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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 August 2019
The Protagoras is a contest of philosophical methods. With its mix of μῦθος and λόγος, Protagoras’ Great Speech stands as a competing model of philosophical discourse to the Socratic elenchus. While the mythical portion of the speech clearly impresses its audience—Socrates included—one of its central claims appears to pass undefended. This is the claim that the political art cannot be distributed within a community as the technical arts are. This apparent shortcoming of the Great Speech does not seem to trouble philosophical commentators: it is a myth, after all, and it seems reasonable to suppose that the sly sophist slips certain claims into his myth precisely to avoid having to defend them. Nevertheless, it is worth subjecting the claim to philosophical scrutiny. What could be the reason that the political art had to be distributed differently than were the technical arts, as the myth insists?
1 Socrates remarks candidly at 328d2–5 that he was ‘dazzled’ (κεκηλημένος) by Protagoras’ Great Speech and wished to hear more. There is little reason to doubt the sincerity of this remark. On the contrary, that Socrates immediately changes the subject to an altogether new issue, the unity of virtue, suggests that he takes the speech to satisfy his opening challenge. Cf. Coby, P., Socrates and the Sophistic Enlightenment (Lewisburg, 1987), 71Google Scholar, who takes the Great Speech to represent an early victory for Protagoras. On the other hand, Lampert, L., How Philosophy Became Socratic (Chicago, 2010), 69CrossRefGoogle Scholar claims that it is ‘impossible to believe’ that Socrates’ praise of the Great Speech is anything but a stall for time while he thinks of a response. Socrates’ remark could be interpreted this way had it been uttered to Protagoras, but in fact Socrates reports his feelings strictly as narrator to the unnamed companion after the debate is over. Cf. Berger, H. Jr., ‘Facing sophists: Socrates’ charismatic bondage in Protagoras’, Representations 5 (1984), 66–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 74.
2 For interpretations along these lines, see Frutiger, P., Les Mythes de Platon (Paris, 1930), 183–5Google Scholar; Guthrie, W.K.C., Socrates and Plato (Brisbane, 1958), 24Google Scholar; Taylor, A.E., Plato: The Man and His Work (London, 1966), 243Google Scholar; Adkins, A.W.H., ‘Aretê, technê, democracy and sophists: Protagoras 316b–328d’, JHS 93 (1973), 3–12CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Berger (n. 1), 73; Benitez, E., ‘Argument, rhetoric, and philosophic method: Plato's “Protagoras”’, Philosophy and Rhetoric 25 (1992), 222–52Google Scholar, at 242; Gonzalez, F., ‘Giving thought to the good together: virtue in Plato's Protagoras’, in Russon, J. and Sallis, J. (edd.), Retracing the Platonic Text (Evanston, 2000), 113–54Google Scholar.
3 Henceforth I will use the terms sound deliberation and εὐβουλία interchangeably.
4 References are to the translation by Lombardo, S. and Bell, K. in Cooper, J.M. and Hutchinson, D.S. (edd.), Plato: Complete Works (Indianapolis, 1997), 746–90Google Scholar, unless otherwise indicated. I will refer to this translation by the Stephanus page numbers.
5 See Kerferd, G.B., The Sophistic Movement (Cambridge, 1981), 43Google Scholar.
6 Both Kerferd (n. 5), 125 and Beresford, A., ‘Fangs, feathers, & fairness: Protagoras on the origins of right and wrong’, in Ophuijsen, J.M. van, Raalte, M. and Stork, P. (edd.), Protagoras of Abdera: The Man, His Measure (Leiden, 2013), 139–62Google Scholar, at 142 n. 9 speculate that the myth is based on actual views of the historical Protagoras, most likely expounded in his treatise On The Original State of Man. For a comprehensive account of the myth's likely pedigree through such figures as Democritus, Diodorus and Lucretius, see Beresford (this note).
