention (356d4 and context).5 This art is meant to solve, with truly scientific accuracy, the problem of the good life for a human being. It seems to be the fulfillment of the hope, held out but ulti­ mately dashed in the poetry section, that “faring well” is knowledge and nothing other than knowledge—­misfortune and natural decline be damned (compare 344e7, 345a1–­3 and b5 with 356d1 and context): “Would not this art of measuring [ . . . ], by having made clear the truth, would it not have set our soul at peace, fixed before the truth, and have saved our life?” (356d7–­ e2). Socrates manifestly fails—­in truth, he does not even attempt—­to solve the challenges involved in judging pleasure as sketched above. Most obvi­ ously, he describes what “the art of measurement” would do but not how it would do it or even what it is: “Whatever this art and knowledge is, then, we will examine later” (357b5–­6). The Protagoras contains no such examination. And this means that the hope for happiness that rests solely on knowledge or science remains unrealized here. To suppose that Socrates is seriously proposing such an “art of measurement” is to fail to enter into the action of the dialogue and, in particular, to attribute to him a kind of naïvety that the dialogue as a whole refutes;6 it is Protagoras the sophist whose hopes for and from knowledge may prove to be excessive. One purpose of the introduction of this “art of measurement,” and even of the whole foray into hedonism, becomes clear only at its conclusion. There, Socrates turns to make a surprising, not to say astonishing, pitch— ­to the effect that “the many” must study with sophists! The key to living well is now knowledge—­the knowledge of measuring pleasure and pain—­ and this is the very thing of which Protagoras, together with Prodicus and Hippias, claims to be the “physician” (compare again 313e2 and context). (Protagoras had, of course, made no such claim anywhere in the dialogue.) Here, note how useful the thought that virtue is one, is knowledge—­the art of measurement—­and is teachable, proves to be to the sophists. Socrates goes

on the protagoras

87

so far as to chastise the many for their failure to pay up: “But on account of supposing that [being overcome by illusory pleasure] is something other than ignorance, neither you yourselves go to these sophists here as the teachers of these things, nor do you send your sons to them, on the grounds that it isn’t something teachable. Instead, because you’re concerned about your money and so don’t give it to them, you act badly both privately and pub­ licly” (357e4–­8). How can this abrupt about-­face in Socrates’ attitude to­ ward the sophists (compare 313c4–­314b4) be accounted for? Socrates here gives a better advertisement for sophistry than did Protago­ ras, who had to suggest but also obscure the nature of the “virtue” he teaches and then fumble around as Socrates came very close indeed to revealing it. We thus see that Protagoras’ prudential (“safer”) decision to deny his hedo­ nism in effect denied him the advantageous line of argument that Socrates here sketches. Had Protagoras made one frank admission—­that he does in­ deed regard pleasure as the good—­he could have made a powerful appeal to the young people present in what is, after all, a private and closely guarded home, on the grounds that he is a superlative teacher of a most precise and most useful knowledge or science: the knowledge of the human good that is pleasure. Just as Protagoras’ decision to speak before the whole assembled group now seems ill advised, so his decision to deny his hedonism seems ill advised: the teacher of “good counsel” himself lacks it (Strauss 1965 ad loc.).

On Hedonism A few more general remarks about this section are in order. Socrates’ argu­ ment does not establish the truth of hedonism. In fact, it amounts to ques­ tion begging: pleasure (or the absence of pain) is the good we seek because, when we seek the good, we are actually seeking pleasure (or avoiding pain). Such “evidence” as Socrates relies on here is derived from the remarkably compliant many, who are literally speechless when Socrates repeatedly in­ vites them to name some end other than pleasure or pain with which they are concerned (354d1–­4, e2; 355a3–­5; 356c1–­3; compare 354b7–­c3). But it is not hard to supply them with a voice and a response, for if they pursue pleasures they know to be bad—­Socrates’ examples, to repeat, are the pleasures of food, drink, and sex—­in many cases, at least, they do not mean by “bad” “destruc­ tive of greater pleasures” or even “disadvantageous for myself”; rather, they mean that these are shameful or ignoble or immoral pleasures. Socrates might point to this possibility in his two anomalous uses of  pon�ra (“base” or even “wicked”) in place of the usual kaka (“bad”: compare 353c7 and 9 with 353d5, d8, e7; 354c5 [twice], c7, d1; 355a2, a4, a7 [twice]; 355b5, b7, c2 [twice], d1, d2,

88

chapter three

d4, d7 [twice], e3, e6). When Socrates first introduces the question of whether the good is pleasure, he characterizes the idea that one should indulge only in noble pleasures as the view of the many (see again 351b7–­c3): the many do have an alternative answer to give as to the identity of the good—­namely, what is noble. For the most part, then, Socrates speaks here as if such a notion, of the shameful or immoral character of some pleasures, had never occurred to him or to the many, which again amounts to saying that he presupposes rather than proves the truth of hedonism. That this response to Socrates does not occur to Protagoras either is one of the purposes of the passage: if this does not prove that he is a hedonist, then at least it offers further corroboration of the possibility. Protagoras, in fact, shares the view of the good foisted on the many by Socrates but not held by them in truth. Notwithstanding the united front Socrates and Protagoras here display, then, “the many” as Soc­ rates presents them are a proxy for Protagoras himself; sometimes Protago­ ras gives the response that he supposes the many would give (e.g., 356c6 and c8, 357a4–­5, 357b5), but sometimes he responds evidently for himself (see 356e4 and 357b3 [both affirming the importance of the art of measuring pleasure]; his responses at 354a7, b5, c5, and 356c3 [sunedokei] as well as at 354c3 [Oud’ emoi dokei] are ambiguous in exactly this respect). Just as Pro­­ tagoras had earlier falsely attributed to “many of the human beings” (333b8–­ c3) a view that he himself actually held (i.e., the good sense of being unjust), so Socrates now falsely attributes to the many a view (i.e., the primacy of plea­ sure) that is actually held by Protagoras. Socrates can play that game, too. One of the puzzles of Socrates’ presentation of his hedonistic calculus is his response to the unnamed objector (“someone”) who notes that imme­­ diate pleasure is very different from distant pleasure or pain. Socrates replies to the objector only in terms of knowledge and ignorance: to choose an im­ mediate but lesser pleasure over a distant but greater pain or pleasure is to be in the grip of ignorance. All we need to do, then, is learn the promised art of measurement and the grip of ignorance on us will be broken. But this does not explain how it is that one passes from a state of knowledge to that of ig­ norance and—­if one regrets what he has done—­back to knowledge again. The many say that it is chiefly the influence of pleasure (or pain) on us. Socrates, together with Protagoras, denies this—­but what does he offer in its place? To see what is missing from this argument, it is helpful to glance at Aris­ totle’s discussion of just this passage of the Protagoras in his Nicomachean Ethics (1145b23–­27 and context), for that discussion is part of his analy­ sis of what he calls enkrateia (“self-­restraint” or “continence”) and karte­ ria (“steadfastness”). These are the impressive capacities to stick to one’s

on the protagoras

89

knowledge (or indeed opinion) about the good or better course while experi­ encing either the attractive pull of pleasure, in the case of self-­restraint, or the repulsive force of pain, in the case of steadfastness. There is, then, a cer­­ tain basic capacity—­call it steadiness—­that permits some people to stick to their knowledge (or opinion) of the good through thick and thin. Those with­­ out such self-­restraint or steadfastness, accordingly, are prone to having their opinions and even knowledge change under such circumstances; as Aristotle presents the matter, it is not that they are ever free of the necessity to pur­­ sue the good as it appears to them but rather that its appearance is prone to alteration in the presence or prospect of pleasure especially: an­­other course actually appears better to them in the moment and so they pursue it, however much they may regret it later, if their prior knowledge or opinion returns to them. This account in a sense vindicates Socrates’ position (consider Nico­ machean Ethics 1147b14–­19): knowledge or opinion about the good is in­ deed always in charge—­but that knowledge or opinion, at least when bound up with sense perception, is subject to alteration if continence and stead­ fastness are absent. When one reads Socrates’ account in the Protagoras in light of Aristot­ le’s discussion, one sees that Socrates ignores the possibility that even rock-­ solid knowledge may be vulnerable to alteration in the face of pleasure or pain if a more fundamental “steadiness” is absent. What is more, not even the most exact art of measurement would by itself rectify this deficiency, although Socrates here speaks as though it is all one would need, for that art cannot shield us from the temptation that prompts us to set aside the very dictates of the art. To judge from Xenophon’s portrait of him, Socrates himself had such steadiness or “continence,” such enkrateia, to an extraor­ dinary degree—­the enkrateia that is “the foundation of virtue” and hence not virtue itself (Memorabilia 1.5.4). One may now see that Socrates’ discussion of hedonism and knowledge is characterized by two omissions. Socrates omits all mention of the moral objection to hedonism, officially because the many can think of no other end of their actions than pleasure, and he omits all mention of “steadiness” or its equivalents, of the basic capacity to stick to one’s convictions regard­ ing the good that is a necessary supplement to those convictions. What may explain these “omissions” may have less to do with “the many” than with Protagoras—­whose understanding is being examined here by Socrates the physician.7 As we have seen, Protagoras strips from noble courage the self-­ sacrificing character with which most human beings associate it—­its moral beauty. And, in the hedonism section, he fails to mention any consideration other than pleasure that might be of concern to the many, perhaps because

90

chapter three

none occurs to him. One might venture to say that Protagoras is character­ ized by a certain moral obtuseness. At any rate, and more cautiously, he does not take seriously the opinions of “the many,” of “the human beings,” who, after all, say whatever pops into their heads, according to him (353a7–­8). Had he taken those opinions seriously, or thought of them himself, he might have seen the significance of the fact, brought out in just this section by Socrates, that human beings are “often” moved from their better knowledge by fear. And this means that, if we leave aside the terminology of Aristotle and Xen­­ ophon, a sort of cowardice often prompts us to act against our better knowl­ edge or (the other side of the same coin) a sort of courage is required to stick to that knowledge (consider menousan and context at 356e2: what is it that “fixes” the soul before the truth or prompts it to remain there? Consider also emmenein at 353b3 and context, which poses the same question). If, that is, courage is the capacity to withstand the pain specific to the experience of fear, and fear is a “certain expectation of [what is] bad” (358d6–­7), then it, while being something other than knowledge, would be necessary to living by the light of knowledge or for knowledge to have its proper place and ef­ fect in our lives. Finally, we make a tentative suggestion as to a possible connection be­­ tween hedonism, which Protagoras officially rejects, and the view that those who know the good necessarily seek it out, which he accepts. It is helpful to begin by returning to the view, stated by Socrates in his explication of the thought of Simonides in particular and “all” the wise in general, according to which being deprived of knowledge alone constitutes bad action or faring badly, and hence (one may infer) acquiring or retaining knowledge alone  con­­ stitutes good action or faring well (345b5 and context). The possession of knowledge (i.e., wisdom) is thus the proper end of human life, and this end makes possible a clear calculus, an art of measuring, by which to live: all that contributes to wisdom is virtue, and all that detracts from it is vice. But, as noted at the time, the wise also refuse to blame anyone for any shame­ ful or bad deed; evidently the wise cannot discern in the world whatever might be needed to support moral desert or merit. Moreover, in the same context, Socrates also sketches a world without “providence”: the good nec­ essarily decline at the hands of illness, toil, and time, and neither gods nor knowledge protects them from these in the end. Such convictions of the wise, what­­ever their ultimate basis, would require considerable fortitude or toughness, a kind of courage (among, of course, other qualities), from those who come to hold them. If knowledge is indeed the good we seek, as the wise contend, there can be no guarantee that the world revealed by our seeking will support our every hope concerning it. If knowledge about the

on the protagoras

91

most important things comes at the price of our initial and perhaps dearest expectations of the world, it would, to that extent, be profoundly unpleas­ ant or painful and hence would require some capacity in addition to a great intellect not only to grasp it but to live in accord with it. Those who cannot endure such pain would then cling with greater tenacity to opinions that act as a salve for it or a prophylactic against it: opinions of the kind that Soc­ rates obscures or abstracts from in his presentation of the many. And so—­ to return to the question of hedonism in its relation to the power of knowl­­ edge—­the toughness indicated would be unnecessary only if pleasure is the good and knowledge or wisdom is a pleasure untainted by pain: no particu­ lar toughness would be required to seek out, attain, and act in accord with knowledge so understood because it would be, by definition, always pleas­ ing to us.

Interlude: The Canvassing of Opinion (358a1–­359a1) Perhaps in keeping with his interest in the opinions of others and even of “the many,” Socrates now turns to canvass the views of all the others pres­ ent, calling on Hippias and Prodicus by name in particular. Socrates poses to the group a total of eight questions. In only one case is there dissension: Pro­ tagoras and Hippias agree with Socrates’ proffered definition of “dread” and “fear” (“some expectation of [what is] bad”), but Prodicus accepts this as a definition of “dread” only (358d5–­e1). In the clear majority of cases —­six—­ the group unanimously accepts Socrates’ suggested answer to the question he poses, the first and sixth such questions being distinguished by the em­ phatic character of the unanimity recorded (compare hapasin [“quite all”] at 358a4 and 358d4 with pasin [“all”] at 358c3, c6; 359a1; “Prodicus and the others” are said to agree at 358b1–­2). Only once does Socrates say that, in re­ sponse to a question, there was a shared opinion (sunedokei: 358b6) that did not necessarily rise to unanimity. And finally, one case is distinguished by the stress that it receives, for in a matter pertaining to “human nature,” the sole mention of that phrase in the dialogue (compare 315e1, 316b9, 323d1 and d5, 327b8 and c1), Socrates tells the comrade that “quite all [hapanta] these things were so in the opinion of quite all [hapasin] of us,” this being also the only time that Socrates explicitly includes himself in the agree­ ment (358d4). Not only are the answers that these eight questions solicit strongly supported by all or almost all present, but they also prove essential in bringing down Protagoras in the next section. It is chiefly with a view to

92

chapter three

understanding eventually their contribution to that cause that we summa­ rize them. Socrates begins by receiving from “quite all” present the agree­ ment that what he and Protagoras had just gone through was, to an extraor­ dinary degree (huperphu�s), true. He does not ask whether it is also noble (compare 352d4). Socrates then inquires, in the second place, whether they agree that “the pleasant is good, the distressing [or painful] bad.” This con­ clusion, agreed to by “Prodicus and the others,” does not quite amount to an affirmation of hedonism, since one can affirm as a general rule that pleasure is (a) good without declaring it to be the good: Socrates does not ask whether the good is pleasure. Still, if the premise means to state that the pleasant is as such (i.e., always) good, then it does preclude the possibility that some pleasures are bad, to say nothing of shameful. It is the next, the third, ques­ tion that elicits the (comparatively) weakest agreement in the section. Soc­ rates asks whether the actions that lead to a life lived without pain and with pleasure are as such noble and advantageous (with the reading of the manu­ scripts at 358b5), a noble deed being both good and advantageous. It is im­ possible to know who declined to agree with this proposition. A reason for doing so, however, is not hard to see: by equating the noble with the good understood as the advantageous (only), these premises strip the noble of its specifically beautiful, or sacrificial, character. Even if one begins from the thought that all truly noble things are as such advantageous—­the path to happiness lies only through doing what is noble—­one soon comes across actions that are regarded as noble but that, or for that very reason, cannot be said to be advantageous to the doer. The deeds characteristic of a noble cav­ alry commander or peltast, for example, are noble not least because they may exact from him so high a price. This difficulty is not solved if one is led by it to try to rescue the good and hence advantageous character of the noble by defining whatever is advantageous to oneself as being, by that fact alone, “noble.” Even with the best of intentions, this amounts to robbing the noble of its specific elevation and attraction; it ends up being equivalent to Protagoras’ own position regarding “the noble.” We can be reasonably cer­­ tain, then, that Protagoras was not a dissenter to Socrates’ proposition. The fourth step, accepted unanimously, proposes that when it is possi­ ble for someone to do things that he either knows or supposes to be better than those that he is doing, he would never forgo those better things; all, in other words, seek to do what they know or suppose to be better, never what they regard as worse. And ignorance is nothing other than “being overcome by oneself” or pursuing the (actually) lesser good, and wisdom is nothing other than “overpowering oneself” or pursuing the (actually) greater good. The truth of these propositions does not depend on the identity of pleasure

on the protagoras

93

as the good (although it does not preclude it). In the fifth, very brief, step, Socrates elicits the unanimous approval of his definition of ignorance—­ namely, having a false opinion and stating falsehoods concerning matters of great worth. One may infer from this that he defines wisdom as having a true opinion and stating truths about matters of great worth—­if, that is, one can assume that wisdom necessarily goes together with stating the wise things one knows. Yet that would seem to be a definition of wisdom more acceptable to Protagoras, with his ballyhooed frankness, than to Socrates, the student of Prodicus’ ancient and “laconic” wisdom, to say nothing of the altogether Socratic practice of “irony.” Socrates now draws an important conclusion, according to which “no­ body willingly advances toward the bad things or toward things he supposes to be bad,” just as it is not a part of “human nature” “to be willing to go to­ ward things one supposes to be bad instead of the good things.” Furthermore, should one be forced or compelled to choose between two bad things, no one chooses the greater of them if it is possible to choose the lesser (358c6–­ d4). It is this assertion of the priority of the good (or of the lesser bad) in all we do that elicits the most emphatic approval in the section, including Socrates’ own. This statement, too, does not depend on the truth of hedo­ nism. Socrates next links the bad with “dread” and “fear”: we fear or dread precisely the things we regard as bad, and whatever we so regard we would never willingly advance toward or accept. It is at this point that Socrates suddenly sets his sights on Protagoras once again: “[L]et Protagoras defend for us how the things that he answered at first are correct—­not the things at the very first. For he said then that none of the five parts of virtue is such as any other, each having its own particular power. So I don’t mean this.” Socrates thus needles Protagoras by reminding the group that Protagoras abandoned his “very first” answer—­ “but rather what he said later on.” Socrates then summarizes Protagoras’ sec­­ ond or amended position, to the effect that the four other virtues are “reason­ ably comparable” to one another but that courage is “very different” from them (359a2–­c2).

The Downfall of Protagoras (359c2–­360e5) “ ‘Come, then,’ I said, ‘tell us’ ”: Socrates next reminds Protagoras of his con­ tention that the courageous are even “eager” in the face of certain things, things different from what the cowards are eager for. The cowards are eager for things they feel bold or confident about—­running from the front lines, presumably—­and the courageous are eager for terrible or frightening things.

94

chapter three

Protagoras is too clever not to see the trouble looming on the horizon. After having given two answers in his own name (359c4), he tries yet again to hide behind what “the human beings” say (compare 333c1–­3 and the hedo­ nism section generally). Socrates will have none of it: “But that’s not what I’m asking. Instead, what do you assert the courageous are eager for? For terrible things, believing them to be terrible, or for things that are not ter­ rible?” (359c6–­d2). Protagoras is thus forced to agree that, given the preced­ ing arguments, it is impossible for the courageous to feel confident or bold about, and hence advance toward, terrible, frightening things, for these are by definition the things that promise one something bad, and no one would willingly or voluntarily advance toward the bad, at least not when it is pos­ sible to avoid it. Such would be a violation of “human nature.” Building on this agreement, Socrates gradually constructs the argument that Protagoras will soon find intolerable. No one advances toward (or against: epi) things he supposes to be terrible (to do so would be “ignorance,” presum­ ably of what the terrible means or entails), but instead all, the cowards and the courageous alike, advance toward the same things—­namely, the things in the face of which they have confidence or feel bold because they regard them as good (or less bad than the alternative). The fact that those who ap­ pear to be complete opposites share the identical motive elicits from Pro­ tagoras a commonsensical, and powerful, objection: “But yet [ . . . ], Socrates, it’s toward [or against] completely [ pan ge] contrary things that the cowards and the courageous advance: for example, the latter are willing to go to war, the former are not willing” (359e1–­4). Here Protagoras, addressing Socrates by name, has recourse not to “courageous” sophists or even well-­divers but to men like cavalry riders and peltasts—­in brief, to the thoroughly political ex­­ ample of war (recall 326b6–­c3). As Protagoras here senses or recognizes, cour­ age comes into its own above all in war. In the words of Aristotle, [N]o one more steadfastly endures terrible things [than does the coura­ geous man]. And the most frightening thing is death, for it is an end, and there seems to be nothing else for the dead, nothing either good or bad. But the courageous man would seem not to be concerned with death in any or every circumstance—­for example, death at sea or by way of illnesses. In what circumstances, then? Or is it in the noblest? Such deaths are those that occur in war, for they happen amid the greatest and noblest danger. [ . . . ] In the authoritative sense, then, a courageous man could be said to be someone who is fearless when it comes to a noble death and to any situation that brings death suddenly to hand. What

on the protagoras

95

pertains to war is above all of this character. (Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics 1115a24–­35)

To repeat, Socrates argues that cowards and the courageous have the same motive or cause at work in them. Like all human beings, in fact, they advance toward things they regard as good and avoid things they regard as bad, at least to the extent possible. How, then, do they differ? They must dif­ fer in what they regard as good. Here Socrates imports the key third pre­­mise or agreement from the immediately prior section. As Protagoras is com­­ pelled to agree, the courageous who go to war do so because that is “noble,” not, of course, because it is “shameful”; and, as “we agreed”— ­would the courageous so simply agree?—­what is noble is also good, “for we agreed that quite all the noble actions are good.” At this, Protagoras adds his own explicit approval, to the effect that this is “always” his opinion. The agree­ ment is ambiguous, especially inasmuch as Socrates does not add here what he had stressed in the prior section—­namely, that the noble is good in the sense of being “advantageous” (for the noble themselves) or that it pays to be “noble” (see again 358b5–­6). The goodness that nobility is here said to be may or may not be (also) “advantageous” or profitable for the noble. Would not the courageous themselves contend that going to war is good, in the sense of being choiceworthy, above all because it is noble to do so, whatever the “advantage” or profit of the courageous themselves? Socrates continues to press: when he asks whether Protagoras would say that those who are unwilling to go to war—­despite its being noble and hence good to do so—­are either the courageous or the cowards, the sophist answers that it is (of course) the cowards. Now Socrates imports a premise that is at least reminiscent of the second one, according to which the pleasant is good: if going to war is noble and therefore good, it must be also — ­Socrates adds now not “advantageous” but goes one step further in the same direction—­ “pleasant.” And with this, Socrates finally links the opening discussion of courage to the succeeding discussion of pleasure: courage will now be judged in terms of pleasure; it will be judged on hedonistic grounds or, better, the actions of cowards and the courageous will be explained on the basis of he­ donism. This is the overarching purpose of the last section of the Protagoras as a whole. The courageous are willing to go to war because they regard do­ ing so as noble, hence good, hence . . . pleasant! Accordingly, the difference between the courageous and the cowardly is indeed not motive, for all seek in all things the maximization of their own pleasure. The difference, rather, consists in their estimation of the pleasures of warfare. Whatever else this

96

chapter three

may mean, it surely means that nothing other—­nothing higher—­than cal­ culations of their own jollies are at work in the nobly courageous as they advance toward the front line: “Doesn’t he [the courageous man] advance toward that which is nobler and better and more pleasant?” Protagoras is compelled to agree: “It’s necessary [ . . . ] to agree” (360a2–­3). To repeat, “noble” is here equated with or reduced to “pleasant,” by way of the good. Socrates now brings this line of argument to a conclusion by pressing the advantage he has thus gained. He establishes that cowards must not know that advancing toward the things the courageous advance toward is nobler and therefore better and more pleasant than failing so to advance—­ for if they did know that, they would of necessity act just as the coura­ geous do. The courageous, for their part, do advance toward what is nobler and better and more pleasant—­this, Protagoras says, is “necessary” to agree to—­and hence they have no shameful fears or shameful boldness, which is “true” according to Protagoras. Socrates then adds the dubious premises that whatever is not shameful is noble and what is noble, in turn, is good: hence everything not shameful is good. Socrates turns immediately to the cowards, now in the company of the bold and mad (or crazy). All of them do have both shameful fears and shameful boldness—­shameful here meaning, of course, “bad” (see 360b6–­7) and, at least by implication, “unpleasant,” for the cowards and crazies alike. What is more, “nothing other than ignorance and lack of learning” are responsible for this otherwise inexplicable pursuit of what is, in truth, shameful and bad (unpleasant), just as only “wis­­dom” can explain the advance the courageous make toward what they know to be noble and hence good (pleasant). Thus, Socrates concludes, the ignorance of what is and what is not terrible is cowardice (at this, Protagoras can bring himself to do no more than nod) and the wisdom concerning these same things must be the contrary of the ignorance in question (which again elic­ its no more than a nod). Socrates then concludes that wisdom (of the ter­ rible and not-­terrible things) must be courage. In so doing, he reduces the great sophist not only to silence but to motionlessness: Protagoras is no longer willing even to nod (360d6). It is this line of argument that culmi­ nates in Protagoras’ snappish suggestion that Socrates finish the argument off himself. To see the strange and paradoxical character of this equation of wisdom and courage, ignorance and cowardice, one can begin by drawing an addi­ tional conclusion from it that Socrates did not. Recall that the not-­shameful fears the courageous have are noble and hence good: the courageous as such fear the properly frightening things, which are those that promise some gen­ uine harm or pain. The fears they have, as well as the confidence they feel,

on the protagoras

97

all redound to the benefit of the courageous. And similarly, the cowards flee from the not-­terrible things they wrongly hold to be terrible and hence harmful, just as the insanely bold advance toward genuinely terrible things in the belief that these things are not terrible and hence not harmful to them. Only the courageous, then, act correctly in the face of all the terrible and not-­terrible things. But what, according to the logic of this account, is that correct action exactly? In the face of the truly not-­terrible things (those that, in truth, promise some good, be it pleasure or something else), the cou­­ rageous would and should advance, just as in the face of truly terrible things (those that in truth promise harm), they would and should . . . flee them! This is what the “wisdom concerning the terrible things and the not terrible ones” amounts to. So much for noble courage. If we take an overview of the twofold treatment of courage that straddles the long inquiry into pleasure as the good, we see that, by its end, Socrates has succeeded in forcing his way to the conclusion that virtue is somehow one—­if, that is, we accept both his earlier treatments of justice and piety, wisdom and moderation, and his present argument meant to establish the link between “wisdom” and courage. Yet there are good reasons not to ac­ cept these things, as indicated at the time and in the account of pleasure. If Socrates proves very little here, one has to admit at least that outmaneuver­ ing in speech the world’s wisest or cleverest speaker is no mean feat: Socra­ tes shows in deed that he can do what he likes with any interlocutor in speeches (Xenophon Memorabilia 1.2.14, end). This is impressive. But if Socrates does not bring to light a genuine difficulty in Protagoras’ position, Socrates’ victory here is as merely “showy” as the set pieces, the demon­ stration speeches, of the sophists themselves. To see the difficulty in Protagoras’ position that is brought out here, it is helpful to begin with some more general remarks about him. Protago­ ras’ serious teaching pertains to the nature of our concern for the good. As a result of the strictly conventional “education” we receive from the polit­ ical community, from nursemaids up to the divine law and including much else in between, we are taught to think always of the common good and, should it be necessary, to prefer the good of others to our own good. This pref­ erence is grounded in the demands of justice, piety, and moderation, which together are promoted as “virtue”—­as nothing less than human excellence. According to Protagoras, this is a false teaching: wisdom, the greatest vir­ tue, denies it root and branch. The good that we prefer by nature is our own good, and the overlap between it and the good of others or the common good is slight. The harshness of nature, it is true, demands that we live together, and it is not so difficult to see at least the broad outlines of the rules needed

98

chapter three

to make communal life possible—­rules that reason can, in a sense, approve of. Protagoras sketches these outlines in his brilliant myth, not least the great utility of having “the human beings” believe in precisely a myth about a law-­giving and law-­enforcing Zeus. Yet it is not foolish to be unjust; it is foolish to admit it. It is a matter of good sense or sound counsel to reject justice (to say nothing of piety). And if by nature the good we seek is our own, the surest guide to it is pleasure. Protagoras is a hedonist—­a fact Socrates is perfectly aware of and uses to his advantage—­and the downfall of Protagoras is achieved by consistently applying both his acceptance of human selfishness and his hedonism to the case of courage. Protagoras should be willing to accept some version of the conclusion Socrates here reaches: that courage is, or at least goes together with, the wis­­ dom to know what is truly good (“not terrible”) for one and what is truly bad (“terrible”), and that to be courageous is to be able to withstand espe­ cially the pain that accompanies those fears or risks we must endure or run in order to attain the good things that can be ours. “Courage,” in other words, can take its place as a part of that cluster of qualities of soul needed in or­­ der to live well (along with boldness, reserve, assertion, silence, and so on); courage is akin to a piece of gold, separable from the whole of which it is a part but essentially like it. Protagoras himself had first presented courage in the company of wisdom alone, and he made it clear enough that he regarded as “noble” (i.e., not “mad”) only such confidence or boldness as is guided by the knowledge that reduces the risks one runs in order to achieve a given good end. And yet, when he makes the commonsensical observation, or pro­ test, that in fact the courageous and the cowards do contrary things, the one running toward war, the other running from it,8 Protagoras begins to make clear that he cannot consistently stick to an understanding of courage that strips it entirely of its noble character. That the good is here identified with the pleasant only furthers this goal, for that identification permits Socrates to argue that the pleasure-­ seeking courageous differ from the pleasure-­ seeking cowards merely in their divergent opinions as to what is good and hence pleasant. This is the most important purpose of the discussion of hedonism: to apply hedonism to the case of courage, thus denuding it of its noble, self-­sacrificial character. In this way, Socrates demonstrates to us that Protagoras cannot in fact or in the event stomach the reduction of courage to (an aspect of) selfish calculation. He, too, in other words, retains an admiration for the nobility of courage that is not reducible to the clear-­sighted calculation of what is best for oneself in a given circumstance.9 What Protagoras seeks to exploit in the case of justice, then, he admires in the case of courage—­namely, the

on the protagoras

99

willingness to sacrifice oneself for the sake of a good other than and indeed greater than one’s own. This admiration is perhaps in harmony with the sensitivity to shame he has exhibited in the dialogue, especially such sen­ sitivity as prompts him to continue a conversation the progress of which he surely (and, in the event, rightly) suspects will harm him (348c1; also 333c1). As we have seen, in Socrates’ presentation of it, courage is noth­ ing other than knowledge of what is truly frightening or terrible, coward­ ice be­­ing the ignorance of it, and this means either that the courageous will enter battle because they know there is nothing truly frightening in doing so —a­ nd hence there is nothing truly noble or heroic in so acting—­or that the courageous will know that it is indeed a terrible thing to enter battle and so will do, if they can, the only sensible thing in the face of such harm­ ful terrors: run away from them. Protagoras cannot finally tolerate these consequences of the reduction of courage to knowledge, for, to repeat, he is moved by the willingness of the courageous to enter battle, come what may for themselves (359e1–­4). To summarize, in his initial discussion of courage, Protagoras had re­ course to a nobility reducible to the good for oneself, and he subsequently reaffirms his view that “all noble actions” are as such “good” (359e5–­8). But Protagoras has shown himself to be unable to stick to this view of nobility, because he has shown himself to believe that some things are noble and hence choiceworthy despite the fact that—­no, precisely if—­they are bad or disadvantageous for oneself. The long and complex discussion of courage, then, has shown Protagoras to be confused.10

The End of the Protagoras (360e6–­362a4) Protagoras’ manifest displeasure—­his begrudging nods, his silence, his re­ fusal to continue, his ad hominem attack on Socrates’ love of victory (360e3; compare 335a7–­8)—­prompts Socrates to restate his interest in the conversa­ tion that has just ground to a halt: “I’m asking all these things for the sake of nothing other than my wish to investigate how the matters pertaining to virtue stand and what in the world it itself is, virtue” (360e6–­8). For the first time in the dialogue, then, Socrates explicitly raises the question: “What is virtue?” He will soon say that he would like to go through “what virtue is” with Protagoras and (after that) “once again” closely examine whether or not it is teachable (361c2–­6). It would seem, then, that both Socrates and Protagoras put the cart well before the horse by debating at length the relation of (the) five virtues with­ out first identifying the class to which they may or may not belong: “For I

100

chapter three

know that, once this [i.e., what in the world virtue itself is] becomes clear, that about which each of us, you and I, has drawn out a long speech would become especially clear, I saying that virtue isn’t teachable, you that it is teachable” (360e8–­361a3). We cannot know whether virtue is teachable be­ fore we know what virtue is. The logic of this seems unassailable (consider also Meno 71b1–­8). If we accept Socrates’ observation or criticism, how­ ever, we must accept also, and not merely mouth, the thought that the five qualities treated in the dialogue as examples or instances of virtue—­justice, piety, moderation, wisdom, and courage—­may not be virtues at all. If, that is, we cannot answer correctly the comprehensive question “What is vir­ tue?” by what right could we insist that courage, for example, is properly a member of that class? Is it really true, however, that the Protagoras has thus far shed no light whatsoever on the class “virtue”? As Socrates’ statement of interest in the conversation indicates, the questions he is asking (i.e., has been asking for some time) seek to discover two things, including “what in the world virtue itself” is. Has not the latter question, too, been addressed, if only indirectly? Can one speak at such length of even alleged members of a class without bringing to light one’s guiding opinions about the class characteristics they share and hence about the class itself? And how else could one proceed than by attempting to deduce from the apparent members of the class their shared characteristics? Socrates offers, near the end of the dialogue, a helpful overview of their treatment of virtue. He notes, in particular, that a strange inversion has taken place, as it might be called. To clarify it, he personifies the result of their recent argument and has it accuse and ridicule them both: they are, it says, “strange” or even “absurd” (atopoi: 361a5). Whereas Socrates had begun by stating that he did not hold virtue to be teachable, just now he has been urg­ ing things contrary to himself: that “all things are knowledge—­both justice and moderation and courage—­in which manner virtue would most of all come to sight as teachable” (361a6–­b3; compare 319a8–­b2 and context). If virtue were something other than knowledge, clearly it would not be teach­ able; at any rate, it would be “amazing” if, being wholly knowledge or on the whole knowledge (epist�m� holon: 361b6), virtue were not something teachable. What else could be teachable if not knowledge? And similarly, just as Protagoras had begun by positing virtue to be indeed teachable, so now at the end of the conversation he resists tooth and nail Socrates’ at­ tempt to link courage with knowledge and hence to imply, at least, its teach­­ able character; now Protagoras is like someone insisting that virtue be almost anything other than knowledge, in which case it would least of all

on the protagoras

101

be teachable (361a3–­c6). Just as Socrates has finally made clear the com­ prehensive question of virtue that must be answered at some point, so too he has finally made clear what is at stake in the raising of the question that has been on the table from early on: that of the teachability of virtue and its status as knowledge. And if virtue is not knowledge, it may well be nonsense—­a false understanding of things passed on by habituation or rote memorization that as such cannot be taught strictly speaking or indeed known. To begin to account for the peculiar inversion of positions that Socrates here sketches, one must track the different meanings of “virtue” in the dia­­ logue. “Virtue” is first mentioned by Socrates. Protagoras gives two accounts of what he teaches without mentioning it (318a6–­9 and d5–­319a2). Socra­ tes himself initially calls what Protagoras teaches, not virtue, but an “art” (techn�: 319a4; consider also 315a5 and 316d3–­4) or “technical skill” (“craft,” “artful device”: techn�ma at 319a8)—­although Socrates admits that he used to suppose just “this” (skill or craft) to be unteachable. When Socrates does first mention virtue (319e2) and denies that it can be taught, he clearly has in mind what Protagoras will call “political virtue”—­that is, the traits char­ acteristic of ordinary democratic citizens that make them eager to offer (but not skilled at offering) advice about the city’s general management (319c8–­ d7). Beyond that, Socrates means by “virtue” also the abilities character­ istic of “the wisest and best of the citizens,” or statesmanship at its peak as distinguished from ordinary virtue or decency (319d7–­320ab3). This, too, he denies is teachable, as shown by the example of Pericles and his sons or wards. Now when Protagoras turns in his long speech to argue that political virtue is teachable, as the Athenians or “the human beings” generally “be­ lieve,” he appears wholeheartedly to endorse that belief. What could be more obvious? But, to repeat, Protagoras in fact sharply distinguishes between the virtue that is of interest to “the human beings” (political virtue) and virtue properly speaking (wisdom above all). What he first attributes to a law from Zeus, he ultimately explains in altogether this-­worldly terms: the habitu­ ation to justice, aided by a sense of shame and going together with the in­ culcation of piety and moderation as marks of excellence. Protagoras too, in other words, denies not only that he teaches political virtue, so understood, but also that it is teachable at all: learning to pluck out ennobling tunes on a cithara, for the sake of “moderation” or refraining from “evil-­doing,” ain’t much of an education (326a4–­b6). A genuine education will rely rather less than does our political education on threats and beatings, to say nothing of “correctional facilities” (consider 326d8–­e1). Recall Protagoras’ early and

102

chapter three

incautious comment that “the many” merely recite or sing (humnousin: 317a7) whatever they are told by the powerful: they are chattering parrots.11 Protagoras explicitly compares the education to political virtue to learning the Greek language, which implies that such virtue is entirely conventional and is absorbed, as it were, by osmosis (327e1–­328a8); grow up in a differ­ ent place and you would learn to speak a different “language.” Such an ed­­ ucation aims not at “faring well,” let alone pleasure or happiness, but at “orderliness” or “good behavior” (eukosmia: 325e1). (“Happiness” appears only once in the Protagoras, if I am not mistaken: in connection with the prosperous house of young Hippocrates: 316b9.) To be favorably impressed by the “virtue” instilled in us by our community, and by those who are “virtuous” in that sense, we would have to have recourse to the “savages” portrayed by a certain comic poet (327d3–­4 and context): just as there is something that falls below political virtue, so there is something that soars above it. It is this latter “something”—­wisdom—­that is teachable, accord­ ing to Protagoras, and of course it is taught by him. But all this leads to the disconcerting thought that there is an important agreement between Socrates and Protagoras about precisely virtue ordinar­ ily understood: “For to you, at least, I will say nothing other than what I think”—­namely, that the political art or craft, or political virtue, is not teachable (see again 319a9–­10). Socrates agrees, in other words, that the first education one receives—­at the hands of nursemaid and father, citharist and gymnastic trainer, and indeed from the law itself—­is fundamentally inad­ equate. Socrates could not assert that he is perplexed by “what in the world virtue itself is” if he accepted as true the teaching of the political commu­ nity on just this score. If we put together Socrates’ first speech, which de­ nies the teachability of political virtue, high and low, with his later indica­ tion of what it means to deny this, we see that even Pericles does not quite know what he is doing, according to Socrates. How then can one explain the “inversion” that occurs in the Protago­ ras? Protagoras’ initial affirmation of the teachable character of virtue must be taken, if not with a grain of salt, then cautiously. In the course of his first substantive statement, Protagoras had made the completely gratuitous remark that “the many [hoi polloi] perceive as it were nothing” (317a4–­5)—­ an impolitic statement in what is, after all, democratic Athens. And after he finally states what it is that he teaches (“good counsel” of two kinds) Socrates compels him to adopt a more politic version of this, as we have seen: you mean you teach the political art and make men good citizens! Thus chas­ tened, Protagoras proceeds to argue that the practice of democratic Ath­ ens is even better, more sensible, on both religious and other grounds, than

on the protagoras

103

Socrates had said. This, then, is the primary context in which Protagoras’ affirmation of the teachable character of political virtue occurs—­the praise of Athenian democrats in democratic Athens. Moreover, as we attempted to demonstrate at the time, he quietly indicates the utterly irrational, hence unteachable, character of “political virtue,” and he openly points beyond it in the direction of the greatest of the virtues: wisdom. Socrates, for his part, frankly denies that political virtue can be taught. To repeat, both men agree that the initial education or rather habituation we receive at the hands of the community does not rise to an education, properly speaking, and therefore is in need of a supplement, not to say replacement. The two men must disagree only, but sharply, as to the character of that supplement or replacement. Yet what of the fact that Socrates also presses the argument that vir­ tue can be taught—­the very argument that Protagoras ends up resisting? It would be more precise to say that Socrates begins what eventually becomes that line of argument by questioning Protagoras’ contention that there are individual virtues each separate in character and power from the other; and, as we saw, Protagoras makes this argument for a compelling (if not a good) reason: he is quite certain that one can be courageous but unjust, just but not wise. Hence the virtues must be separable from one another, according to him, since the properly educated human being chooses only the most ad­ vantageous of them—­that is, those qualities properly deserving of the name of “virtue.” The foolishness of justice or the wisdom of injustice is what is at stake in Protagoras’ initial stance, and it is this that Socrates seeks to flush out by linking justice to piety, then moderation to wisdom, and finally justice-­piety to moderation-­wisdom. Since Protagoras opts to say that the virtues are like parts of the face, however imprecise that metaphor proves to be, it is tempting to assume that Socrates opts for their being like parts of gold—­that is, essentially the same thing. But Socrates is less concerned here with establishing a position of his own—­the dictum “virtue is knowl­ edge” does not appear in this section—­than he is with exposing Protagoras’ position and gauging his dexterity all the while. This fact goes a long way toward explaining the very bad arguments by which Socrates here “proves” the identity, or similarity, or faint resemblance, of the four virtues: those ar­­ guments are sufficient to make Protagoras squirm. It is nonetheless true that, once they return to the question of virtue, Socrates does contend that courage is (a kind of) knowledge and cowardice (a kind of) ignorance. But here, too, as it seems to me, Socrates’ chief pur­ pose is to uncover something about Protagoras—­not his covert teaching, as in the first installment of their inquiry into virtue, but rather his genuine

104

chapter three

conviction about virtue and nobility that even the sophist himself does not see clearly. Hence there is the need to “strip” him, his thought, as we are told in the central section of the second installment of their inquiry into virtue (352b1). Socrates presents his account of courage partly on the basis of something true about “human nature,” a proposition to which everyone, himself included, agreed: nobody willingly advances toward the bad things, or toward things he supposes to be bad, just as it is not a part of human na­ ture to be willing to go toward things one supposes to be bad instead of the good. If we drop, for the time being, the recourse to pleasure as the good—­ and at the climax of his account of courage, Socrates does drop it (see 360a8–­ e5)—­we conclude that we remain ineluctably drawn to what we regard as good and are repulsed by what we regard as bad. Yet how could one explain the action of the courageous on these terms? Either the courageous advance toward things they do not regard as terrible or frightening and hence bad, in which case the nobly courageous character of their action is diminished or dissolved, or they regard those frightening or terrible things as the lesser bad available to them—­less bad than dishonor, for example, or certain death at the hands of a firing squad—­in which case the nobly courageous character of their actions is again diminished or dissolved. Of course, if the courageous advance toward such things unwillingly or involuntarily, they can hardly be said to act from virtue at all. Yet such an account of courage should give Protagoras no trouble. As we have seen, he too initially stripped even courage of its “noble” (i.e., self-­ sacrificing) character: expert well-­divers have a reason not to regard diving as a frightening or terrible thing, and a nonexpert who would attempt it would simply be “mad.” That Socrates’ account of courage does trouble or annoy Protagoras in fact we tried to bring out at the appropriate place. The identification of the good with the pleasant goes a long way toward achiev­ ing this end, since Protagoras first balks at the thought that the courageous—­ who as such are willing to go to war (359e1–­4)—­have exactly the same mo­ tive as do the cowards, who of course are most unwilling: the maximization of their own pleasure. The linkage of the virtues to knowledge, especially knowledge of the pleasant and the painful or an expert hedonism, brings with it the consequence to which Protagoras objects so strongly (see also Meno 87e5–­89a5 for a comparable reaction). As Socrates here presents it, at least, anything noble is good and hence advantageous and hence pleasant: the knowledge that virtue here is said to be destroys the singularly noble char­ acter of most or all of the virtues as they are ordinarily understood. Socrates thus demonstrates before our eyes Protagoras’ unwillingness to bid farewell to nobility altogether, to the nobility or beauty that transcends one’s own

on the protagoras

105

good or advantage, to say nothing of pleasure. And this is why Protagoras resists so much Socrates’ attempt to link or identify virtue and knowledge. Such resistance contradicts not only his initial and rhetorical position of the teachability of political virtue but also his claim to be able to teach vir­ tue unmodified, or wisdom: when he is brought to see what the world looks like, when “virtue is knowledge,” he recoils from it. To what extent, then, is Socrates’ argument here about courage in par­ ticular and virtue in general revealing not just of Protagoras but of Socrates himself? He is, after all, famous for having declared virtue to be knowledge, as Aristotle, for one, reminds us in his allusion to the Protagoras in the Nicomachean Ethics. If, indeed, “virtue is knowledge,” then all the praise­ worthy qualities usually dubbed “the virtues” would radiate from the cen­­ter that is knowledge or wisdom—­the knowledge of the genuine needs of the soul, their rank order, and hence what the greatest goods are for a healthy human being. As for the virtue of courage in particular, wisdom most re­ sembles what usually goes by that name in its capacity to know what is truly terrible and what not; such wisdom would thus prepare us to flee the former and (as it may happen) to pursue the latter. This shows both the point of contact, the concern with terrible things, and the massive differ­ ence between courage as knowledge and courage as a (political) virtue. It is true that Socrates, as distinguished from Protagoras, also points in the direction of a subrational capacity of the soul that, when it is at work in the face of the pain specific to the experience of fear, could be called “cou­­ rage.” This, I suggested, is an important implication of his extended conver­ sation with “the many.” For Socrates, then, this natural capacity would be a prerequisite to a life well lived. We therefore bump up against the strange thought that, for Socrates too, the five virtues as they have been presented in the dialogue are not quite reducible to knowledge—­that is, to a single thing. Even or precisely virtue, properly speaking, may be “on the whole knowl­ edge” as distinguished from being “wholly knowledge” (see again 361b6), unless one separates “steadiness” (continence) from virtue proper (consider pp. 88–89 above). There are quiet indications of this thought in the Protago­ ras as it pertains to courage especially, the plasticity of whose meaning has be­­come clear—­a basic “steadfastness” that may be supportive of knowledge but is other than it, a martial or political courage that is not knowledge, and wisdom (of the terrible and not-­terrible things). Socrates explicitly notes the “courage” of the young, impetuous, and all-­but-­uneducated Hippocrates (310d3): in his case, little knowledge and no wisdom are needed to be “cou­ rageous.” Hippocrates is only too happy to chase after a runaway slave, for example, and so to defend what is his own; he barges into homes at odd

106

chapter three

hours; he is given to swearing and to indignation at injustice (as Socrates playfully suggests: 310d3–­5); and he puts himself forward because he wants to be somebody special in the city. Hippocrates possesses, in short, such nat­ ural boldness or confidence as Socrates is willing, for practical purposes, to call “courage.” Moreover, in Socrates’ playful treatment of the superlative “wisdom” of the Spartans, he makes clear that they are powerful because of their wisdom, as distinguished from any “courage” they are widely sup­ posed to have (342b5). In this case, then, Socrates acts on the premise that wisdom is to be sharply distinguished from courage. As for piety, Socrates for some reason excludes it from his summary statement near the end of the Protagoras, meant to characterize his own argument that “all things” are knowledge: in that context, he mentions only justice, moderation, and cou­­ rage (see again 361a6–­b3). It is easy to conceive of piety and courage as some­­ thing other than knowledge, whether because they transcend human reason or fall beneath it, and in the ordinary course of things, we often do so con­ ceive of them. To say that “virtue is knowledge” is not yet to say that “the virtues are knowledge,” because what Socrates means by virtue need not include the many things usually praised as such, at least not as they are ordinarily un­ derstood. Accordingly, Socrates can first deny that political virtue is teach­ able and then press the case that knowledge constitutes the core of human excellence that is as such teachable (to those to whom it can be taught). The logos that “accuses and ridicules” Socrates and Protagoras, we recall, ac­ cuses Socrates in particular of contradicting himself (361a6–­8). As we have learned from the poetry section, however, intentional self-­contradiction, or the willingness to appear to contradict oneself, may be perfectly defensible. Unintentional self-­contradiction, as Protagoras has been brought to see it or as we have been brought to see it in Protagoras, is indefensible.

pa r t t wo

On the Theaetetus (142a1–­183c7)

chapter four

T

he life of the philosopher Socrates is remarkable not least for its unnatural or premature end: Socrates was executed by democratic Athens on a twofold charge of not believing in the city’s gods and of corrupting the young. Inasmuch as Socrates’ way of life and the death to which it led are intended by Plato to be instructive and even somehow exemplary, he seems intent on indicating a tension between the philosophic life as Socrates lived it and political life—­even when, as in the case of Athens, the latter is characterized by considerable freedom and enlightenment. This tension is treated most directly, of course, in the four dialogues that depict the indictment, trial, imprisonment, and execution of Socrates (Euthyphro, Apology of Socrates, Crito, Phaedo). Yet interwoven with these manifestly political works are the three dialogues that record conversations originally occurring immediately before (Theaetetus) and immediately after (Sophist, Statesman) the initiation of legal proceedings against Socrates (Theaetetus 210d1–­4; Euthyphro 2a1–­3).1 This means that the sequel of the Theaetetus is, in a sense, the Euthyphro, and that of the Statesman is the Apology of Socrates.2 And the trilogy Theaetetus-­Sophist-­Statesman presents Socrates in his relation to the two great camps of philosophy prior to him, above all the camp represented by (among a good many others) Heraclitus, who stressed the fundamental importance of motion or a certain kind of “relativism”; and the camp of Parmenides, who evidently denied motion altogether (consider Theaetetus 152e2–­5 and 179d5–­181a3). Moreover, this trilogy has a special status in the Platonic corpus. It alone is presented as consisting of conversations transcribed by someone, Euclides by name, who repeatedly verified his written account with Socrates himself and who corrected it accordingly; these dialogues were “pretty much” written up by Euclides, which is to say that they are the closest thing we have to a book or books written by 109

110

chapter four

Socrates himself (Theaetetus 143a1–­5). At the end of his life, then, Socrates cooperated with an effort to leave behind a record of these highly theoretical conversations that not only allow no doubt as to his status as a philosopher, a truly theoretical man, but also distinguish him from other philosophers or schools of thought, the sophists not least. They therefore also serve to highlight the peculiar achievement of Socrates as a thinker. We turn, then, to the first installment of the trilogy, the Theaetetus, or more precisely to that long section of it that is given over to a painstaking analysis of the argument (logos) of Protagoras.

