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PROTAGORAS
PROTAGORAS PLATO Protagoras explains his views in the form of an apologue in which after
Prometheus had given men the arts Zeus is represented as sending Hermes to
them bearing with him Justice and Reverence. These are not like the
arts to be imparted to a few only but all men are to be partakers of
them. Therefore the Athenian people are right in distinguishing between
the skilled and unskilled in the arts and not between skilled and
unskilled politicians. (1) For all men have the political virtues to a
certain degree and are obliged to say that they have them whether they
have them or not. A man would be thought a madman who professed an art
which he did not know; but he would be equally thought a madman if he did
not profess a virtue which he had not. (2) And that the political virtues
can be taught and acquired in the opinion of the Athenians is proved by
the fact that they punish evil-doers with a view to prevention of course
--mere retribution is for beasts and not for men. (3) Again would
parents who teach her sons lesser matters leave them ignorant of the common
duty of citizens? To the doubt of Socrates the best answer is the fact
that the education of youth in virtue begins almost as soon as they can
speak and is continued by the state when they pass out of the parental
control. (4) Nor need we wonder that wise and good fathers sometimes have
foolish and worthless sons. Virtue as we were saying is not the private
possession of any man but is shared by all only however to the extent of
which each individual is by nature capable. And as a matter of fact even
the worst of civilized mankind will appear virtuous and just if we compare
them with savages. (5) The error of Socrates lies in supposing that there
are no teachers of virtue whereas all men are teachers in a degree. Some
like Protagoras are better than others and with this result we ought to
be satisfied.
Socrates is highly delighted with the explanation of Protagoras. But he
has still a doubt lingering in his mind. Protagoras has spoken of the
virtues: are they many or one? are they parts of a whole or different
names of the same thing? Protagoras replies that they are parts like the
parts of a face which have their several functions and no one part is
like any other part. This admission which has been somewhat hastily made
is now taken up and cross-examined by Socrates:--
'Is justice just and is holiness holy? And are justice and holiness
opposed to one another?'--'Then justice is unholy.' Protagoras would
rather say that justice is different from holiness and yet in a certain
point of view nearly the same. He does not however escape in this way
from the cunning of Socrates who inveigles him into an admission that
everything has but one opposite. Folly for example is opposed to wisdom;
and folly is also opposed to temperance; and therefore temperance and
wisdom are the same. And holiness has been already admitted to be nearly
the same as justice. Temperance therefore has now to be compared with
justice.
Protagoras whose temper begins to get a little ruffled at the process to
which he has been subjected is aware that he will soon be compelled by the
dialectics of Socrates to admit that the temperate is the just. He
therefore defends himself with his favourite weapon; that is to say he
makes a long speech not much to the point which elicits the applause of
the audience.
Here occurs a sort of interlude which commences with a declaration on the
part of Socrates that he cannot follow a long speech and therefore he must
beg Protagoras to speak shorter. As Protagoras declines to accommodate
him he rises to depart but is detained by Callias who thinks him
unreasonable in not allowing Protagoras the liberty which he takes himself
of speaking as he likes. But Alcibiades answers that the two cases are not
parallel. For Socrates admits his inability to speak long; will Protagoras
in like manner acknowledge his inability to speak short?
Counsels of moderation are urged first in a few words by Critias and then
by Prodicus in balanced and sententious language: and Hippias proposes an
umpire. But who is to be the umpire? rejoins Socrates; he would rather
suggest as a compromise that Protagoras shall ask and he will answer and
that when Protagoras is tired of asking he himself will ask and Protagoras
shall answer. To this the latter yields a reluctant assent.
Protagoras selects as his thesis a poem of Simonides of Ceos in which he
professes to find a contradiction. First the poet says
'Hard is it to become good'
and then reproaches Pittacus for having said 'Hard is it to be good.' How
is this to be reconciled? Socrates who is familiar with the poem is
embarrassed at first and invokes the aid of Prodicus the countryman of
Simonides but apparently only with the intention of flattering him into
absurdities. First a distinction is drawn between (Greek) to be and
(Greek) to become: to become good is difficult; to be good is easy. Then
the word difficult or hard is explained to mean 'evil' in the Cean dialect.
To all this Prodicus assents; but when Protagoras reclaims Socrates slily
withdraws Prodicus from the fray under the pretence that his assent was
only intended to test the wits of his adversary. He then proceeds to give
another and more elaborate explanation of the whole passage. The
explanation is as follows:--
The Lacedaemonians are great philosophers (although this is a fact which is
not generally known); and the soul of their philosophy is brevity which
was also the style of primitive antiquity and of the seven sages. Now
Pittacus had a saying 'Hard is it to be good:' and Simonides who was
jealous of the fame of this saying wrote a poem which was designed to
controvert it. No says he Pittacus; not 'hard to be good' but 'hard to
become good.' Socrates proceeds to argue in a highly impressive manner
that the whole composition is intended as an attack upon Pittacus. This
though manifestly absurd is accepted by the company and meets with the
special approval of Hippias who has however a favourite interpretation of
his own which he is requested by Alcibiades to defer.