7 By placing religious practices on the Promethean side of the line running through the myth between the technical arts and the political art, Plato is perhaps alluding to Protagoras’ notorious atheism. The art of εὐβουλία the sophist purports to teach presumably has very little to do with piety or worship of the gods generally, which of course becomes relevant once the question of the unity of the virtues arises. Cf. Coby (n. 1), 55.
8 Cf. Coby (n. 1), 56–8.
9 Corey, D., The Sophists in Plato's Dialogues (Albany, 2015), 50Google Scholar seems to hold that the art of war is neatly reducible to generalship, and on this basis he takes the art of war to vanish mysteriously in the myth, since generalship has no clear connection with Zeus's gifts of justice and shame. But while the general's ability to lead and give orders is no doubt part of the art of war, this art presumably also includes the lowly cadet's disposition to meet his obligation to follow those orders and to feel shame when he fails. Indeed, deficiency in the cadet's skill seems the likely culprit in pre-political man's inability to cooperate in defeating the wild beasts: no one in his right mind would volunteer to, say, lure the bear out of his cave unless he could count on his fellow hunter to man his post and stand ready with the spear. An advantage of this interpretation is that it supplies the missing connection with justice and shame on Corey's reading. On this point Corey seems to follow Adkins (n. 2), 11. Cf. Coby (n. 1), 57–8, who raises the question of the relationship between the cooperative and the coercive elements in the art of war.
10 Cf. McCoy, M., Plato on the Rhetoric of Philosophers and Sophists (Cambridge, 2008), 64Google Scholar, who argues that Nussbaum, M., The Fragility of Goodness (Cambridge, 1986), 102–3Google Scholar goes too far when Nussbaum claims that human nature becomes ‘fundamentally political’ with the advent of Zeus's gifts. McCoy doubts this, because ‘Zeus gives human beings justice and shame in order to ensure species survival; political virtue is a means rather than an end in itself’ (at 64). However, the principle to which McCoy's objection appeals seems doubtful. If the fact that something has mere instrumental value for the individual's survival is a reason to deny that it is part of that individual's nature, then it seems to follow that, say, having antlers is not part of the elk's nature. These were, after all, doled out by Epimetheus solely to ensure the survival of the species. This is an odd view.
11 As Corey (n. 9), 58 notes, it has long puzzled commentators that Protagoras announces his official transition from myth to argument at 324d2–5, well after he seems to have actually left myth behind. Addressing this issue here would take us too far afield.
12 Contra, Corey (n. 9), 48, on whose reading the myth ‘accomplishes relatively little’ and ‘misses its mark’ in meeting Socrates’ challenge; and Taylor (n. 2), 243, who dismisses the myth as ‘a complete ignoratio elenchi’ (quoted in Corey [n. 9], n. 22). On the contrary, the myth establishes the distinctive distribution and transmission of justice and shame on which Protagoras’ defence depends. Besides being wrong on the merits, these readings seem to have the burden of explaining why Plato has Socrates himself confess as narrator that he was thoroughly impressed—dazzled, even—by Protagoras’ speech (328d2–5). (Note 1 above addresses this issue more thoroughly.) In any case, Corey's reading is difficult to reconcile with his later claim (at 59) that ‘[w]ithout reference to the myth, the argument [that political virtue can be taught] would lack persuasive power’.
13 At 329c1–d2 Socrates calls attention to the implication in the Great Speech that justice and the rest of the virtues are somehow one. That what Protagoras teaches is a single, unified discipline, εὐβουλία, is a point the sophist insists upon at 318e2–319a1. For readings that challenge the identity of these Jovian gifts with Protagorean εὐβουλία, see Adkins (n. 2), 3–12 and Corey (n. 9), 50. Addressing their arguments here would take us too far afield.