Introduction to the Theaetetus and the Opening of the Dialogue To the connections already mentioned between the Theaetetus and Protago­ ras, we may now add that each begins with a performed section of twenty-­ one 3 exchanges. This is perhaps nothing more than a coincidence, if a striking one. Also striking is the fact that, whereas in the Protagoras Socrates takes the place of a slave in order to narrate a conversation he has just had, in the Theaetetus a slave takes the place of Socrates as narrator of a conversation he once had (Protagoras 310a2–­4; Theaetetus 143c7). It is difficult to know what, if anything, to make of this apparent interchangeability of Socrates and a slave. From what possible point of view might there seem to be something slavish about Socrates? Only two dialogues, apart from the Protagoras, feature a performed conversation between Socrates and an unnamed “comrade” (hetairos), and one of these is the Minos.4 The two dialogues are linked in this formal way. Is there also a substantive link between them? The Protagoras is an inquiry into sophistry, or the sophist, and the Mi­ nos is an inquiry into law; sophistry and law are related in that they are rival combatants in the fight over the education of the young. This rivalry between law and sophistry is emphasized in the Protagoras, of course, where we see it played out before our eyes: Protagoras is compelled to praise the democratic law of Athens even as he undermines it, for example, and one of the most important topics in his long speech is the account of what passes for education, the education to “political virtue” at the hands of the law. The tension in question might seem to be denied, but in truth it is confirmed by the strange fact that in the Minos Socrates describes as an act of sophistry the most august example of the transmission of the wisdom needed for legislation or lawgiving: that from Zeus to his son Minos. The greatest god, father of human beings and gods, is a “sophist” (Minos 319c3, 6)! To deny the tension between sophistry and the law, then, requires making the greatest

on the theaetetus

111

lawgiver into a sophist or, the other way around, it requires equating sophistry, the teaching characteristic of sophistry, with the peak of legislative expertise. (Or did Zeus the legislator-­sophist know something about law that those subject to it did not and do not know?) At any rate, this rivalry or tension is clearly visible also in the other dialogue in which Protagoras is mentioned as the representative of the soph­ ists: the Meno (91d2–­92a6). There, Protagoras and what he stands for are vehemently opposed by the democratic statesman Anytus in defense of law-­ bred decency or in the name of those everyday Athenians who are “noble and good” and, as such, fine educators of the young (91a6–­92e6). Yet Soc­ rates is closer to the sophists, to Protagoras, than he is to Anytus, as it appears from the same context, for even Socrates’ tentative suggestion that one may learn from sophists sends Anytus into something approaching a fit—­he who prides himself on never having had the slightest contact with a sophist (Meno 91b7–­c5; consider also Theaetetus 151b2–­6, where Socrates indicates that he routinely sends certain would-­be students of his to Prodicus and other sophists). And, as Anytus points out, Socrates seems a little too quick to criticize some of the most august Athenians as failed educators, Themistocles and Pericles among them. No wonder, then, that Anytus was to become one of the three official accusers of Socrates, together with Lycon and Meletus—­the Meletus who, at Socrates’ trial, explicitly appeals to “the laws” as the necessary and sufficient source of the education of the young (Apology of Socrates 24d11 and context). Lycon, for his part, will go only so far as to call Socrates a “noble and good human being”: he stops short of calling him, as the usual formula would have it, a noble and good man (an an�r, or “real man”; Xenophon Symposium 9.1). Socrates appears to be somehow slavish, or at any rate lacking in something properly belonging to a free man, inasmuch as he seems to be without the proper reverence for law. Hence he seems to lack the proper stance toward the things good and noble, or bad and shameful, approved of or condemned by the laws; Socrates appears to be without some of the qualities characteristic of an an�r, especially on those occasions when he reveals, as he did not always reveal, that his real and substantive disagreements with the sophists were for all that less fundamental than those he had with the ordinary understanding of virtue or goodness as inculcated by the law. Whatever the details of his final view of things, Socrates evidently staked out a claim somewhere between sophistry, on the one hand, and the law, on the other, and so he proved irksome to both. But if Protagoras may have wanted to throttle Socrates on a couple of occasions, he surely had no desire, let alone the legal authority, to kill him.

112

chapter four

The performed beginning of the Theaetetus (142a1–­143c7) features Euclides and Terpsion, who are also silent witnesses to the execution of Soc­ rates as it is recorded in the Phaedo (Phaedo 59c2). They may thus be said to belong to the Socratic circle, if not necessarily as the members of it closest to Socrates himself. Both men hail from Megara, where the action of the Theaetetus occurs, first and briefly in the agora, then evidently at the home of Euclides. The Theaetetus is therefore one of a small number of dialogues that are clearly set outside the city walls of Athens (consider also Phaedo, Phaedrus, and Laws together with Epinomis). Its locale is significant.5 For example, Megara was the home of a school of philosophy referred to by Aristotle as the “Megarics” and founded by none other than Euclides (Metaphysics 1046b29 and context; Diogenes Laertius 2.106; see also the helpful discussion of Bruell 2014, 192–­95). According to Aristotle’s report, the Megarics argued that potentiality (capacity: dunamis) and actuality (activity: energeia) are the same thing, which amounts to denying potentiality in all but the most restricted sense: the only “potential” (or possibility) we can know of is the potential that has been actualized, and an iron chain of necessary causes is responsible for all that is as it is and hence as it must be. Every coming into being, then, is either necessary or impossible, and all that comes to be necessarily comes to be as it is and when and how it comes to be; it is impossible that it not do so. It is not true to say, then, that this seed has the potential to rot, or to sprout but then die, or to produce a bloom, for in fact it can do only what the specific or particular causes working on it and in it compel it to do—­causes that are themselves caught up in the nexus of necessity. Moreover, since the potentiality of a thing can be understood as its nature—­that is, as the source of or capacity for change or motion that inheres in the natural things as natural—­to deny potentiality is in effect to deny nature in this important sense: the gover­nance of all-­pervasive necessity or the unalterable linkage of sufficient cause and effect is such that we become dependent for knowledge of the world on the observation of the actuality or activity belonging to individuals, to this thing or that. And complete knowledge of the nexus of neces­ sity at work in the world is clearly unavailable to human beings. In the case of the Megarics, then, the very insistence on necessary causation seems to do away with knowledge of nature, with “science.” In addition, as Aristotle also brings out, the doctrine of the Megarics means that there will be nothing that is cold or hot or sweet—­in general, there will be nothing perceptible to the senses—­when those things are not actually being perceived. This sugar, then, is not sweet when its sweetness is not actualized (i.e., actually being perceived), and it therefore cannot be said in any meaningful sense to

on the theaetetus

113

be sweet in potential; we are permitted to say only that, because it is now (being perceived as) sweet, this sugar of necessity had to become sweet in fact. About whatever is not active or actualized we can say very little or indeed nothing. And, as goes together with this, nothing will have perception, either, if it is not engaged in the activity of perceiving. Accordingly (and to anticipate subsequent developments in the Theaetetus), it turns out that the Megarics state “the argument [logos] of Protagoras” (Metaphysics 1047a6–­7)—­presumably, that a human being is the measure of the things that are, that they are, and of the things that are not, that they are not. We note for now only that the light Plato chooses to shine on Euclides and Megara has a certain philosophic import, for while being very friendly to Socrates and his circle, Euclides the Megarian (“Megaric”) evidently agrees in an important respect with Protagoras (compare Diogenes Laertius 2.106). No wonder, then, that Euclides proved to be so eager an amanuensis of the conversation between Socrates and Theaetetus, which so prominently features the thought of Protagoras. Euclides the Megarian, we know, is responsible for writing up the lengthy and complex conversation we are about to hear concerning a most theoretical question: “What is knowledge [epist�m�]?” That conversation involves Theodorus, an outstanding teacher of astronomy, calculation, music, and above all geometry (142b8); his finest pupil, Theaetetus, who went on to become an excellent mathematician in his own right (according to an extraplatonic source);6 and of course Socrates, who is acquainted with Theodorus but not young Theaetetus. The friendly conversation we are about to hear treats a theoretical question among people who agree completely about the goodness of intellectual inquiry or of theory, however that term must ultimately be understood, and who are eager to discuss the central theoretical doctrine of that most famous sophist Protagoras, whom Theodorus considers a friend or comrade (161b8–­9, 162a4–­5, 168c2–­4 and e7, 171c8, 183b7–­8; consider also 179a10). The presence in this gathering of a Hippocrates or even an Alcibiades, let alone an Anytus, is all but impossible to imagine. But “Megara” is significant also because it points us in the direction of politics. It was Megara that suffered terribly at the hands of its near neighbor Athens in the course of the Peloponnesian War, some even contending that Pericles’ decree to blockade the city was the spark that ignited that ruinous war (e.g., Thucydides 1.139.1 and Aristophanes Acharnians 531–­39 and context). It was in Megara that Plato and other Socratics in Athens are said to have sought refuge after the execution of Socrates (Diogenes Laertius 2.106). Plato also sees to it that we begin by witnessing Terpsion’s initially frustrated attempt to find his friend Euclides (for a purpose never made

114

chapter four

clear), who was not in the city of Megara at all but rather at its harbor (for a purpose never made clear), where he chanced upon a badly wounded and gravely ill Theaetetus as he was being carried toward his home in Athens from the army’s encampment in Corinth. The recitation of the written conversation that constitutes the great bulk of the Theaetetus is thus made possible by certain chance events subsequent to war. Plato also reminds us of politics at the beginning and end of the Theaetetus. At the outset, Euclides tells Terpsion that Socrates, “shortly before he died,” met the lad Theaetetus and that Euclides himself subsequently visited Socrates to verify with him the details of that conversation: in order to do so, he must have visited Socrates in jail, after Socrates had been found guilty by a jury of his peers (142c6; Polansky 1992, 37 n. 8). And at the very end of the dialogue, Socrates brings the conversation to a halt because he must go to the portico of “the King” to attend a hearing preliminary to his trial, where he comes across Euthyphro and has the conversation recorded in the dialogue so named. In this way, the impending trial and execution of Socrates hang over this otherwise theoretical dialogue. Not only death, then (consider 144c7–­d2), but also unnatural death—­death at the hands of enemies or accusers—­is present from the beginning of the Theaetetus. We are reminded that Socrates was executed at some point in the past7 on a charge of corrupting the young and, as the root of that corruption, of not believing in the city’s gods; and Theaetetus is probably dying even as Euclides and Terpsion take the “rest” they so much need (143a8–­b3) by listening to a slave read Euclides’ book. Protagoras too is dead by then, having been lost, according to a later report, in a shipwreck after fleeing prosecution in Athens on a charge of impiety that arose as a result of a public reading of his book titled On the Gods (Diogenes Laertius 9.52, 54–­55). It would surely be a mistake to succumb to the temptation, as do Euclides and Terpsion, to use the recitation of Socrates’ conversation with Theaetetus as a means of attaining “rest” for ourselves. Or, a more likely possibility, it would be a mistake to lose ourselves in the details of that difficult and circuitous conversation if doing so means forgetting the harshness of politics or indeed of death itself (consider Terpsion’s slight euphemism at 142a8; compare 142c6). Plato, it is true, has made it relatively easy to succumb in this way—­at least to forget political life altogether, given the character of the great bulk of the dialogue. We make this tentative sug­gestion whose adequacy may be put to the test in the course of one’s reading of the dialogue: the question that unifies the Theaetetus—­what is knowledge?—­ cannot be understood, let alone answered, if one treats it as a strictly “epistemological” question; the framing of the conversation is an indis­pensable

on the theaetetus

115

reminder not to do so. One must instead remember that any claim to knowledge, knowledge of the most important things for human life, is a potential rival to other such claims. It therefore runs the risk of arousing the ire of those whose way of life depends on the claim to know something of central importance to human life or on the specific content of that claimed knowledge—­the knowledge of what is decent and indecent, for example, or just and unjust, good and bad, pious and impious. And the most important such rival to the philosopher’s claim to knowledge, according to Plato, is the political community as a whole, for all such communities not on the verge of collapse claim to know these and related things, which, taken together, one might reasonably call the human good or “virtue.” And for a community to be a community or to remain one, it must instill in its citizens, from childhood on, opinions about what the human good is in all its comprehensiveness (consider, e.g., Protagoras 323d6–­326e5). To put this in the language that Plato used elsewhere, the community must cast on the wall of the cave shadows of all sorts of artifacts and statues of men and other animals, some of which utter sounds or speak; what we from childhood onward take to be true, the true beings, are but the shadows cast by man-­made artifacts. And to call into question the adequacy of those shadowy things is to run a very great risk. Some might here protest that the image of the cave also admits a strictly “epistemological” or apolitical reading—­despite the fact that it is contained in a book whose title is properly rendered as The Regime and whose guiding question is “what is justice?” It may be better or more useful therefore, in the light of this objection, to have recourse to Aristotle. In his inquiry into the object of all human striving, what he identifies as “the human good,” Aristotle first suggests that that good must belong to “the most authoritative and most architectonic” art or skill, which he identifies as politics, the political art. He does so on the grounds that politics “ordains what sciences [epist�mai] there must be in cities and what kinds each person in turn must learn and up to what point” (Nicomachean Ethics 1094a24–­1094b2). In this way, Aristotle initially bows to the power of the political community: the highest good the community pursues may well be the human good, and the community in its superiority dictates to knowledge (epist�m�) itself. But given that he does not, in fact or practice, accept as adequate the community’s identification of “the human good,” Aristotle sets out on his own to discover it: his own inquiry too, then, is “a sort of political” inquiry (Nicomachean Ethics 1094b11). Socrates is rather blunter—­to return now to Plato —­for Socrates is famous for claiming to know only that he knows nothing (e.g., Apology of Socrates 22d1; compare 21d7), a version of which

116

chapter four

claim he will repeat in the Theaetetus: he knows that he has never given birth to any wisdom but is himself “sterile” in that regard. But to be aware of one’s lack of knowledge of the most important things is to reject the core of what the city says all decent citizens must know and hence accept as true; it is to declare that one does not know anything “noble and good,” for example, or the truth of the official worship of the gods of Athens (Apology of Socrates 21d4; Euthyphro 6a6–­b6 and 9e4–­7; consider also Nicomachean Ethics 1145a10–­11: the gods are a part of the city). The beginning and the end of the Theaetetus should prevent readers from forgetting how politically and morally charged is the question “what is knowledge?” if that question is raised in a spirit of philosophic perplexity. It is Euclides, not Terpsion, who first speaks in the Theaetetus, and it is he who is to a much greater degree responsible for the action of the dialogue. After all, credit must go to Euclides not only for the present recitation of the conversation, so that we and Terpsion may hear it, so to speak, but also for writing it up to begin with. Plato, as author of the Theaetetus, points away from himself and toward Euclides as its author; and, as we noted, Socrates cooperated fully with the writing of this dialogue (or the trilogy of which it forms the first part) in a way that he is not said to have done in any of the other dialogues that are more simply or directly presented as Plato’s own. Of course, Plato nowhere claims that the conversations he presents are exact recollections of actual conversations as verified by Socrates himself (compare 143a1–­5). If, in his artful depiction of Socrates, Plato relied less on his memory than on his understanding of the man, it would stand to rea­ son that Euclides was more in need of Socrates’ direct assistance than was Plato: Euclides is not Plato. As for Euclides’ decision—­for it was entirely his decision (143c5)—­to transform Socrates’ narration into a performed dialogue by removing from it all such phrases as “and I contended” or “and I said,” when it came to Socrates himself, or, in the case of the interlocutor, the “and he concurred” or “he did not agree,” Euclides took this step so as to avoid the bother such things might cause (143b8–­c5). As the five narrated dialogues of Plato indicate, Plato himself did not share this judgment or concern. Could Socrates as narrator not have conveyed by this means important information about the conversation or its participants (consider, e.g., Protagoras 333d1–­3)? Euclides’ decision to transform Socrates’ narration into a performed dialogue does not so much conceal himself as author or scribe (consider Republic 393c11–­394b7) as conceal Socrates as narrator. We do not know, for example, how Socrates explained to Euclides, as distinguished from Theodorus, why he sought out Theodorus to begin with. We do learn that Socrates is solely responsible for introducing the guiding

on the theaetetus

117

question of the Theaetetus—­what is knowledge?—­and it is easy to see that that question retains its importance for the two other dialogues of the trilogy, which feature the Eleatic Stranger, who is introduced into the conversation by his friend Theodorus. As Hippocrates goes to Socrates in the hope of being introduced to Protagoras, then, whose presence in town is becoming well known in certain circles, so might Socrates have gone to Theodorus in the hope of being introduced to the Eleatic Stranger, whose presence in town may be becoming, in certain circles, well known too. The eagerness for or dedication to theoretical things that prompted Euclides to write up the bulk of the Theaetetus does not seem to characterize Terpsion. Although he had heard Euclides speak of this writing before and had “always” been meaning to have Euclides show it to him, he had put off doing so until this point, when he has the inclination, and the time, to rest (143a6–­8); in fact, he has waited at least a decade, and perhaps as many as three, to follow up on Euclides’ mention of his composition.8 Now, at long last, whatever business he needed to attend to in the city’s agora has been taken care of: business first (consider 172d9–­e2). In other respects, too, Terpsion is not altogether an ivory tower type. There is no reason to think that he takes as news the fact that the Athenian army is encamped in Corinth, for example, and he knows without having been told by Euclides or, of course, by Theaetetus that dysentery has arisen in the army (142a6–­b4). Yet Terpsion is somewhat puzzled by the fact that Theaetetus declined to follow Euclides’ request and advice to lodge in Megara, eager as he was to reach home: being “barely” alive, Theaetetus surely supposed that he was dying and so must have wished to be with his family at the end. Both men are impressed by Theaetetus’ nobility and goodness—­above all, his courage or manliness (though neither mentions that virtue by name)—­ and Euclides takes the recent display of such nobility and goodness in battle, conveyed in the laudatory reports of others, as confirmation of Socrates’ prophetic utterance long ago (compare Apology of Socrates 39c2–­3) concerning, among other things, the lad Theaetetus: Socrates had prophesied that, if Theaetetus should come of age, there would be every necessity that he become noteworthy or renowned (ellogimos: 142d2; compare Protagoras 316c1 and 361e4–­5). Because Socrates’ prophecy is not recorded in the conversation to which we are privy, we cannot know its precise character; Euclides understandably interprets that prophecy in light of the present, and distressing, circumstance (consider Thucydides 2.54.3). Since Socrates’ prophecy was based on an assessment of the lad’s “nature” (142c7–­8)—­Socrates can prophesy only on the basis of a study of nature—­as that nature manifested itself in the conversation to come, it is exceedingly unlikely that Socrates had in

118

chapter four

mind the nobility or virtue that shows itself above all in battle. In any case, as Plato arranges things at the beginning of the dialogue that bears Theaetetus’ name, we are naturally disposed to like and admire the lad, if not (not yet) for his intellect, then for his fine character, evinced above all in his conduct in facing up to a noble death.

The Beginning of the Narration (143d1–­145e7) Despite the fact that the conversation narrated in the Theaetetus takes place shortly before his trial as orchestrated and adjudicated by his fellow Athenians, Socrates demonstrates from the beginning a greater concern for the youth in Athens than for those in Theodorus’ Cyrene (a Greek colony in North Africa). Socrates evidently feels more friendship toward the homegrown than the foreign (143d5). In this he resembles the “comrade” of the Protagoras, who also prefers the homegrown to the foreign. But Socrates is driven by a specific desire, the desire to know (143d5); as a result, his stated preference for the homegrown does not extend to mature teachers. To supplement his own search for the best of the young, conducted to the best of his abilities, Socrates enlists here the aid of a foreign geometer with whom he is clearly well acquainted (e.g., 145b7–­c2). Socrates does so on the grounds that he sees that “not the fewest” of the young eagerly seek out Theo­ dorus’ instruction. And since Socrates hardly ever traveled from Athens, he has no choice but to prefer the youths “here” (though not necessarily fellow ci­tizens: compare 143e5) to those elsewhere in order to satisfy his desire to be together with promising young people—­a desire that has not abated even now that he is not only old but surely also burdened by the judicial hearing that looms. Despite the fact that one of the official charges against him con­ cerns “corrupting the young,” Socrates does not hesitate still to seek out the most promising of the young. Theaetetus is not the only person in the dialogue distinguished by a kind of courage. Because it is Socrates who sets in motion the conversation we hear, the principal action of the Theaetetus is voluntary in a way that the action of the Protagoras is not. Socrates evidently has more interest in Theodorus (or his students) than in Protagoras. Yet in the Theaetetus Socrates also goes out of his way to introduce Protagoras into the day’s conversation, and he returns to him frequently. Perhaps it would be better to say, then, that Socrates shows only limited interest in a conversation with Protagoras in which the sophist will likely be on the hunt for politically ambitious students and therefore be eager to make a “display” of his moral-­political doctrine. In the school of Theodorus, by contrast—­where the tumult of politics

on the theaetetus

119

is altogether absent; where the only ambitions on display concern a novel approach to a mathematical problem; and where the sophist himself, now dead, cannot of course make an appearance9—­Socrates proves to be eager to take up, on his own terms, the core of Protagoras’ theoretical position as Socrates himself chooses to present it. Just as Socrates was responsible in the Protagoras for forcing on the sophist a certain caution or prudence in speech, or for altering his speech to that extent, so here he has even freer rein to present Protagoras’ position as he wishes. As I will argue, Socrates is intent on giving the strongest possible presentation of that position—­ stronger even, perhaps, than the sophist himself might have done had he been present.10 It is striking that Socrates is concerned solely with identifying those among the young known to Theodorus who are, as opinion has it, likely (epi­ doxoi) to become “decent” (epieikeis: 143d6): he does not ask about those most characterized by wisdom or beauty or both, for example (compare Char­ mides 153d2–­5). Is Theodorus a better gauge of the decent character of young people than he is of their intellectual abilities, to say nothing of their philosophic potential? In his longish response, Theodorus immediately singles out one youth whose unattractive physical appearance remarkably resembles (if it is not quite as ugly as) Socrates’ own. That bodily appearance, however, con­ ceals the youth’s remarkable soul, with its outstanding capacities pertaining to both character and intellect. The youth somehow combines quickness or ease of learning with gentleness or freedom from anger, yet he is outstandingly courageous, too: sharp but steady, bookish but manly. While it would be “difficult” for another to match the youth’s other qualities, it would be quite impossible, in Theodorus’ view of it, for anyone to equal him in courage or manliness (144a5). This trait is suggested, perhaps, by the fact that the youth and his friends are freshly anointed with oil after having just exercised on the outer course; at any rate, as we already know, Theaetetus certainly showed himself to be courageous as a mature man (142b6–­c1). And at important junctures in the conversation, Socrates will appeal to this quality in the boy so much admired by Theodorus (e.g., 151d5, 157d3–­4). Theodorus’ rather ham-­handed remarks here (he calls them fearless: 144a1) already suggest the lack of a certain human touch. In this connection, one might note that Theodorus has heard, but forgotten, the name of the youth’s father, which means that he has forgotten the patronymic—­the last name, so to speak—­of his star pupil (144b9; compare his praise of a good memory at 144a7), just as he has failed to mention the boy’s name in his extended praise of his “nature” (143e4–­144b7; 144a3). And yet Theo­ dorus is not simply lost in the contemplation of nature or of geometrical

120

chapter four

abstractions. For example, he is much concerned with his own reputation: “somebody” might form the opinion that he speaks as favorably as he does of the youth only because he is in the grip of a “desire” for him (143e7; compare 143d5). Whereas Socrates was perfectly willing to brave the (ultimately groundless) reputation of having such a desire for Alcibiades—­an Alcibiades a little too old, moreover, to be pursued according to the convention—­ Theodorus is unwilling to do so. He sees the youth for what he is, then, absent the distorting lens of desire. Theodorus evidently denies the possibility of desiring or indeed loving someone whose defective body is accompanied by a most attractive soul, which suggests, at least, that he is not a true lover (consider Republic 402d6–­e3). Or might Theodorus be attracted to the fellow for a combination of reasons not entirely clear to himself? Might Theodorus lack self-­knowledge or awareness of “all the things of his heart” and hence lack wisdom (consider 146b3–­4 and especially 154d8–­9)? As it happens, Theaetetus is in the middle of a group of (at least) two other youths who are just now coming over to Theodorus at his school, one of whom proves to share Socrates’ name (147d1). Hence a Socrates and a Soc­ rates look-­alike draw near. Our Socrates recognizes Theaetetus by sight, by his appearance, but does not know his name. Socrates’ perception of the fellow triggers a certain recognition, then, but not yet knowledge: being unable to name him, he cannot quite place him. Then again, “do you suppose that someone understands the name of something, when he doesn’t know what it is?” (147b2). To know Theaetetus, then, would entail recognizing him by sight or grasping the look of him, naming him correctly, and associating that name with the traits or qualities most characteristic of him that, as such, distinguish him from the group. (As for the name “Socrates,” Socrates knows it, of course, but presumably not that it properly applies also to one of the fellows approaching.) Thus the “action” of the dialogue already is bound up with what will prove to be its official question: “What is knowledge?” In contrast to Theodorus, Socrates knows both the name and deme (or neighborhood) of the boy’s father, as well as something of that man’s good reputation, which is due in part, perhaps, to the size of the estate he bequeathed to his son. Theodorus knows this much: certain overseers or guardians have squandered that inheritance, and yet the lad is still wonderfully liberal when it comes to money. While Theaetetus has enjoyed the benefits of wealth—­he has had and clearly still has the leisure to attend school—­he is free of any undue or illiberal attachment to wealth, even to that of his own father. This fact about the youth elicits Socrates’ strongest praise of him thus far: “It’s a fine [gennikos] man you speak of” (144d5). For the first (and last) time, Socrates calls young Theaetetus a “man.” Is Theaetetus’ liberality, married to his im-

on the theaetetus

121

pressive intellect, a more attractive trait in Socrates’ eyes than even his supposed courage? Once the youths have taken their seats, Socrates engages Theaetetus in a lighthearted exchange. He is eager to have Theaetetus sit next to him so that he might investigate what sort of a face he himself has, since Theodorus contends that his is similar to Theaetetus’. To know himself, his own face, Socrates must investigate together with another (consider, e.g., Charmides 166c5–­d6 and 167a1–­7). But, in fact, Socrates immediately transforms this into an investigation of Theodorus’ expertise and hence of his judgment. Since Theodorus lacks expertise as a painter—­at any rate, Theaetetus respectfully answers, as far as he knows, his teacher is not an expert painter—­but is an expert on all that depends on education (geometry, astronomy, calculation, and music: 145c5–­9), he would be a competent judge of souls but not of (the appearance of) bodies. When it comes to any praise he might have of one or the other of their souls in point of “virtue as well as wisdom,” however, it would be worthwhile for anyone who hears this praise eagerly to investigate the one praised, just as that fellow should eagerly display himself. This formulation silently drops Theodorus as expert judge: it will be Socrates, not Theodorus, who judges the “virtue as well as wisdom” of Theaetetus’ soul. Far from deferring to Theodorus’ expert opinion of Theaetetus (Theodorus had not, in fact, mentioned “virtue,” let alone “wisdom,” in his account of the boy), Socrates will take matters into his own hands. Evidently some expertise other than geometry, astronomy, calculation, or music (harmony: 145d1) is required in order to conduct the investigation of most interest to Socrates. Still, the examination of  Theaetetus’ soul seems to be a trial of Theodorus, too (145c3–­5, 148b3–­4). The first and briefest of the substantive exchanges between Theaetetus and Socrates (145c7–­e7) results in the official equation of knowledge (or science) and wisdom (145e7–­8). The arguments meant to establish this are unconvincing: that knowers are wiser with respect to the thing they come to know does not by itself establish the simple identity of knowledge and wisdom. Even if to learn something is to become “wiser” with respect to the thing learned, “wisdom” (“the wise”) suggests a comprehensiveness of understanding that goes well beyond any particular thing learned or known, for a wise sculptor in marble is one thing, but “we suppose that there are some wise people who are wise generally and not partially” (Aristotle Nico­ machean Ethics 1141a9–­13). Why, then, does Socrates begin from this too-­quick equation of knowledge and wisdom? First, the question of the dialogue, “What is knowledge?” is thus rendered equivalent to the question “what is wisdom?” And because

122

chapter four

philosophy is the love of precisely wisdom, the inquiry into knowledge (i.e., wisdom) will at the same time be an inquiry into the object of philosophy, into the philosophical life. At any rate, some of the most famous and striking accounts in the dialogue—­Socrates’ presentation of himself as a midwife, for example, and his “digression” concerning the philosopher in the law courts—­concern precisely the philosophic life and are evidently required or permitted by the question concerning knowledge. Yet, for the very reason that the official equation of knowledge and wisdom is faulty, we must keep in mind the possibility that the possession of wisdom, if that is possible, would go beyond that of any particular instance of knowledge to include something else: the ground of the possibility of all knowledge, for example, and the correct grasp of the class character that unites all particular examples of knowledge into the class “knowledge.” In other words, to raise the question “What is knowledge?” is to seek knowledge of knowledge, so to speak, which may well qualify as wisdom. It seems false to contend, as Socrates soon will, that “he who does not know knowledge therefore does not comprehend the knowledge of shoemaking either” (147b4–­5): the in­ ability to give a clear definition of knowledge does not impair one’s possession, or indeed use and transmission, of the genuine knowledge involved in shoemaking or some other technical art (consider also 149a4). But surely one who is without a “knowledge of knowledge” or a science of science could not be said to be wise. And this would be true even if a complete or com­ prehensive knowledge proves to be unavailable to human beings: in that case, wisdom would include the awareness of the limits of knowledge, of the character of “the point before which the intellect stops” (consider Maimon­ ides Guide of the Perplexed 1.71).

Theaetetus’ First Answer and Its Aftermath (145e8–­151d3) Socrates is perplexed by a question or difficulty that he himself cannot adequately answer, and he now poses that question to the assembled group: “[W]hat in the world [ pote] does knowledge happen to be?” (145e8–­9). Soc­ rates is thus entirely responsible for placing at the center of the dialogue the question of knowledge, as we have noted. In this private setting amid well-­ disposed mathematicians, and not poets or statesmen or craftsmen, Socrates does not ask about virtue or any of the moral-­political concerns for which he has by now become notorious (compare, e.g., Xenophon Memorabilia 1.1.16): instead, he asks a, and perhaps the, theoretical question, which he

on the theaetetus

123

has evidently raised “many times,” in contrast to the record that is the surface of the dialogues (consider 148e1–­3). In this way, Plato makes as plain as possible the comprehensive character of Socrates’ genuine concerns. An additional consequence of the equation of knowledge and wisdom (from the immediately prior section) seems to be that, when Theaetetus unhesitatingly accepts it, Socrates has doubts about him. At any rate, Socrates immediately addresses all the youths present (146a1 and a5), not just Theaetetus, and invites any one of them to speak: “[W]ho among us might speak first?” He returns to Theaetetus only at the urging of Theodorus (146b6–­7) and will later attempt to have Theodorus take the youth’s place (consider 161b8–­162c2 and 164e4–­6; Socrates succeeds in making the substitution at 168c2). When the boys are understandably silent in the face of this daunting question concerning knowledge, posed by a man who is known by reputation to Theaetetus at least (consider again 148e1–­2), Socrates cajoles them: like boys at play with a certain ball game, whoever among them makes a mistake will have to sit down an ass, but whoever prevails without making a mistake will rule over them as king and assign them the task of answering whatever he likes (146a1–­5). In this playful way, Socrates suggests that being able to answer correctly the question concerning knowledge, or being in possession of the knowledge of knowledge, would be a just title to rule as a sort of philosopher-­ king. And if one is not a philosopher-­king, then one is an ass. After Theodorus’ intervention on his behalf, Theaetetus now ventures the first of four attempts at a definition of knowledge in the dialogue as a whole: “Well, it seems to me that both the things someone might learn from Theodorus are instances of knowledge—­geometry as well as the things you went through just now—­and, in turn, the art of shoemaking, as well as the arts of the other skilled craftsmen: all and each of them are nothing other than knowledge” (146c7–­d2). Socrates regards this answer as noble and generous but also, he will soon reveal, laughable (compare 146d3 with 147a4–­5 and context); although Theaetetus was asked for one thing (for the definition, one could say, of knowledge), he gave instead a list of examples of it. To explain the difficulty, Socrates offers something paltry or run-­of-­the-­ mill ( phaulos) and at hand: clay (mud: p�los). If Socrates and Theaetetus were to answer the question “What in the world is clay?” with examples of those who use it—­the clay of potters, furnace makers, and brick makers—­they would be laughable, in the first place because such an answer presupposes knowledge of precisely “clay” and, on that basis, offers examples of its use: clay is (this or that) clay. Second, their answer would amount to going down an endless path when it is possible to answer in an ordinary ( phaul�s) and

124

chapter four

brief way: clay (mud) is earth mixed with liquid, Socrates contends; the question of whose clay it is can thus be dismissed (consider, on this definition, Aristotle Topics 127a14–­16). While it is true that Theaetetus’ first answer seems to fall short of a definition, it is much more useful than Socrates allows, for by pointing to clear examples of what he takes knowledge to be, Theaetetus brings to light individual members of the class in question. Does he not thereby also make somewhat clearer the class as he understands it? After all, by bringing together geometry and the art of shoemaking, for example, Theaetetus points to a characteristic common to both that it might otherwise be easy to miss or ignore. And how else could one ascend to a firm grasp of the class character that unites the infinite or “endless” particulars, geometry and shoemaking among them, other than by becoming more aware of those many particulars as members of a group? It might be more precise to say that awareness of a particular thing as what it is necessarily goes together with some awareness of the class to which it belongs or seems to belong, just as some awareness of a given class depends on an awareness of the individuals that make it up. In other words, if Theaetetus’s first answer, by listing particular instances of knowledge, presupposes the definition it means to supply, does not a defini­ tion presuppose awareness of the various particulars or individuals that belong to the class? To return to Socrates’ example, if the word clay is not meaningless to one who hears it, it already goes together with some awareness of the stuff of interest to potters, brick makers, and furnace makers, just as one cannot grasp pot or brick or furnace without some awareness of clay. We seem to require, and to a degree to have, simultaneous knowledge of both the particular and the class, each being evidently impossible without the other: the class has content or meaning only through our interaction with the various relevant particulars, and without the classification that awareness of the class permits or is, we would encounter only an unintelligible blur of unique “things” or motions. Theaetetus’ initial answer points to the need to bring greater self-­awareness or clarity to the things given to us in the world as it ordinarily presents itself to us in the course of our dealing with those things. Could knowledge even be the grasp, the correct grasp, of those given things (“data”) so supplied? As several commentators have noted, Theaetetus’ first attempt to define knowledge recalls Meno’s first attempt to define virtue in the dialogue named after him, for he too gives not a definition but a list of examples (Meno 71e1–­ 72a5).11 There are additional connections between the two dialogues, including points of striking contrast: Meno is a good-­looking foreigner who has studied a somewhat dubious subject (rhetoric) with a not-­altogether-­respectable

on the theaetetus

125

teacher (Gorgias) and who, in the service of his great political ambitions, went on to become a notorious traitor to the Greeks; Theaetetus is a not-­good-­ looking Athenian who has studied a perfectly respectable subject (geometry) with a perfectly respectable teacher (Theodorus) and who, being without any manifest political ambitions himself, went on to die a noble death in the service of his Greek fatherland. More important, perhaps, is this connection: Meno seeks to know how virtue may be acquired and, in particular, whether it is teachable, and Socrates answers eventually that virtue is teachable only if it is knowledge. Thus the guiding question of the Meno (“What is virtue?”) is treated in such a way as to culminate in the guiding question of the The­ aetetus (“What is knowledge?”). And the trial of Socrates that is a dark cloud over the Theaetetus is set in motion partly by the democratic statesman Anytus, who makes a charged appearance toward the end of the Meno. With these considerations in mind, one can even say that the Theaetetus, the principal action of which must take place somewhat later than that of the Meno, serves as its sequel.12 The chief difficulty with Meno’s three attempts to define virtue is that he is confused as to what precisely constitutes the class character of virtue, of human excellence: is it the capacities needed to carry out well one’s duties that are required by the well-­being of the whole (the family; the household; above all, the city) or is it, rather, the capacities needed to provide for oneself the greatest goods, including, of course, happiness? Because Meno is confused about this, he sometimes attaches the noble name of “virtue” to that which contributes to the good of others and sometimes to what contributes to one’s own good (as he understands that good); given that these goods may make conflicting demands on us, Meno sometimes regards the sacrifice of things good for oneself, and sometimes the attainment of them, as noble. But this is a recipe for deep confusion rather than a life well lived, and if, as Socrates suggests, the only virtue that could be teachable is the one that is knowledge, then virtue properly speaking must be or include the correct answer to the puzzle the Meno thus sketches. In this way, the Meno is indispensable in permitting us to see that the problem of definition at the heart of both the Meno and the Theaetetus—­of the relation of class character to individual members of the class—­includes not only questions of “epistemology” but also, and above all, those of the human heart, of politics and ethics or character, for example: partly as a result of upbringing or habituation, partly as a result of human hope, we may place some things in the wrong class or bestow attributes on things that in fact lack them. But how might this problem of misclassification apply to the question of knowledge? The Meno again may supply a clue, in the remarkable way in

126

chapter four

which Socrates there solves the puzzle of how it is that we come to acquire knowledge of the world—­a solution expressly intended to encourage Meno to press on in his frustrated attempts to define virtue. According to certain men and women wise in divine matters, together with Pindar and all such poets as are divine, our immortal souls saw and so came to know “all things” in a former life, and the comprehensive knowledge we thus acquired remains in us but is somehow dormant, waiting to be roused by the right kind of questioning (Meno 81a5–­e2). Socrates in the Theaetetus does not so much as allude to this doctrine of the immortal soul (compare 142a8–­b1 and 176a7). Perhaps Theodorus and his school (to say nothing of Euclides) are a less receptive audience for that doctrine than is Meno (but consider, in the case of Theodorus at least, 175e5–­176a4 and 177a4–­5). It is, in any case, relatively easy at this early stage of the Theaetetus to forget that priests and priestesses (and certain divine poets) are among those who claim to know the origin of all human knowledge, or to possess knowledge of knowledge, or again who lay claim to being “wise in divine matters”—­matters that evidently include the most important truths about the human soul. And such a claim to knowledge will exercise great influence over what we believe constitutes knowledge and indeed over what we believe we know. Recall the execution of Socrates that hangs over the Theaetetus: as Socrates will soon say at his trial, he knew only that he knew nothing, or, as he has already said in the Theaetetus, he is unable by himself to grasp what in the world knowledge happens to be, and his official position here is that this general ignorance (147b7–­8) entails ignorance of any particular instance of knowledge. Socrates therefore knew that he knew nothing of the gods of Mount Olympus, for example, or of the goodness of the official cult of Athens (Eu­ thyphro 6a6–­b6)—­the very things that every decent citizen is legally obliged to “know” and hold to be true. The present section of the Theaetetus only alludes to these difficulties. After Socrates gives his three examples of the kinds or uses of clay, he adds a separate, and apparently superfluous, fourth (compare 147a1–­5 with a7–­b2): the clay of those who make small figures, the doll makers or “image makers” (so Liddell et al. 1973: sv. koroplath�n). As clay is exceedingly malleable, so too is (what is said to be) knowledge; and the uses of knowledge, as of clay, include not only the production of implements useful for life (see 146d6–­e5) but also the fabrication of images—­of artifacts, human beings, and other animals, for example (Republic 514b–­515a; consider especially eid�la at Theaetetus 150b1; 150c2, e6; and 151c3, where it is explicitly contrasted with what is true; also ta phasmata at 155a2 and ta phantasmata at 167b3).

on the theaetetus

127

To return to the discussion of clay, Socrates offers his own definition of it that is ostensibly superior to Theaetetus’ own concerning knowledge. Socrates suggests that one can avoid the “endless path” that is the enumeration of examples by stating instead the ingredients making up clay—­ namely, earth and liquid. But not all combinations of earth and liquid constitute clay. In fact, most such combinations do not. Socrates’ own answer, every bit as much as Theaetetus’, presupposes an awareness of the class or kind or form in question—­an awareness that, in the case of clay, would determine which among the “endless” combinations of earth and liquid might rightly bear that name. Theaetetus’ answer may even be a more promising beginning than Socrates’, for it has the virtue of connecting the search for a definition of something to our ordinary experience of the world (to the world of carpenters and the like) rather than to certain material ingredients that may, for so long as they are together in a certain proportion or ratio, constitute the thing of concern to us but that in their separation or misproportion do not. Still, the real question here involves not clay but knowledge. Socrates’ striking definition of clay at least puts on the table the question of the ingredients of knowledge, of its elements or parts, and Socrates will later pursue such an approach (e.g., knowledge is true opinion plus a logos), although he will also profess to be dissatisfied with the answer thus arrived at.13 In the present context, this appeal to the ingredients of clay and hence of knowledge prompts Theaetetus’ most extensive comments thus far: he is reminded of something that he and the young Socrates attempted to do the other day in the course of conversation, after Theodorus had depicted something for them concerning (square) roots (dunameis: literally, “powers”),14 claiming that, when it comes to the three-­foot square and the five-­foot one, their length is not commensurable with the one-­foot line. Since it occurred to the boys that the dunameis were infinite or endless in number—­just as the examples of knowledge have recently been said to be infinite or endless (compare 147d7 with c4) —­they attempted to encompass them all with one thing such that they would thereby be able to address them all. Thus they sought to find unity in the infinite multiplicity of dunameis. And in this way, Theaetetus volunteers an example comparable, as he believes, to what is being sought out now concerning knowledge: a way to encompass by a single consideration the practically infinite instances or examples of something.15 First, the boys took all numbers or number as a whole (ton arithmon panta: 147e5) and “divided” it in two. As for the sorts of numbers that have the power to come to be through the multiplication of an equal number by

128

chapter four

an equal number, the boys likened (apeikasantes) them to a square figure and called them “square” as well as “equal-­sided” numbers: 4, 9, 16. The boys likened the numbers that fall between these—­3, 5, and indeed every number that does not have the power to come to be through the multiplication of two equal numbers but instead comes to be through the multiplication of a greater with a lesser, or of a lesser with a greater—­to an oblong figure and called them “oblong” numbers. The unity that is all number, then, can be “divided” in two: square numbers and oblong numbers. The boys’ procedure thus far presupposes an awareness of the unity that is “number” (number as a whole) and then makes of that unity two by means of division. Perhaps it would be better to say (although the boys do not say it) that they took “all” numbers in their infinity and collected them into two groups: those whose square roots are, as we would say, “rational” numbers and those who square roots are “irrational” numbers. But in any case, the boys initially sought a unity pertaining not to numbers but to dunameis. The precise parallel to the question “What is knowledge?” is then “What are dunameis?” (see also Benardete 1986, 96). The boys proceeded as follows: all the lines that generate the four sides of the equal-­sided and square number they defined as lengths, whereas all the lines that generate the four sides of the uneven-­sided (heterom�k�) number, they defined as dunameis (surds, or irrational numbers), on the grounds that they are not commensurable with the others in length, but are commensurable with the (areas of the) planes they have the power to form. This, then, is the way the boys found to encompass with a single image or likeness all dunameis, understood as all surds. Despite Socrates’ very high praise of this—­“the very best indeed of [what Theaetetus nonetheless immediately avers belongs to] human beings!”—­ that he cannot do for knowledge what he (and young Socrates) did concerning “the length and the dunamis” (148b3–­8; compare radion at 147c7). Together, the boys managed to grasp an uncountable set of numbers by likening it to a certain shape (oblong) to which they did have ready access;16 to what, then, might one liken knowledge in order to grasp its character? Is there something about knowledge, about the objects of knowledge, that is as resistant to human reason or speech as the numbers represented, but only represented, by “oblong”? If this is or appears to be so, then the temptation would be great to recur either to the world constituted by the objects of geometry (which, being likenesses or representations created by human beings, are as graspable by human beings as anything can be) or to the world revealed by the divine poets and the priests and priestesses concerned with giving a logos of the matters of concern to them, a world that also, in its own way, promises complete or perfect knowledge. The very difficulty involved

on the theaetetus

129

in answering the question of knowledge, then, together with its vital importance, may prompt two opposed but related reactions, both constituting a flight from this world (consider 176a8–­b1) as we know it with its “bare speeches” (165a2). At this point in the dialogue, of course, the alternative represented by “geometry” is much more in evidence than is that of the poets or priests. In the section immediately following, Socrates will indeed have recourse to an image (that of the midwife ministering to the pregnant souls of young men), but this is meant chiefly to encourage Theaetetus not to give up his search for a definition of knowledge—­just as Socrates had earlier encouraged Meno not to give up his search for a definition of virtue by reporting an account of our immortal soul. And in both cases, in both the Meno and the The­ aetetus, Socrates is successful in averting a breakdown of the conversation: if Meno will just press on, he can recover the knowledge that in a sense he already has; and if Theaetetus can just endure the pains of labor, for that is what he is now experiencing, he will indeed give birth. Not only will Socrates tell him whether that offspring is a mere image and false or something true, but, if need be, he will also remove from him the false and discard it.17 Socrates, it turns out, has a secret that he asks Theaetetus to keep. Unbeknownst to everyone, Socrates, the son of that distinguished midwife Phaenarete, is himself a practitioner of “the same art.” In their ignorance of this fact, people do not say that Socrates is a midwife but rather that he is “very strange” and renders human beings perplexed or at a loss—­precisely the charge leveled against him by Meno (Meno 79e7–­80a1 and context). As if his being a “midwife” would not strike people as “very strange”! But before Socrates can explain and defend his effect on others—­an effect he does not deny—­he must explore first the ordinary practice of midwifery and then his own version of it. Only women who have given birth, but who are now infertile on account of age, practice the art of midwifery. According to what the midwives themselves assert, the virgin goddess Artemis is responsible for this: she who never married and had no children yet received as her lot what pertains to childbirth. In honor of the similarity between Artemis and the women now past the age of childbirth, then, the latter have been assigned the task of midwifery. But the similarity is slight at best. Why not assign that task to never-­married women or to those wives who have always been infertile? The answer, as Socrates himself puts it, is “human nature,” the sole mention of the phrase in the Theaetetus (compare 176a7). Human nature is “too weak” to grasp an art pertaining to things of which the practitioner has no direct experience: what the virgin goddess Artemis can know, mere human beings, lacking the requisite experience, cannot. Hence the

130

chapter four

human practice of midwifery requires having given birth oneself at some point in the past; the infertility of midwives due to their age is the closest approximation to Artemis allowed to them by human nature. In the case of human beings, then, the knowledge that is art necessarily has its roots in an altogether human experience. For all that Socrates insists that he practices “the same art” as that of midwives, he is at pains to detail the differences between the two arts. He practices only on the souls of men, for example, not on the bodies of women; and the greatest (if not also the noblest: compare 150b9 with 149b2) thing in his art is his ability to test whether the young person’s intellect gives birth to an image and falsehood or to what is fertile and true. While midwives can determine in the course of the pregnancy whether to arouse or soften labor pangs, to bring on the birth itself, or even, if that seems best, to terminate the pregnancy altogether (149c9–­d3), as midwives they are unconcerned with the offspring once born. This ability of Socrates to judge the soul’s offspring is all the more impressive in that he himself has never produced or given birth to wisdom but is in that regard sterile, and the criticism made of him—­that he only asks others questions while never making any assertions himself on account of his lack of wisdom—­is true. The puzzle here is clear enough: how can Socrates judge both the worth of the pregnancy—­the potential of a youth’s intellect for progress—­and, even more, the truth or falsity of the opinions thus brought to light? How can he assess what is true and what is false without any wisdom of his own to guide him? What other than knowledge or wisdom could possibly guide his questioning? Socrates’ answer is striking. Not he but “the god” is responsible for all this —­the god who “compels” him to act as midwife and never himself to generate anything (150d4). Or, more precisely, Socrates claims that “the god and I” are responsible for this midwifery (150d8): Socrates bears some responsibility for it, too. Indeed, it turns out that Socrates’ peculiar daimon­ ion plays an important part in the conduct of his midwifery—­that is, the divine voice within Socrates himself and within him only (151a4). But then again, Theaetetus must not be like those who suppose that Socrates acts as he does because he is ill disposed to them, and Theaetetus must not suppose this for one very good reason: “no god is ill disposed to human beings” (151c8–­d3). The god; Socrates and the god; Socrates’ own daimonion; Socrates the god:18 either Socrates the human being also must bow to the weakness of “human nature” and so have the relevant experience—­of having given birth to wisdom himself—­in order to practice his art or he must, like Artemis, soar above human nature and its specific weakness. In other words, Socrates is so adamant here to deny the possession of any wisdom

on the theaetetus

131

whatsoever that he is compelled to claim to be a god. As is always the case with his claims to ignorance, this one proves not to be distinguished by modesty. This strange section, like its counterpart in the Meno, is intended in the first place to encourage Socrates’ interlocutor, as noted. But it is intended also to present Socrates’ way of life or characteristic activity, especially as a teacher. In this regard, it is helpful to remember that Socrates will very soon be compelled to give, at his trial, another, much more public account of his way of life and characteristic activity. In the Apology, Socrates flatly denies that he is a teacher, partly on the dubious grounds that he has never been paid as one, but he does admit to the possession of wisdom, precisely human (as distinguished from divine) wisdom (Apology of Socrates 19d8–­e1 and context; 33a5–­b6; 20d6–­9). In the Theaetetus, Socrates flatly denies that he is in any way wise but for that very reason is led to claim a divine status. And the entire description of his art here is nothing other than an admission that he teaches (if in a most unusual way), and he goes so far as to insist that he is crucial to the proper development of those souls receptive to him: disaster awaits those who leave him too soon. As for those souls not receptive to him, those who seem to him not to be pregnant, he does what the other midwives decline to do for fear of damaging their august reputations: he runs the risk of a bad reputation by acting as a matchmaker between student and teacher (sophist). If we put together the Apology and Theaete­ tus, we come to the tentative conclusion that Socrates could admit to being either a teacher or a wise human being—­but to admit to being wise and a teacher, to leading others to share in the same wisdom that he himself possessed, was evidently intolerable (consider Apology of Socrates 19b4–­c1).