The argument is now resumed not without some disdainful remarks of
Socrates on the practice of introducing the poets who ought not to be
allowed any more than flute-girls to come into good society. Men's own
thoughts should supply them with the materials for discussion. A few
soothing flatteries are addressed to Protagoras by Callias and Socrates
and then the old question is repeated 'Whether the virtues are one or
many?' To which Protagoras is now disposed to reply that four out of the
five virtues are in some degree similar; but he still contends that the
fifth courage is unlike the rest. Socrates proceeds to undermine the
last stronghold of the adversary first obtaining from him the admission
that all virtue is in the highest degree good:--
The courageous are the confident; and the confident are those who know
their business or profession: those who have no such knowledge and are
still confident are madmen. This is admitted. Then says Socrates
courage is knowledge--an inference which Protagoras evades by drawing a
futile distinction between the courageous and the confident in a fluent
speech.
Socrates renews the attack from another side: he would like to know
whether pleasure is not the only good and pain the only evil? Protagoras
seems to doubt the morality or propriety of assenting to this; he would
rather say that 'some pleasures are good some pains are evil' which is
also the opinion of the generality of mankind. What does he think of
knowledge? Does he agree with the common opinion that knowledge is
overcome by passion? or does he hold that knowledge is power? Protagoras
agrees that knowledge is certainly a governing power.
This however is not the doctrine of men in general who maintain that
many who know what is best act contrary to their knowledge under the
influence of pleasure. But this opposition of good and evil is really the
opposition of a greater or lesser amount of pleasure. Pleasures are evils
because they end in pain and pains are goods because they end in
pleasures. Thus pleasure is seen to be the only good; and the only evil is
the preference of the lesser pleasure to the greater. But then comes in
the illusion of distance. Some art of mensuration is required in order to
show us pleasures and pains in their true proportion. This art of
mensuration is a kind of knowledge and knowledge is thus proved once more
to be the governing principle of human life and ignorance the origin of
all evil: for no one prefers the less pleasure to the greater or the
greater pain to the less except from ignorance. The argument is drawn out
in an imaginary 'dialogue within a dialogue' conducted by Socrates and
Protagoras on the one part and the rest of the world on the other.
Hippias and Prodicus as well as Protagoras admit the soundness of the
conclusion.
Socrates then applies this new conclusion to the case of courage--the only
virtue which still holds out against the assaults of the Socratic
dialectic. No one chooses the evil or refuses the good except through
ignorance. This explains why cowards refuse to go to war:--because they
form a wrong estimate of good and honour and pleasure. And why are the
courageous willing to go to war?--because they form a right estimate of
pleasures and pains of things terrible and not terrible. Courage then is
knowledge and cowardice is ignorance. And the five virtues which were
originally maintained to have five different natures after having been
easily reduced to two only at last coalesce in one. The assent of
Protagoras to this last position is extracted with great difficulty.
Socrates concludes by professing his disinterested love of the truth and
remarks on the singular manner in which he and his adversary had changed
sides. Protagoras began by asserting and Socrates by denying the
teachableness of virtue and now the latter ends by affirming that virtue
is knowledge which is the most teachable of all things while Protagoras
has been striving to show that virtue is not knowledge and this is almost
equivalent to saying that virtue cannot be taught. He is not satisfied
with the result and would like to renew the enquiry with the help of
Protagoras in a different order asking (1) What virtue is and (2) Whether
virtue can be taught. Protagoras declines this offer but commends
Socrates' earnestness and his style of discussion.
The Protagoras is often supposed to be full of difficulties. These are
partly imaginary and partly real. The imaginary ones are (1)
Chronological--which were pointed out in ancient times by Athenaeus and
are noticed by Schleiermacher and others and relate to the impossibility
of all the persons in the Dialogue meeting at any one time whether in the
year 425 B.C. or in any other. But Plato like all writers of fiction
aims only at the probable and shows in many Dialogues (e.g. the Symposium
and Republic and already in the Laches) an extreme disregard of the
historical accuracy which is sometimes demanded of him. (2) The exact
place of the Protagoras among the Dialogues and the date of composition
have also been much disputed. But there are no criteria which afford any
real grounds for determining the date of composition; and the affinities of
the Dialogues when they are not indicated by Plato himself must always to
a great extent remain uncertain. (3) There is another class of
difficulties which may be ascribed to preconceived notions of
commentators who imagine that Protagoras the Sophist ought always to be in
the wrong and his adversary Socrates in the right; or that in this or that
passage--e.g. in the explanation of good as pleasure--Plato is inconsistent
with himself; or that the Dialogue fails in unity and has not a proper
beginning middle and ending. They seem to forget that Plato is a
dramatic writer who throws his thoughts into both sides of the argument
and certainly does not aim at any unity which is inconsistent with freedom
and with a natural or even wild manner of treating his subject; also that
his mode of revealing the truth is by lights and shadows and far-off and
opposing points of view and not by dogmatic statements or definite
results.
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