Theaetetus’ Second Attempt at a DeFInition of Knowledge (151d7–­161b6) Socrates encourages Theaetetus by assuring him that if two conditions are met—­if (a) god is willing and Theaetetus acts like a man—­he will be able to say what knowledge is. Perhaps because, according to Socrates, no god bears ill will toward human beings, Theaetetus does not speak to or of a god in his response but speaks only of what clearly falls within his power: he will in every way be eager to answer, since failing to do so would be an ugly or shameful thing. Theaetetus thus gives evidence already, or again, of the noble and good man he is to become (142b7), for he here makes plain the nobility or beauty not, of course, of his bodily appearance (143e8) but of the concern that guides him (151d8). He ventures this definition: “In my

132

chapter four

opinion, then, he who knows something perceives this thing that he knows, and, as it appears now, at any rate, knowledge is nothing other than perception” (151e1–­3). The statement includes three modes of seeming, so to speak: an opinion that seems (dokei) to Theaetetus; the perception (aisth�sis) of something (something known); and the way that knowledge itself now appears or comes to be seen or manifests itself (phainetai). Theaetetus does not claim to know what knowledge is but claims merely to have an opinion about it—­an opinion based on or expressive of how the matter now comes to be seen to him, to his mind’s eye, as one might put it. But if “to seem” and “to come to sight” are forms of perception—­and very soon Theaetetus will agree to Socrates’ equation of appearance or coming to sight ( phantasia, phainetai) with perception (152b9, b11, c1) —­why does Theaetetus not claim to know what knowledge is on the basis of what he now perceives of it? One answer is clear: even if all knowledge is perception and “nothing other than perception,” not all perception need be knowledge. In other words, Theaetetus’ definition leaves open the possibility of false perception, and he declines, surely also or above all out of modesty, to assert that how things now appear to him must be so (consider also phainetai at 152c7). Socrates praises Theaetetus for a response that is not only good but also noble (151e4; compare 146c3): it is by declaring oneself in this way that someone—­a man—­ought to speak (consider 151d5 and e4–­5; also 157d3–­5 as well as 142b7–­9). Yet Socrates here calls Theaetetus a “boy” (151e4; compare again 144d5). Is Theaetetus in some way still too reticent? Is he not in fact stating his own view? Here we may pause to note that Socrates initially treats this response of Theaetetus as his newly born offspring, which they will now examine to determine whether it happens to be fruitful or a “wind-­egg.” Yet, in the course of that very examination, Socrates clearly indicates that Theaetetus has not given birth at all (157c7–­d3): Socrates says that he will examine Theaetetus’ opinion, as to its soundness, once it has been brought into the light, which implies that the doctrine then under discussion is no longer or not yet Theaetetus’ opinion. Only when this long section is coming to an end does Socrates declare that Theaetetus has finally given birth (160e2–­4) and what “we” have generated (160e5). Theaetetus’ definition is preceded by his observation that one who knows something perceives this very thing that he knows. This could be taken to suggest a distinction between perception and knowledge: the knower both knows some given thing and perceives the fact that he knows it, a kind of self-­awareness. But this is evidently not what Theaetetus has in mind, since he instead links perception and knowledge by concluding that everything known is as such perceived: knowledge is in fact “nothing other” than per-

on the theaetetus

133

ception. In his response to Theaetetus, Socrates does two striking things. First, he restates Theaetetus’ definition—­“perception, you assert, is knowl­ edge?”—­in such a way as to leave open the possibility that knowledge includes things other than perception and (if “perception” here means “perception as such”) to foreclose the possibility that some perceptions may be false or nonknowledge. In other words, Socrates’ restatement renders possible a reading of Theaetetus’ definition that is in one respect more radical and in another less radical than the boy may have intended: more radical because it may affirm the accuracy of all perception and less radical because it allows for the ingredients of knowledge to include things other than or in addition to perception. Socrates’ second striking move is immediately to equate this definition, in its new form, with the things “wise” Protagoras used to say, if “in a somewhat different manner.” Protagoras asserts somewhere that “‘of all things’ [a] human being is ‘[a or the] measure, of the things that are, that they are, of the things that are not, that they are not’” (152a1–­4). To say, then, that “perception is knowledge” (or that “knowledge is nothing other than perception”) amounts to saying that “[a] human being is [a] measure of all things”—­the famous logos of Protagoras. Yet the connection between these two statements, let alone their equivalency, is not obvious. Theaetetus, for one, is perfectly familiar with Protagoras’ dictum because he has read it “many times” (152a5), but he gives no indication of having had Protagoras in mind in speaking as he did. Is it not news to him that he and the great Sophist are in agreement? Are they really in agreement? Is Theaetetus a Protagorean? To answer these questions, we have to discover not only the opinions of Theaetetus—­which Theaetetus himself seems in the process of discovering (consider 154e3–­5)—­but also the contentions of Protagoras, who proves to be a remarkably slippery fellow. Here a general remark is in order. The next long section of the text (152c8–­161a4) examines the new definition(s) of knowledge traceable to some combination of Theaetetus and Protagoras. It is an exceedingly diffi­ cult section. For all of Theaetetus’ great gifts, he is young and uncertain enough of himself that he makes for a less-­than-­best interlocutor. As we have seen, Socrates was initially open to conducting the conversation with any of the young people present (146a1–­8) and continues with Theaetetus only at the urging of Theodorus (146b6–­7), and at certain points Socrates tries, with varying success, to have Theodorus take Theaetetus’ place in the conversation in order to further the investigation of Protagoras (161b8–­162c2; 164e2–­165b5; compare the more successful effort at 168c6–­169d2, which introduces a subsection that lasts until 184b3). More important, Socrates will reveal that Protagoras stated the truth only to his students “in secret”

134

chapter four

and that the truth understood not just by Protagoras but also by certain other “famous men” was “concealed” or “hidden away” by them (152c8–­ 10; 155d9–­e1; consider also 180d1). Hence only a painstaking investigation could hope to discover a private doctrine intentionally concealed by a public one so as to deceive “the unwashed many” (152c9). In addition, without announcing what he is doing, Socrates sometimes states (a version of) the doctrine itself—­what it maintains about the world, including applications of it to our ordinary experience (e.g., perceiving color)—­and sometimes states the evidence for that doctrine stemming from ordinary experience that, if convincing, will encourage one to accept it. But the difficulties of this section are traceable above all to the fact that the doctrine at its core or in its most extreme form contends that all things are constantly in motion or changing—­both perceiver and perceived, motions active as well as passive, fast and slow—­and culminates in the far-­reaching assertion that no “forms” or fixed classes (eid�) can be known to exist but are instead constructions in human speech that we baselessly assert “are” as a result of communal habit and a lack of precisely knowledge (157a7–­c2: anepist�mosun�s); such knowledge as is available to us tells us (it hardly seems necessary to add “paradoxically”) that a principal prerequisite of knowledge is unavailable to us. Socrates’ very attempt to capture that doctrine in speech, then, amounts to assigning, in violation of the letter of the doctrine, a fixed characteristic (constant motion) to “things” that cannot be known to be such; in violation of the doctrine, Socrates attempts to bring the world to a halt by describing in speech its finally ineffable motion. What is in every way and altogether undergoing change does not admit of true things being said of it, of true predication, at least not in the sense of one’s simply describing a fixed and stable order “out there” that stands ready to be recorded. No wonder, then, that those who claimed a connection to Heraclitus, together with Cratylus, for example, supposed in the end that one must say nothing; Cratylus instead did nothing more than move a finger (Aristotle Metaphysics 1010a7–­ 15). Perhaps partly as a result of this difficulty, Socrates’ account of the motion doctrine is itself constantly in motion, from now less to now more radical versions of it. It thus presents in deed or before our eyes what will prove to be the central contention of the argument—­an explanation by way of imitation (consider Theodorus’ characterization of the manner of argumentation of the motion camp: 179e2–­b3). To return to the text, as Socrates’ gloss on Protagoras’ dictum brings out, Protagoras means to stress the necessarily individual character of sense perception and the impossibility of appealing to something other than one’s own experience of sense perception—­to something above or beyond or “behind”

on the theaetetus

135

sense perception—­as a standard by which to judge it. Of  whatever char­acter each thing in turn appears to an individual to be, so it in fact is to him or for him, just as of whatever character each thing in turn appears to another to be, so it in fact is to him or for him (152a6–­8). If one person perceives a given wind to be cold, then there can be no gainsaying the fact that the wind is cold for him, just as the same wind that another perceives to be not cold is not cold for him. In short, as the wind appears to each to be, so it is for each. What might well seem to be here the complete reliability of sense perception stems, to repeat, from the impossibility of our breaking free of the world given to us through sense perception so as to judge it on the basis of access to something other and supposedly more reliable than that perception. And because we are wholly reliant on our individual perception of how the wind—­ of how some aspect of it—­happens to strike us here and now, we can say nothing about the wind “itself in itself” (152b5–­7). Such as each human being perceives things to be, then, so “it is likely that they also are for each” (152c2–­3). To this Theaetetus agrees, if tentatively (“It seems so”). From all this, Socrates draws the following conclusion: “Perception, therefore, is always of the being [is of the being at any given time: aei ] and is without falsehood, it being knowledge” (152c5–­6). Knowledge then is without falsehood and always gives us, or is of, a thing that is, a being (to on). (Without in any way trumpeting the fact, Socrates thus offers a working definition of knowledge.) And since perception is necessarily without falsehood and is always of the being thus presented to us, as Socrates, following Protagoras (151b1–­2), has described it, perception deserves to be called knowledge. On the basis of this preliminary presentation of the thought that “perception is knowledge,” understood in terms of Protagoras’ dictum that “human being is [the or a] measure,” we see that it admits a fairly restricted interpretation. It can mean, most simply, that whatever we experience as a result of sense perception we really do experience: the brute fact that I am chilled by the wind that another finds refreshing is irrefutable and so partakes of the steady character we divine to be a part of knowledge (consider here also 179c2–­d1). And while the doctrine also brings out the fact that there is indeed something inaccessible and hence mysterious to us in the wind “itself in itself,” the very concept of which we can posit only by extrapolating from the perceptions we do have, Socrates’ elaboration of that doctrine here still presupposes some access to a shared world of perception in which we can speak intelligibly to one another of our differing perceptions—­of one and “the same” wind (152b2), for example, and of the “I” that shivers and the “you” that does not. After all, we can come to doubt our

136

chapter four

access to the wind “itself in itself,” or to see our necessary reliance on the world as given to us through sense perception, because we can intelligibly compare our perceptions here and now to those of another human being (or to other perceptions of our own in the past). And so it is that, when Socrates asks Theaetetus the apparently superfluous question of whether he (Theaetetus) is a human being and Socrates is as well (152a8), he is pointing to the fact that both are fundamentally the same kind of being and that they share the perception of this fact as it applies to each himself and to both together. In addition, even if there is no court of appeal beyond perception, it is nevertheless true that we can correct some perceptions on the basis of other ones and so are not simply at the mercy of this or that passing perception: a wind that some find pleasing another finds chilling because of the flu he feels (perceives) coming on; the sight of a stick that appears bent when immersed in water is corrected, not just altered, by the sight and touch of it when removed from water. That sense perceptions can change, from person to person or for one person over time, does not seem to be enough to call into question their basic reliability; on the contrary, our very awareness of their ability to change requires some constancy in the perceiver and in the perceived. Finally, and above all, Protagoras’ logos as adumbrated to this point, far from denying us access to what is or to “the beings,” insists on it, just as it insists on the reliability of sense perception: the things we perceive “are” for us as we perceive them (152a3, 7, c3); perception is always of “the being” (tou ontos: 152c5–­6); human being is the measure of precisely “the beings” (t�n . . . ont�n: 152a2–­4). Yet there seem to be difficulties associated with this doctrine when one attempts to understand it along these lines. For example, saying that each thing is for him who perceives it as he perceives it, robs the verb “to be” of any greater fixity than “seeming” or “appearing,” or makes the former finally collapse into the latter (consider 159d5, 162d1, 166d1–­e4). If perception is indeed without falsehood, in the relatively uninteresting sense that we cannot deny the experience of our sense perceptions as we experience them, in what sense and by what right can perception really be said to be of a being, with a knowable existence outside of the shifting perceptions of a single perceiver (compare 152c5–­6)? Moreover, “perception” is an ambiguous word, as indicated by the fact that we have thus far indiscriminately translated aisth�sis as both “sense perception” and “perception.” The term may mean simply the awareness given to us through the five senses individually or in some combination, or the term can mean more broadly an intellectual grasp that, while making vital use of sense perception, goes beyond it to include some kind of judgment—­not just the sense datum “warm,” for

on the theaetetus

137

example, but a warm wind, to say nothing of “hurricane” (consider 186d2–­5). As a result of this ambiguity, Socrates is able, with Theaetetus’ approval, to move seamlessly from sense perception to the perception that is equivalent to an appearance of something (phainetai and phantasia: 152b9–­11, c1)—­but this leaves the precise meaning of “perception is knowledge” in some obscurity.19 Finally, we note that Socrates calls the statement of both Theaetetus and Protagoras a logos, a (reasoned) account or definition (151e8–­152a1). If that logos puts front and center the experience of sense perception, in the very act of calling to mind that experience, it goes beyond it: the logos is a certain reflection perhaps grounded in but also transcending sense perception. How, then, can one account for that logos or its place in the thing “knowledge,” precisely if knowledge is understood as “perception”? Because of these and probably also other difficulties attending the Theaetetus-­Protagoras logos developed thus far, Socrates suddenly reveals that Protagoras, whom he now deems to be not just “wise” but “all-­wise” (compare 152b1 with c8), posed all this as a riddle or enigma “for us, the unwashed many,” whereas for his students he “used to say the truth in secret”: what we have heard thus far is not the truth according to Protagoras but the merely public or exoteric version of his doctrine intended for the riff-­raff. Either what Protagoras wrote did not reflect the truth as he understood it or he wrote in such a way as to state simultaneously falsehoods to the “unwashed many” and the truth to his students. Although Theaetetus has read Protagoras “many times,” he does not understand Socrates’ suggestion of this twofold character of Protagoras’ speaking or writing (152d1); we cannot assume that Theaetetus understands the truth of Protagoras’ Truth or, therefore, that he is himself a genuine Protagorean. To have his second attempt at a definition of knowledge equated to the most famous saying of the most famous sophist is surely a boost to Theaetetus—­but this is undone when he learns that Protagoras has evidently duped him. Theaetetus and the reader are now in the same boat, for we are eager to hear from Socrates what Protagoras’ true views are. It is not immediately clear in the sequel that Socrates will satisfy such eagerness. It is now Socrates’ turn to state “what is certainly no paltry lo­ gos,” corresponding to Theaetetus’ own “not paltry logos” (compare 152d2 with 151e8), and it is emphatically Socrates, not Protagoras, who speaks here (eg� er�). Yet Protagoras proves to be among those who accept that logos (see 152e3 and context). Could Socrates and Protagoras agree about the logos, or about some part or parts of it, that Socrates is about to expound? It is, in any case, undeniable that the argument Socrates proceeds to make is more radical than what has preceded it. This important subsection has four main

138

chapter four

parts (152c8–­d6; 152d7–­e5; 152e5–­153d7; 153d8–­154b6). In the first, Socrates maintains this: “[O]n the one hand [men], nothing is one, itself by itself, and you could not in any way correctly call it any [one] sort of thing; but if you address it as big, it will also appear small, and if heavy, light, and in fact all things together [sumpanta] are this way, on the grounds that nothing is either any one thing or of any [one] sort.” What Socrates says here means both to clarify the doctrine and to supply evidence for it, the latter by alluding to such experiences as that of seeing a tree that is large when compared to the sapling in front of it and simultaneously seeing it as small in comparison with the gigantic oak looming behind it. In this way, we frequently experience a thing’s having differing and even contradictory qualities, not “itself in itself,” but in comparison with or relative to other things of its kind or with which we compare it. This is related to but also goes beyond the thought that we have no access to the wind “itself in itself” but only to our perceptions of it that may differ from individual to individual. For just as we cannot say that a given wind is “itself in itself” either warm or cold, so we cannot say that a given tree “itself in itself” is large or small—­which amounts to saying that, so far as our perceptions of it are concerned, it is at once large (larger) and small (smaller) or, since we have no access to it apart from our perceptions of it, this amounts to saying that it “is” not any of these things. The example of big and small also seems more unsettling than that of the wind. There is no ambiguity in the cold I feel as a result of the wind, no matter how it may strike another, but there is an ambiguity when one and the same tree that strikes me as big (or bigger) and simultaneously or subsequently as small (or smaller). The wind may well be cold to me, but the tree is not simply either large or small. The first part of this “not paltry” logos points to what may provisionally be called the relational character of our grasp of both things and their qualities: to say that nothing is one thing itself by itself because “nothing is either any one thing or of any [one] sort” means that our grasp of the things we deal with in the world relies on our classification of them, on our placing individual things into what seem to us to be the appropriate classes and distinguishing those classes from one another; a tree is not one thing itself by itself because, in seeing it as a tree, we link the individual before us with others in the class to which we believe it belongs, thus also separating it from the very many classes, and the individuals constituting those classes, to which it seems not to belong. As for the qualities of the things we deal with, large and small, heavy and light, these are known by way of a grasp of their relation with other things that bear qualities to which we compare them. Something truly one, itself by itself, or a wholly unique thing, would

on the theaetetus

139

be wholly unintelligible to us (assuming we can even conceive of such a thing) unless we could place it alongside other things to which it bore at least some resemblance and thus do away with its uniqueness. If, to repeat, the present argument has some relation to the prior one exemplified by the wind, it is also headed in a different direction, which becomes clear in what Socrates now adds in what constitutes the argument’s second part: “On the other hand [In addition: de], it is indeed from locomotion as well as motion and mixing with one another that all things, which we assert ‘are,’ come into being—­though we do not address them correctly.” Here, then, Socrates turns from giving evidence for the position to presupposing its adequacy—­that is, to accounting for the causes of our experience on the basis of the doctrine—­and he does so by introducing, for the first time, motion (or change: kin�sis). And from these assertions, Socrates now draws this important conclusion: “For nothing ever is, but is always coming into being [ becoming: gignetai ]” (152d7–­e1). This flat denial of the adequacy of ordinary language in dealing with the world—­every time we say “is” about something, we are mistaken—­goes together with an attempt to grasp in speech the ceaseless motion now said to be at the heart of things; to say that something “is” is to bring to a halt in our mind’s eye the thing in question and so to deny the fact that it is both constantly changing and hence in a state, or rather states, of “becoming.” As a measure of the distance we have covered from Protagoras’ merely public doctrine, we recall how frequently Protagoras had initially used the word “is,” a word that is now seen to be the mark of a fundamental misunderstanding (see again 152a2–­4, 7, c3–­6). Only after Socrates has broached this radical conclusion does he add that “all the wise in succession except Parmenides” agree about this, “Protagoras as well as Heraclitus and Empedocles; and, among the poets, those at the peak in each sort of poetry—­in comedy, Epicharmus, in tragedy, Homer” (152e2–­5). In this way, Socrates transforms Theaetetus’ tentative statement that “knowledge is nothing other than perception” into a theoretical doctrine—­“perception is knowledge”—­that is accepted by all, or almost all, wise men and, as a separate category, the greatest of the poets: heady company! Yet in the immediate sequel (152e5–­153d7), which constitutes the third part of the “not paltry logos,” Socrates speaks explicitly only of Homer (the subsection begins and ends with Homer) and hence of none of those whom he had explicitly identified as wise—­not the sophist Protagoras, let alone the philosophers Heraclitus and Empedocles (consider 179e2–­3: it is Socrates who brings Homer together with the Heracliteans). And he can link Homer to the motion doctrine only on the basis of two very strained readings of

140

chapter four

brief quotations from the Iliad. According to Socrates, when Homer spoke of “Oceanus, progenitor [genesis] of gods, and mother Tethys,” he was actually saying that the motion characteristic of the two rivers is the source of “all things” (152e7–­8, quoting Iliad 14.302; see also Theaetetus 180d2 and Cratylus 402b4–­5). Yet it would seem that, according to a naïve reading of Homer, both the things generated and their two fundamental sources can be named and, to that extent, known. Does Homer really mean to suggest, as Socrates would have it, that “nothing ever is, but is always coming into being”? If Homer really is contending that all things addressed as “being” are addressed incorrectly (152d8–­e1), he is therefore also denying that Oce­ anus and Tethys, hence also gods, “are”; since they are rivers, they are constantly in motion or changing. One would have to say, with Cratylus, that it is wrong to think that one cannot step twice into the same river: one cannot step even once into “a” river (Aristotle Metaphysics 1010a13–­15). And yet the surface of Homer’s poem suggests that gods came into being through the union of Oceanus and mother Tethys and that they, being by definition immortal, will by definition never cease to be: being immune to death—­as the Homeric context reminds us (Iliad 14.231), Zeus can succumb to the powers of Hypnos (Sleep) but not to those of his twin brother, Thanatos (Death)—­the gods are most of all or are least in the grip of mere becoming. In his interpretation of Homer’s verse, Socrates equates “gods” with “all things” (consider 152e7 and 8). “Gods” could be a stand-­in for “all things” if precisely gods are the measure of all things or if the existence of gods is most responsible for bringing into being the world properly speaking: the mind that grasps the classes or kinds and is in this way complementary to the things that exist need not be a human mind. Some such position is staked out by the Athenian Stranger in Plato’s Laws in an all-­but-­explicit rejection of Protagoras: “The god would especially be for us a measure of all things, and much more so, surely, than some [i.e., mere] human being, as people assert” (Laws 716c4–­6). If the completion of the world as a world, as an ordered whole marked off by intelligible classes or kinds, depends not on the mind of mortal human beings but on that of an immortal god, one could plausibly and indeed easily assert the possibility of the world’s eternal existence, for in that case, the death of even all human beings need not affect the known character of the remaining classes or kinds that together constitute the world. As the immediate sequel will make clear, Socrates means less to push the teaching of Homer in the direction of the wise than to push the teaching of the wise in the direction of Homer: the doctrine as he will elaborate it is compatible, to say the least, with the thought that not human being but god is the measure of all things.

on the theaetetus

141

When Socrates states next that “the following things too are adequate signs of the logos,” he clearly means to give additional evidence of the doctrine’s soundness (153a5–­6). But in addition to what? Or, to put the same point differently, “the logos” has proved to have two components thus far: the contention that “human being is the measure,” which is in turn explained in part by the “relational” character of our grasp of the things and their qualities, and the primacy of motion. (To these one can, of course, add as third the proposition from which they began, that perception is knowledge.) The evidence supplied by a single thing’s being at once large and small, heavy and light (152d2–­6), was intended to support the thought that nothing is one itself by itself, what we called (to repeat) the relational character of our grasp of things, the first part of Socrates’ “not paltry logos.” But in the present context, Socrates is concerned with the second part of that logos, the one devoted to the primacy of motion as the cause of all things that we wrongly say “are” but are instead “becoming” (152d7 and following). Yet the only evidence or “signs” that Socrates had offered in support of this more radical part of the doctrine was an appeal to authority—­all but Parmenides agree to it—­and the text of Homer “properly” interpreted. And what Socrates will now offer amounts to an additional incentive to accept the doctrine, not for its manifest truth, but for its very great attractiveness; the need to make the case for that attractiveness testifies in its way to how unsettling the primacy of motion or becoming is or will prove to be. We now learn that precisely motion is responsible for the seeming to be and becoming of things and rest for not being and perishing; warmth as well as fire, which not only generates the other things (including all animals) but also “supervises” or “oversees” (epitropeuei) them, is itself generated out of locomotion and rubbing, which are of course motions. Thus motion, as Socrates proceeds to argue, is responsible for what is good in the world and among all animals, as regards both the human soul (learning) and the body (exercise), just as rest is responsible for the contrary of the good (consider here Theodorus’ characterization of Theaetetus’ ability to learn in terms of the flow of a stream of oil: 144b5). Socrates’ assertions here appeal to ordinary experience—­the starting of a fire, for example—­but in light of that same standard, they prove to be unconvincing. If fire can be good, it can also be destructive. If physical health requires motion or activity, it requires rest as well, as Euclides and Terpsion, for example, are in need of rest after their exertions. If learning and practice are kinds of motion, they are possible only amid rest: only now that Euclides and Terpsion find themselves free of busyness can they find the time to listen to, and presumably learn from, Socrates’ lengthy conversation with

142

chapter four

Theaetetus—­a conversation, Socrates himself notes, that benefits from the leisure needed for calm examination (154e7–­8). And if war is, as Thucydides has it, a kind of “motion” (War of the Peloponnesians and Athenians 1.1.2), then motion is responsible for the imminent death of Theaetetus, to say nothing of the specific character of the illness now afflicting him (142b2–­4). The weakness of Socrates’ contention here is striking, as is Theaetetus’ easy agreement with it. Socrates’ presentation of the “signs” of the primacy of motion serves the purpose of introducing a wholly new consideration into the conversation: good and bad, which will prove important in Socrates’ subsequent examination of Protagoras. To repeat, motion not only is responsible for the coming into being of all things but also “supervises” or “oversees” them and hence is good for them. Motion here exercises a kind of providential care. This line of argument reaches its peak (koloph�n) with Socrates’ second reference to Homer, to the effect that the unceasing motion of the “golden chain,” what Socrates here equates with the sun in its orbit, is responsible for the existence and preservation of “all things” among both gods and human beings (153c6–­d5). In the original, Zeus has called a meeting of all the gods and goddesses on Mount Olympus in order to forbid them from intervening in the battle of the Achaeans and Trojans, and he backs this command up with a threat: he is so powerful that if the other immortals were to attach a golden chain from earth to Olympus, they together could never succeed in dragging him down from the heavens to the earth by means of it; on the contrary, he by himself could haul them up, together with the very earth and sea, and so leave “all things” dangling aloft (Iliad 8.18–­27). The “golden chain” as Socrates presents it here is not, of course, a means to demonstrate the power of Zeus. Rather, it is meant to demonstrate the power of the sun in its course, which seems perhaps mightier and certainly more philanthropic than Zeus: from the motion at the heart of the world, the sun’s motion, come all good things, including even the existence and “salvation” of all the things of the gods. The motion doctrine thus adumbrated is compatible, at a bare minimum, with the existence of gods and is, in its stated consequences, hardly distinguishable from (except perhaps as an improvement on) their active concern for us. Far from destroying the world of concern to us—­the world of gods and human beings—­the primacy of motion here preserves it. In the immediately following subsection (153d8–­154b6), Socrates uses the motion doctrine to explain a very common experience—­that of the perception of color. Its relation to the Homer section is unclear. Beginning from how Theaetetus calls something “white,” Socrates quickly shows that such speech is misleading (153d9 and 154a1; consider also 152d3–­e1). He contends,

on the theaetetus

143

in particular, that it is impossible to posit the color white as being something either outside the eyes or in them—­in fact, one cannot as­sign any place to it. Why? To do any of these things would be to violate the motion doctrine, for, in that case, the color would be in some “ordered arrangement and be lasting and would not come to be in becoming” (153d8–­e2). To elaborate on this, they proceed to “follow” (hep�metha: 153e4) the argument made “just now,” which may be reminiscent of Socrates’ earlier attempt to “attend to” or “follow close upon” the argument of Protagoras (epakolouth�s�men at 152b1–­2). But whereas Socrates had earlier relied on our ordinary experience of being chilled by a wind to explain that we cannot know the wind itself by itself, or that the wind is to each as it appears to each to be, and hence to bolster the case for perception-­as-­knowledge, he now presupposes not only perception but also the motion doctrine in order to explain what is “really” going on in the ordinary experience of the perception of color. In short, Socrates will now not offer evidence in favor of the doctrine but apply the doctrine itself to the case of sensible qualities; given the truth of the motion doctrine, this is what we must suppose is going on “behind” our perception of color. Or, to begin from the key premise, if perception is knowledge, to perceive the color white is to know it; but that very perception, the experience of that perception, does not present to us the motions “behind” our experience that allegedly cause it. Yet it seems essential to raise this question of the cause of the sensible qualities or of our experience of them, above all in a conversation concerned with precisely knowledge. But how can we claim to know the truth of the complex account that Socrates proceeds to give of the unperceived motions responsible for our perceptions? We surely cannot know it as part of our experience of sense perception. It must be for this reason that the explanation is explicitly a “supposi­ tion” that Socrates asks Theaetetus to make (hypolabe: 153d8; consider also 156e8 and 158e9). Socrates argues as follows. The perception of color results from the collision of the eyes with a certain locomotion connected to the thing seen and is neither the thing doing the colliding nor the thing collided with but a certain in-­between thing that “comes into being as something peculiar to [private for: idion] each” (154a2). This explanation of the perception of color may be said to restate rather than solve the mystery of perception, for, even granting the alleged facts, what precisely is it from the eye that collides with something (what?) from the thing seen? And what, in turn, is the cause of these emanations and collisions? It is, in any case, only the private character of perception that Socrates stresses in the sequel: could you, Theaetetus, emphatically insist (diischurisaio) that such as each color appears

144

chapter four

to you to be, so it appears also to a dog and to any other animal whatsoever (154a2–­3; see also ischur�s at 154a6 and context)? By in effect asking Theaetetus whether he is absolutely certain that a dog perceives color as he does, Socrates stacks the deck in favor of a negative answer, which Theaetetus supplies, complete with an oath to Zeus. Only then does Socrates apply the same question to another human being and indeed to Theaetetus himself over time, and again Theaetetus agrees, if less emphatically. It is remarkable that Theaetetus denies that the way he himself perceives the color of a given object has any constancy over time. Here we may detect the lasting effect of the immediately preceding section concerning Homer, which supplies a powerful incentive to Theaetetus to accept the motion doctrine and hence also the consequences of it as here insisted on by Socrates. But if this beautified, “poetic” view of the motion doctrine is incentive enough for Theaetetus to accept it—­that is, to preserve the world of gods and human beings —­we must wonder what it is that might have prompted Protagoras to accept it or to make the “supposition” in question (consider also 155d6–­7). This is a question that we will have to raise again in due course. In concluding this subsection of the argument, Socrates returns to the part of the “not paltry logos” concerned with the thought that nothing is one itself by itself—­that is, the “relational” account of things and their qualities (153e4–­154b6). Socrates now combines the three sorts of examples given thus far (big, white, warm: 154b2; see 152d4; 153d9; and 152b3) and denies, against common opinion or ordinary speech, that in order for something that seems to us to be of one sort (something big, for example) then to appear to us to be of another sort (small), it itself must have undergone some change (154b1–­3). If it were the case that the whiteness of a white stone were in the stone, then if that stone did not undergo some change itself, it would always present itself as white—­which, as the example of the wind indicates, is demonstrably false. Similarly, Socrates denies that the thing doing the measuring or touching (he speaks now in the neuter singular) is inherently big or white or warm; if that were the case, then it, while itself undergoing no change (auto m�den pathon: 154b5), would not have become different when it approached something else or something else was affected in some way by it. In this way, Socrates means to deny that “bigness” or “smallness” or “warmth” is in the thing either perceived or perceiving. Each of these is in no particular place (154a1) but is rather “something in between” the collider and the collided, so to speak. The hypothetical character of this is clear if we compare it to the prior conclusion concerning the wind, for here Socrates describes what must be happening to the unperceived things (the

on the theaetetus

145

things that collide) that results in our perceptions of their varying qualities, whereas earlier he had indicated that we can say nothing about the wind itself in itself but must instead rest content with a clear grasp of how the wind presents itself to us. Only now (154b6) does Socrates explicitly return to Protagoras, for the first time since he had placed him in the company of (almost) all the wise, who maintain that locomotion and motion and mixing are responsible for the coming into being of all things, none of which can correctly be said to “be.” We are now told that Protagoras, as well as anyone who says the same things as he, would here contend that, as things stand (nun) or from the ordinary and unsophisticated view of sense perception, “we” are somehow compelled to say with ease things both amazing and laughable. Protagoras regards the assertion that the sensible qualities are in some specific locale as “laughable” because it ends up positing an unwarranted fixity to things in the world—­to the (fixed) white thing that collides with another (fixed) thing so as to produce the relevant perception—­and if the now-­white thing later appears gray, it itself must have undergone some change, which (to repeat once more) implies that the color was somehow “in” the thing. But Protagoras denies this. Socrates offers Theaetetus a “small” example to clarify what it is that Protagoras would find objectionable in the way most people speak of perception. Socrates will now turn from discussion of such sensible qualities as heat or color to discussion of judgments concerning number and size or magnitude (he has already anticipated the new stress on size [consider again 152d4–­5])—­judgments that would seem least of all to be in motion or to succumb to the flux. He thus moves from a discussion of what has been called (apparently) “absolute” or “real” change to that of “relative” (a “Cambridge”) change: from the stone that is now whiter than it once was to the stone that is lighter than this one but heavier than that one.20 In other words, Socrates moves from a two-­part account of perception, involving two coparents of the perception, to an account that involves at least three: a perceiver and two objects of perception subject to comparison with one another. Socrates proceeds as follows. When six dice are placed next to four, we can assert that the six are more than the four—­half as many again—­just as when we place twelve dice next to six, the six are less—­half as many—­ than the twelve. The six dice, then, are both greater and lesser and more by half as much and fewer by half as much. To speak in any other way would be unacceptable. Here our ordinary speech is altogether reliable, as are the sense perceptions of the dice, their number, and the constant ratio between them, on which the indicated comparisons rely. (Socrates speaks not of 6

146

chapter four

and 4 and 12 as abstract numbers that could, of course, be easily understood by able students of mathematics but of ordinary objects in the world.) Yet Protagoras, or someone else like him, might then ask Theaetetus, Is there any way for something to become more or bigger than by undergoing an increase? With a view to just the question now being asked, Theaetetus would answer that there is no way; but with a view to the “prior one” (i.e., that concerning the dice) and guarding against self-­contradiction, he would answer that there is a way. Theaetetus’ hesitation can be traced to the fact that the six dice undergo a change relative to the four and to the twelve dice, respectively, even as they remain six and in the same proportion or ratio. Hence the six dice, precisely by remaining what they were or undergoing no change, were first greater, then less; because the six dice underwent no change, they changed. The manifest fixity of the dice goes together with an unsettling lack of fixity in our experience of them.21 Socrates praises this latter answer in a remarkable way: calling Theaetetus a “friend” (or “dear”) and swearing by Hera, Socrates avers that the boy’s answer is well and divinely stated. Yet he warns that if Theaetetus says that it is possible for something to become more or bigger while undergoing no change (no increase), “something Euripidean” may result: the tongue will be unrefuted, the mind not unrefuted. Thus alluding to the Hippolytus (612), Socrates suggests that Theaetetus’ answer is not indicative of what he really thinks: his tongue may avoid self-­contradiction by agreeing with Protagoras’ strange contention, but his mind will not. We note that Hippolytus’ point was rather different, for although he swore to Phaedra’s nurse that he would not divulge the secret of Phaedra’s passion for him, he says that he swore with his tongue only and not his mind. Hence, should he divulge that secret, he would refute his tongue (merely) and not his mind. Theaetetus, in contrast to Hippolytus, spoke honestly; his difficulty stems rather from the fact that, as Socrates says also of himself, he is not “clever and wise” and so has not “examined all the things in [his] mind” (154d8–­9).22 To aid them both, then, Socrates outlines three agreed-­on propositions that prove to do “battle” with themselves in the soul: 1. Nothing would ever become greater or lesser, in either bulk or number, while it is equal to itself. 2. That to which nothing is added or that from which nothing is taken away ever increases or diminishes but is always equal to itself. 3. It is impossible for that which was not previously to be subsequently without having come to be and becoming.

on the theaetetus

147

Theaetetus agrees to each of these propositions, most tentatively to the last (“it does seem so, at least”: 155b3) and most emphatically to the second (“Entirely so”: 155a10). Yet the dice example is intended to upend these apparently obvious propositions, as is the example Socrates now adds to it: though I, at my age, undergo neither increase nor decrease and am at present bigger than you now are, young Theaetetus, in a year’s time, I will be smaller, though nothing will have been taken away from my bulk, while yours will have increased. In remaining equal to himself, in other words, Socrates will become smaller, thus violating the first agreement. And although Socrates does not state the point, we can infer that, because nothing was added to or taken from Socrates, he remained equal to himself—­and yet grew smaller, thus violating the second proposition. Socrates does note that he is subsequently—­smaller—­what he was not previously, though without having come to be or undergone the process of becoming. Yet we are inclined to insist that without becoming (something), it is impossible to come to be (it); and if none of Socrates’ bulk is lost, then he would never have become smaller. And yet he did! This clearly violates the third proposition. Socrates does not draw a clear conclusion from this exercise. It therefore falls to the reader to note that the undermining of the first proposition is the least novel, for we had heard already that one and the same thing can seem at one time bigger but at another also smaller (we can add now “while remaining equal to itself”)—­propositions bound up with the “relational” character of our grasp of a thing’s qualities in relation to something else (152d2–­6). Moreover, nothing Socrates says here does away with the second and hence central proposition, at least if it is taken literally: the six dice do remain equal to themselves throughout, as does Socrates to himself, since nothing is either added to them or taken from them; only if one adds the qualification that the thing in question neither increases nor decreases in comparison to some other thing, does the second proposition fail. (This is true of all three propositions.) It is then the third proposition, the one Theaetetus seemed least sure of, that deserves most attention. Its novelty seems to consist in the fact that it especially focuses on “becoming.” Now given that the six dice and Socrates (his bulk) remain what they were, in becoming lesser or smaller by comparison to the twelve dice or to Theaetetus in a year’s time, one could well say that the former have changed without undergoing (the process of ) becoming. Now this whole line of inquiry, we remember, was prompted by Protagoras’ contempt. At the time, we suggested that he meant by this the ordinary and evidently naïve reliance on fixed things “out there” to which, as fixed things, we have some steady access—­when

148

chapter four

in fact nothing is one thing itself by itself (153e4–­5 and following). Or, to recur to a still earlier remark, Socrates failed there to rid himself of his reliance on the verb “to be” (152d8 and context), however difficult that proves to be in practice. But the focus now on “becoming”—­in the third proposition especially but also in the first one (see 155a4)—­suggests that it too may become controversial,23 for if there are not things that can be said to “be,” of what things precisely can one say that they are “becoming”? To speak of something “becoming” is still, or for all that, to posit changes in a thing that endures and can be known to endure; only if something identifiable persists in and through the change can one even speak of change, as distin­ guished from the appearance of a series of new and discrete objects of perception. The very fixity that Protagoras objects to in “being” must be present also in “becoming,” and so “becoming” must be as controversial for him as “being.” If this is so, then Protagoras’ criticism of ordinary language is responsible for a further unveiling of the secret teaching, or, more cautiously, it prepares for such an unveiling. The sorts of reflections bound up with the three propositions stated by Socrates are not new to Theaetetus, as Socrates rightly guesses, and the “dizziness” (155c10) that he reports they sometimes instill in him is euphemistically described by Socrates as “wonder”—­the only beginning point of philosophy, as he here famously puts it (155c5–­d5). Indeed, Socrates contends, the genealogy that has the goddess Iris descending from Thaumas (thauma = “wonder”) is not a bad one, which means that he here equates philosophy with Iris (Rainbow), messenger between human beings and gods, whose father, Thaumas, is brother to Oceanus and Tethys and whose mother (Electra) is daughter to Oceanus and Tethys (Hesiod Theogony 780; see also Benardete 1986, 107): “progenitor Oceanus and mother Tethys,” in giving rise to the gods, give rise also to Iris and so to philosophy (152e7 and 180d2).24 In other words, the motion doctrine is compatible with, it can give rise to, philosophy or philosophers: who if not Heraclitus and Empedocles deserve that name? And yet, if the case of Theodorus is any indication, the specific dizziness that Theaetetus is once again feeling seems ill conducive to philosophy. Theodorus, at least, having traveled farther along the same path on which Theaetetus is now walking—­Protagoras was once Theodorus’ “teacher” (179a10)—­long ago threw up his hands in frustration at the intolerably slippery way that those in the motion camp argue, they with their “bare” or fruitless logoi (164e7–­165a3; 180b8–­c5); such arguments must seem, to those just undertaking to philosophize, very harsh and, as a result, dispiriting: to pursue the truth in this way would amount to pursuing birds in flight (Aristotle Metaphysics 1009b33–­1010a1). Theodorus has instead inclined toward

on the theaetetus

149

the beautiful certainties of geometry and mathematics, or even toward their baffling puzzles (e.g., 147d3–­6), which at least have the merit of being separate from the “troubles” or “bother” that human beings as such are wont to cause him (170e1–­3). What then will become of young Theaetetus? Will he, in contrast to his admired teacher, press on in philosophy of one sort or another, or will he too remain content with geometry? Just as the opening of the dialogue indicates that the soul of Theaetetus is hanging in the balance as a result of a certain “battle” (142b8), so in the conversation recorded in the dialogue that honors him his soul is caught in a different kind of battle, the “battle” (154e2; 181a1–­3 and context) between the motion camp and those, like Parmenides and Melissus, who contend that all is at a standstill, a conflict that promises “so much danger” (181b5; consider also the martial language at 153a2, 155b4, and 165d5–­e4). Given that the conversation ultimately fails to arrive at a satisfactory definition of knowledge and that the possibility represented by Protagoras seems to be more dropped than defeated—­at just that juncture, Socrates says that they will “not yet” concede to Protagoras that a man is the measure of all things (183b7–­c4, emphasis added)—­we have reason to fear that Theaetetus will be as unlikely to see his way through the battle of the two camps of philosophy as he will be to see his way through the battle of Corinth. Will he make it from Euclides’ “Megara” to Socrates’ “Athens”? Socrates now begins a subsection that will complete his explanation of the hidden logos of Protagoras and that culminates in his declaration that Theaetetus has finally produced an offspring (160e5–­161b6). The whole of this subsection is guided by the somewhat clumsy question that Socrates poses at its beginning: “But do you understand by now why [on account of what: di ‘ho] these things, on the basis of which we assert Protagoras speaks, are of this character?” (155d5–­6). Strictly speaking, the question concerns not the character of the things that form the basis of Protagoras’ speech, his logos, but why these things are such as they are. Socrates’ question speaks to Protagoras’ motive in saying the paradoxical things he does. And Socrates now offers to aid Theaetetus in interpreting the hidden-­away truth in the understanding of that famous man (Protagoras) or rather of certain famous men: the hidden truth in question is held by the motion camp as such and is therefore not peculiarly Protagorean. Yet it is a hidden truth, which means that Protagoras is not the only one who spoke cautiously or in secret. Accordingly, Socrates warns Theaetetus to see to it that none of those who are uninitiated in these “mysteries” (155e3 and 156a3) overhear them. Such uninitiated ones suppose that there is nothing else than what they can literally grasp with their two hands, refusing to accept that actions ( praxeis)

150

chapter four

and comings-­into-­being (geneseis) and the invisible as a whole have a place “in being” (155e3–­6). It would seem that Socrates is here excluding (with Theaetetus’ complete agreement) simple-­minded or crude materialists. But since Socrates will proceed immediately to speak again of motion, it is hard to see that the “famous men” in question, Protagoras included, are other than materialists: if the fundamental fact is that “all things” are in motion, what can be in motion except matter? Perhaps, then, it is the simple-­ mindedness of their materialism that is objectionable,25 for they seem to think that everything that is, is visible (this would seem to exclude atomism, for example), and they still speak naïvely of “being” (einai at 155e4 and ousias at 155e6). Then again, they clearly deny the existence of “comings-­ into-­being” or “becomings”—­and how could one speak of things that have a place in “being” without accepting the thought that those things, or some of them, have come into being? Perhaps then these uninitiated cling only to what the sense of touch, as the first or fundamental sense, tells them of the world, or rather touch together with what is “visible,” even if the demands of ordinary speech are such that one cannot help but speak of what “is.” And perhaps it is for this reason that they who wish to limit themselves to what they can touch (and see) are to a great degree untouched by the Muses: they lack a certain delicacy. Still, in rejecting “becomings,” they remind us of the importance of “becoming” suggested in the section immediately prior. The “famous men,” by contrast, clearly accept the fact of (among other things) “becomings.” Does Protagoras? In expounding the mysteries of those who are “much more refined,” Socrates begins from their principle on which depends “all that we were just now saying,” to the effect that “the All was motion and nothing other than this” (156a2–­5). We learn now that there are two “forms” (eid�) of motion or change, each limitless in number: that which has the capacity (dunamis) to make or do (i.e., the active motion) and that which suffers or undergoes (i.e., the passive motion). The doctrine thus depends on positing potentiality (dunamis) in things, in contrast to the school of the “Megarics,” for example. The interaction and rubbing together of these two kinds of motion give rise to limitless offspring that are, however, always a yoked pair or twins: the perceptible and perception, perception always falling out together with and being generated together with the perceptible. This attempt at explaining the perceptions we have on the basis of the ubiquity of motion depends in part on our experience, for it seems true that the perceptible (the white stone, to anticipate an example to come) and perception (the seeing of that white stone) always arise together or are paired: the unseen white stone is neither white nor a stone for us, and seeing is always seeing something. Moreover,

on the theaetetus

151

the positing of the two forms of motion is meant to explain the manifest differences in the (active) agent that sees and the (passive) patient that is seen: if “all things” are in motion, then agent and patient, perceiver and perceptible, also must be in motion. And since the class “motion” admits of division, as we now must suppose that it does, one can thereby account for the phenomena that must be accounted for. We certainly need not have recourse to something other than motion to explain both parts, so to speak, of perception: the union of perceptible and perceiver in the experience of perception. Socrates proceeds by relying again on our ordinary experience: “And the perceptions have the following sorts of names for us: sights and hearings and smellings and chillings as well as burnings, and pleasures, of course, and pains and desires and fears” (156b3–­5). This list shows already the complexity involved in “perception,” for the first five examples comprise the powers of sight, hearing, smell, and touch (taste is, for some reason, excluded [consider 157c3; 159c11–­21 and context; 185b10]), but the inclusion of pleasure and pain introduces already a reflection on the “brute” experience of a given sense perception—­this was a pleasant smell, that an unpleasant chill—­and, building on this in turn, there is the conceiving of a desire (for some future pleasure) or a fear (of some future pain). The “perceptions” at work in touch and pleasure and desire are not simply identical, the last being the least directly reducible to sense perception and not in need of the present experience of it. Can even the subtler account of “motion” now on the table account fully for the varieties of “perception” thus introduced? We learn next that these names “for us” are but the tip of an iceberg: the unnamed perceptions are unlimited or infinite, however numerous the named ones may be. Nonetheless, Socrates draws a general rule or points to a fact: insofar as there is perception, the perceptible as such is generated together with—­it is of the same class or kind (homogonon: 156b7–­c1) as—­the relevant perception (various colors with various seeings, sounds with hearings, and so on). This positing of infinite “perceptions” for which we have no name is striking, for it seems that, as a result, we can have no account or definition, no logos, of them. But if that is so, how then can we know them or of them? Is their existence merely extrapolated from the example of the perceptions for which we do have names? But for there to be perception at all, as Socrates here indicates, there must be together the two parents or cogenerators of it: the perceiver and the perceptible. Who or what is perceiving the unnamed perceptions here mentioned? Or is there a kind of unnamable perception available to us that is prior to all naming, to all speech or logos? Perhaps it is for this reason or for kindred ones that Socrates now brings this portion of his exposition to a halt by turning to Theaetetus and asking him

152

chapter four

“what this myth means for us.” That is, Socrates here labels what he had been calling the logos of Protagoras a “myth”: it has the status of a more or less plausible tale. In both the Protagoras and the Theaetetus, then, the sophist combines a logos with a mythos, or his logos includes a mythos. When Theaetetus is unable to answer Socrates’ question, Socrates himself volunteers to do so. The myth means that, “just as we are saying,” all these things are in motion, but there is present in their motion (or change) speed and slowness. This distinction between fast and slow motion (change) is evidently to be mapped onto the prior one concerning active and passive; at any rate, what moves or changes slowly—­the white stone—­keeps its motion in the same place and is slow in relation to the things that draw near to it, but the things thus generated are faster, for the motion in question is borne along (pheretai) and naturally changes place (phora): the white object may itself change or move only very slowly indeed, but the sight of the whiteness or the whiteness perceived moves (much) more quickly. This is confirmed by the example Socrates now gives again, that of color (recall 153d8–­154b6). Whenever an eye, or any other of the things commensurate with it (does he mean light?), draw near to the thing seen, it generates the whiteness as well as the perception that naturally arises (sumphuton) with it. At that moment, that is, the sight from the eyes and the whiteness from that which jointly gives rise to the color white are borne along in between eye and object; the eye, then, is full of sight and becomes, not sight, but a seeing eye. (We can speak of “sight” only by way of a reflection on our experience of actually seeing: something else in us—­Socrates will later call it “soul”—­may become aware not just of the white but of the seeing eye as it sees the whiteness of the stone.) At the same time, that which helped generate the whiteness is “filled up” with whiteness and becomes white, whether it is a “stick or stone or anything else whatever.” And, Socrates notes, one must make the same “supposition” (hupol�pteon: 156e8) in the other cases, in that of what is hard or warm and all else. There is nothing itself by itself, but it is in their association with one another that all things come to be and become of various sorts, out of motion, since, “as they assert,” it is not possible in a given case to conceive with firm certainty (no�sai . . . pagi�s) of that which is active and that which is passive as being some one distinct thing (einai ti): active and passive, perception (or the perceiving) and the perceptible, are only together, never in isolation from one another, as little as are convex and concave, for example. Socrates also adds that what is now active can, in falling in with something else, itself undergo change or be the passive recipient of the action of another. Hence the individual instances of motion that fall under the two eid� of motion are all also in motion. One

on the theaetetus

153

can say, however, that the eid� themselves are stable, at least inasmuch as the conceiving mind thinks of the motions in their ceaseless variety. Socrates now offers a sweeping conclusion to the mythos-­logos of Protagoras and the other “famous men,” which deserves to be quoted in full: As a result of quite all of these things, there is what in fact we were saying from the beginning: nothing is one thing itself by itself but is always coming to be for someone, and one must remove from everywhere the “to be”—­not that we weren’t compelled many times, even just now, by communal habit and lack of knowledge, to make use of it. But one must not do so, as the logos of the wise has it, nor concede that some definite thing [ti ] is, whether it is “somebody’s” or “mine” or a “this” or a “that” or any other name that brings things to a standstill. Instead, one must, in accord with nature, state that there are [instances of] “becoming” and “being produced” [ poioumena] and “perishing” and “altering”—­ on the grounds that if somebody makes something stand still by means of lo­ gos, he who does this is easily refuted. And one must speak in this way when it comes to both parts and many things taken together as clusters, onto which clusters they posit “human being” and “stone” and each animal and form [eidos]. (157a7–­c2)

The radicalness of the conclusion Socrates has just drawn is clear not least from its end. Socrates explicitly denies, in the name of “the wise,” that “according to nature” (see 157b6 and 156d3) there are any classes or forms or kinds: there are no knowable eid� except in the element of human speech! There are only, or at most, changing “clusters” of perceptions that momentarily strike the changing perceiver, onto which we impose names for our own purposes. After having relied on the existence of the class “stone,” for example, in his account here of the perception of color, Socrates in the end reveals that there is no such thing as “stone” and hence that speaking in this way is fraudulently to bring the world to a halt by means of speech (compare 156e6 with 157c1 and, more generally, the account stated at 156c6–­157a7 with the conclusion at 157a7–­c2). Evidently, then, one cannot seriously speak of the existence in or by nature of even the two eid� of motion. Part of the difficulty here, as it pertains to sense perception, is that, in attempting to explain the cause of sense perception, Socrates is compelled to have recourse not just to the eye and the stone but also to “the whiteness” (156e1) that comes from the object of sense that cogenerates the perception of “white stone.” But if precisely “whiteness” (of the stone) is the result of a process of interaction, it cannot also be present already as an ingredient in the process

154

chapter four

about to take place: to speak already of “whiteness” coming from the stone to fill the eye with the sight of whiteness is to name and so to classify something that in fact remains mysterious. Here we may survey some of the ground covered thus far. The wise, Protagoras among them, assert the primacy of motion and think this thought through to its endpoint. To follow them, let us begin from the proposition from which Socrates began in his elucidation of Protagoras’ logos-­mythos: perception is knowledge. Socrates immediately equates this with the sophist’s famous logos that human being is the measure. Neither man speaks, to begin with, of motion. To the riff-­raff, Protagoras teaches openly that we have no access to things “in themselves” but only insofar as some aspect of them is perceivable by us, perceptions that are necessarily private for or peculiar to the perceiving individual. Perception is knowledge for each because it is impossible to deny the truth for each of what he perceives; perception is knowledge, and each has within himself, or is, an unimpeachable measure of perception. “To seem” or “to appear” to someone, then, is “to be” for him. Perhaps this can be taught openly because it can be presented to everyone in a flattering light, in Protagoras’ time as in our own: no one can gainsay your experience, your judgment. Beyond that, however, Protagoras contends, in private to his students, that the sensible qualities we think are in the things (“this stone is heavy”) are not in the things at all, not only because all such perceptions “are” in no one place—­they arise only in the fleeting union of we-­know-­not-­what from the perceived and we-­know-­not-­what from the perceiver—­but also because there are no “things”: nothing ever is but is always becoming (i.e., changing or in motion). And this, in turn, means that, for all we can know, there are no stable things in the world bearing stable qualities ready and waiting to be perceived; it means, in turn, also that there is no stable perceiver ready to bring the (fixed) world into view (see again 152d7 for the first mention of motion, which goes together with the first assertion of the impermissible character of “to be”). Perception deserves to be called knowledge once one sees that precisely the experience of perception destroys the apparent fixity of “the world” that would otherwise ground claims of knowledge that go well beyond such perception. The statement “Perception is knowledge,” then, expresses at once our ineluctable reliance on sense perception and the stunning limits of our knowledge as a result. The very solidity, the truth, of what is given to us in and through sense perception also proves to be our only access to “the world,” with its apparently fixed forms or kinds; such a world is the product of human “making” and not that of pure and stable receptivity on the part of a stable observer to the stable classes or forms that endure. “Perception is knowledge,”

on the theaetetus

155

then, because all things are in motion. And of that motion, each individual human being is necessarily the measure. Socrates will soon raise, in his own name, reservations about this view—­reservations that will, however, receive an immediate rebuttal. As a result, Socrates will be permitted to make a sweeping conclusion to this section that, as we have noted, culminates at long last in the proclamation of Theaetetus’ having given birth to an offspring. But before Socrates does any of these things, a brief exchange intervenes (157c1–­157d11) that proves to be important for the discussion as a whole. There Socrates wonders whether Theaetetus finds these things “pleasant” (or pleasing), and he asks, “[W]ould you taste them as satisfying things?” (157c2–­3). Is the position just sketched, in other words, to Theaetetus’ liking, to his taste? (Here returns the missing sense of taste, at least in a figurative sense.) Perhaps in keeping with the spirit of the doctrine, the core of which has now been set forth, Socrates asks Theaetetus not whether he regards it as true or knows it to be true but whether it pleases him: if “true” must in the end mean only “true for you” and hence “perceived by you,” the effective standard of judgment can easily become pleasure, since to perceive something is of course to know it but not necessarily to like it; a given wind, we recall, may be (perceived to be) chilling or refreshing. At any rate, as we have seen in the Protagoras, the sophist understood himself to be a hedonist. Theaetetus, for his part, is uncertain because he does not know whether Socrates is stating his own opinions or is “testing” him—­a response that fails to answer Socrates’ question. Surely Theaetetus knows whether, as a result of perceiving the logos of the wise, it is pleasure that he is perceiving: is not perception knowledge for Theaetetus? Socrates reminds the boy that he himself is sterile in point of wisdom and that he can examine Theaetetus’ opinion only once it has been set forth, and he exhorts Theaetetus to answer “courageously” or “manfully” (157d4–­5). Theaetetus proceeds to agree in his own name to the proposition that Socrates now formulates, which is evidently meant to be identical to the account just given: no definite thing (ti ) is, but rather what is “good and noble and all the things we just now went through” are “always becoming.” We recall that, in the context of his discussion of Homer, Socrates had introduced into the discussion of motion what is good and bad, although there it was precisely motion that preserved the good and kept the bad at bay; now, and for the first time, Socrates speaks also of what is noble (or beautiful: kalon). (In fact, they had not at all “just now gone through” what is noble: Socrates slips this additional consideration into the conversation.) In readily agreeing to this new formulation, Theaetetus agrees without hesitation to cast into the flux not just “heavy”

156

chapter four

or “white,” but “good” and “noble” too—­the very qualities that Euclides and Terpsion, for example, were certain characterized the battle-­torn Theaetetus (142b7; compare 143e8). Theaetetus, in short, has just set “morality” adrift. That Theaetetus does not appreciate the gravity of the step he has just taken is clear from the context.

chapter five

Dreamers and Madmen, Pigs and Baboons: Challenges to Protagoras (157e1–­162d2)

W

ith the crucial moral consequence of the motion doctrine laid bare, and with Theaetetus’ acceptance of that doctrine now secured, Soc­ rates nonetheless does not press the point—­at least, not obviously. Instead, he does what he has yet to do: criticize Protagoras. This is, then, a turning point in the dialogue. Socrates proceeds by discussing something that he says was omitted from their treatment of the doctrine thus far. Returning to the opening premise that “perception is knowledge,” Socrates contends that, in fact, we can mishear or “mis-­see” or otherwise misperceive when we are dreaming or in the grip of some illness, including madness. As a result, it would seem to be far from the case that those things that appear to each of necessity also are; to the contrary, none of those things that appear under such circumstances are. In short, since the perceptions of dreamers and mad­­ men are obviously false, perception as such cannot be knowledge. This ob­ jection presumably does not deny that what the dreamer perceives “is” for him, for the power of nightmares, for example, derives from the fact that the images or imaginings in question seem utterly real to the dreamer. The objection must instead recur to the world inhabited by all others who are awake: the thing imagined in the dream is not in the world so understood or is not available to others to be perceived and hence is not. Given this apparently quite powerful objection to Protagoras’ thesis per­ taining to perception, Theaetetus himself admits that he could not dispute the fact that “those who are crazy or dreaming do not opine correctly, when­ ever some [ hoi men] of them suppose that they are gods, others [ hoi de] that they are winged and think in their sleep that they are flying” (158b1–­4). Here Theaetetus aligns those who think themselves to be gods with the crazy and, as a separate class or subclass, those who think themselves winged and 157

158

chapter five

flying with the dreaming (compare the mistranslation of this in Sachs 2004, ad loc.). Socrates picks up on the latter and pursues it first: what evidence can one have to demonstrate the difference between our waking and dreaming states, especially since our soul, being an equal time awake and asleep, in­ sists that all its opinions in both states are equally true? That Socrates here exaggerates the difficulty of distinguishing between waking and dreaming is suggested, at least, by his odd assertion that the time we sleep is equal to the time we are awake.1 In fact, our waking experience doubles that of our sleep, and even if the criterion for truth cannot be the length or brevity of the perception in question (158d11–­e1), that we perceive the fact that the world is perceived by us in one way for twice as long as in the other way should count for something. And inasmuch as we imagine while asleep and dreaming that we are awake and hence not dreaming, precisely the dreaming state pays homage to the waking. Moreover, “conversing with one another” (158c1 and c5) is here held up as a sort of test case, and does this not afford the opportunity to verify with another whether a given conversation took place, as a kind of “intersubjective certainty”? As for “illnesses and mad­ ness,” which Socrates mentions next, he says no more than that the time one undergoes each of them and their contraries is not equal—­a fact that is meant in the context to be of no importance in distinguishing between true and false states but seems to be of some importance nonetheless. Why not give greater weight to the usual, the typical, the repeated, and the repeatable experiences characteristic of health? What is more, the very challenge Soc­­ rates here poses concerning dreaming, illness, and madness presupposes our access to, grounded in precisely our perception of, wakefulness, health, and sanity: the former would be meaningless without our repeated access to the latter. And recourse to the experiences we undergo while asleep, remem­ bered once we wake, does not obviously speak to the truth or falsity of sense perception: memory and imagination may be at work when we dream that we are flying, but sense perception is not (consider, e.g., dogmata at 158d3). Theaetetus’ reaction notwithstanding, Socrates’ arguments here lack persua­ sive power—­whether or not Protagoras himself would make the rejoinders we have suggested. We might note, finally, that although Socrates does men­ tion the case of illnesses and madness (158d8), he does not take up Theaete­ tus’ specific example of the madness of those who believe themselves to be gods. In the immediate sequel, Socrates turns to defend the general thought that perception is knowledge. He thus sets down a pattern he will follow henceforth in his discussion of Protagoras—­a criticism of the sophist fol­ lowed by a rebuttal of that very criticism. Socrates begins in this way.

on the theaetetus

159

Whatever is altogether other or “wholly other” (158e10) than another thing will not have the same power or capacity as it in any respect, and hence it is also dissimilar to that thing. If, however, it happens to become similar to something, or dissimilar to something, whether the thing itself or another thing, then we will assert that, in becoming similar, it is the same thing and, in becoming dissimilar, it is other than it. Here difficulties in the argument enter. If something is wholly other than another thing, it is surely dissimilar to it, but it does not follow that one thing dissimilar to another is, for that reason, wholly other than or different from it, just as, in becoming similar to something, one thing does not, for that reason, become the same as that to which it becomes similar. The logic of this seems obviously flawed. By it Socrates is permitted to gain from Theaetetus (as we will see) the agreement that “Socrates healthy” has nothing in common with or is wholly other than “Socrates ill” and that what the one Socrates perceives in his condition is as true as what the other Socrates perceives in his. Perception is always knowledge. Yet is there a way to take seriously Socrates’ propositions here, notwith­ standing the logical monkey business? To affirm that there are things in the world that are “wholly other” from one another may go together with a repudiation of Parmenides, according to whom the world is one and at rest (183e3–­5) in the sense that all things in their various classes or kinds are connected to one another in their mutual relations, which together con­ stitute the world when they are perceived by mind. Or, on the other side of the same coin, Socrates’ argument here is obviously meant to be part of an affirmation of the identity of perception and knowledge understood together with the motion thesis: we have learned already that there are no classes or kinds, except in misleading speech, and hence that all “things” are tran­ si­tory and even unique appearances presented to a constantly (if slowly) changing perceiver. In any case, it is Socrates’ main task here to draw out this fact of the transitory character of all appearances. He now repeats the proposition that the active things (or motions), like the passive ones, are infinite (compare 159a10–­11 with 156a5–­7) and that when different things mix with different things, not the same but different (hetera) things are gen­ erated. Socrates’ example here concerns now taste rather than the seeing of color: the wine that Socrates tastes when he is healthy tastes (hence “is”) sweet, but the wine he tastes when ailing tastes (hence “is”: 159d5) bitter. (Tasting, together with touch and smell and in contrast to sight and hearing, seems least liable to error.) The fleeting interaction of wine with “Socrates healthy” produces the perception of sweetness, but when what is sent from the wine encounters “Socrates ailing,” not only is it a different thing from

160

chapter five

what was sent from the wine before, but it also encounters a different thing and so produces a different perception—­while also producing in the pas­ sive Socrates a change too. (The “Socrates ailing” who perceives no wine is different from the “Socrates ailing” who does, for example, to say nothing of the “Socrates healthy” who repeatedly perceives much wine.) “Socrates healthy” is here said to be other than and therefore different from—­that is, wholly different from—­“Socrates sick”; he is not “the same person” (see 159d7–­9; 160a5–­6). This line of argument is difficult to accept for a fairly obvious reason. Even in stating the contention, Socrates is compelled to speak of “Socrates” twice, which surely implies that something persists in and through the change from “Socrates healthy” to “Socrates ailing”—­a thought that accords with precisely our lived experience or perception. Is not at least “Socrates healthy” a constant—­for “whenever I drink wine while I’m healthy, it ap­ pears to me pleasant and sweet” (159c11–­12, emphasis added)? If one is com­­ pelled to grant that the wine that encounters a Socrates dissimilar to the healthy Socrates, and hence one who is “not the same,” does one not have to grant also, at least on the basis of Socrates’ stated premises, that when the wine encounters a Socrates similar to himself (he is still healthy), it encoun­ ters “the same person” (consider 159a6–­8 and d7–­8)? Moreover, Socrates here exploits an ambiguity in the word “whole” (holon): someone who is “on the whole different” (consider Theaetetus’ formulation at 159b6–­7) is not for that reason alone “wholly different,” even if he is not quite “the same per­ son” in every respect. We must nonetheless try to keep firmly in mind what it is admittedly difficult to keep firmly in mind—­namely, the constant character of the mo­ tion of all things, of perceiver and perceived, or the endless variety of col­ lisions of “things” that are themselves constantly changing and therefore constantly productive of new perceptions and therewith new perceivers (159e7–­160b4). And if we do this, the position Socrates here sketches seems, if exceedingly strange, not yet refuted; recall that in this general context Socrates had called on the opponents of the motion thesis to produce “evi­ dence to demonstrate” (tekm�rion apodeixai) a given point of contention (see 158b9). The wine that encounters the healthy Socrates, for example, in fact encounters “a” (not “the”) healthy Socrates: that cluster ( hathroismati: 157b9–­c1) of perceptions we label “Socrates” will have changed, if not in the perceptible possession of health, then in other respects, when he encoun­ ters some (not “the”) wine. Most important is the conclusion Socrates now draws:

on the theaetetus

161

So it remains, I think, that we are for one another, if we are, or, if we be­ come we become for one another, since in fact necessity binds together the being that belongs to us [ h�m�n . . . t�n ousian], but it binds it to­ gether with none of the other things and not even, in turn, with us our­ selves. So it remains that it has bound [us] together with one another. As a result, if somebody names something as being some definite thing [ei­ nai ti ], it’s necessary for him to speak of it as being for someone or some­ one’s or in relation to something. But he should not say—­nor should he accept it when another says it—­that anything either is or becomes, itself in itself, as the argument we’ve gone through indicates. (160b5–­c2)

This strong statement of the “relational” character of our grasp of things is important for several reasons. First, it explicitly includes “becoming,” not just “being,” in the flux or motion: nothing “itself in itself” is or becomes but is or becomes only in relation to other things that are not things “themselves in themselves.” What was hinted at or suggested before (recall 155c1–­4) now becomes official doctrine. In addition, the positing of “necessity” (anangk�) here is striking amid the chaos that is constant motion; it seems to mean that out of the fundamental chaos, out of the white noise that is evidently “behind” the world given to us through sense perception, we can discern here and now necessary relations between ourselves, or rather ourselves insofar as “we” are the locus of our perceptions, and the “things” so per­ ceived. It is necessary to speak of something, never in isolation as a be­ ing unto itself, but always “relatively”—­that is, “in relation to something” ( pros ti: 160b9) or in reference to someone (recall Theaetetus’ position re­ garding clay at 147b10–­c6, which the present passage vindicates to a degree: compare hotou at 147c6 with tinos at 160b9). There is then a necessity at­­ tending even “relativism”; relativism of this kind evidently does not do away with some discernible necessity (of the relational character of our grasp of things) or therefore a kind of philosophizing: it is itself expressive of a kind of necessity that is admittedly tied to the existence of a perceiver. Finally, we note that Socrates here indicates that this position gives one grounds to reject anyone’s saying that something either is or becomes itself in itself; all who speak in this way remain mired in ordinary perceptions because they have failed to take seriously enough precisely ordinary perception—­that is, perception-­as-­knowledge. Just before Socrates finally turns to announce the birth of Theaetetus’ offspring (160e5 and following), he offers a grand conclusion that brings to­ gether (1) Theaetetus, (2) Homer and Heraclitus, and (3) Protagoras. In so

162

chapter five

doing, he confirms that, while certainly linked, these three groups are not identical: “Therefore it was stated altogether nobly by you that knowledge is nothing other than perception.” Socrates thus returns to Theaetetus’ orig­ inal formulation (compare 160d5–­6 with 151e1–­3): “and it has happened to arrive at the same point, that, according to Homer and Heraclitus and the entire tribe of that sort, all things are in motion, like streams; and that, ac­ cording to wisest Protagoras, of all things [a] human being is [a] measure; and that, according to Theaetetus, these things being so, knowledge comes to be perception.”2 Now this line of argument means to vindicate Protagoras’ position, of which Socrates here reminds us, as regards knowledge or truth: “True for me, therefore, is my perception—­for it is always of the being that is mine [t�s gar em�s ousias: 160c7–­8]—­and I am [a] judge, as Protagoras has it, both of the things that are for me, that they are, and of the things that are not, that they are not.” He then asks, “Since I am without falsehood and do not stumble in my thinking, when it comes to what concerns the things that are or that become”—­here again Socrates adds the category of becoming—­“how could I not be a knower of the things of which I am in fact a perceiver?” (160c7–­d3). Socrates thus vindicates the guiding premise, “perception is knowledge,” in conjunction with the Protagorean logos that a human being is the measure of all things (that are in constant motion). But how does all this or any of this constitute a response to those who, in their dreams, be­ lieve themselves to be flying or, more important, to those madmen who be­ lieve themselves to be gods? The answer seems unavoidable: if you perceive yourself to be a god, that perception is true, it is knowledge, for you. To per­ ceive that you are a god is to have knowledge of it, at least for so long as you perceive it. It is “true for you.”3 But how can such a response be satisfactory to someone who seeks to know in order to live well, who seeks in or from science not a pleasing diversion, say, but the core of a life that deserves to be called fully human? Is this really all that Protagoras, or Socrates in his stead, has to say? Does philosophy culminate in deference to madmen—­no, to so-­called madmen—­whose access to the world is surely different from, but not inferior to, one’s own? Perhaps Protagoras would reply that, if I do not perceive you to be a god, but a human being, then this perception is true for me: there is no necessity whatsoever that I accede to your perception. Hence the perception of a madman, while not inferior to one’s own, is not superior to it either. The deference in question is not so much to madmen, of course, as to the primacy of individual perception. We will have reason to return, with Socrates, to this line of argument.

on the theaetetus

163

The immediate sequel makes plain that Socrates has not entirely forgot­ ten the strange problem posed by those who claim to be gods, for he offers something that he himself (and not Theaetetus, despite 161a7–­b6) wonders about in Protagoras’ position, pertaining to the beginning of the argument in his book the Truth: why did Protagoras not say there that of all things the measure is a pig or baboon, “or some other, still stranger thing having per­ ception” so that he might have begun to speak to us in a high-­flown and very contemptuous way, pointing out that though we admired him “as a god” for his wisdom, in fact he happened to be, in point of prudence or understanding, no better than a tadpole, to say nothing of another human being (161c3–­d2). As there are sensate beings beneath human beings, then, so there are sensate beings also above us: the beings “still stranger” than baboons may well be gods. Certainly we had (wrongly) taken Protagoras to be a god, given his wis­­ dom, for gods as such are wise. Why then had Protagoras fixed on human beings as the measure, as distinguished from these other beings, higher or lower? As we have already had reason to note, the Athenian Stranger in Pla­ to’s Laws maintains that it is precisely the god who is the measure and not “some human being.” What is more, and maybe worse, Protagoras’ position undermines his own claim to be wise, for if each person is the only and hence the best judge of whatever he opines through perception, and all that each opines will be “correct and true” for him (161d7 and context), then each will indeed be the measure of his own wisdom. Here we may see at work also the lingering after-­effects of the first substantive agreement between Theaetetus and Socrates, according to which knowledge is wisdom, for we can now say that he who perceives for that reason knows and hence is wise. At any rate, on what possible basis can Protagoras claim to be supremely wise—­that is, wiser than most other human beings—­and justly to deserve to teach others at considerable expense to them? On what possible basis could he claim to be wiser even than a perceiving baboon? Or to claim to rival in wisdom, as we were inclined to suppose that he did, a god? Then again, might it be the case, as Socrates now wonders aloud, that in saying that each person is the measure of his own wisdom, Protagoras was speaking in a way to please the demos, ad captandum vulgus (d�moumenon legein: 161e4; Lee 1973, 241)? Surely it is flattering to be assured that one is infallibly wise. This possibility may go together with the snobbishness of the man as it came to sight in the Protagoras, and it is surely why Socrates wonders also whether Protagoras’ Truth was “joking” when it uttered what it did from its “inner sanctum.” Certain it is that, if Protagoras is serious about the ubiquity of wisdom, then Socrates’ own art of midwifery—­an art

164

chapter five

that he now equates with “the entire concern with conversing” or dialectics (dialegesthai)—­will be laughable, for it is nonsense to examine and “at­ tempt to refute” the “imaginings [ phantasias] and opinions” of others when one knows or supposes in advance that everyone’s are “correct” (161d2–­ 162a3; see also Theodorus’ characterization of the motion camp at 179e5–­6: dialechth�nai). If Socrates is wrong and Protagoras is right, there would be no reason at all to engage someone in dialectical conversation who claims to be, or at any rate to have special access to, a god. As things stand, Socrates must think there is a reason to do so, as is confirmed by the dramatic sequel to the Theaetetus: the Euthyphro. The gradual exposition of Protagoras’ dif­­ ficult and in many ways counterintuitive position has reached its peak to this point, and it now seems to pose a threat to the superior wisdom of the man himself among “the human beings,” just as it evidently runs the risk of elevating pigs and baboons to a status equal to him (or us). As for a god or gods, one could say that Protagoras’ stated view has the effect of elevating all to the level of a god—­for all have equal access to the knowledge that is per­ ception—­or, if one prefers, it has the effect of demoting the god especially: all claims to special knowledge, knowledge that is the preserve of the few or that is hidden away in an “inner sanctum,” now seem groundless.4 If a case is to be made for any special knowledge at all, it must pertain to Prota­goras’ counterintuitive insight into the character of the measure together with the primacy of motion that does away with (other) claims to special knowl­ edge. Or, to repeat, is Protagoras merely joking about this? But what might prompt Protagoras to joke when the stakes are so high? That there is a theological implication of Protagoras’ position—­in other words, that the serious matter on the table has nothing to do with baboons— ­is confirmed immediately (consider also the comparable function of intel­ ligent cranes at Statesman 263d3–­5). Being compelled by Theodorus to re­ turn to Theaetetus as interlocutor (compare 161b8–­162c2), Socrates asks the boy whether he wouldn’t be amazed suddenly to come to be seen as not at all inferior in wisdom “to any human being whatever or even to gods. Or do you suppose that the Protagorean measure is spoken of any less as regards gods than as regards human beings?” (162c2–­6). To this, Theaete­ tus replies, “By Zeus no, I for my part [don’t suppose that]!”5 Thus all that Protagoras says concerning the “measure” pertains as much to gods as to human beings. The section of the Theaetetus of concern to us cannot be understood without keeping this remark in mind. In light of this revelation, or confirmation, we now see, for example, that the warrant not to accept it when “another” says that some (definite) thing either is or becomes (see again 160c1 and context) must apply also to gods or to their spokesmen—­to

on the theaetetus

165

Homer, for example, or to prophets and soothsayers. Of course, Socrates has already done Homer the favor of including him squarely in the motion camp (as he will do again soon: 160d7).

Protagoras Responds: “Agnosticism” and the Limits of Knowledge (162d3–­165e6) To Theaetetus’ emphatic admission (“By Zeus!”) that he does wonder at or is amazed by the apparent result of Protagoras’ argument and that he now finds the case against it very well stated, Socrates replies as follows: on ac­ count of your youth, you listen attentively to harangues intended for the demos (d�m�goria: 162d3),6 and Protagoras, or someone on his behalf, will have something to say against these things. It is unclear from Socrates’ statement which part or parts of the argument against Protagoras might be mere demagoguery, for the mention of “pigs and baboons” is separable from that of “gods.” Now we hear from the man himself: “Well-­born boys and el­ ders, you engage in harangues for the demos [d�m�goreite] while seated to­ gether, bringing gods into your midst, gods whom I, when it comes to both speaking and writing about them, as to whether they are or they are not, I leave out; and you say those things that the many would accept upon hear­ ing, to the effect that it is a terrible thing if each human being will not be at all superior in point of wisdom to any herd animal [bosk�matos] whatever” (162d5–­e4). Protagoras turns the tables on Socrates by accusing the assem­ bled group of engaging in demagoguery, of playing to the cheap seats. First, Protagoras implies that he is so far from applying his doctrine of the measure to gods that he never speaks or write about them at all, as to whether they exist or not. This is Protagoras’ much-­commented-­on “agnosticism”—­his inability, evidently confessed in a spirit of frank modesty, to speak or write about the gods (e.g., Lee 1973, 227 and the accompanying note). And this remark is as close as Plato comes to repeating the famous fragment of Pro­ tagoras that has been preserved in another source or sources: “About gods, I am not able to know that they are or that they are not, for the impediments to knowing [this] are many, both the obscurity involved and the brevity of the life of a human being” (Diogenes Laertius 9.51).7 But to decline to speak or to write about the gods is, of course, not the same thing as declining (or being unable) to think about them; on the contrary, one may well never speak or write about the existence of the gods because one has thought deeply about it. And even in writing what he did, Protagoras runs the risk of contradicting himself, to say nothing of the fact that the fragment quoted is said to have come from his book titled . . . On the Gods! In the Protagoras,

166

chapter five

of course, Plato presents him as speaking at considerable length about Zeus and other gods, Olympian and subterranean, with impressive certainty and in unorthodox ways; he there notes that, “to speak with god,” no harm has come to him (from a god or gods, for example) as a result of his long prac­ tice of sophistry (Protagoras 317b6–­c2). Moreover, what may strike us as an appealing modesty or freedom from being “judgmental” is something else again in a place where and at a time when one can be executed if found guilty of “not believing in the gods in whom the city believes”: to claim not to know whether the gods exist—­to state that one is utterly ignorant of whether there is a being properly named “Zeus” who is the father of gods and men—­is to reject in fact or practice what one might call religious or­ thodoxy. We must keep in mind that in this context Protagoras and Socra­ tes are trading charges of playing to the crowd—­and Protagoras explicitly speaks here not to Socrates but to the “well-­born boys and elders” present. In keeping with his usual caginess, Protagoras does not quite affirm that he holds there to be a signal difference between “herd animals” and human beings;8 he only complains of the recourse made to the sort of thing the demos will agree to when they hear it—­that it would be “terrible” if there were no such difference. But more important, perhaps, is Protagoras’ final point: he criticizes them—­he still has not addressed Socrates directly—­for stating no “demonstration” (apodeixis) and speaking of no “necessity” but relying instead on mere likelihoods. Imagine if Theodorus were willing to practice geometry by means of persuasive speech and likelihoods! Protagoras thus suggests that the dispute now on the table (“about matters of such im­ portance”) admits of “demonstration” because governed by “necessity,” in the manner of geometry. In defending himself, then, Protagoras challenges those present to demonstrate the falsity of his logos. Mere demagoguery will not do. But this means that he has thereby set a high bar also for himself, and the battle between Socrates and Protagoras will evidently be settled by whichever of them can offer up a “demonstration.” But is demonstration, is apodictic certainty, possible even or precisely in these “matters of such importance”? Can the competing claims to wisdom raised by Protagoras, on the one hand, and the gods or their spokesmen, on the other, be settled in the manner of a geometric proof? Is there not some question already as to whether Protagoras’ position is better described as a logos or a mythos, the latter being a term Socrates will soon use once again to characterize it (164d9 and e3)? In the hands of a wily sophist, precisely the call for his op­ ponents to come up with a demonstration may serve a rhetorical function: that call may take the place of any “demonstration” of his own (consider to

on the theaetetus

167

pithanon at 178e4 and context: Protagoras prides himself on his ability to persuade by means of speeches). Since Theodorus fails to accept what amounts to an invitation to return to the conversation (consider 162e7–­9), Socrates turns to Theaetetus and elic­ its his approval of the suggestion that they pursue “in another way” the question of whether “knowledge and perception are the same thing or dif­ ferent” (163a7–­8). Near the end of this subsection, however, which soon gives way to Protagoras’ longest and most important speech in the dialogue (165e7–­168c2), Socrates himself declares that the arguments they have just made fail to refute the proposition that “knowledge and perception are the same thing” (164b8–­9), and in thinking they had succeeded in this, they resemble ill-­born fighting cocks, crowing before they have really earned a victory. Socrates seems to take seriously in deed Protagoras’ demand for a demonstration, or he adopts in practice the desideratum of a demonstration. He offers here a pair of arguments that attempts to overthrow the iden­­ tity of perception and knowledge. To begin with, it should be noted that to say as Socrates does that perception and knowledge are “the same thing” is ambiguous: this may refer to Theaetetus’ initial formulation, according to which “knowledge is nothing other than perception,” or it may refer to Soc­­ rates’ (usual) restatement of it, according to which “perception is knowledge.” And this latter statement is also ambiguous: it can mean that all perception is as such always knowledge (the position Protagoras seems to stake out), or it can mean that perception may be among the things that constitute knowledge—­that is, that false perception is possible and that perception is not exhaustive of what knowledge is. In any case, Socrates’ first argument here will suggest that perception is not a sufficient condition for knowl­ edge, the second that perception is not a necessary condition for knowledge: as there can be perception without knowledge, so there can be knowledge without perception. To turn, then, to the first argument, we may hear a barbarian language spoken, not a word of which we understand, and in that case perception (hearing) is not knowledge at all (165b1–­c5). Yet Theaetetus, to his credit, counters that hearing the unintelligible language spoken, and so perceiving it, does convey knowledge, at least of the characteristics of certain sounds—­ low-­and high-­pitched, for example (consider 163b8–­c1). Even here, then, per­ ception brings with it a certain rock-­solid, if also very limited, knowledge; perhaps it would be better to call it “awareness.” The second argument sug­ gests that if perception is knowledge, then when we cease to perceive (some­ thing), we should cease to know (it). If, that is, to see is to know, then not to

168

chapter five

see but only to remember should be not to know. But of course Theaetetus cannot grant this. In other words, since one cannot grant the “monstrous” (163d6 and 164b5) proposition that we do not, in fact, know the thing that we are no longer perceiving (seeing) but only remembering, knowledge is not perception (163c5–­164b7). Thus it is impossible, Socrates concludes, for anyone to assert that knowledge and perception are “the same thing” (164b8– ­c2). This argument, as distinguished from the first, Theaetetus finds trou­ bling, and it alone is responsible for the (short-­lived) victory over Protagoras (consider Socrates’ summary at 164d5–­10, which omits all mention of the first argument, as does Protagoras’ protest at 166a2–­6). Since he is troubled by it, Theaetetus must have in mind the thought that “knowledge is noth­ ing other than perception” and not that perception is (in conjunction with other things) knowledge. Yet, as already noted, Socrates himself dubs this an unearned victory, although he does not state precisely why, except to say that they are behav­ ing not like “philosophers” but “combatants” (164c7–­d2). Socrates has war­ rant to conclude, from the second argument, only that not all knowledge is sense perception: memory too is a kind of knowledge or an ingredient of it, knowledge of what one need no longer be perceiving. But even here, memory is grounded in perception, a prior perception (163e8), which fact serves to retain the connection between knowledge and perception. (This is true even if one adds, as Socrates here does, “learning”: “the things that he learned and the things that he perceived” [163e8].) As for the first argument, which seems not to accomplish anything, it does suggest that some perception need not be knowledge—­knowledge, that is, of a logos, for hearing an unknown language (or seeing an unknown alphabet: 163b5–­7) does convey knowledge of the kind Theaetetus suggests but not, of course, an intelligible meaning. But one could learn to attach an intelligible meaning to those sounds (or let­­ ters), as Socrates notes. Such meaning would, in that case, be grounded in a prior awareness (of sounds or shapes, among a good many other things), con­­ veyed by sense perception, that makes possible language or a logos but is other than it (see also p. 151 above). Sense perception by itself makes pos­ sible the knowledge of classes or kinds, but it is not itself that knowledge; and memory permits us to call up, not the actual experience of the given sense perceptions, but the being we once experienced in and through those sense perceptions. These arguments, or the second of them, are revealing also of Theaete­ tus, who readily accepts the conclusion to which they or it leads. The mo­ tive at work in Theaetetus becomes clearer in the immediate sequel, for it is at this point that Socrates reveals how unearned their “victory” over

on the theaetetus

169

Protagoras is, and he adds that if the father of the mythos were alive, he would have many things to say in its defense: “As things stand, we have thrown mud on it, an orphan. And not even the overseers, whom Protagoras left behind, are willing to come to its aid, of whom Theodorus here is one. So we ourselves will run the risk, for the sake of justice, of coming to its aid.” Socrates thus rather daringly, if implicitly, compares Theaetetus’ dead father to Protagoras, the dead “father” of the mythos, and both “orphans,” Theaetetus and the mythos, have been betrayed by their respective “over­ seers” (epitropoi: compare 164e2–­6 with 144b9–­d4). (This appeal to justice has the effect of prompting Theodorus to speak up in his own defense but not otherwise to return to the conversation at this point.) In now coming to the aid of Protagoras (165a4–­5), Socrates asks only one question, although it is “the cleverest” (to deinotaton) one: “Is it possible for the same person who knows some given thing not to know that thing that he knows?” It is unclear, to say the least, how this question brings to Protagoras the aid that justice demands. An insistent questioner could ask Theaetetus, now stuck in a proverbial well (165b8; compare 174a5), as he covers one of Theaetetus’ eyes, whether he sees a given cloak: since he both sees it and does not see it, he should reply that he both knows it and does not know it—­which, ac­ cording to Theaetetus, is impossible. The nonperception of the cloak should cancel out the perception of it, and therewith the knowledge of it, but it does not. Hence knowledge must be something other than perception. It would seem, then, Theaetetus must either grant that we can both know and not know something or deny that perception is knowledge, thus refuting himself and, apparently, Protagoras too. In the immediate sequel, Socrates conjures up a skilled peltast or skirmisher in arguments (165b9 and 165d6), lying in ambush for Theaetetus, ready to attack yet again the proposition that perception is knowledge. Such a fellow could point to the fact that we can perceive sharply or dully, at a distance or up close, hence strongly or slightly, whereas (according to Theaetetus and evidently his attacker too) knowledge admits of no such degrees: if we know something, we know it (165d2–­e4). Yet again, then, perception cannot be knowledge. The defense of Protagoras (165e4–­5) consists in the affirmation, which Theaetetus refuses to make, that the same person who knows some given thing can also not know that thing. Perception is knowledge, but the very knowledge it conveys is partial knowledge in the sense that it coexists with nonknowledge. After all, to see a cloak even with both eyes is to see only some part of it; the knowledge that sight makes possible (whether it is the sight supplied by one eye or by two makes no difference here) gives us only partial information; it is an act of imagination that turns the side of the

170

chapter five

cloak we do see into the complete cloak. In addition, one can know with certainty the present sweetness of this wine (to return to an earlier example); one can even posit, at least as a “supposition,” the character of the mo­­tions, active and passive, fast and slow, behind it that give rise to it; but one can­ not know the cause of those motions—­why are there these motions, active and fast, at all, and what gave rise to them and permits them to continue as they are? One cannot know, similarly, why the motions that we are in colli­ sion with result in the undeniable effects—­the knowledge—­that we as per­ ceivers register, for we are doomed to register them as brute facts. On behalf of Protagoras, Socrates here affirms the utter obscurity that lies behind the world as it is presented “privately” to each. Theaetetus, for his part, rejects the partial character of knowledge, evidently because he supposes that we have or can have complete knowledge of whatever we know or that it is im­ possible to know something partially. And it is not so surprising for a young and able mathematician to suppose that there can be simply complete knowl­­ edge of a thing (he whose first answer to the question “What is knowledge?” included the subjects taught by Theodorus): surely Theodorus enjoys com­ plete knowledge of, say, a triangle. But then again, Theaetetus’ own expe­ rience in mathematics and geometry might have suggested to him that he can know and not know something simultaneously—­for example, the surds (“powers”) that he and young Socrates had attempted to understand by means of “oblong” numbers. He came to know something of those surds by lik­ ening them to something that he knew or knew better, but is it not true that there remained much about them that he did not know and could not know? Before we turn to consider Protagoras’ important long speech, a bird’s-­ eye view of the main twists and turns of the argument is in order. We take our bearings by the fact that, in the course of Socrates’ attempt to expli­ cate the hidden or secret logos of Protagoras, Protagoras (alone or together with others) speaks out in protest three times (see 154b6–­8; 158e5–­10; and 162d5–­163a1). The first objection, we recall, led to the example of the dice. The elaboration of that example pointed to the fact that reflection on our or­ dinary perception of the world can make clear to us how wrong some of the most “obvious” suppositions are that we bring to the world or deduce from it (e.g., that nothing could ever become greater or lesser in bulk or number while remaining equal to itself). The world does not enjoy the fixity that we initially suppose it does, or the surveying and classifying mind plays a far greater role in the creation and maintenance of “the world” than it might first appear to do. This same elaboration, conducted under the influence of Protagoras, marked the path toward the later conclusion that there are no

on the theaetetus

171

fixed and hence knowable classes or kinds (eid�: 157b8–­c2). In this same general context, Socrates himself raised the question of why or on what ac­ count Protagoras’ fundamental premises are such as they are (155d5–­7), and it was in the wake of this question that Socrates brought out—­more clearly to the reader, perhaps, than to Theaetetus himself—­the moral implications of Protagoras’ ever-­more radical (i.e., ever-­more consistent) position: what is good and what is noble too are wholly without fixity or are in motion (157d7–­11). We thus become alive to the possibility that what may be called Protagoras’ motive in positing an extreme relativism is connected somehow with the relativity or “motion” of the good and the noble in particular. Pro­­ tagoras’ next intervention came in response to the problem of (among others) those madmen who believe themselves to be gods. We were left to wonder whether the fact that they perceive this means it is true or, more precisely, “true for them.” At any rate, both Socrates and Theaetetus agreed, in the second and therefore central (161c2–­162d2) of the three official criticisms of Protagoras (157e1–­158e4 and 163a7–­164c2), that “the Protagorean measure” applies as much to gods as to human beings. This provoked Protagoras’ tes­ tiest response to that point (162d5–­163a1). His response included both the denial that he ever speaks or writes about (the existence of) the gods and the call for a “demonstration” to establish the falsity of his position: prove it, Soc­­ rates. This, in turn, gave rise to Socrates’ attempts—­avowed failures—­to re­ fute the contention that “perception and knowledge are the same thing.” Yet those attempts do suggest that sense perception by itself cannot convey the logos (account or definition) of a thing, a class or kind, the very thing that memory may call forth or recall. Those attempts also succeed in making clear Theaetetus’ hopes for a kind of knowledge that is perfect or complete or without admixture of nonknowledge. It is a hope that Protagoras himself does not share. The gradual uncovering of Protagoras’ hidden teaching indicates this much: each individual is the measure for himself alone of what appears to him through perception, about which perceptions he cannot be mistaken, and this goes together with the fact of the motion characteristic of “all things”; and this primacy of motion leads us to attempt to bring the world to a halt by means of speech and so to forget that the very knowledge (per­ ception) we have of the world is traceable to the ceaseless interaction of ac­ tive and passive motions, perceived and perceiver, that dissolves all suppos­ edly or apparently fixed classes or kinds. But we must resist that forgetting, or we must not be led astray by the habits of speech. The strangest conse­ quence of Protagoras’ argument is perhaps the fact that, according to it, the stability we believe we perceive as being very much present in the world

172

chapter five

must be abandoned on the basis of precisely our perception of the world—­ or rather on the basis of the correct reflection on that perception. But then something other than perception narrowly construed, the experience of sense perception, must play a part in guiding that reflection. The prog­ ress of the conversation also reveals that Theaetetus, if he can be called a Protagorean at all, is a most uncertain one. He seems not to have abandoned his hope for an unadulterated knowledge, and he seems not to have seen or taken seriously enough the “motion” of the good and noble things that apparently results. As we will learn immediately, Protagoras himself has taken that result very seriously indeed.

Protagoras’ Long Speech (166a2–­168c2) Protagoras begins his feisty response or rebuttal by complaining that Socra­ tes—“that fine upstanding Socrates”9—­has managed no more than to frighten “some little boy” by asking Theaetetus a question that he, for lack of fore­ sight, failed to answer correctly and so showed or demonstrated (apedeixen) Protagoras to be a laughingstock “in the arguments.” The demonstration was no demonstration at all. Socrates as questioner has done nothing more than trip up the one questioned, Theaetetus, while leaving Protagoras him­ self untouched. Here Protagoras mentions or alludes to the second of the pair of arguments meant to refute the identity of perception and knowledge, and he clearly maintains that it is possible “for the same person simulta­ neously to remember and not to know the same thing” (166a3–­5). Socrates had maintained that perception and knowledge cannot be the same thing be­­ cause we can remember and hence know something that we are not (now) perceiving at all: knowledge, in that case, is not perception. Hence the equa­ tion of per­ception and knowledge cannot stand. Protagoras’ present response seems somewhat unclear; by insisting that one can simultaneously remem­ ber something and not know it, he could mean that because we can both know and not know the same thing simultaneously, we can know it by re­ membering it, while also not knowing it in the sense of not now perceiving it. Yet, as I have already suggested, Protagoras evidently means to deny the con­ nection between memory and knowledge altogether, for in the immedi­ate sequel, he does just that: no one will concede to “most easygoing Socrates” that somebody’s memory of something undergone or suffered is the same sort of thing as what he suffered or underwent when he was suffering or un­ dergoing it. To remember a migraine headache is very different from having one, and so the knowledge the latter conveys is very different from the mere memory of it.10 Perception is indeed knowledge, and memory, being merely

on the theaetetus

173

derivative, does not rise to the level of it.11 Still, Protagoras’ insistence that memory is separate from knowledge seems strange. We may note, by way of anticipation, that Socrates’ recourse to memory is a sort of companion to an important argument he will make concerning knowledge of the future: hu­ man beings are not passive receptors of present sense data, locked in a per­ petual “now,” but animals marked by the persistence of the past, in the form of memory, and by conceptions of the possible future, arrived at in part by acts of the imagination. Perception is (an ingredient of ) knowledge, but one cannot maintain that “knowledge is nothing other than perception.” Knowl­ edge is “nothing other than perception” in the way that, say, shoemaking is “nothing other than knowledge” (compare 151e2–­3 with 146d1–­2). In his rebuttal, Protagoras proceeds to repeat the same point made by Socrates, after he had declared their “victory” over Protagoras a false one, to the effect that no one “will hesitate to agree that it is possible for the same person to know and not to know the same thing.” This is the very proposi­ tion that Theaetetus “the little boy” did in fact hesitate (and more than hesi­ tate) to agree to (compare 166b4–­5 with 165b2–­4). Protagoras thus suggests that, not only can one remember and not (by that fact alone) know some­ thing, but one can know and not know it simultaneously. Yet even Theaete­ tus would have to grant, Protagoras contends, that one who becomes dissim­ ilar is not the same person as he was before he became dissimilar (166b4–­7; recall 158e5–­160e4). More than that, if or since (eanper: 166b8) dissimilarity arises, a given person is not really “someone” at all but an indefinite num­ ber of “someones,” the verbal difficulty of the thought being conceded but also dismissed by Protagoras (“hunting after names”). In this way, Protagoras insists on identifying perception and knowledge, he contends that we do both know and not know the same thing, and he affirms that the ubiquity of motion extends also to the perceiver, who is really an indefinite series of changing perceivers. It must be the case, then, that among the things we both know and do not know simultaneously is the “cluster” that is oneself. To the impossibility of Socratic dialectics, on Protagorean premises, we may now add the grave difficulty, at the very least, of attaining “self-­knowledge,” the limit of such knowledge being the recognition that and why there is no single stable or fixed “self” to come to know, except as it is given to “one” in a constant stream of perceptions. Protagoras next addresses Socrates directly (“you blessed fellow”) and challenges him: “refute” the proposition that perceptions do not come to be to each person privately or that, given the private character of perception, what appears to each is not for each alone (“if one must use the term ‘to be’ ”: 166c2–­6). As for talk of pigs and baboons—­Protagoras is, of course,

174

chapter five

silent about gods—­it is a “swinish,” an “ignoble,” way to proceed. Protago­ ras now launches into an extended explanation and defense of what is evi­ dently his genuine position, absent the distortions Socrates has imposed on it. The sophist begins with a firm declaration that “the truth is as I have written it. For each of us is [a] measure both of the things that are and of those that are not”—­this much we have heard before—­“but one person dif­ fers greatly [myrion] from another in this very thing: that to one person some things both are and appear, whereas to another, other things do.” That Pro­ tagoras has more in mind here than, say, the varying ways a wind may feel to different people, becomes clear when he returns to the question of his own claim to be wise or wiser than others. Far from denying the existence of wisdom and a wise man, Protagoras contends that the wise man is he among us to whom bad things “appear and are” but who can bring about a change and so make good things both “appear and be” (to him or for him). Now the use here of the verb “to be” must not be accounted an inconsistency on Protagoras’ part, for he is using it in his manner: it is equivalent to “appear.” For something to appear to be x to someone is for it to be x for him; since there is no “higher” or “truer” realm of being apart from appearing, we may, by this point in the argument and for all practical purposes, use the terms interchangeably. The whole of wisdom, or the meaningful character of the distinction between wise and unwise, rests now on the good (and its contrary): the good is evidently not a part of the flux. Recall how emphatic the sophist’s “outburst” had been in the Protagoras concerning the good, understood as the advantageous for this or that sort of being. Here he recurs to the example of the sweetness or bitterness of something (no longer wine but food) as perceived by some­ one ailing or healthy: to someone ailing, what he eats appears and is bitter, whereas to someone healthy, it appears and is the contrary. Neither one is, in this respect, wiser than the other; nor, of course, is the sickly person ig­ norant or unlearned because he opines as he does, just as the healthy person is not wise. Not yet wisdom, to repeat, but the good is at issue: the healthy condition or state is “better” (167a3–­4). To effect a change from one condi­ tion to the other, however, is to enable the now-­healthy person to perceive sweetness when previously he had access only to the bitter, and it is the physician who, by means of drugs, can bring about such a change. In so do­­ ing, the physician exercises a kind of wisdom. And in the case of “educa­ tion,” to bring about a change from one condition to another, in the direc­ tion of what is better, is the work of “the sophist, by means of arguments [speeches: logois]” (167a6). As the doctor ministers to the body, so the soph­ ist ministers to the soul, and arguments can be a kind of curative drug.

on the theaetetus

175

Yet it is crucial to see that, according to Protagoras, one does not thereby bring about a change from opining false things to opining true ones. The content of one’s opinions is always true (for the person who so opines), just as the doctor does not bring the well patient to see that his previous experi­ ence of the bitter food was false: “these things”—­the things that one suf­ fers or undergoes and so perceives—­“are always true” (167b1). But someone who, through having a soul in a poor or paltry ( poneras) condition, opines things akin to that condition, will be prompted, when his soul becomes good or serviceable (chr�st�), to opine other things akin to that new condition—­ things that some people, through lack of experience, dub “true” apparitions ( phantasmata) but that Protagoras himself says are “better” than the previ­ ous ones “but not at all truer” (167b1–­4). And just as the doctor is able, by administering drugs, to alter the state of the patient’s body, so the sophist is able, by means of arguments or speeches, to alter the listener’s soul. The change in question must be in the understanding or opinion of the perceiver and not in the (rest of the) world. Everything seems to rest, then, on the fact of there being better and worse states of soul and the perceptions that neces­ sarily accord with them. But by what standard can one judge a given state of soul to be not merely different from but better than another? In the ex­ amples thus far, “better” would seem to be equivalent to what is productive of greater pleasure (or of less that is unpleasant).12 The power of the good seems to derive from the immediacy of the experience of pleasure or the ab­ sence of pain. The wisdom that Protagoras insists on, then, cannot amount to the capacity to grasp the truth, for everyone always does that in the sense indicated; it must rather be the ability to bring about changes in body and especially soul that then prompt the perceiver to be in a better state that is as such receptive to more pleasure or less pain. In accord with this, the wise, as Protagoras patiently explains to “dear Socrates,” are not frogs but, in the case of bodies, physicians and, in that of plants, farmers. Thus substituting “plants” for the expected “souls” and so “farmers” for “sophists,” Protagoras contends that the (wise) farmer is able “to instill in plants, when one of them is ailing, serviceable and healthy perceptions, as well as true ones, in place of poor perceptions” (167b6–­c2). The strangeness of this remark has occasioned considerable commentary and even emendations of the text, in part because Protagoras has just denied that perceptions can be made at all truer, in part because he here attributes to plants an awareness (of perception) not obviously theirs. But since Pro­ tagoras contends that all perceptions are true, he must hold that the percep­ tions of plants are also true; he denies only that the distinction between true and false perceptions is meaningful or useful. And in speaking of plants

176

chapter five

as he does, he in effect concedes to Socrates his point about pigs and ba­ boons: if even a tomato plant has perceptions true for it, so must a baboon. Or a madman. The sophist as sophist can, by means of his speeches, bring about a change in the perceptions of at least some of those who believe they perceive gods or even are gods, and that change, while not strictly speak­ ing a change in point of truth, is a change for the “better”: it is better, it is productive of more pleasure, not to be haunted by the presence of a legislat­ ing and punishing Zeus, for example. Important too is the consideration to which Protagoras turns immediately, that of the “wise and good orators.” This is the first mention of orators in the dialogue, and with it the speech suddenly takes a political turn. It falls to these orators to prompt “the cit­ ies” to hold the opinion that the serviceable or useful things (ta chr�sta), in place of poor or paltry ones, are “just.” The lack of parallelism with the case of plants is jarring: “the cities” will hold the things that they opine—­sense perception is no longer at issue—­to be not only true but also just. For all its oddity, the case of plants is instructive, for not even someone willing to say that plants have true perceptions can maintain that they regard certain things as just: “For the sorts of things that seem [dok�i] to each city to be just and noble, these things are in fact for it, for so long as it recognizes [be­ lieves in: nomidz�i] them” (167c4–­5). Here we have as frank a statement as one could wish for of the “moral relativism” of Protagoras, together with a confirmation of the importance of Socrates’ earlier question to Theaetetus as to whether what is “good and noble” is in motion too (157d7–­11). It is crucial to see, however, that Protag­ oras here substitutes for the “good” in Socrates’ earlier question the “just” and thus places both justice and nobility in motion. About this step, we note two things. First, this highlights the fact that Protagoras in his long speech excludes the good (the advantageous or better) from the flux, for it would seem to make no sense to say that the mere belief or opinion that this drug is healthful, for example, will make it so: the effects of arsenic on the hu­ man body, whether it brings about a healthy or a sickly condition, do not depend on the opinions held by a given perceiver. Let the patient perceive or opine all he likes that the drug just administered has brought him into a better state: he dies all the same. Second, by explicitly including justice, together with what is “noble,” in the flux, Protagoras teaches that opin­ ions about what is just and noble—­what amounts to all that we mean by the term moral—­exist only as long as a city recognizes them or believes in them; they “are” only in the element of opinion and so are as unstable, as subject to manipulation by skilled orators, as opinion. At present, it is just and noble to bury our dead; a generation or two from now, justice and

on the theaetetus

177

nobility together may demand immolation and abhor burial. It is impossible to judge of the moral worth of these practices except in reference to the law­ ful or conventional opinion governing them, for it alone determines their moral status. As Socrates will put it in a later gloss on Protagoras’ speech, these things are nothing by nature and have no being of their own (172b4–­5); they “are” by nature as little as, say, a unicorn or a witch, and as one can hold whatever opinions one likes about unicorns and witches, there being nothing in or by nature to check them against or to refer them to, so a city may hold whatever opinions it likes about justice and nobility—­though, in contrast to opinions about unicorns, every city is compelled to have opin­ ions about justice and nobility. As for heavy and light, warm and cold, big and small, these depend for their existence on being perceived and are only for so long as they are perceived and are only such as they are perceived to be; but they are prompted in part by a collision with something “out there,” whereas the content of moral opinions is even less stable than are sense per­ ceptions, relates to nothing “out there” in the world, and is certainly more subject to manipulation than is sense perception. “By means of speeches,” a skilled sophist would have a difficult time making one perceive fire to be cold or ice hot, but he can alter dramatically what is perceived or opined to be just or noble. As Protagoras brings out immediately, the point of view of “the wise” differs in a key respect from that of “the cities,” for the cities necessarily view what is useful or serviceable in terms of justice, or of justice and no­ bility, but “the wise” (orators) see only the useful in contrast to the poor or paltry (compare 167c2–­4 with c6–­7). The point of view of “the wise,” in other words, is extramoral or amoral; that of “the cities” is moral through-­ and-­through. The task of the wise orator, then, is to present what is actu­ ally advantageous to a city as being the course permitted or demanded by justice. The city so persuaded will pursue what it opines to be or recognizes as the just deed, which then really “is” just for it, but it will be pursuing in fact what is better for it. The existence of this chasm between the point of view of “the cities” and that of “the wise” must be an important part of the “education” for which the capable sophist is responsible—­that is, he permits some few to free themselves from the burdens of the conventional dictates of the just and noble; he thereby improves their state of soul; he thereby also permits some to perceive and so to pursue the better or more advantageous course as the only thing that “is,” at least as the healthy soul perceives things. No wonder, then, that Protagoras’ speech turns from the explanation of what wisdom and the wise man are, to the “wise orator,” to finally the sophist as educator, who has the capacity to “train” or “guide”

178

chapter five

those who are being educated (these could include the as-­yet-­unenlightened orators or future orators) and who deserves much pay for so doing (compare 167c7–­d1 with 161d8–­e3): “And in this way some are wiser than others and nobody opines falsely; and you, whether you wish it or not, must put up with being a measure. For it is in these [considerations] that the logos is saved” (167d1–­4). Protagoras thus defends the idea of wisdom in general and his own superior wisdom in particular, even as he contends that nobody forms false opinions. To repeat, wisdom consists in the ability to bring about a change in oneself (or others) such that one is (or they are) in a better state that by definition makes the good things appear and be. And the confirmation of the better character of one’s state of soul will presumably be the pleasure one experiences as a result, and no one can gainsay such experience. In this way, Protagoras severs the connection between wisdom and knowledge, in contrast to the initial agreement of Socrates and Theaetetus, and the equal access of all to perception and hence knowledge does not result in equal possession of wisdom. But what then of the competing claims to wisdom characteristic of gods or their spokesmen? This concludes the substantive part of Protagoras’ long speech. The size­ able remainder of his remarks (167d4–­168c2) amounts to advice to Socrates on how best to proceed not only in the present conversation but henceforth. The most surprising feature of these remarks is Protagoras’ concern for and appeal to justice: in short order, he tells Socrates three times (167e1, e2, e3) not to be “unjust” in his treatment of the argument! It is impossible to sup­ pose that Protagoras is so confused as seriously to rely on the very thing that he had just indicated is properly (and merely) the tool of the wise orator in affecting a change in “the cities”; one cannot suppose that Protagoras here speaks to Socrates as Socrates speaks to Theaetetus and Theodorus or they to him (consider 163a2 and 164e6; also 168e6–­169a1). Just as in the Protago­ ras he had put before our eyes the kind of mythical tale it can be advanta­ geous for a sophist to use, so he here puts before our eyes an example of the sophist’s use of precisely “speeches” about justice that can bring about a change of opinion, if not in Socrates himself, then in Theaetetus and The­ odorus (or his other “listeners”). In so doing, he means to impose limits on Socrates that he surely regards as advantageous to himself. But Protagoras also proceeds to argue that a dialectical conversation, as distinguished from antagonistic combat, is advantageous to Socrates too. In other words, what the sophist presents as the only course permissible by justice happens also to be the better or more advantageous one for Protagoras and for Socrates. His speech thus exemplifies the action of the wise sophist-­orator.

on the theaetetus

179

Protagoras makes the striking claim that if Socrates resists the tempta­ tion to win cheap victories that have nothing to do with the real argument, those who spend time with him will blame themselves for their own confu­ sion and perplexity and, far from blaming him, they will seek him out and befriend him; Protagoras goes so far as to claim that they will “hate” them­ selves and flee themselves and head instead for “philosophy” such that, “in becoming different [alloi], they may rid themselves of who they were for­ merly” (168a2–­7). Each and all are in constant motion or are constantly changing; not only sophistical or oratorical speeches but “philosophy” too, as Socrates can and should practice it, are capable of bringing about or in­­ fluencing such changes, if not in “the cities,” then in his students individ­ ual­ly—­changes that will bring to Socrates friendship and gratitude rather than enmity and blame. As Socrates gave voice to these words of Protagoras, the judicial proceeding that would lead to his execution was about to begin. Does Protagoras understand better than Socrates the tension between wisdom and political life, a tension (as we saw in the Protagoras) the sophist does not deny? Why is it that Socrates’ conversations, in contrast to those of Protagoras, tend to provoke the annoyance and even anger of his interlocutors—­a pow­ erful example of which we have already seen with Protagoras himself in the dialogue that bears his name? Protagoras does not disapprove of question­ ing another (167d5–­7), but true conversing (dialegomenos: 167e5), far from leading to refutations that render another speechless, for example, should strive to set the interlocutor upright again, pointing out only those stum­ bles that the interlocutor himself made. This implies that it would be fool­ ish or worse to converse with any apart from those likely to accept what one says or to be open to such conversing, a policy Socrates himself seems not to have followed.

Socrates’ Response to Protagoras (168c2–­177e3) In the wake of this speech, Socrates is tenacious in insisting that Theodorus now join him in examining Protagoras’ logos in the “serious” way Protagoras has just insisted they do (168d3, e1). The “fear” of a “little boy”— Soc­rates thus has Protagoras call into question the vaunted courage of Theaetetus—­ cannot be that to which such an examination looks (compare 168c8–­d2 and e1–­3 with 166a2–­6; 169c8–­d1). Socrates is successful in his effort to recruit Theodorus, at long last, and the “serious” examination of the lo­ gos, which is here identified as the doctrine of the measure (168d3–­4 and e1–­3; 169a3; 170d1–­2), will unfold with Theodorus as the sole interlocutor

180

chapter five

(169a1–­183c7). To be sure, Theodorus is probably an abler interlocutor than Theaetetus. But if Socrates is to dislodge Theaetetus from his Protagorean tendencies, he will have to compel Theodorus to concede the inadequacy of Protagoras: the sight of Theodorus himself, respected teacher and “com­ rade” of Protagoras, admitting the defeat of Protagoras will be more impres­ sive to the boy than would be his own, necessarily uncertain, admission to that effect. We note too that this examination proves to include a long “di­ gression,” as Socrates himself calls it (parerga: 177b8), in which he speaks in his own name about the life of philosophy, as distinguished from a sort of political life, and in which even Theodorus plays only a limited role (172b8–­ 177b7). This long speech (including the digression) is meant to counterbal­ ance, to be the core of his response to, Protagoras’ long speech. Socrates begins by again taking up the criticism that the logos seems to make each person “self-­sufficient in prudence,” as he now puts it, although Protagoras conceded or agreed “with us” in his long speech that, “when it comes to better and worse,” some are superior to others, who he says are in fact “wise” (169d3–­8). There is, then, an important agreement between Soc­ rates and Protagoras on what wisdom must possess: knowledge of better and worse—­that is, the good. And yet Socrates immediately wonders whether “someone” might contend that they are without the requisite authority to make just such an agreement on the sophist’s behalf and that, as a result, it would be finer to make certain of their agreement “about this very thing,” for, as Socrates notes laconically, “it makes not a little difference whether it is thus or otherwise” (169e4–­5). Since Protagoras and Socrates do not agree as to the alleged self-­sufficiency of all in point of prudence, the agreement to be tested must pertain to the superiority of some “when it comes to better and worse.” But this is as much as to say that Socrates here reopens the question of Protagoras’ view of the good as being outside the flux (recall also 157d8): it is this question of the status of the good that “makes not a lit­tle difference.” And to reopen this question is to draw a great question mark over the core of the argument in the sophist’s long speech that ex­ plained and justified his claim to superior wisdom. Could the Protago­ ras13 of that speech have been stating a merely public, less-­than-­frank ver­ sion of his doctrine? When, in other words, is Protagoras “joking”: when (as in his long speech) he af­firms that some are wiser than others, on the grounds that the latter have greater access to knowledge of the stable good, or when (as Socrates now wonders) Protagoras denies that some are wiser than others, on the grounds that the good, being included in the flux, cannot constitute a stable ground of superior expertise or wisdom (recall 161d2–­ 162a3)?

on the theaetetus

181

Socrates begins by taking seriously Protagoras’ contention, which The­ odorus agrees to be the sophist’s (170a3–­5), that what seems to each or what each opines (to dokoun: 170a3) also is for him to whom it seems. This thought, which focuses on opinion as distinguished from sense perception, is devel­ oped by Socrates as follows. All human beings form the opinion that they are wiser in some things than are others but that others are wiser than they in other respects. Socrates’ examples here are important. When people en­ counter grave difficulties on military campaigns or in illnesses or at sea, “they are disposed toward those who rule in each circumstance just as they are toward gods, expecting them to be their saviors, because they are supe­ rior in no other respect than in knowledge” (t�i eidenai: 170a9–­b1). All hu­ man concerns, in fact, are characterized by the presence of some held to be competent to teach or to rule and others held not to be, and from this state of affairs Socrates concludes, with Theodorus’ approval, that “human be­ ings believe there to be wisdom and ignorance among them” (170b5–­6). This much would seem to be fully in accord with Protagoras’ position staked out in his long speech, but, for that very reason, it is now in doubt. And this near-­universal belief or opinion—­that the distinction between wisdom and ignorance is an intelligible one—­proves to mean that the very deference to opinion or “seeming” that Protagoras insists on leads to the conclusion that his logos cannot be true. If what each opines is always true according to Protagoras, and “many tens of thousands” are of the opinion that people often hold false opinions, then Protagoras must defer to that very opinion as true: it is incumbent on him to regard as true the opinion that people hold there to be false opinions in the world, and Protagoras’ own opinion that all that everyone opines is true must be false. If nobody, not even Protagoras himself, supposed that a human being is the measure, then what he wrote would be true for no one. Because, as a matter of fact, only he supposes what he wrote to be true, while “the multitude” does not, then a far greater num­ ber holds that a human being is not the measure than those who do so hold. And—­“the most subtle thing” (171a6)—­in agreeing that “quite all opine the things that are [ta onta] truly,” Protagoras ought to agree with the supposi­ tion about his own supposition held by those many who have the opinion contrary to his own. In other words, he must agree or concede that his own opinion is false, if he agrees that the opinion of those who hold that he is wrong is true! To put it in contemporary language, Protagoras the extreme relativist contends that all opinions are true for those who hold them; most people, however, are not extreme relativists but absolutists, and as such they opine that his opinion is false. The very effort on his part to maintain his thesis—­the necessity of deference to each and every opinion—­constitutes

182

chapter five

the defeat of his thesis. If Protagoras agrees that the opinions of others are true, his own opinion is defeated; if he denies that the opinions of others are true, his own opinion is defeated. And this means, in turn, as Socrates indicates, that Protagoras himself will be compelled to concede that nei­ ther a dog nor any chance human being is a measure of anything—­except about what he (presumably the human being) has learned or understands: “So then, since it is disputed by all, the Truth of Protagoras would be true for no one, not for anybody else and not for him himself” (171c5–­7). And the whole of this argument against Protagoras presupposes that he now—­now that his long speech is over—­denies in particular this contention present in all opinion other than his own: that there are experts who as such know better than others what the good or better course is. At this point, Theodorus protests that “we are running down my com­ rade too much,” and Socrates makes this ambiguous reply: “But you know, friend, it’s unclear whether in fact we are running beyond [ paratheomen] what’s correct” (171c8–­10; compare 179b6–­9, where Theodorus himself cites the power of the argument now on the table). In other words, they may not be going beyond what is correct. Socrates proceeds to do only what we by now have come to expect of him—­namely, to criticize his own criticism of Pro­ tagoras. Yet he paints an image of Protagoras that is more vivid than “seri­ ous,” let alone respectful: with his head popping up out of the ground (pre­­ sumably, Protagoras is in Hades) and telling Socrates that he is talking much nonsense, he then pops back down again and runs off (171c8–­d3).14 The so­ph­ ist does not tarry long enough, unfortunately, to make an argument, per­haps because he does not have one to make. To be sure, one could raise a number of questions about Socrates’ attempt to refute Protagoras’ doctrine about the necessity to defer to the truth of the opinion of each by applying the negative opinion all have or would have about Protagoras’ doctrine to that doctrine itself—­what has come to be called the “self-­refutation argument.”15 For ex­ ample, Socrates begins by noting that “the many” or the “multitude” do not agree with Protagoras that each is the measure (of the truth), then that “the others” or “the rest” (hoi alloi: 171b4) do not agree with him, and then that “quite all” human beings (hapant�n: 171b9) do not; the move from the many (or the majority) among human beings to quite all of them would need to be defended. If not the “entire tribe” of the Heracliteans, then might not some of them agree with Protagoras? But to defend Protagoras by recourse to a philosophic elite is insufficient: he did not say that what only the wise opine is true for them. And to defend Protagoras by saying that his doctrine pertaining to opinion is “true for him” and him alone, the opinion of its

on the theaetetus

183

falsity true for all others, is insufficient because that doctrine does indeed wish to pertain to opinion as such—­that is, not just to Protagoras’ private opinion.16 Similarly, to say that Protagoras could consistently maintain that there is only one error we can make in our opining—­namely, to assert that one can be mistaken in one’s opinions—­would be to concede that the soph­ ist must abandon the universal formulation of his doctrine.17 As Socrates himself will note later on, the claim that every opinion of everyone is true could be seized or defeated in many ways (179c1 and context). Yet none of this treats directly enough the question that Socrates has raised of the sta­ tus of the good in Protagoras’ thought. Socrates’ rejection of his own criticism proceeds by drawing attention to the difference between sense perception and opinion or judgment of a certain kind (171d9 and following). Protagoras would insist that the percep­ tions each person has of the world are necessarily true for each—­“warm, dry, sweet, and all things of that type”—­and Socrates here concedes the power of this logos (consider also 179c2–­4 and context). Socrates agrees, in other words, with this feature of Protagoras’ position as it pertains to the perception of sensible qualities (of touch and taste in the present exam­ ples). But what would Protagoras say about matters pertaining to health and illness—­that is, surely he would be willing to say that not “every woman and child, and beast, is competent to cure itself because it knows what is healthful for it”? Since health is good, illness bad, Socrates has thus brought the question of the good front and center again, and he now returns to the specifically political arguments the sophist had made and even expands on them in an important respect: “So then, when it comes to political matters too, things noble and shameful, and just and unjust, and pious and not—­of the sort that each city supposes these to be, it posits them as lawful conven­ tions [nomima] for itself, and these in fact are in truth for each [city]; and in these things none is wiser [than another], neither private person than private person nor city than city” (172a1–­5). Thus reverting to the position the sophist had clearly staked out in his long speech, Socrates also informs us now, and for the first time, that Protagoras includes what is “pious and not” in the list of things that exist only in conventional opinion or that are altogether in motion: morality and piety belong together as matters about which no one is or can be wiser than any other or in which all is essentially fluid opinion. If this expansion is not a surprising one, given what we have seen of his remarks concerning piety in the Protagoras, it is worth not­ ing nonetheless. And this view of piety, its purely conventional character, may supply a motive rather different from modesty for declining to speak

184

chapter five

or write about the existence of the gods: most human beings are ignorant about the gods, though few realize this fact, and those who do realize it have no incentive to shout it. Socrates’ now less-­, now more-­, now less-­radical versions of Protagoras’ teaching amount to this: everything depends on there being a meaningful distinction between knowledge and nonknowledge regarding good and bad especially, the advantageous and the harmful. Recall that human beings, at least in times of crisis, are inclined to look to knowers of what is good as to gods for salvation—­generals, doctors, and ships’ captains—­just as “we” had looked to Protagoras as to “a god” on account of his wisdom (see again 161c8 and 170a10–­b1). Indeed, are human beings not inclined to look, not only to various experts, but to the gods themselves as saviors “because they are su­ perior in no other respect than in knowledge”? And it is to this all-­important knowledge of the good or advantageous course that Socrates now returns: “But in [a city’s] positing things advantageous for itself or disadvanta­­geous —  it’s here, if in fact anywhere, that he [Protagoras] will in turn agree that advi­ sor is superior to advisor and that one opinion of a city is superior to another in point of truth, and he really wouldn’t dare [ouk an panu tolm�seie] to as­ sert that those things that a city posits, just because it supposes them to be advantageous for itself, will at all events be advantageous in fact” (172a5–­b2). Just as the sickly patient may opine what he likes about this or that drug, while it is the skilled physician who knows what drug will produce health in fact, so the city may have whatever opinion it likes of this or that treaty, while it is the skilled advisor who knows whether it in fact will save or ruin the city. Yet again, however, Socrates hesitates: “here if in fact anywhere” (172a6; recall 171e3 and e7–­8). Socrates seems intent on leaving open the possibility, at least, that Protagoras might well “dare” to assert that even the good things, the advantageous courses, are in flux. Although Socrates has shown himself willing and able to speak at length in Protagoras’ voice, we never hear Protagoras himself comment in these sections on what it is he does or does not “dare” to assert. That Protagoras is daring in just this way is confirmed in a surprising manner at the conclusion of the section now under consideration: “But as for that of which I’m speaking—­in matters just and unjust and pious and im­ pious—­people [literally, they]18 are willing to insist that by nature none of these has any being of its own but that what seems [doxan] so in common becomes true at that time, when it so seems [dox�i] and for so long a time as it so seems [dok�i]” (172b2–­6). Socrates’ exposition follows this order: in matters of politics, there is the relativity of the noble, just, and pious (172a1–­ 5); the knowledge of the nonrelative good or advantageous (172a5–­b2); the

on the theaetetus

185

relativity of the just and pious (172b2–­6). Now, given Protagoras’ own affirmation of the relativity of noble and just (167c4–­5) and pious (172a1–­5), we suppose that Socrates means to include Protagoras in the “they” who deny that there is anything just or pious by nature; such is the portrait we see of him in the course of his long speech. This is not controversial. But what, then, should one make of Socrates’ conclusion that follows im­ mediately: “And all those who do not in every respect state the logos of Protagoras lead wisdom to about this point” (172b6–­7, emphasis added)? To what point precisely, which is not the logos of Protagoras? There is only one possibility: the larger group holding to the motion doctrine (“they”) denies the existence of what is just and pious by nature but affirms the existence of the good or advantageous, whereas Protagoras, while also denying the existence of what is just and pious (and noble) by nature, did in fact and by himself “dare” to deny the fixed and hence knowable character of the good, the central consideration in Socrates’ account.19 As Socrates put it, “Here if in fact anywhere”: could it be that Protagoras did not, in his most serious thought, acknowledge that one advisor is superior to another in knowledge of the truth-­understood-­as-­the-­better or that he went so far as to assert what none of his colleagues “dared” to assert—­that the good, too, finally belongs in the flux and so is finally unknowable? It is evidently over this point that Protagoras’ fellow travelers part company with him.20 Here we may note that the most common “relativism” of antiquity took as a matter of course the relativity of justice and nobility (“morality”), as distinguished from the good, whereas the most common relativism of our time is “absolutist” re­ garding justice (in the form of human rights, for example), while insisting on the relativity of the good (in the form of the equal worth of all ways of life). This is probably not the only example of a most radical possibility in ancient thought having become, for us moderns, an ordinary dogma. The strange possibility that Protagoras went so far as to include the good in the flux raises more questions than it answers. But rather than taking up those questions immediately and explicitly, Socrates suddenly states that “a greater logos, Theodorus, out of a lesser logos, is overtaking us” (172b8–­c1). That “greater logos” proves to be the “digression” previously mentioned, as Socrates calls it, and “constitutes the very middle of the dialogue” (Klein 1977, 107). It unfolds in the shadow of the denial of the existence of anything just or pious by nature and, beyond that, in the shadow of the questionable status of the good or advantageous. The life that Protagoras leads and to that extent advertises or recommends is a natural one, and so it in effect de­­nies that justice and piety are virtues; from the point of view that wis­ dom permits, the just and noble and pious things vanish. But can Protagoras

186

chapter five

consistently maintain that the life he leads is the good or best or most ad­ vantageous one?

Socrates’ “Greater Logos” This “greater logos” proves to be at once strange and beautiful. Its first, longer, and quite strange part is devoted to a comparison of the “manner” or “character” (tropos: 175d7 and context) of the “leaders” among those who spend their time in philosophy, on the one hand—­Socrates mentions Thales by name (174a4)—­and, on the other, the character of those who spend their time in law courts and the like, whom we may provisionally call “lawyers” (172c3–­176a2). A sketch of the philosopher’s attempt to educate a lawyerly type, together with an account of its effect, forms a subsection of this first part (175b9–­d7). Socrates then turns, in the second part of the logos (176a5–­ 177b7), to offer in his own name a beautiful example of a certain song of praise (hymn�sai: 176a1), correctly sung, which is beyond the capacity of the “lawyer”: a song in praise of “the true life of gods and of happy men” (176a1–­2, with the manuscripts) that Socrates twice states is or comprises a statement of “the truth” (176b8 and d5). This also includes, as a subsection, another sketch of the philosophic education of the unphilosophic, together with an account of its effect (177b1–­7). The strangeness of the first section derives in part from the character of the philosophers whom Socrates there describes. These philosophers from their youth “do not know the path to the agora, nor where the courthouse is or council chamber or any other common meeting place of the city. As for laws and decrees, spoken or written, they neither see nor hear them” (173c8–­d4). Not even in their dreams does it occur to them to participate in political clubs, meetings, feasts, or parties. Neither does the philosopher abstain from these things for the sake of his reputation. In truth, his body alone resides in the city, while his mind, holding all of these concerns of the city to be nothing or next to it, flies off to what is below the earth and to what is above it—­for example, in the practice of geometry and astronomy and “investigating in every way [or in every respect] the entire nature of each whole among the things that are [t�n ont�n], accommodating itself to nothing of what is near to hand” (174a1–­2 and context). Socrates even suggests that the philosopher as such is so unaware of his next-­door neigh­ bor that he is ignorant not only of what his neighbor does but even, one could almost say, of whether “he is a human being or some other creature” (174b1–­3). The philosopher is keenly interested in the nature of each whole, of each of the beings, and hence he is interested also in the nature of human

on the theaetetus

187

beings as one among those beings; but he is as indifferent as somebody can be to the imperfect instantiation of that nature in this or that individual. As many scholars have persuasively argued, this portrait of “the phi­ losopher” cannot be a description of Socrates, despite the fact that he earlier included himself among the class of “philosophers” (consider 164c9–­d1).21 Socrates knows full well that his neighbors are human beings, for he is fa­ miliar with even some of the details of their lives—­for example, of the life of Euphronius from Sunium, Theaetetus’ deceased father (144c5–­8). Socrates most certainly knows the way not only to the agora but to the courthouse and other judicial buildings, too (consider 210d1–­4), just as he surely sees and hears—­and obeys—­the laws of Athens. Socrates even knows the techni­ cal name (“affidavit”) for a certain court document (172e4, with the man­ uscripts). The conversation recorded in the Theaetetus would not have occurred were it not for Socrates’ lively interest in getting together with the most promising young people. Out of what must be many differences between Socrates the philosopher and “the philosophers” here described, Plato draws our attention to the following one. Socrates begins the whole digression by noting that if those who “spend much time in philosophies” were to go to the courts, there they would appear to be “laughable orators” (172c3–­6). And this proves to be only the first of four mentions of how laugh­ able or even “ridiculous” philosophers would appear to be to the lawyerly many, so to speak (174c3; 174d1; 175b5); indeed, to the masses, philoso­ phers seem “silly” (abelterias: 174c6) and “frivolous” or “foolish” (l�r�d�s: 174d3). But this amounts to saying that these philosophers are seen to pose so little threat to the community that, when they are noticed at all, they provoke laughter rather than anger—­even though the philosophers them­ selves “laugh” at the thoughtless pretentions and empty vanity of the many (175b3 and context; consider also 174d1–­7). We are to take as exemplary the famous story of the witty Thracian maid who had a laugh at Thales’ ex­ pense after he had fallen into a well as he was practicing astronomy: he was eager to know the things in heaven but was oblivious of the things right in front of him and at his feet. According to Socrates, “This same joke is fitting for all those who spend their time in philosophy” (174a8–­b1). All this must be contrasted with what we learn from the dialogue that is the dramatic sequel to the Theaetetus-­Sophist-­Statesman trilogy, which proves to be not a dialogue titled Philosopher featuring Socrates and young Socrates (Sophist 217a3 and context; Statesman 258a2–­6) but Socrates’ courtroom “conversation” with the people of Athens in the Apology of Soc­­ rates. There we see precisely a philosopher who is compelled to enter the courtroom (as Theaetetus 174c1–­3 anticipates), mount the rostrum for the

188

chapter five

first time in his seventy years, and practice a kind of speaking that he admits is altogether foreign to him (Apology of Socrates 17d1–­3). Unfortunately, Socrates has already earned the reputation of being a “clever speaker” (17a4–­7), but he insists that the only kind of rhetoric he knows is telling the truth (17b4–­6). Accordingly, in making his defense, he will use the same ar­ guments he has been accustomed to making “both in the agora at the tables, where many of you have heard me, and elsewhere” (17c7–­9). Yet, in contrast to what the Theaetetus would lead us to expect, at no point in the Apology does Socrates’ foreign-­but-­truthful manner of speaking prompt his audience to joke or to laugh; on the contrary, several times it provokes or threatens to provoke their tumultuous disapproval (thorubein: 17d1, 20e4, 21a5, 30c2). As is suggested by the guilty verdict that follows Socrates’ defense speech, which presents his whole way of life and “the whole truth,” there is some­ thing about Socrates’ keen interest in precisely his fellow human beings, in his neighbors and what is “near to hand,” that provoked the angry indigna­ tion of his fellow citizens rather than their laughter, for that interest went together with a peculiar way of speaking or questioning that came to be seen as being a little too “clever.” As becomes clear in one of the two state­ ments here of an attempted education in philosophy, a “lawyerly” type who is first drawn or dragged upward toward philosophy (175b9–­10) and thus suspended from on high is likely to become dizzy, perplexed, and tongue-­ tied; he is likely also to furnish a laugh—­to the philosophers, yes, but not “to Thracian maids or to anybody else uneducated,” for the simple reason that “they do not perceive” him (175d2–­7). The philosophers, then—­those who spend their whole lives “aloft”—­are invisible. They are unperceived by and hence unknown to the many, and only on rare occasions—­when they are “compelled” to enter courtrooms (174c1–­4) or happen to be seen falling into wells—­do they even provoke laughter. If there is some exaggeration in this description, of their invisibility or their comic clumsiness, it only serves to highlight that Socrates is different from them: it was Socrates who was compelled or compelled himself to go to the agora and other places and to engage in the conversations there that earned him, in some cases, the re­ spect of his fellow citizens, but also the indignant ire of a number of them sufficient to have him executed. As Socrates notes, the one “whom you [The­ odorus] call a philosopher” (i.e., the pre-­Socratic philosopher) was held to be “naïve” (eu�thei)—­a fact that certainly did not arouse the philosopher’s indignation. By the end of his life, at least, Socrates seemed to some to be very far from “naïve,” and he himself was the cause of much indignation. In accord with all of this, I suggest that the digression involves not only the division between “the philosophers” and the “lawyers” but also a division

on the theaetetus

189

within “the philosophers”: one must keep in mind the difference between Socrates the philosopher and his predecessors, “the Pre-­Socratics,” Protago­ ras among them. What, then, do we learn of “the philosophers”? The only two stated sub­­ ject matters of concern to them, geometry and astronomy (173e6 and 174a4), cannot be exhaustive of their studies, for Theodorus too is an expert in these (145c7–­d3); and although Socrates includes him in “our chorus” (173b4–­5) and therefore in the theoretical camp, as it might be called, Theodorus con­ fesses or insists that he rather early on abandoned the “bare logoi” character­ istic of philosophy, as he encountered it, in favor of geometry (165a2). More promising is the contention that philosophers are concerned in every way or respect with the entire nature of each whole among the things that are, the beings (174a1). Each whole—­each class or kind—­evidently has a nature, a fixed way or character determining and hence limiting what it can do and what it can suffer or undergo. To see the “entire nature” of a thing, one must at a minimum strip from it the influence on it, or rather on us, of mere con­ vention—­“laws and decrees, spoken or written”—­and, for example, distin­ guish the natural from the workings of “chance,” if that distinction can fi­nally be maintained (175b2). The philosopher’s indifference to the doings of his neighbor is perfectly compatible with his intense interest in the fol­ lowing questions: “[W]hat in the world [ pote] is a human being, and what is appropriate for such a nature to do or to suffer that differentiates it from the rest?” (174b3–­5). Given that the philosopher is concerned with the things beneath the earth and in the heavens (173e3–­174a2)—­that is, with the work­ ings of the alleged underworld or afterlife and with the locus of the allegedly divine beings, the stars and planets, sun and moon—­he would be interested in such questions as whether nature allows the transmigration or reanima­ tion of the human soul after it dies. Socrates has the power in speech to res­ urrect Protagoras, to bring him back from the dead. Does “nature” permit such a thing in deed? The philosopher also takes up what seems to be the concern of the unphilosophic: justice. It is in part because of the centrality of the concern for justice among ordinary citizens that Socrates presents them (the “unedu­ cated”: 175d5) as spending their time in law courts and the like. But a philo­ sophic account of justice can occur only after one has been drawn or dragged up and hence away from such questions as the injustice, for example, that I am committing against you or you against me—­that is, away from petty squabbles over mine and thine. The philosopher is accustomed to looking at the whole earth and not the paltry portion of it that the wealthy boast of owning (174e2–­5). The philosopher’s inquiry into justice thus begins from a

190

chapter five

concern radically different from that of the ordinary citizen. The philosopher inquires into “justice itself and injustice, both what each of the two is and what differentiates them from all else or from one another” (175c1–­3). This seems to be an inquiry separate from the one into “the entire nature of each whole among the things that are,” for it is not clear that “justice itself” is a being, a true whole unto itself (recall 172b3–­5), or that it has a “nature,” a fixed character that is due to nature. As Protagoras’ long speech would have it, at any rate, justice itself “is” only in the element of authoritative opin­ ion or law, spoken or written. The specific dictates of justice in this or that community, then, are of little interest to these philosophers. To begin one’s examination of the world by means of the distinction between nature and convention robs justice in particular of the seriousness, the gravity, it claims for itself and otherwise enjoys. This is further confirmation of the chasm between the concerns of the citizen and those of the philosopher so under­ stood. Here we note that “What is justice itself?” is the first example of the questions the philosopher will present to one who is newly drawn aloft or to one who is still “dizzy”: it is a preliminary or merely introductory question. The next such question is “about kingship and human happiness in general and misery,” as distinguished from the unphilosophic question of whether a king, because he possesses much gold, is happy (175c4–­6).22 King­ ship had been mentioned once before in Socrates’ presentation of the phi­ losopher. When the philosopher hears “a tyrant or a king” being praised, he can think only of some swineherd or shepherd or cowherd being praised for herding and milking them (174d3–­e2). This suggests that the philosopher sees no real difference between a king and a tyrant; he is certainly silent about any alleged difference between them in point of justice. The king may emphasize the herding, the tyrant the milking; but both, locked up in a pen with their herds, come to lead lives as crude and uneducated as those of the herded. As for “human happiness,” the expression need not imply that there is either sub-­or suprahuman happiness, for if the philosopher regards his own life as the peak of human happiness, that life is, of course, not available to animals—­it is not available even to the vast majority of human beings, whom the philosopher here compares to animals. More important, there cannot be suprahuman happiness because there is no suprahuman being capable of it.23 The only beings “aloft” are the objects of the science of astronomy, on the one hand, and the human mind or understanding (dia­ noia: 173e3) that measures them, on the other. If per impossibile that mind could be seen from below as what it is, it would indeed appear suprahuman or divine. But because it can be seen only from below and hence at a dis­ torting distance, it necessarily appears smaller than it is. In truth, it is or

on the theaetetus

191

belongs to the only fully human life. As for the philosopher’s treatment of the question of human happiness and misery, he asks not just what the two are but of “what sort” they are (compare 175c5–­6 with c2–­3). This question may go together with the introduction here, in contrast to the treatment of justice, of “nature”: “both of what sort the two are and in what manner it is appropriate for the nature of a human being to possess the one and to flee the other” (175c6–­8; see also the mention of the “nature” of a human being at 174b3–­5). Because the question focuses on the “manner” of our possess­ ing happiness, it seems to presuppose that we necessarily or by nature seek our own happiness—­that is, our own truest good. It seems, too, that the philosopher ascends from the question of what “justice itself” is to that of human happiness—­that is, he treats them separately. At any rate, he is as silent about justice in his treatment of happiness as he is in his treatment of kingship-­tyranny. This suggests that, according to the philosopher, it is possible to conceive of happiness in the absence of the thought that happi­ ness is the greatest good for a human being that, as such, can be attained only because one has come to deserve it; the separation of the treatments of justice and happiness presupposes that human happiness remains intel­ ligible as something other than the concern of the just. We turn now to take up the second part of the “greater logos,” that of Socrates’ beautiful song or hymn in praise of “the true life of gods and happy men.” Socrates contends that the “lawyers” do not know how to attain the “harmony” of speeches needed in order to praise. But could the philosophers, as we have seen them to this point, sing such a song? There is no evidence that they wish to do so, at any rate; in the only other appearance of the term in the digression (hymnount�n: 174e5), the philosophers mock the song sung by the many in praise of their ancestry (174e5–­175b4). As for Protagoras, his official position is that he is ignorant of the gods and so must maintain si­ lence about them. Like the philosophers, then, Socrates is concerned with human happiness; unlike them, he knows and sings a song in praise of gods. In this section of the logos, it seems to me, Socrates presents something of himself, at least in deed—­that is, we see before our eyes here the ques­ tions and concerns that he must have reflected deeply on, such that he can speak so powerfully of them. And the muted drama of this section confirms the power of Socrates’ reflections or their subject matter, for in response to remarks that constitute the transition to this section, Theodorus admits that if Socrates could convince everyone of what he is saying, there would be “greater peace and fewer evils [kaka] among human beings” (176a3–­4); and immediately upon its conclusion, Theodorus again comments, “To me, Socrates, such sorts of things [as you have been saying] are less unpleasant

192

chapter five

to hear [than is the logos of Protagoras], for they are easier for someone at my age to follow” (177c3–­4). The relative frequency with which Theodorus offers spontaneous comments or questions in the digression generally, and in its latter section too, is noteworthy (172c2 and d3; 174a3; 175b8; 176a3–­4 and e2; 177a9 and c3–­5), for he had preferred up to this point to watch rather than himself to participate and so to “strip” (162b1–­7). The moral and even theological concerns of Theodorus are most in evidence here, to the reader if not to Theodorus himself. Theodorus is moved, then, by something in the question or concern to which Socrates now turns. And there proves to be a good reason why The­ odorus at his (advanced) age would feel less displeasure, and probably more pleasure, in hearing Socrates, as distinguished from Protagoras, continue to speak as he does here, for Socrates will offer an account not just of human nature but of “the mortal nature” (176a7). In this account, he insists that, of “necessity” (176a6 and a8), we cannot eradicate the evils in this world. Our very concern for the good may then lead us to see that its contrary must exist: health without illness would be unintelligible. And so the great good that life itself is must be accompanied by its contrary for us mortals. This argument could well prompt one to despair, perhaps even to be more displeased by it than by the logos of Protagoras, were it not for the fact that there turns out to be a life livable here and now that constitutes a “flight” or “escape” to the only place where it is impossible for any evil to dwell: among gods.24 Thus we may and indeed must “try to flee from here to there as quickly as possible,” and such flight is “assimilation to god, to the ex­ tent possible.” To suffer least of all from the evils that necessarily plague this world, then, one must assimilate oneself to (a) god, and such assimi­ lation consists in becoming “just and pious, together with understanding [ phron�se�s]” (176a5–­b3). Becoming just and pious, or becoming prudent (phronimos) and hence just and pious, thus promises the greatest possible release from or protection against the evils of this world; the superinten­ dence offered by motion, even by the motion of the sun, seems paltry by comparison (recall 153a5–­d7). Might the practice of virtue so understood conquer the evil that is death itself? Socrates proceeds to criticize harshly the motives “the many” have for pursuing virtue and fleeing vice—­namely, the wish to “seem” or “to be held be” good rather than bad (176b3 and following; consider also eudokimein at 173e2). In other words, the many pursue virtue for the benefits that can be supplied by the reputation for it. In itself, they regard it as a burden. Socrates himself states “the truth” (176b8) as follows: a god is not at all unjust in any respect but is as just as can be, and there is nothing more like a god than

on the theaetetus

193

he among us who, in his turn, becomes as just as possible. Socrates thus drops piety, presumably because the practice of justice is godlike or because justice implies piety. In fact, all the virtues—­at any rate, piety, courage or manliness, true cleverness, and wisdom—­seem now linked to justice in that they flow from it. “[T]he recognition of this”—­that possession of the greatest possible justice renders one most akin to god—­is itself “wisdom and genuine virtue, the ignorance of it lack of learning and manifest vice” (176c3–­5). Still, there is an ambiguity in Socrates’ case for justice, for he says first and at greater length that assimilation to (one could say “imitation of”) a god is the flight or escape “from here to there,” and this means that the su­­ premely just human being still lives here on earth, every bit as much as the “lofty” philosophers still live here on earth. If there is something suprahu­ man about both philosophers and the just man as Socrates presents them, neither actually dwells above or aloft or among gods. Accordingly, Socrates also presents the inescapable “penalty for injustice,” of which the many are ignorant, as being misery in this life (176d7): we should reflect on the exam­ ples “of the divine, which is happiest, and of the godless, which is most mis­ erable,” and by imitating the latter, the unjust will pay the penalty for their unjust deeds “by living the life that resembles that to which they make themselves similar.” In the choice between justice and injustice lies the choice also between the “happiest” life or the “most miserable” one that is possible for us in this world. Yet Socrates adds now a second and different case against injustice or, as this implies, for justice: “But if we say that if [the unjust] do not rid them­ selves of their ‘cleverness’ and that, when they meet their end, that place which is purified of evils will not accept them, but that it is rather here [on earth] that they will forever [aei ] hold the likeness of the life they themselves led, they who are evil associating with evils—­these things they will hear as [the words of ] certain thoughtless people, because they are indeed terribly clever in every way and will stop at nothing [ panourgoi]” (177a3–­8). In other words, Socrates here posits an immortal soul that is penalized, not in this life, but in the next, and “forever,” because it is barred entrance to the only place that is free of all evils. (Is it then condemned to “live” here on earth forever?) To be just, then, is in due course to live forever in a realm differ­ ent from this one because it is marked by the presence of good things only. Yet this argument takes a step in the direction of those “many” who assert that one should indeed pursue virtue, but only for the sake of the benefits it bestows. Socrates’ second argument or hypothesis (“if we say”), then, makes of justice or virtue a means, albeit a means to a most august end. And if, as

194

chapter five

Socrates goes on to say, the “terribly clever” (deinoi) would dismiss such an argument on the grounds that only thoughtless or unintelligent people would make it (177a7–­8), it remains that “the many” might well welcome it. Here we note in passing that, if the philosophers may reasonably enough be said to have a certain inclination “from youth” (173c8), it seems very strange to speak of those who frequent law courts and the like as doing so “from youth” (173a4) or as “adolescents” (173b2). As it seems to me, the account of the “lawyerly types” cannot be taken literally; it is evidently not or not just “lawyers” in any strict sense whom Socrates here describes but rather all those who live in a political community and who take with utmost seriousness its concerns. As already suggested, the unphilosophic as such take justice most seriously, especially justice understood as the law (173d2), and in this sense, all (pre-­or unphilosophic) citizens live in the world consti­ tuted by the law—­in a sort of courtroom, then, “from youth.” Here Socrates goes so far, if not in his own name then in that of “the philosophers,” as to portray these unphilosophic citizens as “slaves” quarreling among them­ selves before a “seated slave master” (172e5 and context). And for the same reason that the “lawyerly” types are not really lawyers but ordinary human beings of all ages, so the judge in question must be no ordinary judge. Could Socrates be sketching here the pre-­Socratic view of those who take justice and the law seriously above all because they fear incurring the wrath of a judge who wields power over their very “soul” (or “life”: 172e7) in every­ thing and always: a god? This accords with Socrates’ portrait here of “the many” who pursue justice only for the goods that flow from the reputation for it. To be governed in everything by the fear of divine punishment (and the hope of external reward) is a kind of “slavery”; such slaves learn early on to “flatter their master in speech and curry favor in deed” (173a2). “The slavery from youth takes away growth and what is straight and what is free, compel­ ling them to do crooked things, casting on their still tender souls great dan­ gers and fears” (173a4–­60) that include not least, we assume, the fear of an unending punishment in Hades. Socrates’ own account of the punishment of the unjust does not go so far; that punishment consists in being barred from pure goods, as we have seen, or in being compelled to enjoy the mix of goods and evils characteristic of this world. If, then, the “clever” reject out of hand Socrates’ second argument in favor of justice or against injustice, what of his first argument meant to persuade them? These “clever” include in their midst someone who “commits injus­ tice and says or does impious things” and who, far from being ashamed of the fact, even exults in the reproach that he is unjust. As the drift of Socrates’ criticisms suggests, the “clever” man acts as he does because he believes that

on the theaetetus

195

he thus will secure happiness for himself. Socrates does not condemn him for this. What is more, Socrates admits in passing that “sometimes those who commit no injustice at all” nonetheless suffer the penalties usually associated with injustice, such as “beatings and death sentences.” In other words, the “clever,” while lacking “true cleverness,” are not simply fools (l�roi: 176d4; compare l�r�d�s at 174d3), for they also see, with Socrates, that the innocent sometimes suffer terribly or that the just do not always prosper. It is for this reason, then, that the “clever” pursue injustice and impiety as they do: they see around them the hopes of the just too often disappointed or destroyed. In acting as they do, then, the “clever” believe they are only being “real men [andres], such as those who will save themselves in a city must be” (176d1–­5). Here Socrates adds, “So the truth must be said: that they are all the more of the sort they suppose they are not, because they do not suppose it” (176d5–­ 6)—­that is, in supposing that they reject justice and piety to avoid the mun­ dane fate of the just, the “clever” secure for themselves the very thing they are seeking to avoid: the most wretched possible life here and now. Supposing themselves to be “real men” and not “fools,” they act foolishly in fact. The question of the best way of life would now seem to come down to the facts. Socrates emphatically asserts, and the “clever” emphatically deny, that the just life is the happiest possible one here and now, in this world as we find it. When speaking to the “clever,” one cannot, of course, rely on the second of Socrates’ arguments, which they reject and which, if accepted, would make the first argument irrelevant or superfluous: whatever the fate of the just here and now, only they will in time gain entrance to that other place purified of all evils. Yet, we now learn, a change of understanding or orientation is possible precisely in the case of (some of) the “clever,” for when, in private, they must “give and receive a logos” about the things they reproach or blame—­justice and piety—­and if they are willing “manfully to stay put for a considerable time and not flee in an unmanly way, then . . . in a strange way they themselves end up being dissatisfied with themselves concerning the things they say, and that rhetoric [of theirs] withers away such that they are no different from [no better than] children” (177b1–­7). As it seems to me, this reference to the giving and receiving of an account in private is as close as Socrates comes in the digression to speaking of his own characteristic activity, to “dialectics.” The “clever,” we have seen, lack self­knowledge (176d5–­6). They feel compelled to live as they do, to become “real men” in the city rather than patsies, because they see only too well the fate of justice in the world. To repeat, Socrates himself had acknowledged that “sometimes” the innocent receive only “blows and death sentences.” But one can be moved by this fate only if one shares the hopes for and

196

chapter five

especially from justice; there is no reason to think that the philosopher aloft is so moved.25 What, then, is that hope? It is that just action is the thing, the only thing, one needs in order to live as “the mortal nature” so deeply wishes to live, free of all evils and hence forever; it is the thing needed to sustain the hope for happiness. Even or precisely the “clever,” then, prove to harbor some disappointment or dissatisfaction with their own position; the abandonment not so much of the hope altogether as of its realization leaves its traces in the “clever”—­as Plato demonstrates before our eyes in the case of Thrasymachus (in the Republic), for example, or Callicles (in the Gorgias). And it is this hope from justice that Socrates’ song so powerfully portrays and attempts in its way to support. The song as a whole indicates that there are two very different responses to the problem of justice, each of which Socrates seems to affirm: to strive to imitate here and now a godlike justice that is, as such, accompanied by understanding or prudence (176b3–­177a3), or to practice justice here and now so as to attain later on a truly divine happiness in another, very differ­ ent realm, after one has met one’s end (177a3–­8). But if to be led to choose the former amounts to rejecting the latter, then that choice means that one lives here and now with the very real goods available to us, certainly, but also with the all-­too-­real evils that necessarily shadow them; it would be to live here and now having accepted that necessity in full awareness of its consequences. Perhaps one could say that precisely if justice in particular is the mundane good, then it is as such accompanied by something bad (recall 176a5–­8). No wonder, then, that the “clever,” who understand themselves to be “real men” because they think they have seen what’s what in the city, are repeatedly addressed by Socrates in terms of the “manliness” or courage required for them to see the world and themselves as it and they are (176c4, 177b3 and b4), to say nothing of accepting these. Manliness is required, in other words, so that one not attempt to “flee” this world as it is (compare pheugein and phug� at 176b1 with phugein at 177b4; the “manliness” in question is surely akin to the “steadiness” discerned in the Protagoras). In two different ways, then, Socrates defends justice and piety. That de­ fense is the “greater logos” he had anticipated. It arose, we remember, in the wake of the Protagorean denial of there being anything just and pious by na­ ture (172b4 and context). Yet Socrates’ own logos or song, for all its power, does not demonstrate that there is anything just or pious by nature; it does not demonstrate in particular the goodness of justice (or the badness of in­ justice) by nature. It instead asserts that a god, either as a model to follow in this world or as a guarantor of unalloyed goods in the next, is the deepest ground of the goodness of justice (176a6–­7, b8, e3–­4). Nonetheless, Socrates’

on the theaetetus

197

account of justice here presents in deed or before our eyes the clearest dif­ ference between him and “the philosophers”: only Socrates had incentive enough to inquire into justice and piety from within, so to speak, beginning not from the overarching philosophic distinction between convention and nature but from the guiding opinions (including, of course, the hopes) of the just themselves. Still, Socrates does indicate here, if not the just by na­ ture, then the nature of justice (consider, e.g., Laws 862d7–­8); he indicates the natural hold that justice has on human beings. That hold is traceable in part to our natural concern to possess for ourselves the genuinely good things, which justice above all seems either to be or to promise, and to pos­ sess those goods always: we seek thereby to overcome our “mortal nature.” Reflection on justice, or justice in its relation to piety, points in the direc­ tion of the good that all human beings as such seek. To that extent, it points also in the direction of a stable human concern. And the change in the self-­ understanding of the so-­called clever amounts to something approaching a “demonstration” of the correctness of Socrates’ understanding of their opin­ ions in the only laboratory available to him: the human soul as it reveals it­ self in speech. In this connection, we note that, according to Socrates, the rep­ resentative of “the philosophers” also lacks self-­knowledge: “[a]nd all these things”—­the moral-­political concerns of ordinary citizens—­“he does not even know that he does not know” (173e1). Immediately after the conclusion of the “digression,” Socrates returns to all those who speak of (the) being that is borne along or is in motion and who maintain that whatever on each occasion seems to or is opined by each also is for each, above all “concerning the just things” (177c9): “[W]hat­ever things a city sets down as seeming [just] for itself, these things are in fact just for the city that sets them down, for so long as they’ve been set down” (177d1–­2). What pertains to “the just things,” however, is once again to be sharply distinguished from the case of “the good things”: “[N]obody would still be so courageous as to dare to contend that even what­ ever things a city sets down for itself because it supposes them to be advan­ tageous, are in fact advantageous for it for so long as they’ve been set down” (177d2–­5, emphasis added). In this way, the “digression” is framed by state­ ments of the “daring” needed to include even the good in the flux (172a5–­b2 and 177d2–­6). Of course, on both occasions, Socrates seems to suggest that Protagoras did not dare to go so far. But then again, we recall that Socrates had first put not just the noble but also the good in the flux in describing the consequences of the Protagorean position (157d8). Subsequently, he dis­ tinguishes those who do not in every respect state the Protagorean logos, which in the context means that that logos includes the good in the flux;

198

chapter five

and now he speaks only of the general class of (moral) relativists and not yet of Protagoras in particular (compare 178b2–­3, where Protagoras first returns after the digression, in the company of those who “say the same things as he does”). Socrates wishes us to see that Protagoras not only was tempted to include the good or advantageous in the flux but also succumbed to that temptation.26 But what might have prompted him, and evidently him alone, even to consider that “daring” step? I suggest that there was indeed a grave problem that compelled Protagoras to “dare” to consider the relativity of the good, and that that problem was confronted or solved by Socrates in a manner pointed to in his “greater” account of justice in its relation to piety. The next section of the Theaetetus, the last one concerned with Protagoras, makes as plain as it is reasonable to expect what that grave problem was, in part by confirming earlier indications of it.

Farewell to Protagoras: The First Argument and Its Aftermath (177b7–­181b7) Protagoras will be formally dismissed from the conversation at 183b7–­c7. That dismissal is preceded and evidently prepared by two arguments against him that are separated by a discussion of the fundamental division within all of philosophy, a discussion that indicates the importance of the pres­ ent section: philosophy was divided between the motion camp, on the one hand, represented not least by Heraclitus, and the camp of Parmenides and Melissus, on the other, who contend that “the all is one, standing still” (183e3–­4; recall also 152e2 and context).27 The first argument following the digression (177e4–­179e1) pertains to knowledge of the good, which is (Soc­ rates contends) bound up with what will come to pass or with the predic­ tion of the future. And the possession of such knowledge of the future good is now said to be the criterion by which to distinguish one who is properly a measure in the relevant respect from one who, lacking such knowledge, is not. Hence Protagoras was wrong to say that “every man” is the measure. Yet this argument seems to accomplish nothing, impressed by it though Theo­ dorus is, for Socrates concludes this first argument by insisting that Pro­ tagoras’ account may well be sound nonetheless—­and even that it must be examined again “from the beginning” (179c1–­e1)! The second argument (181b8–­183b6) turns to consider motion or, more precisely, the forms of motion. Theodorus also finds this argument persuasive, at least in that it proves to make Theaetetus’ second definition of knowledge, as perception, impossible to maintain. Socrates permits this second argument to stand and, since he had from early on equated Theaetetus’ definition of knowledge

on the theaetetus

199

with Protagoras’ logos, the sophist himself is in this way evidently defeated. With that, Protagoras is dismissed from the conversation recorded in the Theaetetus. It is necessary to consider in somewhat more detail the first of Socrates’ arguments. As noted, Socrates now takes up the importance of the good or advantageous and, in particular, the importance of the futurity of the good; the eidos of the advantageous is the future, what will be (178a5–­7): “For whenever we legislate, we set down laws on the grounds that they will be advantageous at a later time. And this we would correctly say is the ‘will be’” (mellon: 178a7–­9). This new consideration (but anticipated as recently as 172b2: sunoisein) both underscores the need for expertise and sets a high bar for it: the judgment of what will make for better and worse laws is so difficult because it requires, among other things, the knowledge of, or rather the ability accurately to predict, the future. Socrates gives five examples of the predictive capacities of experts in addition to that of the legislator: (1) of a doctor, a fever; (2) of a farmer, the sweetness or dryness of a future vintage of wine; (3) of a musician, the harmony or disharmony to be produced; (4) of a gourmet chef, the pleasure a given feast will afford; and (5) of Protagoras himself, the persuasion to be produced by his speeches in a court of law (178b9–­e6). The ability of the first four experts to predict the future, under­ stood as future pain and pleasure, evidently derives from their knowledge of nature—­the nature of the whole human body and its parts (tongue and ears) and of such natural things as grapes, musical tones, and various ingredients. As for Protagoras’ courtroom expertise, which prompted him to insist that he was superior to all others (178e7–­8), it too could be traced to knowledge of nature—­of the human soul and its ability to be moved, to be pained or pleased, by speeches. Inasmuch as pleasure and pain are central here, the arguments seem to be aimed at Protagoras the hedonist. Still, it is difficult to know what to make of these examples. In the central case, the judgment of the musical expert is said to be vindicated in the event by the nonexpert (178d4–­6), as is implied also in the case of the doctor and the patient: once the fever hits, the patient will not be of the view that he is both feverish and not feverish (178c7). This goes some way toward establishing a com­ mon world characterized by knowable goods agreed to be such. But we have already heard of wine that can be perceived by someone as now sweet, now bitter (159c11–­d5), and it is easy to imagine an elaborate gourmet meal being displeasing to either a simple or an undiscerning palate. If “nature” may be said to supply the ground of the knowledge of future goods, it hardly does away with all uncertainty, whether that uncertainty derives from the vari­ ety of possible future perceptions or, as in the case of laws not least, from

200

chapter five

the indeterminacy of human things or conditions subject to the vagaries of chance. From all this, Socrates concludes that “everybody” would agree that a city necessarily often fails to hit on what is most advantageous for it, so difficult is it to predict future advantage in the absence of the requisite knowledge (and even with it). As a result, they were right to contend that Protagoras had to agree both that one person is wiser than another and that not everyone, but only the knower, is a measure. Here a partial review is in order, given the importance of what is at issue. In his long speech, Protagoras himself had insisted on the existence of wisdom and the wise man (166d5 and context)—­Socrates’ intervening experiment in having Protagoras hold the more radical version of relativism has officially been dropped—­and so the stress here must be on the second proposition concerning the measure. Protagoras had indeed denied that only those who are prudent are the mea­ sure (compare 178b1–­5 with 167d3). He had denied it, we recall, because he insisted that each is the measure of the perceptions that appear to him—­all such perceptions are necessarily true for each to whom they appear—­while he insisted also that wisdom consists in the ability to change, by means of speeches, those perceptions so as to make the good or useful things, as dis­ tinguished from the poor or paltry ones, appear and be. Wisdom there was connected not to the discernment of the truth but to the ability to foster new, better perceptions or opinions and—­we can now add—­to the ability to predict their coming into being in the future. Protagoras’ case for wisdom, then, rested on the intelligibility of the (future) good or advantage. Yet we have been led in the interim to wonder, at a minimum, whether Protagoras really did maintain the stability and intelligibility of the good or whether he did not place it too in the flux. What is more, despite Theodorus’ agree­ ment here (179b6–­9), Socrates immediately calls into doubt his own argu­ ment against Protagoras—­that is, he immediately raises the possibility that, when it comes to what each is at present experiencing or suffering, things from which perceptions arise as well as the opinions that accord with those perceptions are indeed true. What remains controversial, then, is Protago­ ras’ claim to wisdom, to special or superior knowledge: because Socrates here defers to Protagoras’ view of the necessary truth of each perception for him who has it—­perception thus remains knowledge in that sense—­ Protagoras can be wise only if he has special access to knowledge of the fu­ ture (good). But are there not others who make a most noteworthy claim to knowledge, not just of this or that future advantage, but of the future more broadly—­others who would, as such, be Protagoras’ greatest competitors? The whole stress on the future here, which comes at the price of ignoring

on the theaetetus

201

the obvious possibility of present goods, is once again meant to point to these competitors. Here we must pay attention to Socrates’ remark, prompted by The­ odorus’ statement that Protagoras regarded himself as superior to everyone in his ability to produce persuasion in law courts (178e7–­8). Socrates then makes what might appear to be an offhand comment but whose importance is signaled by the rare occurrence in the Theaetetus of a Socratic oath (com­ pare 152c8 [the Graces]; 154d3 [Hera]; 209b2 [Zeus]): “Yes by Zeus, good fel­ low! Or nobody would have conversed with him [Protagoras], paying a lot of money to do so, unless he had persuaded his associates that neither a prophet [mantis] nor anybody else would judge better than he himself would about what will be and seem to be in the future” (178e9–­179a3; consider also Charmides 173c3–­4). Protagoras thus exercises persuasion both in and out of the courtroom: he is able to persuade others that his own judgment is superior to that of a “prophet,” to one of those who are “regarded as inter­ preters from gods to human beings” (Statesman 290c3–­6). What is more, it is not only Protagoras’ business prospects that depend on persuading others of the inadequacy of the prophet’s claims to expertise as distinguished from his own. The very possibility of a life lived in accord with autonomous hu­ man reason or knowledge, a radically “self-­ordering” or “self-­commanding” life (Statesman 260d11–­261a1), depends on it. Any adequate answer to the question “What is knowledge?” must include an account of the obstacles to knowledge or of the things that must be available to us for there to be knowledge properly speaking. And for so long as a complete account of the world’s origins remains beyond our grasp (a complete account of how the world came into being and why or through what it persists as it is), it would seem to be impossible to know whether such order as we observe in the world is due to immutable nature or to mutable will—­that is, to a divine will or mind or wish. Yet knowledge or science is possible only if “nature” can be known to exist and not merely be posited or hypothesized as a beau­ tiful or useful “myth”; knowledge or science is possible only if the law of necessity that brooks no interruption can be known to have been set down, so to speak, always and for all time and, one can add, such that the objects of science are themselves eternal (consider Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics 1139b18–­24). In the absence of such knowledge, the so-­called knower may well mistake the way things are now, for the time being, with the way they must be; the would-­be knower may well mistake the fleeting effects of the divine will for the permanent order of nature that, as he wishes to believe, limits what can come into being and what the beings thus generated can suf­ fer or do. It is an exercise in question-­begging to suppose, in particular, that

202

chapter five

there cannot be miraculous interruptions of the visible order because that order is due to nature, for this amounts to saying that there is nature because there is nature. All edifices, moreover, built on so faulty a foundation, how­ ever impressive they may be in other respects, are liable to destruction at the first good shock, whether that shock comes from within philosophy or from without, from a thorough skeptic or an insistent “prophet.” Accordingly, knowledge or science is possible only if (among other things) the knower can somehow be certain enough for life that the claims to special knowledge of those who in effect or in fact deny natural necessity or causation are false. The staggering challenge this poses to philosophy or science is largely re­ sponsible for the seriousness with which Socrates treats Protagoras in the Theaetetus, including Socrates’ repeated insistence that Protagoras may well have a response to the criticisms leveled against him. To return, then, to Protagoras, the portrait of him in the Theaetetus (as distinguished from that in the Protagoras) suggests that he came to be aware of this difficulty, posed by the prophets or seers, of claiming special knowl­ edge of the good and hence of the future, for however persuasive a speaker in the courtroom he may have been, Protagoras surely knew that his, or any human being’s, ability to predict the future is strictly limited. The very certainty of sense perception, the knowledge it conveys, is too limited to ground a knowledge that might claim to be such wisdom, for (as has become clear in Socrates’ attempts to account for the cause of our perceptions) what gives rise to those perceptions remains dark to us. This means, in turn, that the way we experience the world today could, for all we know, be radically different tomorrow: something is behind the world of sense perception, but since we cannot know just what it is, we cannot know whether it will cause altogether novel perceptions tomorrow. To his credit, Protagoras responded to the challenge of prophetic knowledge or foreknowledge in his manner: by having recourse to a most radical relativism that came to include the good in the unknowable flux. He granted, that is, that he could not know what the prophets claim to know. But what contribution to his cause does this inclusion, this radical relativism, make? As Protagoras himself insisted in his long speech (166d5–­8), the possibility of wisdom depends on knowl­ edge of the good. In calling into question the availability of that knowledge, he in effect calls into question the availability of wisdom. Being without a refutation of the competing claim to knowledge of the world raised in be­ half of the divine—­and yet being altogether unwilling, perhaps as a matter of taste or natural inclination, to accede to that claim—­Protagoras became more open than he otherwise would have been to a position that in effect destroys “the world.” Protagoras knows that he cannot prove the prophet

on the theaetetus

203

or soothsayer wrong—­Socrates, after all, claims only that Protagoras must have “persuaded” his associates of the superiority of his judgment as dis­ tinguished from the prophet’s: he did not “demonstrate” that proposition to them. And he may not have even “persuaded” himself of it: “About gods, I am not able to know that they are or that they are not, for the impediments to knowing [this] are many, both the obscurity involved and the brevity of the life of a human being” (Diogenes Laertius 9.51). Protagoras instead retreats into an extreme relativism that at a minimum protects his own view of the world from attack: I know only that you cannot know that I am wrong. In other words, your conviction that you are a god (the example be­ longs to Theaetetus [158b2–­3]), or your perception of the sound of the god’s voice or the apparition of him (e.g., Laws 738c1–­3), may be true for you, but there is no necessity that I accept it as true for me, for I have no access to it. The world as I perceive it, as it is and has thus far been given to me through sense perception, does not include centaurs or satyrs or punishing gods. The extreme version of Protagoras’ relativism, then, cannot be said to defend philosophy, even if it rejects the dictum that god is the measure. Quite to the contrary, it comes at the price of philosophy traditionally un­ derstood. Rather, it fends off pious belief or keeps it at arm’s length and so leaves a certain version of sophistry intact: Protagoras need not believe in Zeus as “objectively” true. And if we, too, come to perceive the world as the sophist does, as he might persuade us to do by means of “speeches,” then we need not believe in Zeus or the like either (167c7–­d1). The positing of the all-­pervasive character of motion, in conjunction with the Protagorean measure, while disorienting and indeed destructive of the common world as otherwise given through sense perception, has one massive advantage and hence one great attraction: it offers a certain reassurance that is different from, certainly, but in its way akin to the pleasing effects of all-­pervasive motion as attributed by Socrates to Homer. Whereas according to (Socrates’) Homer, motion preserves the world of gods and men (153d2–­3), according to Protagoras, motion dissolves it, the better to keep gods at bay. Once we see this theological challenge to knowledge or science, a chal­ lenge that animates the Theaetetus, and Protagoras’ response to it, earlier sections of the dialogue reveal themselves as making a contribution to, or as culminating in, the present section. For example, Socrates tries early on to raise this same difficulty by wondering whether gods, too, are a measure—­ but Theaetetus, with his taste for mathematics and being young and healthy then, proved indifferent to the question (162c2–­7). Socrates persists, however, and the annoyance of Protagoras himself becomes clear, as we saw: “[Y]ou engage in harangues for the demos while seated together, bringing gods into

204

chapter five

your midst, gods whom I, when it comes to both speaking and writing about them, as to whether they are or they are not, I leave out” (162d5–­e2). But Pro­ tagoras immediately drops the superhuman facet of the question and instead chastises Socrates for speaking of the subhuman, of the perception of mere animals. In this way, we are reminded of Socrates’s earlier mention of pigs and baboons and “some other, still stranger thing of those possessing percep­ tion” (161c5–­6); the still stranger beings Socrates had in mind were indeed gods. So too, perhaps, we can understand Socrates’s suggestion that Protago­ ras’ wisdom seemed like that of a god (161c8): the sophist would have us believe that the one has as much (or as little) right to that title as the other.

Farewell to Protagoras: The Second Argument (181b8–­183c7) We may now consider the second and ostensibly more effective of the two arguments against Protagoras. Here Socrates begins to fulfill his recent call to examine Protagoras “from the beginning” (arch�s): “Now it seems to me that the beginning [arch�] of the examination concerns motion, what sort of a thing they mean when they contend that all things are in motion” (181c1–­2 and 179d9–­e1). Thus turning from perception and knowledge to motion (or change), Socrates immediately identifies two “forms” (eid�) of it: first, motion understood as either change from place to place (locomo­ tion) or rotation in the same place, and second, alteration of any kind, as when something, without otherwise moving, becomes old or black or hard, for example. Socrates’ much earlier identification of the two “forms” (eid�) of motion (156a3–­157c2)—­active and passive, as they might be called—­had been part of an attempt to explain the cause of the perceptions we have or to venture “behind” the world as it is given to us in sense perception; Socrates had there called this account a “myth” (156c4): it was hypotheti­ cal. The two “forms” of motion now at issue are quite different, for these motions, far from explaining why it is that we perceive what we perceive, are a catalogue of the motions we do perceive—­that is, they belong to an at­­ tempt to classify (parts of) the world as it is given to us. Accordingly, Soc­­ rates confirms that the two forms of motion under discussion are indeed different from those spoken of “in what came before” (182b3; also elegomen at 182a4), and he urges them to say good-­bye to those earlier forms. Hence the “genesis” or coming-­into-­being of warm or whiteness and the like is no longer under discussion (182a3–­4 and c1–­2). Socrates elicits from Theodorus the agreement that those in the motion camp would have to say, precisely if “all things” are in motion, that all

on the theaetetus

205

things are in motion in both ways—­and, one can add, “always” (182a1). To deny this would be to contend that a given thing is both in motion and (in some respect or other) also at rest (181e5–­8), and in that case, it would be as true to say that all things are at rest as it would be to maintain that they are in motion. One must say instead that both the thing perceived and per­ ception itself are constantly changing—­that is, undergoing alteration (too): the apparently white thing is gradually becoming some other color, just as seeing does not remain the same or static. But this means, in turn, accord­ ing to Socrates and Theodorus, that one cannot properly employ the names “white” or “seeing” in the apparently relevant cases, for doing so is to bring to a halt in speech what is in motion: what we call (constantly changing) perception is, for all we know, as much “nonperception” as “perception.”28 Perception thus returns, now on the basis of or in connection with the ubiq­ uity of motion: “And yet perception is knowledge, as we were saying, I and Theaetetus. [ . . . ] In being asked what knowledge is, we therefore gave as an answer something that is no more knowledge than non-­knowledge” (182e7–­11). Socrates concludes that “their” definition of knowledge is in­ adequate. And as for the motion people, they (and we) need some new way of speaking altogether, since it is the nature of speech to assert that some part of the world is “this way” when it is really as much “not this way” as “this way” (see 183a4–­b6). If the Heracliteans would rest content with the very little that is thus left of language, it nonetheless seems true that the defi­ni­ tion of knowledge, like all definitions, amounts to a distortion of the world so understood rather than the correct grasp of (some facet of) it. At this juncture, Socrates announces the dismissal of Protagoras: “So then, Theodorus, we’ve been set free from your comrade and won’t yet con­ cede to him that every man is ‘of all things a measure,’ if somebody isn’t prudent; and as for knowledge, we won’t concede that it’s perception, at least not according to the line of inquiry that all things are in motion” (183b7–­ c3). Yet the most that Socrates can be said to have established, as the last of his remarks here indicates, is that the motion thesis in its most radical form is incompatible with perception’s being knowledge—­that is, Socrates has not demonstrated that the motion thesis is wrong, on the one hand, or, on the other, that perception cannot be knowledge, if one rejects the motion thesis as adumbrated. Socrates has, however, made plain that if the motion thesis is to be taken seriously, it flies in the face of repeated and powerful experience, ac­ cording to which the world is partly in motion and partly at rest. This is clear from the fact that the very proponents of the motion doctrine are here compelled to speak of the “forms” of motion (compare 157c2 and context):

206

chapter five

if they cannot consistently reject recourse to form, why ought we to follow them in that rejection? And not just in the earlier account of the “forms” of motion, but here too, Socrates departs from a strict classification of motion, a “phenomenology” of it, and instead posits (as the motion people insist one do) the all-­pervasive character of it, for that character is not obviously in the world as given to us by sense perception but is arrived at by infer­ ence from it or by supposition: what evidence, what incentive, is there for us too to make that supposition? The alleged inadequacy of all language is bound up with the same problem, for the world presents itself to precisely perception as having some constancy, a constancy we express in speech (e.g., this white stick). Yet we are to reject that speech, which is indeed in­ telligible to us, on the say-­so of the motion camp. But could not instances of “seeing” undergo such constant changes as permit them nonetheless to be called “seeing,” if not always then for a time, and so properly to retain their membership in the class “seeing”? Moreover, do not “seeing” and “white” (and “warm” and “hard” and “black”) retain their significance for us as in­ telligible classes, however constant may be the motion of the particulars given to us as bearing those qualities? Whatever the ground on which the motion camp insists that we forgo the given character of the world and, with it, ordinary language, that ground cannot be sense perception ordinarily un­ derstood. But the first argument here after the digression supplies us with an answer as to the motive—­effective in Protagoras’ case, at least—­to go be­ yond the character of motion as given to us in sense perception and to posit instead its pervasive character that, once thought through, both denies per­ ception its status as knowledge in any ordinary sense and confines or con­­ demns us to that individual perception: the challenge of the “prophets.”

conclusion

Protagoras’ Political Teaching and His Rhetoric

A

lthough Protagoras places himself in the long line of “sophists” and is, to that extent, a representative of a tradition, he insists that he is an innovator—­he has broken with the sophistic tradition at least as much as Socrates has with the philosophic tradition. Protagoras is the first to call himself a sophist openly, before “all the Greeks,” and to charge a fee for the teaching he offers (Protagoras 316d3–­317c5; see also Socrates’ restatement at 348e5–­349a6). Other sophists made or make a practice of some additional activity—­music, gymnastic training, poetry—­both to conceal their true activity and to earn a living: they did not earn a living by means of sophistry. Protagoras, then, is distinguished by his relative openness or frankness that permits him the luxury of practicing one art rather than two. As a result, it is wrong to speak of a “sophistic enlightenment” of which Protagoras is but another part, for he understands himself to have inaugurated a new beginning and to be shining a brighter light. In beginning to take our measure of the man, we may ask, why does Protagoras regard his greater openness as both possible and good? And what is his understanding of political life that evidently goes together with that openness? Protagoras contends that, judged by the standard of the gregarious animals, we are not by nature political or indeed social. More than that, our truly natural and isolated condition is horrible: we were compelled by harsh nature to distort our own nature so as to become citizens or to acquire the political art, an art (like all arts) of our own devising. Political life is essential to securing mere life and even the good life. Thomas Hobbes, for one, could agree with these propositions. But there is not in the thought of Protagoras, as there certainly is in that of Hobbes, the outlines of a new and more rational political science—­let alone a “moral philosophy”!—­that is intended 207

208

conclusion

to improve political life. In this respect, the modern enlightenment, as represented by Hobbes, is more hopeful and probably more philanthropic than Protagoras and the enlightenment he embodies. For one thing, Hobbes is an egalitarian and Protagoras is not (consider, e.g., the ill effects of the concern for equality at 321a1); Hobbes seems more impressed than does Protagoras by the equalizing character of death in general and of violent death in particular. We remember the importance of courage to the sophist, especially such courage as is married to wisdom; whereas Protagoras contemns “the many” who flee what the courageous are even eager for, the naturally timorous Hobbes rather approves of them. They are certainly the stuff out of which a sober and hence stable politics can be fashioned. There is no indication in the Protagoras that the sophist sought a fundamental change in the character of political life. To the contrary, his principal activity depends on the constancy of political life: the many human beings will be what they are, the few powerful what they are, with the wise remaining a class unto themselves. (For a comic presentation of this last, see 337c6–­e2.) Protagoras does no more here than sketch the reasonable goals of a penal code—­namely, to deter crime before the fact and to rehabilitate criminals after it, as distinguished from exacting brutish vengeance. Yet the placement of the statement of that view, in the “mythical” section of his speech, led us at the time to doubt how effective Protagoras thought it could be as public policy. Protagoras seeks less to guide political life aright than to teach certain others to exploit it for their own gain. He can neither be rid of political life altogether—­to effect that would be to return to the unenviable life of “savages”—­nor take quite seriously the things that political life depends on and so honors most, justice and piety and moderation and the “myths” that support them. There is a sense in which Protagoras is like the “savages” he mentions, it is true, for although he was “reared among laws and human beings” (327c5–­6), he does not govern his life by the law and is not truly of “the human beings”: he lives as much apart from political life as do the “savages,” although they, of course, live below it while he rises above it. But this suggests that there is something, not savage, but godlike about Protagoras (consider Aristotle Politics 1253a3–­4, 27–­29). Like Odysseus (Protagoras 348dc7–­d5) and like Orpheus (315a8–­9), Protagoras has ventured into the underworld (consider Theaetetus 173e4–­5) and lived to tell the tale; he has seen the truth about the gods in particular and, in his wiliness, sings a bewitching song about them. Protagoras understands political life but does not share in it. One is tempted to say that he does not share in it because he understands it. “Protagoras of Abdera” (309c8) is no citizen, and, to repeat, he does not include

conclusion

209

himself among “the human beings.” Moreover, he speaks to the powerful about power but is himself without it, for he is an itinerant teacher always on the move. It is reasonable to conclude, from the obvious relevant facts, that he regards the exercise of even supreme power in a city as second best to the life of the sophist as he lives it, although this thought must be one he never trumpets. The only community to which Protagoras evidently belongs is a small and cosmopolitan circle of devoted students who follow him from town to town. And only one of those students, in turn—­the highly regarded Antimoerus—­is studying the art of sophistry so as to become a sophist himself. This suggests the necessity of a threefold teaching: a “cloak” acceptable or indeed pleasing to the many; a more truthful account of the foundation of political life together with the principles of persuasive speech, the chief attraction of which is the prospect of greater political power; and a largely theoretical teaching, about the primacy of matter, for example, together with some attention to the ways that the powerful too must be handled. Protagoras, then, can speak to the many, if he must; to a Hippocrates (or, much better, an Alcibiades); and to an Antimoerus. Since according to Protagoras the many “perceive as it were nothing,” the rhetoric needed to placate them must be fairly simple stuff. At any rate, Protagoras has mastered the art of cloaking his teaching or teachings in a garb acceptable to the moral opinions of the many: that he begins his long speech with a myth is an “object lesson” in public speaking. There he speaks of the many in a manner reminiscent of the way one must speak to the many, who are hardly better in his view than children (consider Statesman 268e4–­5). That he calls his myth a myth is to take a step in the direction of the truth and hence away from the popular perspective simply. And the logos that follows the myth ultimately concerns, and is ultimately directed toward, the powerful and their sons, for there he speaks of “the good fathers” in general and to the two sons of Pericles in particular (326e6; 328c7–­d2 and context, recalling 319e3 and following). Protagoras speaks to the powerful, or rather to their sons (326c3–­5), about god and law and “the human beings” while himself neither exercising power nor believing in the myths that animate the many. He is manifestly no competitor for power, then, but seeks only to aid the powerful. Far more attention and care are surely required in handling them, the very sort of people who were not fooled by the other sophists. A part of that approach includes frankness, both real and apparent: those who pride themselves on being nobody’s fool will appreciate straight talk—­even, perhaps, that the foundational accounts of things are nothing but edifying and useful myths directed at “the human beings” or “the many.”

210

conclusion

Protagoras permits himself the liberties he does, then, partly on the basis of a prudential calculation—­the word “sophist” can evidently now be uttered in more or less polite company, and if there is nothing in that regard to conceal, there is nothing that can be inadvertently revealed. (It would seem that Prodicus and Hippias also present themselves as sophists now—­in the wake of Protagoras’ groundbreaking example?—­although Socrates calls them, for the most part, not sophists but “wise” men: 314c2 and context, 315e7–­316a1 [on Prodicus], 337c6–­7 [on Hippias]; compare 357e3–­6.) But Protagoras practices a new openness also because of the supreme confidence he feels in his rhetoric or the cleverness of his speech. As the art of war is an important part of the political art (322b5), so the art of clever speaking must be an important part of “the sophistic art”; one might even say that the function performed by the art of war in politics is comparable to the function performed by the art of rhetoric in sophistry: defensive maneuvers and offensive sallies. This suggests, at least, that while concealment is indeed still required, it is so to a lesser degree than other sophists have realized. Taken together, the irremediable stupidity of the people and the unceasing ambition of the few make a greater place for wily frankness than others have understood. And applause is applause, even if it comes from “shoemakers” (Theaetetus 180c7–­d7; consider also Greater Hippias 281c3–­283b4 for another account of the difference between “ancient” and “modern” wisdom in point of frankness). If, for the sake of argument at least, we grant that Protagoras’ rhetoric is competent to speak to the many, to the few, and of course to the wise, the action of the dialogue as a whole suggests a remaining difficulty. Protagoras’ rhetoric is insufficient to speak to the wise in the presence of the unwise, be they few or many. Protagoras cannot state what he regards as the truth to Socrates before the assembled group, nor, to judge from the course of the conversation in its entirety, has he found a means adequate both to reveal enough to entice and to conceal enough to survive. This is bad enough. But the assembled group is a sort of community; it is a city writ small, complete with its own deliberative body that passes resolutions and amendments thereto. Although Protagoras shows considerable skill in getting the crowd on his side, he cannot keep it there. His truest or deepest teaching is incompatible with political life, and he wishes to convey that teaching at least to some, to the likes of Antimoerus. Yet all teaching takes place among not apolitical “savages” but citizens. Antimoerus himself is but one member of the group, the community, that surrounds Protagoras, and Protagoras is addressing himself to everyone in it (recall 314e3–­315b8). It would seem that there is then an unavoidable tension between the life he leads and the life of any community. That he chooses to be a perpetual foreigner hardly solves

conclusion

211

the difficulty. He remains dependent on the stability, leisure, and wealth that healthy politics makes possible, but he undermines such a politics. As noted, Protagoras says that justice and virtue are profitable “for you all” (humin: 327b2, with the principal manuscripts): he seems neither to take seriously enough the good that such profit entails for others nor to think through the fact that he himself depends on something of the profit in question. He is both politically irresponsible and too blind to his own needs. If the tension between the truth (as Protagoras understands it) and healthy political life is indeed unavoidable, then not frankness but cautiously “laconic” speech is called for. It is tempting to believe the extraplatonic report that—­presumably not long after the time at which our dialogue takes place—­Protagoras’ book on the gods was confiscated from all who owned it and was publicly burned, the author of it being run out of Athens under threat of prosecution on a charge of precisely impiety (Diogenes Laertius 9.51–­52 and 54–­55).

Socrates and Protagoras Protagoras is old. He tells us that he could be the father of anyone present (317c1–­3). Socrates is young—­no longer indeed “very young” (Parmenides 127c5 and Theaetetus 183e7), but still too young, he says, to decide so great a matter as the worth of what Protagoras has to offer (Protagoras 314b4–­6). This remark is ironical, as the action of the dialogue makes plain. Yet the difference in age is one of the first and most obvious differences between Socrates and Protagoras as Plato chooses to present them. Protagoras is of another, an earlier, generation. The Protagoras is the first Platonic account we have of Socrates after he has made his “turn” to the human concerns and is acting more or less in public; its setting, that of a private and well-­guarded home that is nonetheless jam-­packed with Athenians and foreigners alike, is more public than the earlier Alcibiades I and II, which present altogether private, not to say intimate, conversations (Alcibiades I 118b5). (The dialogue probably next in the dramatic order, Charmides, narrates a conversation set in a wrestling school and so is more public still than the Protagoras: to this extent, the dramatic order tracks Socrates’ increasing public presence in Athens.) Plato shines a light on the “new” Socrates here, a Socrates made somehow “noble and new” (or “beautiful and young”: Second Letter 314c4). The elderly Protagoras, then, predates whatever innovation in philosophy Socrates can lay claim to. Protagoras falls among the “pre-­Socratic” thinkers. This is perhaps clearest in his initial approach to Socrates’ question pertaining to virtue, to the virtue that is bound up with political life, for he

212

conclusion

begins not from “the human things” but from or near the very beginning simply, with an account of the genesis of all the mortal species and the secret workings of the (under)world. He attempts to understand “the human things” or “human affairs” through the lens of nature, or he understands human nature from the point of view of the nature of the whole. Whatever may be true of the thinker we meet in the Theaetetus, here Protagoras would seem to suppose that we have direct access to that whole or to its roots or, what amounts to the same thing for him, to its material components. Protagoras begins his long speech while suspended from a basket, so to speak, from which the heavenly things appear closer, the human things more distant, than they would to citizens whose feet are planted firmly on the ground; his eye is trained first on the things both above and below the earth. From the very beginning, Protagoras accepts the distinction between nature and convention (law) and judges the whole of political life accordingly. As we have seen, Protagoras holds to the priority of matter, of dumb matter in blind motion, and this means that, according to him, there is no organizing mind at work in the construction of the world or therefore in our construction; there is no such mind governing and “saving” the world or us. Protagoras, then, is a materialist and (hence) an atheist, at least if by “atheist” we mean one who denies the existence of such gods as exercise some care for human beings and so are of some concern to us. As Protagoras will note much later in the dialogue, wisdom and knowledge are, when it comes to “all the human pragmata,” most excellent or strongest (kratiston: 352c8–­d3): as for the nonhuman things or affairs, one can detect neither wisdom nor knowledge at work in them. Wisdom and knowledge are as little in evidence there as they are in Epimetheus (consider also 361c7–­d5). This is of a piece with the stress Protagoras lays on the importance of human innovation in the form of the arts and crafts, through which we alone saved ourselves. Another clear difference between Socrates and Protagoras is the latter’s plain disinterest in, bleeding over into contempt for, “the many,” for the opinions of most other human beings. Of course, Socrates does not actually speak to a member of “the many” in his cross-­examination of them here but instead conjures them up out of whole cloth; there is something to the thought that Socrates and Protagoras do belong together or do present a united front, if (but only if) the point of comparison is “the many.” Still, whatever else may be included in Socrates’ “turn” to the human affairs or concerns, Socrates himself stresses, in the Phaedo, his new reliance on “the speeches”; he stresses the access to the beings he found in and through what is held of them in the element of opinion and expressed in logoi about them.

conclusion

213

That turn evidently took the form of Socrates’ art of question and answer or of conversational scrutiny: “dialectics.” Where, then, does “dialectics” come to be seen in the Protagoras? In the course of the first breakdown of the conversation, after what we have called Protagoras’ outburst regarding the good, the sophist notes that, although he has by now entered into a “contest of speeches” with many, he has never agreed to the ground rules for conducting the conversation (dialegesthai and dielegom�n: 335a6) that have been set out by his opponent: otherwise, the name “Protagoras” would never have come to be seen as better than anyone’s among the Greeks (335a4–­8). Protagoras engages in conversation with at least one eye on elevating the name “Protagoras”: he seeks to win. He seeks renown (consider the terms of his praise of Socrates at 361e4–­5; compare 316c1 and 327c1). And when Socrates sees that Protagoras is indeed unwilling to “converse” (dialegesthai: 335b2; also 335a2) by means of answering questions, Socrates tells the comrade that he no longer thought it his task to remain, for his task or work or even duty (ergon)—­the protection of Hippocrates—­had by that point been carried out. The part of the conversation that precedes this breakdown, then, in which Protagoras was subjected to Socrates’ questioning, can lay claim to being an exercise in Socratic “dialectics” aimed more at protecting Hippocrates, by (coming close to) revealing Protagoras’ true teaching, than at Socrates’ learning some­ thing himself. First impressions notwithstanding, this protection need not be the only, let alone the higher, purpose of “dialectics.” In the next breakdown of the conversation, between the conclusion of the poetry section and the turn to the discussion of courage, Protagoras’ great reluctance to continue is overcome eventually by his sense of embarrassment or shame, itself traceable to Alcibiades’ tough criticism of him and to the requests of Callias and the others that he continue (348a1–­c4). Perhaps to dull the sting of that embarrassment, Socrates also offers him some encouragement. He assures Protagoras that he wants to continue to converse (dialegesthai ) with him for no other reason than his wish to make a thorough investigation of the very things that he, Socrates, is himself perplexed by on each occasion, “about virtue” in particular (348c5–­7, e1). This statement of Socrates’ own perplexity is without precedent in the dialogue. And here, too, Socrates gives his clearest account in the dialogue of the purpose of the kind of conversational scrutiny for which he would become famous: “ ‘But if one alone observes,’ then immediately he goes around seeking out someone to whom he may point this out and with whom he may make certain of it, until he finds him. So for the sake of this I too gladly converse [dialegomai ] with you more than with anyone else” (348d3–­6, quoting Homer Iliad 10.224).

214

conclusion

The conversation that follows, then, is also an exercise in Socratic dialectics, but it is more obviously meant to shed light on Socrates’ own question or questions “about virtue.” As we can now say, that conversation chiefly concerned how courage stood in relation to the virtue of knowledge or wisdom (see again 353b1–­3). It is therefore a specific version of the general question concerning the relation of virtue to knowledge. And Socrates was eager to test or refute or otherwise examine Protagoras’ understanding of the matter in order to learn from it (consider the earlier mentions of elenchesthai at 331c6 and d1; also exetadzesthai at 333c7–­9), which might well mean confirming what he was already inclined to suppose about both it and Protagoras: the two have conversed before (compare 310e5 with 361e2–­5). It is true that Socrates did not, on his own initiative, seek out this opportunity to test or refute Protagoras in the course of his present visit to Athens; but having been presented with it, Socrates happily took full advantage of it. Near the dialogue’s end, Protagoras alleges that his answering questions serves nothing other than Socrates’ love of victory (360e3; compare 336e1)—­he seeks less to learn than to shine—­and so implies that the refutations or other indignities he has suffered have nothing to do with Socrates’ discovery, or confirmation, of the truth. As we have seen, Protagoras prefers long speeches to questions and answers, even if he is the one doing the questioning. When we are first introduced to the three sophists, we learn that Hippias was engaged in answering questions (315c5–­7) and Prodicus in a conversation (dielegonto: 315e5–­6): only Protagoras is lecturing to his “be­ witched” and silent audience or audiences. Socrates, who of course is capable of making long speeches (compare 361a1–­2 with 334c8–­d6 and 334e4–­ 335a3), much prefers the art of cross-­examination. And this means, in turn, that he pays peculiar attention to the opinions of others, young and old, less able and more, homegrown and foreign—­Hippocrates and Protagoras. In the Protagoras, it is Socrates who insists on conversing with “the many,” to Protagoras’ puzzlement. Protagoras has not the slightest interest in the opinions of most other human beings. The main example of this indifference to “dialectics” is Protagoras’ impatient refusal to explore the relation of piety to justice. To be sure, the general subject matter is “sensitive”—­Socrates himself feigns indignation at one of the questions of his imaginary interlocutor and even tells him to “hush,” to watch his tongue (330d6–­7). Simple prudence or caution, then, goes some way toward explaining Protagoras’ annoyance. But Protagoras also states that he cannot agree with Socrates’ view that justice is like piety, piety like justice, for in his opinion there is a distinction there—­“but what difference does this make?” (331b8–­c3). Protagoras has no interest in pursuing the question

conclusion

215

of the precise relation of justice to piety or piety to justice. This is almost certainly because he regards both as facets of “political virtue” and hence as being merely conventional or by law: in his long speech, he suggests in passing that justice and moderation and piety can be addressed as “one” thing taken together (324e2–­325a), just as he had also treated injustice and impiety as “one” thing in opposition to “political virtue” (323e3–­324a1). Protagoras could never have had the conversation Socrates had with Euthyphro because he would have believed that he had nothing to learn from, or to confirm by means of, a Euthyphro. What price does Protagoras pay—­apart perhaps from his manifest defeat in the conversation—­for his indifference to “dialectics”? As we have seen, Socrates’ conversation with the many concerns the power of knowledge in the human soul, especially in the face of the passions and, according to the many themselves, most often that of fear. Had Protagoras been willing to take seriously their opinions, he might have been struck by the fact that they claim to be moved from their better knowledge not only by fear but sometimes by erotic love, too—­this being the only appearance of the word eros in the Protagoras (352b7–­8; erastai [“lovers”] appears at 317c7 and 343a5; consider paidika [“beloved”] at 315e3). We may tentatively put together the suggestion made above concerning fear (see pp. 89– 90 above) and this reference to eros in the following way. For all human beings—­who, of course, number among the “mortal species”—­the pleasures and pains that may alter even our better knowledge include those that stem from our moral hopes and fears. These are such hopes as attend the experience of love, for example, and such fears as accompany the awareness of our mortality. For a “mortal” to see the world as it is, then, he would have to be equipped with the capacity to stick to genuine insights even in the face of such hopes and fears, and the pleasures and pains that attend them, as characterize most or indeed all human beings. Perhaps because Socrates is here speaking with Protagoras the sophist—­that is, with an “intellectual”—­he can easily exaggerate the power of knowledge; he is able to omit all mention of a necessary continence or steadiness or (in this sense) courage and, going together with that, to downplay or ignore the intensely pleasant hopes characteristic of especially those human beings who take seriously such high concerns as love and nobility or beauty (consider 315e3). As the opening sections of the Protagoras remind us, Socrates took love and beauty—­the goodness and beauty attending nature, for example (315d8–­e1)—­so seriously that he came to have a reputation around town as a lover, even a too-­ardent one. If that reputation was finally not quite accurate, as in the case at hand, it nonetheless points to something real about the concerns of the man.

216

conclusion

Here we may finally acknowledge the striking fact that almost all those who deliver speeches in the Symposium are present also in the Protagoras: Soc­rates and Alcibiades, of course, but also Eryximachus (Protagoras 315c2), Phaedrus (315c3), Pausanias (315d7), and a young Agathon (315e2), the victory of whose tragic play in the Lenaea of 416 BCE was the occasion for the original get-­together recounted in the Symposium. Only Aristophanes is absent from Callias’ home, for he would have been very young at the time, probably younger even than Agathon, and there are others on hand—­Hippias, Prodicus—­to supply the comic relief he does not.1 It is difficult to know what to make of this overlap of characters, which is without example in at least such other Platonic dialogues as are not explicit sequels. If the Protagoras in this way means to direct our attention to the Symposium, we are tempted to wonder whether a complete account of Socrates in his difference from Protagorean sophistry would have to include his understanding of eros, of erotic love, the guiding subject of the Symposium and the only one in which he occasionally claimed expertise (Theages 128b1–­4 and Symposium 177d7–­8, 198d1–­2). Or, the other way around, Protagoras’ inattention to eros, as distinguished from fear, seems very much to set him apart from Socrates.2 Whereas Protagoras is silent about eros or love in his account of the genesis of the things of this world, including the city, even Socrates’ city of “utmost necessity” in the Republic seems at its peak graced by love, the expression of which is family life and the worship of gods (compare Republic 372b6–­c1 with Protagoras’ myth as a whole). In Protagoras’ view of it, we have no natural connectedness with one another save perhaps our shared misery in the face of the hostility of brute nature: not love but misery, or fear, drives us together. Socrates’ description of eros in the Symposium (“hard and dry and unshod and homeless”) bears some slight resemblance to Protagoras’ description here of man in his natural condition: “naked and unshod and without bedding and unarmed” (compare Symposium 203d1–­2 with Protagoras 321c5–­6; Strauss 1965 ad loc.; Pangle 2014, 143; also Statesman 272a5–­6). But what Socrates describes thereby is somehow fundamental to our nature and productive of great splendor; what Protagoras thus describes is an ugly misfortune from which we must flee. Here we may recall the fact that, whereas Protagoras stressed only fear at the heart of piety—­the fear of punishment meted out by Zeus as a palliative for the fear of violence at the hands of other human beings—­Socrates spoke of love or friendship, of the love or friendship the gods may have for us (345c3). Are we not drawn to the gods, and do we not worship them also out of love or friendship? If this is so, then Protagoras’ account of the coming into being and perpetuation of the gods is inadequate; he does not, in that case, account

conclusion

217

for the phenomenon in its complexity and richness. And this would mean, in turn, that his atheism is here too without sufficient foundation and hence unearned. I have suggested that Protagoras’ inattention to or contempt for ordinary opinion leads or permits him to neglect the foundational sort of courage that enables one to abide by knowledge in the face of certain fears, just as he neglects also eros or love and hence the pleasures that may prevent access to knowledge or our abiding by it. And this goes together with the fact that even he is moved by an excessive hope: the hope he entertains for and from knowledge. That is, like some of the present-­day scholars who read Socrates’ account of the “art of measurement,” Protagoras too seems attracted by the prospect the mastery of that art holds out—­namely, an inviolable happiness or “faring well” that neither chance nor time can damage. Socrates says repeatedly, and strangely, that such an art could “save our life”: the measuring art is the “saving” art (356e2, e4, e6, e8; 357a6–­7). Speaking evidently for himself, as distinguished from the many, Protagoras agrees with this proposition (compare 356e4 with 357a4–­5). If you seek “salvation,” seek knowledge; the “art of measurement” adumbrated in the Protagoras bears some relation also to the appeal that the certainty attending geometry or mathematics has for Theodorus especially. And it is immediately after these assertions in the Protagoras that Socrates returns to the idea of the superior strength of knowledge in us (357c1–­4). Given the intensity of the longing for happiness in us, is it not tempting to take this to mean that, for a select few at least, “salvation” can be attained through altogether human means? The human mind, that is, can take the place of the absent divine mind and render us in need of nothing from it. If this is so, then in this respect, too, Protagoras anticipates a hope animating much of the program set forth by modern political thought. Protagoras, we have seen, is old. He, more than most, must suppose that he is close to death (compare the remark of old Cephalus at Republic 330d5–­6). Yet he demonstrates no obvious weakness in the face of that prospect: here too he displays a certain courage. Does his confidence in the prominence of the name “Protagoras” (335a7–­8) provide him some measure of solace? It has been said that the mark of a sophist is the willingness to prostitute something high, to pursue knowledge or wisdom for low ends (consider, for example, Xenophon Memorabilia 1.6.13 toward the end). Protagoras surely is interested in money and the pleasures it can buy: hedonism can be expensive. But might he not be attracted to wisdom, and especially to teaching “human beings” (317b4–­5; consider also 349a1–­3), to gain the particular honor or respect paid by them to the wise (consider 310d5–­6, e5–­7; 343a1–­5; and

218

conclusion

361e4–­5)? He himself respects wisdom most of all (330a2), and it is only a small step from the desire for this justified honor to the thought that one’s name may thereby gain a purchase on such immortality as is available to a “mortal.” It is undeniable that Protagoras’ name did achieve a prominence that survived his death (Meno 91e3–­9) and, for that matter, survives him still. Of course, according to his own principles, the pleasures of contemplating such prominence can occur only in one’s lifetime, which makes of reputation or the prominence of one’s name an ersatz immortality. It therefore does not solve the fundamental problem. When Protagoras avers that it would be “shameful” of him especially to deny the power of wisdom and knowledge, just after Socrates has said that he will uncover or strip Protagoras’ thought (352a8–­b2), Socrates notes that what Protagoras has said is noble (352c8–­d4) as well as true. If Protagoras finally regards the dedication of one’s life to the pursuit of the truth as supremely noble, a nobility that cannot simply be reduced to what is advantageous for oneself (compare 358b3–­6), this would go some way toward explaining why, at the end of the dialogue, he recoils from Socrates’ attempt to collapse the noble into the pleasant. Like the courageous with whom he proves to have more in common than first meets the eye, Protagoras is attracted to the prospect of a selfless dedication. He indicates clearly that he ranks wisdom above courage, and there is surely much to that; but might it be that he sometimes ranks courage above wisdom? Or, more cautiously, might the fact that the practice of wisdom as he understands it demands also the practice of courage (consider again 316c5–­d3) be no small part of the attraction that wisdom holds for him? Is some part of his attraction to wisdom akin to what might drive the courageous toward noble acts of courage? As for Socrates as he comes to be seen in the Protagoras, we remember in the first place his contention that the wise are united by their shared conviction that no one does anything bad or shameful voluntarily: all human beings are compelled to seek what they regard as the good or better thing, it being a part of “human nature” not to advance toward things we regard as bad. So much of the happiness as falls within the grasp of human beings, then, depends on the identification of the good or better thing, and in this important respect, virtue can lay claim to being knowledge. As Socrates says at the end of the dialogue, he finds Prometheus to be more to his liking than Epimetheus in the conduct of his own life: in making use of Prometheus and thus exercising forethought for himself ( prom�thoumenos; recall 316c5), Socrates takes as his concern “all these things”—­the question of virtue or the virtues in relation to knowledge—­“for the sake of my own life as a whole”

conclusion

219

(361d2–­5). The Protagoras diminishes the differences between philosopher and sophist (consider 314d3)3 but sharpens those that remain.

Political Philosophy and Sophistry In turning from the Protagoras to the Theaetetus, we seem to turn from Plato’s account of the moral-­political doctrine of the sophist to that of his theoretical stance. To be sure, the separation between these two concerns, moral and theoretical, is not complete. For example, in the course of speaking of virtue and political life, Protagoras explains the cause of the coming into being of all the “mortal species,” just as he speaks at length of “the cities” in explaining what he means by “wisdom.” What, then, is the relation of the two dialogues? To address this question eventually, it will be helpful to summarize the principal argument of concern to us as it unfolds in the Theaetetus. That argument has three parts, parts whose relation to one another is not always clear: (1) perception and knowledge; (2) human being as the measure; and (3) the motion thesis. In the dismissal of Protagoras from the dialogue, Socrates links but does not equate the three contentions, for “human being is the measure” is treated separately from the motion thesis, which is linked to but not identical to the equation of perception and knowledge. We recall that at the beginning of Theaetetus’ second attempt at a definition of knowledge, which introduced perception as a theme, Socrates immediately had spoken of Protagoras’ logos—­that is, of his teaching that “[a] human being is the measure”—­and only after Socrates reveals that the sophist had a “secret” teaching does he eventually speak of “locomotion and motion and mixing” (Theaetetus 152d7). He does so in order to explain how it is that “all things,” which we wrongly assert “are,” come into being. From the very beginning, then, recourse to the motion thesis was meant to explain the hidden cause, the coming-­into-­being, of our perceptions of the world or of the world as given to us by sense perception (compare, e.g., gignetai at 152d7 with genesis at 182a4 and context). And when Socrates finally announces the birth of Theaetetus’ offspring, he offers a summary of the ground covered: Homer, Heraclitus, “and the entire tribe of that sort” maintain that all things are in motion, like streams; Protagoras maintains that a human being is the measure of all things; and Theaetetus—­“these things being so”—­maintains that knowledge becomes perception (see 160d5–­e2). This formulation suggests that one can—­but need not—­understand the relation of knowledge to perception on the basis of the doctrine of the measure and together with the

220

conclusion

primacy of motion. Finally, at the end of Protagoras’ long speech (168b4–­c2), Protagoras himself suggests that the relation of perception and knowledge should be considered “on the basis of ” (ek tout�n: 168b6) the contention that all things are in motion and that whatever seems to each also is for each, be it an individual or a city, this last being made equivalent to the logos that a human being is the measure. One can arrive at the most radical relativism, which proves to be the relativism of Protagoras, by the following path: reflection on ordinary sense perception reveals that the world is not so stable or “simple” as it may first appear—­as is indicated by the inaccessibility to us of “the wind itself,” which is a good example because wind is both effective and invisible. This suggests, in turn, the crucial importance of the perceiver, the perceiving mind, as the “measure” of the world as it presents itself through sense perception. But the decisive step is to accept, and to think through, the proposition that “all things are in motion.” This proposition may be suggested, but it is surely not demonstrated, by observation of the world—­for example, by the observation of contraries (hot and cold, bitter and sweet) arising from the same thing. It may become attractive, however, in part because it appears to offer an explanation of the cause of our experience of sense perception: our very desire to understand that experience fully may prompt us to accept it, “mythical” though it may be. Yet the motion thesis proves ultimately incompatible with perception understood as knowledge and indeed with knowledge altogether, as the end of the Protagoras section of the Theaetetus makes clear. And it is the motion doctrine that drastically alters the very meaning of the “measure” doctrine, for that doctrine is ambiguous. There being no in­ definite article in Greek, it is possible to read the dictum as meaning not that “a” human being—­this or that individual—­but rather “human being” as such, the class designated by the term “human being,” is the measure of the things that are and are not. A clear statement of this ambiguity, embedded in Protagoras’ dictum, is given by G. W. F. Hegel: Now Protagoras’ assertion is in its real meaning a great truth, but at the same time it has a certain ambiguity, in that as man is the undetermined and many-­sided, either he may in his individual particularity, as this contingent man, be the measure, or else self-­conscious reason in man, man in his rational nature and his universal substantiality, is the absolute measure. If the statement is taken in the former sense, all is self-­ seeking, all self-­interest, the subject with his interests forms the central point; and if man has a rational side, reason is still something subjective, it is “he.” (Lectures on the History of Philosophy 1.374)

conclusion

221

According to what we regard as the non-­Protagorean version of the “measure” doctrine, the world becomes a world, with its identifiable and stable classes or kinds, only in the presence of the perceiving and classifying mind. This is perspectival, to be sure, but not “relativistic” in the radical sense. “Human being” as such, then, and not each isolated individual human being, is the measure of or supplies the perspective from which to view what is because the class so designated is the only one able to perceive the beings as just that: as the things that they are. For example, a dog is not fully a dog without being known to be one, and a dog cannot know or name the class to which it belongs and so cannot be a measure (compare Theaetetus 171c1–­3). “Human being” is the measure of the things that are, that they are; and we take our measure of them in the act of perceiving them. We can, on this reading, have access to a stable human perspective, characteristic of one who is healthy and awake. Perhaps Parmenides wished to point to this perspective when he said that the All is “one” and, in that sense, is stable or at rest: even the alleged omnipresence of motion can be grasped as such only within a stable framework or horizon. Theaetetus did not see it at the time, but there is then someone who can oppose so great an army as the motion camp, with General Homer at its head, without his becoming “laughable” in the process: Parmenides (compare 153a1–­4 with 152e2). Only by adding to this dictum of the measure the supposition that “all things are in motion” can Protagoras denigrate the contribution of perception to knowledge and insist that each isolated human being (“every man”) is the measure of what “is.” And if we put together the two arguments that conclude the discussion of Protagoras in the Theaetetus, in conjunction with the other pointers in the same direction, we are led to the conclusion that the decisive incentive to adopt the supposition that “all things”—­even the good—­are “in motion” is the challenge to knowledge posed by the claims of the prophets. We may now take a bird’s-­eye view of the relation between our two dialogues. Protagoras’ very public claim to be able to teach virtue (properly understood) was shown by Socrates in the Protagoras to be defective: Protagoras seems to have a shaky grasp on what is and is not properly considered “virtue,” and he ends up resisting the thought that courage in particular is teach­ able because it is knowledge. As I have argued, Protagoras resists the link­ age or reduction of courage to a kind of knowledge because it strips courage of its noble or beautiful character, a nobility or beauty he remains attracted to in a manner and to a degree unknown to himself. But this amounts to say­ ing that Protagoras is confused. He remains within the realm of the very sort of virtue he otherwise denigrates as merely conventional or unnatural.

222

conclusion

He is a more “moral” man than he lets on or indeed knows. We recall that Protagoras cuts an impressive figure in precisely the courtroom, where “the philosophers” appear so laughable and Socrates so irksome; Protagoras is rather closer to the concerns of the laws, written and unwritten, than he may realize, especially as these pertain to such nobility of soul as is manifested by courage. Could what is true in the case of courage, then, also be true of the virtue of piety? There is no reason to think, however, on the basis of the Protagoras or (even less) the Theaetetus, that the sophist still conceives or half-con­ceives of the world as one in which providential gods govern, whether these are the mountain-­dwelling Olympians or subterranean others. The problem that effects the transition from the Protagoras to the Theaetetus is less the sophist’s covert reliance on or attachment to piety than it is a theoretical difficulty connected to his confused stance regarding moral virtue in general and hence regarding piety too. Protagoras, that is, does not know about virtue all that he claims to know, and this defect or ignorance poses a special difficulty as it applies to piety. To contend on reasonable grounds that piety is not a virtue at all is, in effect, to claim to know that the world is not such as the pious contend that it is—­inhabited, for example, by just and loving or, at any rate, superintending gods who make certain demands on us in their active care for us. On the one hand, Protagoras is the self-­proclaimed teacher who knows (among many other things) how to stand in sovereign judgment of poetry and the poets and hence to render precisely a logos about them: this knowledge is a “very important” part of the education of an an�r, a “real man” (recall Protagoras 338e6–­339a3). On the other hand, it is revealing that Protagoras has by his own admission not a logos but a mythos about the gods. His teaching about the gods has the status of a mythos. Protagoras’ atheism, central to his teaching and his life, seems unearned because unproven or merely posited; that atheism is as dogmatic as the common opinions about virtue that he re­ jects. It is this problem that is pointed to by the Protagoras especially when read in conjunction with the Theaetetus. The two portraits we receive of the sophist, in the Protagoras and Theaetetus, are not identical to one another or even altogether compatible, for when we meet the man himself in the earlier dialogue, we see a confusion that points to a dogmatic atheism; in the later dialogue, when the man himself is absent and Socrates bears full responsibility for conjuring him up, we encounter a much more impressive thinker who adopts an extreme theoretical position in order to avoid precisely that dogmatism.4 In other words, the thinker presented to us by Socrates in the Theaetetus goes to great lengths to respond to the problem that comes to be seen in the Protagoras. In this way, then, the two portraits of the man may be said to

conclusion

223

be complementary. The question at the heart of the Theaetetus—­what is knowledge?—­is animated, above all, by the need for an adequate ground of knowledge, sufficient for life, in the face of the competing claims to wisdom of the “prophets.” It is animated by the question of the possibility of a reasoned justification of the rejection of piety as distinguished from a merely willful rejection of it or rebellion against it, such as can be seen in the Protagoras. h If one grants that the saying “human being is the measure” is ambiguous in a most important respect—­because it leaves open, contrary to Protagoras’ intention, the possibility of our access to a stable human perspective—­this is as much as to say that that stable perspective is not simply available to us without further ado. For it is blocked in the first place by the distorting effect of authoritative opinion or custom or law. Nature, the truly natural perspective, must be uncovered or discovered, and “[t]he discovery of nature is the work of philosophy” (Strauss 1953, 81). Here we come to the most im­ portant difference for our purposes between sophist and philosopher, Protagoras and Socrates. Socrates evidently found the resources needed to resist the pull of the flux, both in itself and as a response to the problem of the “prophets.” We recall that the Theaetetus all but begins with the report of a Socratic “prophecy” (h�s mantik�s . . . eipe: 142c4–­5)—­one that was based, however, on Socrates’ understanding of someone’s “nature” (142c7–­8; also Alcibiades 127e6): the knowledge of nature, human nature in particular, makes possible “prophetic” prediction, up to a point, or it takes the place of prophecy ordinarily understood. In the Protagoras-­Theaetetus, Plato is more intent on teaching us to see the challenge posed to knowledge than he is on setting forth the adequate response to it. To see that response as Socrates came to understand it, or to see the foundation of Socratic political philosophy, would surely require an adequate understanding of the whole Platonic corpus; one would have to pay particular attention to the sequence of dialogues that begins just where the Theaetetus ends: the Euthyphro and the dialogues that follow in its wake. In the Protagoras-­Theaetetus, Plato does bring to our attention the approach Socrates took in grappling with the challenge to philosophy from within the philosophic tradition but also and above all from outside it: the practice of “dialectics” or the giving and receiving of a logos. We see a version of this in his cross-­examinations of Protagoras, especially regarding courage. In the “digression” of the Theaetetus, we learn what the most important moral questions and hopes are, the analysis of which guides Socratic philosophizing, together with something of the

224

conclusion

result of that analysis, especially as it pertains to piety and justice (177b1–­7). The “sophistication” of the Protagoras and Theaetetus—­in which Socrates speaks for the most part to the theoretically (mathematically) inclined—­has its benefits, to be sure, but these benefits come at the price of a sustained presentation of Socrates’ engagement with morally serious young people. Here he treats not “What is virtue?” but “Is virtue one?”; he asks not “What is justice?” but “What is knowledge?” As for the sophist, in the Protagoras, he seems merely indifferent to “dialectics,” not least when the examination of the many’s opinions of justice and piety is at issue. But in the Theaetetus, Protagoras or the position he represents is even hostile to “dialectics,” for once his doctrine is accepted (according to which the opinions of each are of necessity “correct and true”), then the dialectical analysis with which Socrates there identifies himself is impossible, as Socrates notes. That doctrine therefore forecloses the path Socrates evidently followed. The battle between political philosophy and sophistry at its peak highlights the seriousness of the challenges, theoretical and theological, to the possibility of philosophy, and in this way it equips us with the correct questions or concerns to bring to bear in our study of Socrates as he comes to be seen in the Platonic dialogues. Not despite but because of those challenges, Socrates seems to have found his way to a new kind of philosophizing that somehow permitted the world to be a stable world for the human mind in its health. Socrates did not succumb, in other words, to the chaos-­ inducing motion that can go together with the thought that a human being is the measure. Whether or on what possible grounds he also rejected the cosmos-­making contention that god is the measure must remain here an open question.

notes

introduction 1. For the identification of Stanley Fish, for example, as a modern sophist, see Kimball (1989) and especially Fish (1990 and 1994): Fish happily, and reasonably, accepts the label. Martha Nussbaum’s critique of Fish begins with this observation: “The sophists are once again among us” (1992, 220). See also Rothman (2008) as well as Owen (2001, especially 129 and following). In the introduction to her study of the Theaetetus, Desjardins draws parallels between that dialogue and the work of Foucault, Derrida, and Rorty, among others (1990, 199 n. 2). 2. I have used the Oxford Classical Text of the Protagoras edited by John Burnet (1903), although I have frequently consulted the following editions or commentaries: Adam and Adam (1921); Croiset (1923); Manuwald (1999); Sauppe (1892); and Verdenius (1974). I deviate from my published translation of the Protagoras (Bartlett 2004) only where (still) greater literalness seemed necessary for the purpose of interpretation or commentary. 3. I have used the Oxford Classical Text of the Theaetetus edited by John Burnet (1903), although I have frequently consulted the following critical editions or commentaries: Becker (2007); Campbell (1883); Cornford (2003); Diès (1976); Duke et al. (1995); and McDowell (1973). 4. For those interested in the question of the “historical” Protagoras, note that none of Protagoras’ writings survives intact and hence for our knowledge of his teachings we necessarily rely on quotations or testimonies supplied by other authors, Plato chief among them: see Diels and Kranz (1952, 2:253–­71 [80B1–­12]). For useful biographical statements, see, for example, Kerferd (1981, 42–­44) and Morrison (1941). Schiappa (2003) helpfully collects, translates, and comments on the extant fragments (see especially 89–­153). 5. See also Grote (1850, 511–­544 and, on Protagoras in particular, 513–­519): the Protagoras “is itself enough to prove that Plato did not conceive Protagoras either as a corrupt, or unworthy, or incompetent teacher. . . . In so far . . . as imperfect acquaintance with the science or theory upon which rules of art, or the precepts bearing on practice, repose, disqualifies a teacher from giving instruction in such art or science—­to that extent Protagoras is exposed as wanting.” What is more, according to Grote, Plato—­far from

225

226

notes to pages 3–8

contending that Protagoras’ teaching “is not only below the exigencies of science, but even corrupt and demoralizing”—­“not only . . . never glances at it, even indirectly, but the whole tendency of the discourse suggests a directly contrary conclusion” (513–­514). J. S. Mill, for one, strongly endorsed Grote’s view of both the sophists and Protagoras (see Mill 1978, 388–­391). To this line of argument, Nietzsche replies, “Grote’s tactics in defense of the Sophists are false: he wants to raise them to the rank of men of honor and ensigns of morality—­but it was their honor not to indulge in any swindle with big words and virtues” (1968, Will to Power #429, end).

chapter one 1. “To accept what Euclides says in the prologue known to us means to accept Munk’s view that we must consider Euclides to be the recorder of not only Theaetetus but of the Sophist and the Statesman as well” (Klein 1977, 75, citing Eduard Munk’s Die natürliche Ordnung der platonischen Schriften of 1857). 2. Consider the plural pronouns at 309c13 and 310a2, as well as the second-­person plu­ ral verbs at 310a5 and a7 and 314e3–­316a5. 3. On the dramatic date of the Protagoras, about which scholars are in general agreement, see Coby (1987), 23; Goldberg (1983), 4 and 11 n. 4; Morrison (1941); Nails (2002), 359; and Wolfsdorf (1997), 223–­230. 4. The insistence of Lampert (2010) that the Protagoras is the first installment in Plato’s account of the relations of Socrates and Alcibiades, and hence that it precedes in the dramatic order the Alcibiades I and Alcibiades II, is unconvincing in itself and in any case unnecessary to establish his thesis concerning the importance of the Protagoras for understanding the peculiar character of Socratic philosophy. At the beginning of the Alcibiades I, Socrates formally addresses Alcibiades only by his patronymic (“son of Kleinias”: 103a1; compare Alcibiades II 138a1) and notes that he “did not even speak” to him despite lengthy observation of him (oude proseipon: 103a1–­b1): the Alcibiades I “opens as he [Socrates] ventures to address the youth for the very first time, after years (as he claims) of silently attending him” (Bruell 1999, 20; compare Lampert 2010, 129 n. 149 and 143–­144). And it is not necessarily true, pace Lampert, that Socrates never speaks with Alcibiades in the Protagoras. As Lampert himself notes, the “we” Socrates mentions having spent some time on “certain small matters” and come to agreement about them, just before they approached the sophist (Protagoras 316a6–­7), “included Alcibiades—­he was present at the first, critically important conversation with Protagoras” (Lampert 2010, 36). Hence Alcibiades was among those with whom Socrates here conversed privately. Why insist that they did not speak to one another? After all, the two are well acquainted by the time of the Protagoras, as they clearly are not in the Alcibiades I: Socrates’ relations with Alcibiades have become the stuff of gossip by now (Protagoras 309a1–­2), and (as noted in the text above) Alcibiades comes to Socrates’ aid repeatedly in the Protagoras as one who knows him well (consider, e.g., 336d3: Alcibiades thinks he is in a position to “guarantee” that Socrates’ claim to be forgetful is a joke). To adduce as evidence of the priority of the Protagoras “the fact that many points large and small in Alcibiades I repeat and enlarge what Alcibiades heard in the conversation between Socrates and Protagoras” amounts to begging the question: one could just as easily say that the points indicated are repeated and (hence)

notes to pages 9–29

227

summarized in the Protagoras. Lampert notes twice (126 n. 146 and 143–­144) that the reversal of roles predicted by Alcibiades at the end of the Alcibiades I—­that henceforth he will probably be attending Socrates rather than Socrates attending him—­does not describe the situation of the Protagoras (also Zuckert 2009, 217–­218 n. 5). But it is quite wrong to say that Socrates is there “attempting to win Alcibiades” (Lampert 2010, 144) or is the “hunter” (126 n. 146) after him: this is exactly the incorrect assumption of the “comrade,” which the Protagoras as a whole refutes—­in fact, Socrates’ presence in the home of Callias has nothing to do with Alcibiades—­and which Socrates himself throws cold water on when he tells the comrade that he even forgot about Alcibiades’ presence (309b7–­9). That Socrates subsequently failed to pursue Alcibiades, after their conversation in the Alcibiades I, can be explained by means of a careful reading of that dialogue: “There is sufficient indication in the Alcibiades itself to suggest that Socrates was not altogether satisfied with its result, that he thought that the impression which it had made on Alcibiades did not go deep enough, that he regarded the youth’s real prospects as not very bright” (Bruell 1999, 20). Both Proclus (1965, 3–­5) and Alfarabi (2001, 53–­54) indicate, in their commentaries on the Alcibiades I, that it comes first in the whole corpus. See also Coby (1987, 189 n. 18), who argues that the Protagoras takes place after the Alcibiades I. 5. On the dramatic date of the Charmides, see, for example, Nails (2002, 359) and Zuckert (2009, 9). 6. When Socrates begins his narration to the comrade of the morning’s events, he first introduces Hippocrates to them by using his patronymic, as is customary, as well as the name of his brother, Phason, who had learned of Protagoras’ presence in Athens before Hippocrates had done but who showed no interest whatsoever in seeing the great sophist: it occurred to him to mention the fact to his brother only casually, after dinner. Socrates does not assume that the comrade knows who Hippocrates is; Hippocrates’ brother, with his merely passing interest in the presence of Protagoras in Athens, may be better known to the comrade. 7. Coby (1987) suggests that “one arguable purpose of the dialogue is to have Socrates combat this unseemly reputation [as a pederast], given exposure at the very outset, with a presentation of himself as a defender of the virtue of the young against the corrupting influences of sophistry” (20)—­although one must add that Socrates does not take the opportunity to combat that unseemly reputation when it is presented to him here. 8. See Andocides On the Mysteries §§124–­27 (Macdowell 1962) and Strauss (1970, 157–­158). 9. Although Protagoras clearly has more regard for the powerful than for the many, he nonetheless also places the powerful in the class of (mere) “human beings”: the ancient crypto-­sophists, his predecessors, he considers “men” (andres: compare 316d5 with 317a3). 10. For a helpful discussion of Protagoras’ self-­presentation here, see Coby (1987, 37–­44). 11. Consider McCoy: “Protagoras’ definition of what he teaches as euboulia and Soc­ rates’ restatement of this as the art of being a ‘good citizen’ are both likely parts of the larger cultural understanding of excellence and yet not necessarily consistent with one another” (2008, 76, emphasis added). 12. Useful extended treatments include Coby (1987, 53–­70) and Goldberg (1983, 13–­66). 13. According to Klein, “The phrase sun the�i eipein or the�i eipein is not clear” (1977, 84 n. 10); for one explanation, see Coby: “In Protagoras’s lexicon, ‘god’ in the singular

228

notes to pages 30–61

betokens human intelligence, or the creative faculty that manufactures ‘gods’ in the plural” (1987, 56). See also Plato Laws 858b2. 14. As Pangle observes, Protagoras “offers both a myth and an argument, answering in turn Socrates’ two arguments against virtue’s teachability based on the practice of the d�mos and the experience of the great” (2014, 139). 15. Pangle speaks in this context of Protagoras’ “strained chronology” (2014, 141). 16. So also Coby: “What the mythos quietly suggests . . . is that techn� is the source of religion: techn� came to man by way of Prometheus; it is what links man to the god, for it is the cause and origin of his divine portion; and the divine portion, or man’s kinship with the god, is the cause of his worshiping gods; hence techn� produces religion” (1987, 55, emphasis in original). 17. We therefore agree (if for somewhat different reasons) with Kerferd (1953, 42) against Goldberg (1983, 52) that the section concerning punishment properly belongs to the myth as distinguished from the logos. 18. Nussbaum contends that, according to Protagoras, we are by nature political animals (1986, 102–­103). One must say not only that this view is “too strong” (McCoy 2008, 64) but that it is incorrect: as McCoy rightly observes, “Protagoras in no way implies that there is a natural tendency to be just . . . for the ‘straightening of the wood’ image suggests correction through beating and violence” (2008, 64). And to deny that we, by nature, have a concern for justice is tantamount to asserting that we are not by nature political, as Protagoras and Thomas Hobbes, for example, knew well.

chapter two 1. Goldberg puts the fundamental question this way: “whereas he [Protagoras] declares there are many men who are ‘just but not wise’ (329e), he does not say that there are wise men who are not just.” And he does not say this because it is “not to Protagoras’ benefit” that this fact be brought to light (1983, 48–­49). 2. For a clear analysis of the logic, or illogic, of this section, see Goldberg (1983, 102–­109). 3. Protagoras “cares so little about the particular distinction between justice and piety that it does not seem worthwhile to him to object to Socrates’ bad logic” (Pangle 2014, 153). 4. As Cropsey observes here, “Protagoras does not take advantage of the opportunity to point out how this widespread turpitude increases the need for universal moral instruction of the kind he provides, for by his account the citizen mass is a source of moral instruction for the young and for itself” (1995, 14). 5. I follow Coby (1987), Goldberg (1983), and Weingartner (1973) in maintaining that the discussion of poetry “advances the main theme of the dialogue” (Weingartner 1973, 95), in contrast to Paul Shorey, for example, who suggests that “it contains little or nothing that bears on the main argument” (1933, 128). 6. For attempts to reconstruct the original poem, which is otherwise lost, see Adam and Adam (1921, 194–­200) and Goldberg (1983, 178–­180). 7. See also, on Hesiod’s Works and Days, Bartlett (2006, 196 and context). 8. Bowra says this about the term, in the context of a discussion of Plato’s quotation of Simonides: “The notion is of course familiar from the oligarchic and aristocratic poets. Esthlos is used almost ad nauseum by Theognis to describe himself and his friends, and

notes to pages 63–89

229

Pindar uses it of the princes of Thessaly (Pyth. X. 69) no less than of Pelops (Nem. II.21) and Telephus (Isth. V. 41). By the end of the sixth century it had become a political label assumed by aristocrats in their struggles with the populace” (1934, 233). 9. Consider, not least, Socrates’ praise of the education of the Spartan women (342d4; compare Aristotle Politics 1269b12–­1270a11) and the hesitation implied by elegeto at 343a4. The Spartans “were not philosophers but a notoriously dour and uncultivated people of few words and fewer ideas. They lived in a state of perpetual military readiness, and brought up their young under a brutally tough regimen” ( Hubbard and Karnofsky 1982, 129–­130). 10. As Pangle puts it, Socrates “continues to put strange constructions on words and to offer strained readings of Greek syntax” (2014, 168). 11. On the translation of apalamnos, see Bartlett (2004, 47 n. 155). 12. Consider also McCoy (2008, 72–­73) and Coby: “What Socrates pretends has taken place is the transformation of Protagoras from an honor-­loving Achilles (before the analysis) to a crafty, knowledge-­loving Odysseus (after the analysis)” (1987, 131).

chapter three 1. This complex and climactic section treating courage has occasioned much commentary: Coby (1987, 131–­141 and 165–­172); Devereux (1975); Duncan (1978); Pangle (2014, 181–­209); and Weiss (1985). 2. For a thoughtful attempt to vindicate Socrates’ logic here, see Weiss (1985). 3. Commenting on Socrates’ statement at 352a6–­b2, Pangle suggests this: “What Soc­ rates is saying, in effect, is that Protagoras has already made it sufficiently clear that behind his gentlemanly demeanor he identifies pleasure as the true good, so that courage and the other virtues would be good only as means, and that he is prevented only by prudential caution from declaring his true beliefs” (2014, 188). 4. J. S. Mill, for one, was very impressed by Socrates’ arguments here: “And after more than two thousand years the same discussions continue, philosophers are still ranged under the same contending banners, and neither thinkers nor mankind at large seem nearer to being unanimous on the subject, than when the youth Socrates listened to old Protagoras, and asserted . . . the theory of utilitarianism against the popular morality of the so-­called sophist” (1969, 205). 5. On this “art of measurement” or “hedonistic calculus,” see Dyson (1976); Richardson (1990); and Weiss (1989). Nussbaum (1986), while acknowledging that Socrates cannot hold pleasure to be the proper end of life and hence of the scientific art of measuring he adumbrates, nonetheless maintains that Socrates is serious in holding out the possibility of a life lived altogether scientifically, which she takes to mean beyond the reach of all chance or misfortune. In fact such a doctrine, and the hope informing it, proceeds from what one might call the unphilosophic view par excellence. 6. Consider the preceding note. 7. One should keep in mind throughout this section the sound observation of McCoy: “Socrates’ questions to Protagoras [in the hedonism section] are intended to bring out problems inherent in Protagoras’ own ideas; that is, they are a modified version of an ad hominem argument. The hedonism section of the argument is not reducible to Socrates’ own views on the nature of pleasure and wisdom” (2008, 61).

230

notes to pages 98–114

8. As McCoy puts it, “He openly admires those willing to go to war and disparages those who avoid it” (2008, 69). 9. Consider also Coby: “Socrates gradually uncovers the contradictory character of Protagoras, for he is shown to be both hero and warrior made famous by the defeat of his opponents, and intellectual ‘sophisticate’ contemptuous of the sacrifice and the discipline of habitual virtue” (1987, 13, as well as 165–­172). 10. Pangle gracefully summarizes the matter this way: “Socrates’ questioning as revealed that the hedonism of Protagoras pretends to attribute to the people and in fact endorses is not the only principle in him, that beneath his gentlemanly surface and deeper even than his covert hedonism is a belief in a nobility that by no means reduces to pleasure” ( 2014, 209). See also Bartlett ( 2003). 11. Cynthia Farrar’s contention that “Protagoras was, so far as we know, the first democratic political theorist in the history of the world” (1988, 77) may be true only if everyone who has a “theory” about democracy is by that fact alone a democratic theorist. Shorey makes this more sober observation apropos of Protagoras’ comment that the many—­that is, the backbone of every democracy—­“perceive as it were nothing”: “This is contrary to the fancy that Protagoras was the first theorist of democracy” (1933, 493 n. on 317a).

chapter four 1. To this may perhaps be added the Cratylus, which is clearly linked to both Euthyphro (Cratylus 396d5, 399a1, 400a1, 409d1–­2, 428c7) and Protagoras (385e6, 386c2 and 7–­8, 391c6). Its precise dramatic dating is controversial, however, with some contending that it immediately follows the Euthyphro and so takes place on the same day as the Theaetetus (e.g., Allan 1954, 273; Ewegen 2013, 26–­27; and Sallis 1975) and others contending that it must be earlier (see, e.g., Nails 2002, 312–­313). 2. For an extended and careful treatment of these dialogues taken in order—­with the exception that the Protagoras is added and the Cratylus dropped—­see Cropsey (1995); see also Bartlett (1996). 3. Unless, pace Benardete (1986, 85), one counts as part of the performed section Soc­ rates’ final remark before turning to the narrative in the Protagoras (310a7), in which case the Protagoras features twenty-­two exchanges, the Theaetetus twenty-­one. According to Benardete, the “structure of the Theaetetus most resembles that of the Protagoras,” and “Protagoras determines the course of the Theaetetus, absent though he is and represented only by lukewarm adherents, as much as he determines the course of the Protagoras” (1986, 85–­86). 4. The Hipparchus, whose theme is the love of gain, also features Socrates speaking only to a “comrade.” The Charmides is a narrated dialogue addressed to a certain “comrade” (154b8; compare 155c5 [ “friend” ] and d3 [“well-­born fellow”]). 5. For different interpretations of the meaning of Megara in the context of the Theaetetus, consider Benardete (1986, 86–­87); Polansky (1992, 34–­36); and Stern (2008, 13–­16). 6. For a summary of what is known of Theaetetus’ mathematical accomplishments, see Heath (1921, 209–­212). 7. The conversation recorded in the Theaetetus between Socrates, Theodorus, and Theaetetus clearly took place in 399 BCE, the year of Socrates’ execution, but since it is

notes to pages 117–128

231

unclear when the battle in Corinth took place, the dramatic date of the dialogue’s principal action—­the recitation of that original conversation—­remains unclear: 390–­387 BCE or 369 BCE are possible dates (see, e.g., Shorey 1933, 572 n. on 142a–­b). Campbell (1883, lxi) argues for the earlier date. Benardete prefers the later date on the grounds that the earlier one “would seem to condense Theaetetus’ achievements into too short an interval” (1986, 184 n. 2; so also Burnyeat 1990, 3; Chappell 2004, 35 n. 5; and Polansky 1992, 35). But if Theaetetus was, say, fifteen or sixteen years old in 399 BCE—­Socrates notes that the lad is still growing (155b6–­c1), and Burnyeat (1990, 3) suggests that Theaetetus would have been at that time “sixteen or even less”—­he would be twenty-­six or so when serving as a soldier in, say, 389; and do not mathematicians typically do their best work when young? In any case, the recitation of Euclides’ book takes place at least one decade and as many as three decades after the death of Socrates; by “having Euclides and Terpsion’s conversation take place when and where it does, Plato brings together two deaths that occurred perhaps thirty years apart” (Polansky 1992, 35). 8. See the preceding note. 9. There is a certain parallel between Theaetetus’ appearance here from the underworld and Socrates’ own at the beginning of the Protagoras. In that dialogue, as we have seen, Socrates compares the house of Callias, from which he has just emerged, to the house of Hades, and he is greeted by the comrade “as an apparition that has suddenly materialized before him” (Coby 1987, 19). 10. “There seems to be a contradiction between the myth of the Protagoras and the Theaetetus, where the conventionalist thesis is presented as an improved version of Protagoras’ thesis, which in its denials of ordinarily held views goes much beyond conventionalism. . . . But, as the context shows, what Protagoras says in the myth of the Protagoras is likewise an improved version of his real thesis. In the Protagoras the improvement is effected under pressure of the situation (the presence of a prospective pupil) by Protagoras himself, whereas in the Theaetetus it is effected on his behalf by Socrates” (Strauss 1953, 117 n. 47). 11. For references to and brief discussions of the Meno in relation to the Theaetetus, see, for example, Cornford (2003, 27); Desjardins (1990, 201 n. 9 and 241 n. 4); McDowell (1973, 115); Polansky (1992, 49); Sedley (2004, 26 n. 41); and, most comprehensively, Froidfond (2006). 12. Nails (2002), for example, suggests a dramatic date of 402 BCE for the Meno, Zuckert that of 402–­401 (2009, 9); the action narrated in the Theaetetus takes place shortly be­ fore Socrates’ execution in 399. 13. For a thoughtful attempt to read the whole Theaetetus, but especially its third and last definition of knowledge, in light of Socrates’ account of mud, see Gill (2013). 14. On the ambiguity of the term dunamis (“power,” “capacity,” but also “square” and “square root” and “surd”), see the helpful remarks of Polansky (1992, 56). 15. This mathematical section has attracted much scholarly attention. Consider, for example, Bostock (1988, 34–­35); Polansky (1992, 53–­58); and Waterfield (2004, 138–­139). 16. Cropsey goes so far as to say that the “colloquy on numbers serves the immediate purpose of demonstrating that Theaetetus knows how to gather a manifold within a unity or to make a definition, which is to say that he understands the first demand of rationality” (1995, 34–­35).

232

notes to pages 129–162

17. Socrates’ account of his principal activity in terms of midwifery has occasioned much commentary. Among the most useful accounts are Burnyeat (1977); Rue (1993); Stern (2008, 32–­81); and Wengert (1988). 18. “As the midwife passage unfolds, Socrates shifts ever more responsibility from the god to himself, and the image comes ever closer to expressing this Socratic way of life” (Stern 2008, 81 n. 98). 19. In fact, we are never presented with “sense data”; rather, we are presented with things of more or less concern to us that bear specific qualities: a hot stove, a bitter drink, a heavy stone. We can speak of “sense data” only as the result of an act of abstraction from our prior and more fundamental experience of the world as it is given to us through the senses, and that abstraction therefore relies on that prior experience. 20. According to Polansky, this passage depends on Socrates’ deliberate attempt to blur or equate these two distinct kinds of change so as to confuse Theaetetus and thereby defend the doctrine of the flux; and it is especially such judgments as pertain to size or number that seem most to threaten that doctrine: “It seems very doubtful that those features capable of easy quantitative determination, such as size and number, reduce to motions or appear uniquely to a perceiver. But Socrates must have it so” (1992, 91). 21. “It is this vacillation between the ‘no’ dictated by an apparently commonsense view of reality already given as discrete, and the ‘yes’ dictated by a view of reality as continuous wherein we ourselves must be responsible for the measuring, that accounts for the fact that ‘we find ourselves rather easily forced to make extraordinary and absurd statements, as Protagoras and everyone who agrees with him would say’ (154b6–­8)” (Desjardins 1990, 188). 22. For a reading of the Hippolytus that takes its bearings by Protagoras’ dictum of the measure, see Lidauer (2004). 23. Polansky approaches the same thought by speaking of Socrates’ “even broader purpose of truly radicalizing the flux,” which in this context means that “all becoming becomes, it turns out, only with respect to other becoming” (1992, 91, emphasis original). 24. I cannot agree with the (admittedly tentative) suggestion of Polansky, according to whom, if one stresses the role played by the messenger of the gods here, “then it seems philosophy takes the gods rather than man to be the measure of things” (1992, 96): philosophy, all philosophy, becomes possible only if precisely gods are not the measure. 25. Cropsey speaks in this context of “the crudeness of the vulgar materialism of which Protagoras need not be guilty” (1995, 38).

chapter five 1. As Joseph Cropsey observes, “When Socrates declares . . . that the problem posed by dreaming is severe because we spend half our time asleep, we begin to suspect that the present argument has something of the provisional about it” (1995, 39). 2. The Greek in this last clause is ambiguous, since it features two accusative nouns before the infinitive, leaving it somewhat unclear which noun functions as the subject and which functions as the predicate: “knowledge comes to be perception” (so Benardete 1986; McDowell 1973) or “perception comes to be knowledge” (so Cornford 2003; Sachs 2004) are possible translations.

notes to pages 162–182

233

3. “It is not that any experience might be the illusion of a dream, hence false, but that any experience has as much right to be considered veridical as any other; all are on a par, all true for the individual subject who has them, no matter what the conditions (dreaming, madness, etc.) under which they occur” (Burnyeat 1990, 18). So also Sedley: “In the passage on illusion at 157e1–­160c6 all delusions, even dreams, were implicitly brought under the heading of veridical perceptions” (2004, 97, emphasis added). 4. Lee makes the passing observation that, according to the passage in question, “the gods have no more wisdom than does any man” (1973, 227). 5. The emphatic character of Theaetetus’ agreement here need not suggest, it seems to me, that he is recoiling from Protagoreanism “as if shocked by its impious implication” (Cropsey 1995, 40): he is more clearly impressed by the threat to precisely the sophist’s claim to wisdom that his wise doctrine suggests. 6. On the term, consider Lee (1973, 228 n. 5). 7. A variant of the same remark is recorded in Eusebius (Diels and Kranz 1952, 80 B4): “About gods, I am not able to know that they are or that they are not or of what sort they are in form [idea], for the impediments to knowing are many, both the obscurity involved and the brevity of the life of a human being.” 8. This is of a piece with Protagoras’ account of human creation in the Protagoras, as Coby notes in his comment on the latter: “According to original design, the human race was not essentially different from any other species; there was no homo sapiens in the divine blueprint” (1987, 55). Compare, however, Protagoras 321c1 and 333e1–­334c6. 9. As the phrase at 166a2 (Houtos d� ho S�krat�s ho chr�stos) might be rendered. 10. As one scholar has characterized Protagoras’ argument here, “What we now know is not properly X but rather (say) our memory trace of X—­some present pathos (Y) quite distinct from X (or, more exactly, from our earlier perception of X) . . . the item that we do now know (viz. Y) and the one that we no longer know (X) will not be one and the same item” (Lee 1973, 236). 11. “Protagoras gestures to Socrates’ earlier objection about memory and suggests that perceptual awareness and recollection are two different ways of experiencing a thing, of which only the former is a case of knowing” (Giannopoulou 2013, 75). 12. See Burnyeat (1990, 23 and n. 32) for a brief discussion of the possible meanings of “better” here. 13. If I am not mistaken, Socrates uses the definite article in referring to Protagoras on ten occasions (at 152b6, c8–­9; 155d6; 160c8, d8–­9; 161e4; 165e4; 168c9; 169d6; and 171c1). Most of these may be explained either as implying that Protagoras is well known (see Smyth 1984, #1136) or as having an appositive function. In the last three cases, however, Socrates seems to be referring to “the Protagoras” of the long speech, who as such affirms the possibility of knowledge of the good or advantageous and hence of wisdom: this Protagoras may be (more than elsewhere) a creation of Socrates himself. 14. Lee calls this “one of the most audacious and astonishing images in the whole of Plato—­one at once so vivid and so dense in meaning, so simple and yet with such a deep, almost surrealistic strangeness, that it is quite breathtaking to discover what it means” (1973, 243)—­namely, that Protagoras’ theoretical stance precludes him from making any “objective” claims about the world and so of engaging in any real discussion; he therefore resembles, rooted in the earth as he is, a “plant” (249–­250)!

234

notes to pages 182–198

15. See, for example, Burnyeat (1976 and 1990), who finds Plato’s argument here persuasive, as does Emilsson (1994): Protagoras is rendered without response to his objectors. 16. For the suggestion that Protagoras’ argument cannot be saved even if one sticks tenaciously to the qualifiers “true for me” as distinguished from “true for you,” see Emilsson (1994); so also, in a somewhat different way, see Lee (1973, 248 and context). According to the latter, “[T]he odd result of Protagoras’ own views . . . is that he himself can no more assert his own thesis to be true [namely, without opening himself up to self-­contradiction] than anyone else can successfully deny it. . . . Though the scrupulous retention of his relativizing qualifiers might indeed enable him to avoid the coils of the ‘exquisite’ [i.e., ‘most subtle’] argument, that would only be at the price of showing that he is not making any assertion and not making any claim upon us” (Lee 1973, 248–­249). 17. Compare, however, Sedley: “the one thing to which the Measure Doctrine does not apply would be itself; hence those who disagree with Protagoras are not, in this one special case, measures of truth, and the self-­refutation argument collapses” (2004, 86). This strategy would be more powerful if Protagoras (or Socrates in his stead) had taken advantage of it. 18. On the translation of this passage, see Burnyeat (1990, 33 n. 41). 19. Compare Burnyeat: “[A] lot of people are inclined to deny the objectivity of values, to incorporate that much Protagoras into their thinking, without going along with his parallel view of (a) [i.e., the relativity of sensible qualities] and without, of course, doubting for a moment the objectivity of questions of advantage” (1990, 33). This otherwise helpful formulation leaves unclear whether “of course” Protagoras too doubts (or rejects) the “objectivity” of the good—­what is the crucial question of the passage. See also, for example, McDowell (1973, 172–­173) on what he calls a “modified Protagorean doctrine,” the “unrestricted” version including “whatever predicate” (including the good or advantageous therefore) one wishes to include in the relativity of perception. 20. I therefore cannot agree with Stern that Socrates here “wrings” from Protagoras an acknowledgment that the “good for such a potentially diverse being [as human beings are] must be a question” (2008, 153): Socrates here goes out of his way to indicate the controversial status of the good for Protagoras and according to him. 21. See, for example, Burnyeat (1990, 34–­36); Cropsey (1995, 32 and 47); Giannopoulou (2013, 90–­101, especially 93); Rue (1993); and Stern (2008, 163 and context). 22. There is a difficulty in the text, and it is unclear whether there is one quotation, combining the reference to the king who possesses much gold, or two quotations, as the text of Burnet (1903) has it, the reference to the king’s happiness and that of a man who pos­ sesses gold being thus separated. 23. Socrates’ own formulation at 176a1–­2 is ambiguous, for the adjective “happy” clearly modifies “men” but not so clearly “gods.” 24. On the influence of this statement in the subsequent history of philosophy and especially theology, see Annas (1999); Burnyeat (1990, 35); Sedley (1999); and van Kooten (2008, 124–­219). 25. Compare Burnyeat: “But this rejection of snobbery [in the digression] is embedded in a wholesale condemnation of ordinary human concerns which twentieth-­century readers are more likely to find alien and repellent, even as we are gripped (despite ourselves) by the sweep and force of the rhetoric” (1990, 35, emphasis added). 26. We therefore cannot agree in the end that “Protagoras’s doctrine will stand or fall

notes to pages 198–222

235

by his ability to disclose a standard of good that does not imply a truth dependent on rest and being” (Cropsey 1995, 42). 27. As Joseph Cropsey notes, “It becomes clearer to us that Theaetetus has a place in the Platonic project for examining the schools, for considering the state of the issues addressed by all who could raise a plausible claim to possess a wisdom” (1995, 38). 28. The “final failure of Theaetetus’ definition will rest on the consideration that, while defining knowledge as perception, it has to regard every actual case of perceiving . . . as one in which the perception through that sense has ceased to be a perception before one has finished referring to it as a ‘perception’ ” (Sedley 2004, 97).

conclusion 1. For an intriguing overview of possible allusions in the Protagoras to Aristophanes’ Clouds, see Goldberg (1983, 328–­335). 2. Consider Stauffer (2010, especially 112–­114) and Coby: “As a token of the extent to which eroticism is consciously excluded from Socrates’ discussion with Protagoras, there is the delightful vignette enacted on Callias’s doorstep: likened to the realm of the dead (315b, 315c), the home of Callias is a residence for illustrious but erotically deficient wise men; and in attendance at the portal of this new Hades is a eunuch” (1987, 22, emphasis original). 3. See also Pangle (2014, 132–­133). 4. For the general argument that Socrates improves Protagoras’ argument in the Theaetetus, see chapter 4 note 10 above.

references

primary texts: editions and translations Adam, J., and A. M. Adam. 1921. Platonis Protagoras. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Alfarabi. 2001. Philosophy of Plato and Aristotle. Ed. and trans. Muhsin Mahdi. Foreword by Charles E. Butterworth and Thomas L. Pangle. Revised edition. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Bartlett, Robert C., ed. and trans. 2004. Meno and Protagoras. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Becker, Alexander. 2007. Platon Theätet. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Benardete, Seth, ed. and trans. 1986. Theaetetus. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Burnet, John. 1903. Opera Omnia Platonis. 5 volumes. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Campbell, Lewis. 1883. The Theaetetus of Plato. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Cornford, Francis M. 2003. [Originally published 1957.] Plato’s Theory of Knowledge: The Theaetetus and the Sophist. Mineola, NY: Dover. Croiset, Alfred. 1923. Platon Oeuvres complètes tome III 1re partie. Paris: Les Belles Lettres. Diels, Hermann, and Walther Kranz. [= DK]. 1952. Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker. 3 volumes. 6th ed. Berlin: Weidmann. Diès, Auguste. 1976. Platon Oeuvres complètes tome 8 2e partie: Théétète. Paris: Les Belles Lettres. Duke, E. A., et al. 1995. Platonis Opera Omnia. Vol. 1. [Contains the Greek text of the Theaetetus.] Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hegel, G. W. F. 1995. Lectures on the History of Philosophy: Greek Philosophy to Plato. Trans. E. S. Haldane. Vol. 1. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Hubbard, B. A. F., and E. S. Karnofsky. 1982. Plato’s Protagoras. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Liddell, Henry George, Robert Scott, and Henry Stuart Jones. 1973. A Greek-­English Lexicon. 9th ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Macdowell, Douglas. 1962. Andocides: On the Mysteries. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Manuwald, Bernd. 1999. Protagoras. Göttingen: Vandenhöck and Ruprecht.

237

238

references

McDowell, John. 1973. Theaetetus. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Mill, John Stuart. 1969. [Originally published 1863.] “Utilitarianism.” In Collected Works. Vol. 10. Ed. J. M. Robson. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Mill, John Stuart. 1978. [Originally published 1834–­35.] “The Protagoras.” In Collected Works. Vol. 11. Ed. J. M. Robson. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Nietzsche, Friedrich. 1968. The Will to Power. Trans. Walter Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale. New York: Vintage. Plutarch. 1936. Whether an Old Man Should Participate in Politics. In Moralia. Vol. 10. Ed. and trans. H. N. Fowler. Cambridge, MA: Loeb Classical Library. Proclus. 1965. Alcibiades I. Trans. William O’Neill. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. Sachs, Joe, ed. and trans. 2004. Theaetetus. Newburyport, MA: Focus. Sauppe, Hermann. 1892. Protagoras. Trans. James A. Towle. Boston: Ginn and Co. Smyth, Herbert Weir. 1984. Greek Grammar. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Thucydides. 1963. Historiae. Ed. H. S. Jones. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Waterfield, Robin A. H., ed. and trans. 2004. Theaetetus. London: Penguin.

secondary literature Allan D. J. 1954. “The Problem of Cratylus.” American Journal of Philology 75 (3): 271–­87. Annas, Julia. 1999. Platonic Ethics, Old and New. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Barney, Rachel. 2006. “The Sophistic Movement.” In A Companion to Ancient Philosophy. Ed. Mary-­Louise Gill and Pierre Pellegrin, 77–­97. Oxford: Blackwell. Bartlett, Robert C. 1996. “Review of Joseph Cropsey, Plato’s World.” Journal of Politics 58 (2): 587–­89. Bartlett, Robert C. 2003. “Political Philosophy and Sophistry: An Introduction to Plato’s Protagoras.” American Journal of Political Science 47 (4): 612–­24. Bartlett, Robert C. 2006. “An Introduction to Hesiod’s Works and Days.” The Review of Politics 68 (2): 177–­205. Bartlett, Robert C. 2013. “Sophistry as a Way of Life.” In Political Philosophy Cross-­ examined. Ed. Thomas L. Pangle and J. Harvey Lomax, 5–­16. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Bostock, David. 1988. Plato’s Theaetetus. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Bowra, C. M. 1934. “Simonides and Scopas.” Classical Philology 29 (3): 230–­39. Bruell, Christopher. 1999. On the Socratic Education: An Introduction to the Shorter Platonic Dialogues. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. Bruell, Christopher. 2014. Aristotle as Teacher: His Introduction to a Philosophic Science. South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’s Press. Burns, Timothy. 2010. Recovering Reason: Essays in Honor of Thomas L. Pangle. Lanham, MD: Lexington. Burnyeat, M. F. 1976. “Protagoras and Self-­Refutation in Plato’s Theaetetus.” The Philosophical Review 85: 172–­95. Burnyeat, M. F. 1977. “Socratic Midwifery, Platonic Inspiration.” Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies 24: 7–­16.

references

239

Burnyeat, M. F. 1990. “Introduction.” In The Theaetetus of Plato. Trans. M. J. Levett. Indianapolis: Hackett. Chappell, Timothy. 2004. Reading Plato’s Theaetetus. Sankt Augustin: Academia. Coby, Patrick. 1987. Socrates and the Sophistic Enlightenment: A Commentary on Plato’s Protagoras. London: Bucknell University Press. Cropsey, Joseph. 1995. Plato’s World: Man’s Place in the Cosmos. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Desjardins, Rosemary. 1990. The Rational Enterprise: Logos in Plato’s Theaetetus. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. Devereux, D. T. 1975. “Protagoras on Courage and Knowledge: Protagoras 351A–­B.” Apeiron 9: 37–­39. Duncan, Roger. 1978. “Courage in Plato’s Protagoras.” Phoenix 32: 216–­28. Dyson, M. 1976. “Knowledge and Hedonism in Plato’s Protagoras.” Journal of Hellenic Studies 96: 32–­45. El Murr, Dimitri. 2013. La Mesure du Savoir: Études sur le Théétète de Platon. Paris: J. Vrin. Emilsson, Eyjolfur Kjalar. 1994. “Plato’s Self-­Refutation Argument in Theaetetus 171A–­C Revisited.” Phronesis 39 (2): 136–­49. Ewegen, S. Montgomery. 2013. Plato’s Cratylus: The Comedy of Language. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Farrar, Cynthia. 1988. The Origins of Democratic Thinking: The Invention of Politics in Classical Athens. New York: Cambridge University Press. Fine, Gail. 2000. Plato II: Ethics, Politics, Religion, and the Soul. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fish, Stanley. 1990. “Rhetoric.” In Doing What Comes Naturally: Change, Rhetoric, and the Practice of Theory in Literary and Legal Studies, 471–­502. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Fish, Stanley, 1994. “Fish Tales: A Conversation with ‘The Contemporary Sophist.’” In There’s No Such Thing as Free Speech: And It’s a Good Thing Too, 281–­308. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Froidfond, Christian. 2006. Méno et Théétète. Paris: L’Harmattan. Giannopoulou, Zina. 2013. Plato’s Theaetetus as a Second Apology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gill, Mary-­Louise. 2013. “La Connaissance et l’Argile.” In El Murr 2013. 223–­39. Goldberg, Larry. 1983. A Commentary on Plato’s Protagoras. New York: Peter Lang. Grote, George. 1850. History of Greece. Vol. 8. London: John Murray. Heath, Thomas. 1921. A History of Greek Mathematics: From Thales to Euclid. Vol. 1. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Kerferd, G. B. 1953. “Protagoras’ Doctrine of Justice and Virtue in the Protagoras of Plato.” Journal of Hellenic Studies 73: 42–­45. Kerferd, G. B. 1981. The Sophistic Movement. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kimball, Roger. 1989. “The Contemporary Sophist.” The New Criterion 8 (2): 5–­15. Klein, Jacob. 1977. Plato’s Trilogy: “Theaetuetus,” “The Sophist,” and “The Statesman.” Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

240

references

Lampert, Laurence. 2010. How Philosophy Became Socratic: A Study of Plato’s Protagoras, Charmides, and Republic. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lee, Edward N. 1973. “‘Hoist with His Own Petard’: Ironic and Comic Elements in Plato’s Critique of Protagoras (Tht. 161–­171).” In Lee et al. 1973. 225–­61. Lee, E. N., A. P. D. Mourelatos, and R. M. Rorty, eds. 1973. Exegesis and Argument: Studies in Greek Philosophy Presented to Gregory Vlastos. Assen: Van Gorcum. Lidauer, Eva. 2004. “Der ‘Hyppolytos’ des Euripides: Die Tragödie als Kommentar zu einer Lesart des Homo-­mensura-­Satzes.” In Neumaier 2004. 37–­69. McCoy, Marina. 2008. Plato on the Rhetoric of Philosophers and Sophists. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Morrison, J. S. 1941. “The Place of Protagoras in Athenian Public Life (460–­415 B.C.).” Classical Quarterly 35 (January–­April): 1–­16. Nails, Debra. 2002. The People of Plato: A Prosopography of Plato and Other Socratics. Indianapolis: Hackett. Neumaier, Otto, ed. 2004. Ist Der Mensch Das Mass Aller Dinge? Beiträge zur Aktualität des Protagoras. Paderborn: Bibliopolis. Nussbaum, Martha. 1986. “The Protagoras: A Science of Practical Reasoning.” In The Fragility of Goodness, 89–­121. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nussbaum, Martha. 1992. “Sophistry about Conventions.” In Love’s Knowledge: Essays on Philosophy and Literature, 220–­29. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Owen, J. Judd. 2001. Religion and the Demise of Liberal Rationalism: The Foundational Crisis of the Separation of Church and State. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Pangle, Lorraine. 2014. Virtue Is Knowledge: The Moral Foundations of Socratic Political Philosophy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Polansky, Ronald. 1992. Philosophy and Knowledge: A Commentary on Plato’s Theaetetus. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press. Richardson, H. S. 1990. “Measurement, Pleasure, and Practical Science in Plato’s Protagoras.” Journal of the History of Philosophy 28 (1): 7–­32. Romilly, Jacqueline de. 1988. Les Grandes Sophistes dans l’Athènes de Périclès. Paris: Éditions de Fallois. Rothman, David. 2008. “An American Sophist: The Surprising Career of Stanley Fish.” Academic Questions 21 (4): 367–­91. Rue, Rachel. 1993. “The Philosopher in Flight: The Digression (172c–­177c) in Plato’s Theaetetus.” In Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy. 11: 71–­100. Sallis, John. 1975. Being and Logos. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Schiappa, Edward. 2003. Protagoras and Logos. 2nd ed. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press. Sedley, David. 1999. “The Ideal of Godlikeness.” In Fine 2000. 309–­28. Sedley, David. 2004. The Midwife of Platonism: Text and Subtext in Plato’s Theaetetus. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Shorey, Paul. 1933. What Plato Said. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Stauffer, Devin. 2010. “Socrates and the Sophists.” In Burns 2010. 101–­16. Stern, Paul. 2008. Knowledge and Politics in Plato’s Theaetetus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Strauss, Leo. 1953. Natural Right and History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

references

241

Strauss, Leo. 1965. Lectures on Plato’s Protagoras. https://leostrausscenter.uchicago.edu /course/plato-protagoras-spring-quarter-1965. Strauss, Leo. 1968. “The Liberalism of Classical Political Philosophy.” In Liberalism Ancient and Modern, 26–­64. New York: Basic Books. Strauss, Leo. 1970. Xenophon’s Socratic Discourse. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Verdenius, W. J. 1974. “Bemerkungen zur Einleitung des Protagoras.” In Studia Platonica. Ed. K. Döring and W. Kullmann, 41–­48. Amsterdam: Grüner. Vlastos, Gregory. 1981. [Originally published 1973.] “The Unity of the Virtues in Plato’s Protagoras.” In Platonic Studies, 221–­65. Princeton: Princeton University Press. von Kooten, Geurt Hendrik. 2008. Paul’s Anthropology in Context: The Image of God, Assimilation to God, and Tripartite Man in Ancient Judaism, Ancient Philosophy, and Early Christianity. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Weingartner, Rudolph. 1973. The Unity of the Platonic Dialogue: The Cratylus, the Protagoras, the Parmenides. Indianapolis: Bobbs-­Merrill. Weiss, Roslyn. 1985. “Courage, Confidence, and Wisdom in the Protagoras.” Ancient Philosophy 5 (1): 11–­24. Weiss, Roslyn. 1989. “The Hedonic Calculus in the Protagoras and the Phaedo.” Journal of the History of Philosophy 27 (4): 511–­29. Wengert, R. G. 1988. “The Paradox of the Midwife.” History of Philosophy Quarterly 5: 3–­10. Wolfsdorf, David. 1997. “The Dramatic Date of Plato’s ‘Protagoras.’ ” Rheinisches Museum für Philologie 140 (3/4): 223–­30. Zuckert, Catherine. 2009. Plato’s Philosophers: The Coherence of the Dialogues. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

index

actuality, 34–­35, 38, 63–­64, 92, 112–­13, 152, 158, 177 Agathon, 19, 21, 216 agathos, 61, 64–­65, 75–­76 agnosticism (of Protagoras), 165, 192, 222 Alcibiades, 8–­12, 19, 21–­22, 39, 50, 52–­53, 70–­72, 120, 209, 213, 216 Alcibiades I (Plato), 8, 25, 211, 226n4 Alcibiades II (Plato), 8, 211, 226n4 ambiguity, 136–­38, 220–­21 Andron, 19, 21 animals, 31–­32, 51, 143–­44, 163–­66, 173–­76, 190, 204 Antimoerus, 209–­10 Anytus, 41, 111 Apology of Socrates (Plato), 109, 131, 187–­88 appearance. See perception Aristophanes, 216 Aristotle, 48, 54, 68, 88, 90, 105, 112, 115 art. See knowledge; political philosophy; technē art of measurement, 86, 88, 90–­91, 113–­15, 133, 140, 154–­55, 216–­17, 229n5, 234n17 Athenian Stranger, 140, 163 Athens: democracy and, 14, 26–­27, 30, 34–­ 35, 53, 57–­58, 102–­3, 109–­11, 230n11; foreigners in, 19, 208–­11; laws of, 111–­12; mythos and, 29–­30; Peloponnesian War and, 113, 117; political structure of, 19, 34–­36, 115–­16. See also gods; mythos baboons, 163–­65, 173–­76, 204 beauty, 51–­52, 119

becoming: the good and, 40, 58, 61, 64; Megarics on, 112–­13; motion thesis and, 139–­41, 145–­48, 150–­56, 160–­61, 204–­6, 216–­17, 219; relationality and, 160–­61. See also knowledge; motion being: eidē and, 134, 150–­53, 170–­71, 181, 199, 204, 220–­21; the good and, 58, 61, 64; motion thesis and, 140–­41, 144–­48, 150–­56, 160–­61, 204–­6, 216–­17, 219; perception and, 112–­13, 135–­38 beliefs, 34–­36. See also mythos Benardete, Seth, 230n3 boldness, 77–­80, 105–­6 Bowra, C. M., 228n8 Burnyeat, M. F., 234n19, 234n25 Callias, 11–­13, 17–­22, 53, 213, 216 Callicles, 19, 196 chance, 189, 199–­204 Charmides, 18, 21, 39 Charmides (Plato), 7 citizenship: education and, 25–­27, 30, 102–­3; foreigness and, 15, 208–­11; human nature and, 207–­8; justice and, 189–­90; the law and, 111–­12; sophistry’s teachings and, 25–­26; virtue and, 27–­28, 34–­36 city, the: moral philosophy and, 176, 184, 199–­204; mythos of, 28–­29; sophistry’s teachings and, 25–­26, 34–­36, 176; virtue’s cultivation and, 79–­81 classes (eidē), 134, 150–­53, 170–­71, 181, 199, 204, 220–­21 cleverness, 18–­19, 25, 50–­52, 54–­55, 188, 192–­96

243

244

index

cloaks, 169–­70 Coby, Patrick, 227n7, 228n5, 230n9, 233n8, 235n2 color, 142–­43, 152–­56, 161, 204–­6 comrade, the (in Protagoras), 9–­13, 40, 50–­51, 227n6 concealment, 59, 63, 133–­34, 207, 209; poetry and, 23; sophistry’s practice and, 22–­24 continence, 88–­89, 93–­99, 105, 215 contradictions, 56 conventionalist thesis, 9–­10, 45, 82, 97, 102, 120, 177, 183, 189–­90, 212, 231n10 corrupting the young (charge), 11–­12, 114, 118 courage: boldness and, 77–­80; continence in, 88–­89, 93–­99, 105, 215–­17; as innate, 78, 80, 82–­83; justice and, 192–­93, 196–­99; knowledge and, 60–­62, 73–­81, 84–­85, 88– ­91, 93–­101, 221–­22; Protagoras on, 73–­75, 81–­91, 93–­99, 103–­4; Theaetetus and, 117–­19, 179–­80; virtue’s relation to, 73–­75, 213–­14, 221–­22 cowardice. See courage Cratylus, 134, 140 Cratylus (Plato), 230n1 Critias, 12, 19, 21–­22, 39, 50, 53 Cropsey, Joseph, 228n4, 231n16, 232n1, 235n27 democracy, 14, 26–­27, 30, 34–­35, 53–­54, 57–­ 58, 91–­93, 102–­3, 109–­11, 230n11 desire, 24–­25, 83, 120, 215–­17 dialectics, 3, 164, 173, 178, 195, 213–­15, 223–­24 dice, 145–­47 digression (of Socrates), 122, 185, 187–­98, 223–­24 dreaming, 157–­58, 232n1. See also knowledge; perception education: corrupting the young and, 11–­12, 114, 118; expertise and, 26–­27, 104, 121, 129–­30, 199–­204; in the law, 104–­6, 110–­12, 186–­98; motion and, 18, 36–­39; of perception, 176–­79; practical skills and, 3, 99–­106; riskiness of, 14–­15, 79–­80; self-­improvement and, 26, 50–­52, 75–­76, 92–­99, 207–­11, 219–­23; sophistry and, 13–­17, 22, 25–­26, 50–­52, 54–­55, 86–­87, 208–­9; teachability and, 26–­30, 58, 64–­67, 99–­101, 177–­78; virtue and, 27–­30, 34–­39,

48–­49, 61–­63, 65–­66, 68–­70, 75–­91, 119, 121, 124–­25, 174–­75, 177–­78 eidē, 134, 150–­53, 170–­71, 181, 199, 204, 220–­21 Eleatic Stranger, 2, 117 Electra, 148 Empedocles, 139, 148 enkrateia, 88–­89 Epicharmus, 139 Epimetheus, 14, 31–­33, 37, 212, 218 epistemology, 114–­15, 125. See also good, the; knowledge; perception; wisdom eros. See desire Eryximachus, 19, 216 esthlos, 61, 64–­65, 68, 75–­76, 228n8 Euclides, 109–­10, 112–­14, 116, 141, 149, 156 Euphronius, 187 Euripides, 146 Eusebius, 233n7 Euthydemus (Plato), 2, 7 Euthyphro (Plato), 45, 109, 164, 215, 223, 230n1 examples (of knowledge), 123–­24, 127 expertise, 26–­27, 104, 121, 129–­30, 199–­204 faces (parts of), 42–­44, 73, 98, 103 Farrar, Cynthia, 230n11 Fish, Stanley, 225n1 foreigners, 15, 208–­11. See also Protagoras forms (eidē), 134, 150–­53, 170–­71, 181, 199, 204, 220–­21 Four Hundred, 19 future, the, 173, 199–­204, 215, 224 gods: humanity’s relation to, 32–­34, 37–­38, 69–­70, 98, 101, 113, 140, 157–­59, 162–­66, 171, 173–­74, 183–­84, 192, 202–­3, 216–­17; knowledge and, 126, 129–­30, 165; the law and, 30–­39, 41–­42, 69, 98, 101, 110–­11, 176; piety and, 36–­39, 44–­46, 63–­64, 106, 110–­11; political art and, 29–­33; Socrates on, 126–­27, 129, 139–­40, 142; as things aloft, 19–­21, 32–­33, 56, 190 gold (parts of), 42–­44, 73, 98, 103 Goldberg, Larry, 228n1, 228n5 good, the: education and, 27–­30, 34–­39, 48–­49, 61–­70, 75–­91, 119, 121, 124–­25, 174–­78; evil and, 192; futurity and, 69, 86, 90, 125, 194–­97, 199–­204, 216–­17; hedonistic calculations of, 66–­67, 74–­75, 81–­94, 98, 104, 155, 175, 199, 217, 229n5; knowl-

index edge and, 40, 51, 73–­75, 90–­91, 93–­99; the law and, 111–­12, 186–­98; motion thesis and, 171–­80, 182–­85; nature and, 96–­98; nobility and, 66–­67; reputation and, 12, 24, 44, 51, 69, 120, 123, 131, 186–­94, 215, 218, 227n7. See also happiness; human beings; virtue Gorgias (Plato), 125, 196 Grote, George, 3 happiness, 190–­98. See also good, the; virtue hedonism, 66–­68, 74–­75, 81–­94, 98, 104, 155, 175, 199, 217 Hegel, G. W. F., 220–­21 Heracles, 20 Heraclitus, 109, 134, 139, 148, 161–­62, 182, 198, 205, 219 Herodicus of Selymbria, 23–­24 Hesiod, 23, 29, 55, 58–­59, 61, 63 Hipparchus (Plato), 230n4 Hippias, 15–­16, 18–­22, 24, 36, 53, 70–­72, 76, 86–­87, 91–­93, 210, 214 Hippias Major (Plato), 2, 20–­21 Hippias Minor (Plato), 2, 20–­21 Hippocrates, 10–­17, 21–­25, 28, 36, 69, 72, 79, 105–­6, 117, 209, 213, 227n6 Hippolytus (Euripides), 146 history of political philosophy, 1–­2 Hobbes, Thomas, 207–­8 Homer, 10, 16–­17, 23, 29, 55, 58, 63, 71, 139, 141–­42, 161–­62, 165, 203, 219, 221 hope, 69, 86, 90, 125, 194–­97, 216–­17, 224 human beings: concerns of, 44–­45, 181, 197, 211–­12, 218–­21, 234n25; epistemological limits and, 65–­66; gods’ relation to, 32–­34, 37–­38, 69–­70, 98, 101, 157–­59, 162–­66, 171, 173–­74, 183–­84, 192, 202–­3, 216–­17; happiness of, 190–­98; the many and, 38–­39, 102, 105, 133–­34, 137, 154, 181–­82, 189–­90, 193–­94, 208, 212, 214, 216–­17, 227n9; as measure of things, 113, 115, 133–­36, 154–­55, 162, 174, 181–­82, 198, 205–­6, 219–­20, 223, 234n17; nature of, 32–­33, 58–­59, 129–­30, 218, 223; self-­interest and, 50–­52, 81–­91, 93–­99; sociability of, 30–­33, 36–­38, 58–­59, 96–­ 98, 207, 216 Iliad (Homer), 139–­40 illness, 157–­60, 181, 183, 192 imagination, 158, 163–­64

245

Iris, 148 itself in itself, 135–­39, 143–­44. See also being; knowledge judgment, 85–­86 justice: Aristotle on, 115; education and, 48–­49, 65–­66; gods and, 29–­30, 33, 36–­39, 41–­42, 56, 69–­70; hedonism and, 67–­68; the law and, 189–­90, 193–­94, 208; moral culpability and, 34–­36, 192–­93; motion thesis and, 176–­79, 184–­85; nature of, 189–­91, 196–­97; philosophers’ task and, 189–­91, 208; piety and, 45–­46, 197–­98, 214–­15; virtue and, 42–­45, 47–­49, 185–­86, 197–­98, 221–­22; wisdom and, 43, 47–­50, 63–­64. See also courage; dialectics; law, the; sophistry kalos, 65, 83 knowledge: being vs. becoming and, 114–­15, 135, 143–­48, 151–­56, 160–­61, 204–­6; beliefs and, 34–­36; courage and, 60, 73–­81, 84–­85, 88–­91, 93–­101, 221–­22; definitions of, 122–­56, 198–­99, 219; dreaming and, 157; eidē and, 134, 150–­53, 170–­71, 181, 199, 204, 220–­21; expertise and, 26–­27, 104, 121, 129–­30, 199–­204; futurity and, 69, 86, 90, 125, 194–­97, 199–­204, 215–­17; hedonism and, 66–­67, 74–­75, 81–­91, 155, 229n5; limits of, 165–­79; measurement and, 86, 126, 129–­30, 140, 180–­81; mythos and, 28, 34–­36, 165–­69, 201–­2, 204–­6; perception and, 131–­34, 136, 139, 142–­44, 151–­52, 154, 158–­61, 167–­70, 172–­79, 181, 204–­6, 209, 219–­20; privacy of, 142–­44, 169–­70; teachability questions and, 25–­28; technē and, 32–­33, 43, 101, 115, 129–­30; virtue and, 44, 63–­70, 84–­91, 93–­106, 114–­ 15, 183–­84; wisdom and, 44, 121–­22, 142–­ 43, 177–­78, 199–­200, 202–­3, 213–­14, 218 Lampert, Laurence, 226n4 language (ordinary), 138–­39, 144–­46, 151–­53, 205–­6 law, the: being vs. becoming and, 58–­59; convention and, 9–­10, 45, 82, 97, 102, 120, 177, 183, 189–­90, 212, 231n10; education and, 104–­6, 110–­12, 186–­98; philosophy and, 187–­89; Zeus as lawgiver and, 30–­39, 41–­42, 69, 98, 101, 110–­11, 176. See also education; gods; human beings; justice

246

index

Laws (Plato), 140, 163 Lee, E. N., 233n14, 235n15 Lovers (Plato), 7 Lycon, 111 madness, 78–­82, 104, 157–­58, 162 manliness. See courage many, the, 38–­39, 75, 81–­93, 102–­5, 133–­37, 154, 181–­82, 189–­94, 208–­17, 227n9 materialism, 149–­50, 212 mathematics, 127–­29, 148–­49, 189, 224 McCoy, Marina, 227n11, 229n7, 230n8 measurement, 86–­91, 113–­15, 133, 140, 154–­ 55, 179–­80, 198, 203–­6, 216–­20, 229n5, 234n17. See also gods; human beings; knowledge; technē Megara, 112–­14, 117, 149–­51, 230n5 Meletus, 111 Melissus, 149 Memorabilia (Xenophon), 16, 20 memory, 158, 167–­68, 172–­73 Menexenus (Plato), 7 Meno (Plato), 41, 124–­26, 129, 131 midwifery, 115–­16, 129–­32, 155–­56, 161–­64, 232n17 Mill, J. S., 229n4 Minos (Plato), 110 moderation, 35–­49, 60, 63, 73, 75, 100–­106, 208, 215 moral philosophy: education and, 27–­28, 36–­39; hedonism and, 81–­91; human concerns and, 196–­99; justice and, 34–­36, 65–­66; motion doctrine and, 155–­57, 176–­ 79; perception as knowledge and, 155–­56, 215; Socrates and, 2, 8–­9. See also good, the; justice; piety; virtue motion: education as, 18, 36–­39; eidē and, 134, 150–­53, 169–­71, 181, 199, 204, 220–­ 21; futurity and, 200–­204; the good and, 58, 61, 155–­57, 171–­85; Homer and, 139– ­40; perception as knowledge and, 134–­ 56, 159–­61, 219–­20; Protagoras and, 18, 21–­22, 144–­47, 169–­79, 198–­204, 219; Soc­rates on, 204–­6; virtue and, 171–­76, 180, 182–­84, 197–­98. See also Heraclitus; Protagoras; relativism (modern) mythos: logos’ connection to, 152–­54; mo­ tion thesis as, 151–­54, 204–­6; Protag­ oras’ use of, 28, 36–­39, 152–­54, 166, 169, 222

nature: courage and, 78, 80; eidē and, 134, 150–­53, 170–­71, 181, 189, 199, 204, 220–­21; hedonism and, 81–­94; humanity and, 32–­33, 69–­70, 207–­8; of justice, 189–­91, 196–­97; moral culpability and, 34–­36; Socrates’ turn and, 8–­9, 211–­12; teachability and, 26–­28, 36–­37, 86–­87, 96–­98; as “things aloft,” 19–­21, 129–­30. See also courage; human beings; justice; knowledge; political philosophy; virtue necessity, 112, 161, 166 Nichomachean Ethics (Aristotle), 48, 88, 105 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 3 nobility, 56, 61, 65–­67, 75–­95, 98–­99, 117–­18, 131–­32, 176–­79, 184–­85 Nussbaum, Martha, 225n1, 228n18 Oceanus, 140, 148 Odysseus, 12, 19–­20, 208 On the Gods (Protagoras), 114, 165 ordinary language, 138–­39, 144–­46, 151–­53, 205–­6 Orpheus, 208 Pangle, Lorraine, 229n3 Parmenides, 109, 139, 141, 149, 159, 198, 221 Parmenides (Plato), 7 parts: of a face, 42–­44, 73, 98, 103; of gold, 42–­44, 73, 98, 103 Pausanias, 19, 216 Peloponnesian War, 113, 117, 142, 230n7 perception: being and, 112–­13, 135, 137; false perception and, 132, 136, 157, 167; futurity and, 69, 86, 90, 125, 194–­97, 200–­204, 216–­17; knowledge as, 131–­34, 136, 139, 142–­44, 151–­52, 154, 158–­59, 161–­62, 167–­70, 172–­79, 181–­83, 204–­6, 209, 219–­20, 232n19; motion thesis and, 142–­43, 150–­54, 159–­61; piety and, 183–­ 84; sophists’ teaching and, 176–­79, 182–­ 83; theological implications of, 162–­65; virtue and, 174–­79. See also becoming; motion; Protagoras Pericles, 18, 27–­28, 30, 41, 102, 113 perspectivism, 220–­21 persuasion, 40–­41 Phaedo (Plato), 7, 9, 112, 212 Phaedrus, 19, 216 physician metaphor, 83, 86–­87. See also illness

index piety: justice and, 45–­46, 63–­64, 196–­99, 214–­ 15, 221–­23; moderation and, 35–­47, 60, 63, 73, 75, 100–­106, 208, 215; perception and, 183–­84; Protagoras’ use of, 36–­39; Socrates’ trial and, 110–­11, 114–­16; virtue and, 44–­45, 106, 185–­86, 221–­23. See also gods; good, the; virtue pigs, 163, 165, 173–­76, 204 Pindar, 126, 228n8 Pittacus, 54–­70 Plato, 1–­3, 7–­10, 41, 45, 71, 109, 113–­16, 140, 163, 165–­66, 196, 211, 223, 225n5 pleasure. See hedonism poetry, 23, 54–­72, 106, 126, 144. See also Homer; Pindar Polansky, 232n20, 232n23 political philosophy: citizenship training and, 25–­26; the city and, 25–­27; common good notions and, 26; education and, 24–­28, 36–­39, 56–­57, 61–­62, 99–­106; epistemology’s place in, 114–­15, 125–­26; eternal truth and, 3, 14–­15; hedonism and, 81–­ 91; history of, 1–­2; human nature and, 32–­33, 58–­59, 129–­30, 218, 223; justice and, 115–­16, 189–­91, 196–­97, 214–­15; moral relativism and, 155–­57, 176–­79; motion thesis and, 155–­56; mythos and, 29–­36; Protagoras on, 207–­11; rhetoric and, 40–­41; Socrates as founder of, 1, 3, 8–­9; sophists’ teachings and, 16–­17, 24–­ 25, 41–­42, 48, 208–­11, 219–­23; wisdom and, 43–­44, 55, 59–­61, 93–­99, 122–­31, 179 Polyclitus, 41 potentiality, 112. See also becoming power, 77–­79 pre-­Socratics, 189, 194, 211–­12. See also specific philosophers presupposition, 123–­24, 127, 134, 139, 171–­ 72, 201–­2 privacy (of knowledge), 142–­44, 169–­70 Prodicus, 15–­16, 18–­22, 24, 36, 53, 57–­60, 63, 70–­72, 86–­87, 91–­93, 111, 210, 214 Prometheus, 29–­31, 37 prophecies, 117–­18, 173, 199–­204, 223 Protagoras: agnosticism of, 165, 173–­74, 189, 202–­3, 222; courage and, 81–­91, 93–­99, 103–­4, 221–­22; in the courtroom, 200–­204; curriculum of, 25–­28, 34–­36; death of, 114; existentialism of,

247

37–­38, 165–­79, 216; fame of, 2, 217–­18, 225nn4–­5, 233n13; introduction to, 21–­ 28; knowledge as perception and, 133, 177–­79; as materialist, 150, 212; moral concerns of, 3–­4; motion and, 96, 144–­49, 153, 169–­71, 198–­204, 219; mythos of, 28, 30–­33, 36–­39, 152–­54, 165–­69, 222; new sophistry and, 22–­24; Socrates’ rhetorical strategies and, 40–­50, 93–­99, 110–­11, 157–­65; in the Theaetetus, 172–­79, 200–­ 204; theoretical concerns of, 3–­4, 73–­81, 118–­19, 133–­35, 137; virtue’s unity and, 40–­50, 75–­81, 155 prudence, 23–­24, 34–­35, 48–­49, 55, 68, 83, 87, 163, 180, 192, 196, 200 question begging, 87, 201–­2 relationality, 136–­38, 144, 160–­61 relativism (modern): absolutism of, 181–­82, 185; motion thesis and, 109, 144–­45, 155–­57; perspectivism and, 220–­21; sophistry’s relation to, 3, 144–­45, 200–­204, 225n1. See also becoming; conventionalist thesis; good, the; knowledge; motion; sophistry Republic (Plato), 7, 115, 196, 216 reputation, 12, 24, 44, 51, 69, 120, 123, 131, 186–­94, 215, 217–­18, 227n7 Scamander, 57 Scopas, 55 Sedley, 234n17 self-­contradiction, 56, 106, 146 self-­refutation argument, 182 sense perception, 134–­37, 142–­43, 176, 183, 232n19. See also perception shame, 41–­42, 67, 76, 79, 95–­97, 218 Simonides, 23, 54–­70, 90 Socrates: Athenian politics and, 34–­35; dia­ lectics and, 3, 164, 173, 178, 195, 213; digressions of, 122, 180, 185, 187–­98, 223–­24; education and, 11–­12, 120–­21; existentialism of, 196–­99; on the gods, 126–­27, 139–­40, 142; humanity’s assimilation of gods and, 192–­98, 223; as irritating, 41–­42, 50–­55, 179; midwifery metaphor and, 115–­16, 129–­32, 155–­56, 161–­64, 232n17; moral philosophy and, 2; motion thesis and, 141–­48, 152–­53,

248

index

Socrates (continued ) 204–­6; mythos of Protagoras and, 40–­50; as political philosophy’s founder, 1–­4, 8, 17–­18, 121–­22; on Protagoras, 134–­56; Protagoras’ introduction to, 21–­28; rhe­ torical strategies of, 24–­25, 40–­54, 58, 70–­72, 87, 91–­106, 158–­66, 179–­86; trial of, 35–­36, 109–­11, 113–­14, 118, 125, 179, 187–­88; “turn” of, 8–­9, 211–­12 Sophist (Plato), 2, 187 sophistry: concealment and, 22–­24, 59, 63, 133–­34; definitions of, 1–­2; as distinct discipline, 1–­2, 53; education and, 3, 13–­ 17, 22, 25–­27, 36–­39, 50–­52, 54–­57, 76, 86–­87, 93–­99, 102–­6, 110–­11, 208–­9; eternal truth and, 1–­2; the many and, 38–­39, 75, 81–­93, 102–­5, 133–­37, 154, 181–­82, 189–­94, 208–­17, 227n9; medical metaphors and, 174–­75, 177–­78; mythos and, 33–­39; Plato’s representations of, 1–­2; political ambitions and, 24–­25, 41–­ 42, 48, 75–­76, 92–­99, 207–­11, 219–­23; Protagoras’ break with older forms of, 22–­24; relativism and, 3, 131–­56, 176–­79. See also education; good, the; Protagoras; Socrates; virtue Sparta, 62–­64, 229n9 Statesman (Plato), 109, 187 steadfastness. See continence strength, 77–­79 Sunium, 187 Symposium (Plato), 7, 10, 19, 216 teachability (relative), 26–­28, 34–­37, 58, 64–­67, 81–­91, 99–­101, 124–­25, 177–­78 technē, 32–­33, 43, 101, 115, 129–­30 temporality. See becoming; future, the; human beings; knowledge; memory Terpsion, 112, 114, 116, 141, 156 Tethys, 140, 148 Thales, 186 Thanatos, 140 Thaumas, 148 Theaetetus, 117–­19, 179–­80; facts about, 120–­21 Theodorus, 113–­26, 148, 163–­69, 179–­82, 185, 189, 192–­93, 198, 200–­201, 204–­6 Theognis, 228n8

things aloft, 19–­21, 32–­33, 56, 129–­30, 190. See also eidē; gods; nature Thrasymachus, 196 Thucydides, 142 Titans, the, 29–­30 truth. See eidē; human beings; knowledge; virtue; wisdom underworld, 19–­20 unity, 42–­45, 73, 98, 103 virtue: as beyond epistemology, 114–­15, 125–­26, 185–­86; courage as, 43, 60, 63, 73–­81, 213–­14, 221–­22; definitions of, 63–­64, 127; education of, 27–­30, 34–­39, 48–­49, 75–­91, 99–­106, 119, 121, 124–­25; hedonism and, 66–­67, 81–­93, 104, 155, 199, 217; measurement and, 86, 88, 90–­ 91; metaphysical class of, 99–­106;  mo­d­ eration and, 35–­47, 60, 63, 73, 75, 100– ­106, 208, 215; motion thesis and, 58, 142, 171–­75, 180, 182–­83, 197–­98; nobility and, 56; political philosophy and, 55, 59–­ 62, 75–­76, 215, 221–­22; Prodicus on, 20; Protagoras on, 34–­36; unity of, 42–­45, 73–­75, 96–­99, 103–­6; wisdom and, 42–­46, 49, 56–­57, 59–­61, 64–­70, 75–­81, 84–­99, 104–­6, 114–­15, 180, 183–­84. See also good, the; knowledge Vlastos, Gregory, 45 warfare. See courage Weingartner, Rudolph, 228n5 wind, 135, 137–­39, 143 wisdom: courage and, 60–­62, 73–­81, 84–­85, 88–­ 91, 93–­101; definitions of, 177–­78; justice and, 43, 49–­50, 63–­64; knowledge and, 44, 142–­43, 177–­78; moderation and, 46; po­ litical philosophy and, 43–­44, 55, 59–­61, 93–­99, 122–­31, 179; Socrates’ de­nial of, 129–­31; teachability of, 101–­2, 177–­78; virtue and, 44, 47–­49, 56–­57, 59–­62, 64–­ 70, 75–­76, 91–­93, 99–­106, 180, 213–­14 Xenophon, 1, 20, 89–­90 Zeus, 29–­30, 33, 36–­39, 41–­42, 56, 69, 110–­11, 140, 142, 176, 203