14 Socrates makes explicit this implication of his technical model of education earlier in the dialogue, in his interrogation of Hippocrates before arriving at Callias’ house: if studying with a doctor makes one a doctor, and studying with a sculptor makes one a sculptor (both Promethean technical arts according to the myth to come, presumably), then studying with the sophist will make Hippocrates a sophist himself (311a6–312b5). Socrates immediately rescues the blushing youth from this embarrassing implication, offering that perhaps what Hippocrates is looking for is rather a gentleman's non-technical education (ὡς τὸν ἰδιώτην καὶ τὸν ἐλεύθερον πρέπει). So even before his encounter with Protagoras, Socrates appears to acknowledge that not all forms of education conform to his technical model. Schultz, A., Plato's Socrates as Narrator (Lanham, 2013), 80Google Scholar argues that Hippocrates’ blush could be evidence for any number of emotions, from anger to excitement; however, it is clear from the context that Hippocrates blushes because he is ashamed. This foreshadows one of the Jovian gifts in the myth to come.
15 Cf. Corey (n. 9), 44, who takes the threat posed by the democratic masses to be of secondary concern to that posed by powerful men. But it is worth noting Protagoras’ repeated reluctance to break with public opinion even at great cost, including his defence of democratic practices and institutions in the Great Speech; his defence of the commonsensical view that one can possess some of the virtues without having all of them; and his eagerness to defend the public's ‘shameful’ position rather than his own (333c2–5). He registers his general disapproval of public opinion late in the dialogue, only after the high dialectical cost of remaining loyal to it has become painfully clear (353a5–6). And even then he returns to the role of spokesperson for the public. For interpretations focussing on the role of the Athenian public in the Protagoras, see Ebert, T., ‘The role of the frame dialogue in Plato's Protagoras’, in Havlicek, A. and Karfik, F. (edd.), Proceedings of the Third Symposium Platonicum Pragense (Prague, 2003), 9–20Google Scholar and Berger (n. 1), 76–77.
16 Berger (n. 1), 75 notes that the Homeric imagery in Socrates’ description of the scene upon entering Callias’ house at 314e3–316a2 characterizes the sophists gathered there as ‘the blind leading the blind back into the world of the past, purveyors of the archaic wisdom of the poets who created Hades’, although Berger's characterization seems to include Protagoras.
17 For some discussion of the historical Protagoras’ criticism of the Iliad, see Rademaker, A., ‘The most correct account: Protagoras on language’, in van Ophuijsen, J.M., Raalte, M. and Stork, P. (edd.), Protagoras of Abdera: The Man, His Measure (Leiden, 2013), 87–111Google Scholar, at 87. There is little textual support for the proposal in Coby (n. 1), 39–40 that Protagoras takes sophistic unity to be grounded in a shared commitment to the doctrine that ‘everything is motion’ (40). On this view it is difficult to explain why agreement between sophists old and new is in such sort supply. Nor is it clear how, say, music could ever have been regarded as a useful ‘cover’ for this doctrine.
18 Cf. Berger (n. 1), 76, who argues that one of the features linking the sophist and the poet is their shared charisma.
19 As McKirahan, R.D. Jr., ‘Socrates and Protagoras on ΣΩΦΡOΣΥNΗ and justice: “Protagoras” 333–334’, Apeiron 18 (1984), 19–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 19 rightly stresses, Protagoras’ capitulation to the previous three lines of argument appears to be only partial. For some helpful discussion of Protagoras’ motives for resisting the elenchus to come, see Landy, T., ‘Virtue, art, and the good life in Plato's Protagoras’, Interpretation 21 (1994), 287–308Google Scholar, at 294.
20 Cf. Landy (n. 19), 294–5, who takes this to be an airing of the same Protagorean relativism on display in the Theaetetus. However, Protagoras’ remarks seem inconsistent with that view, at least on the standard reading of Protagoras’ claim that man is the measure of all things. For note first that Protagoras here denies that man is a unique measure for the goodness of things: it is equally valid to call something good if it benefits a plant, even if it harms a man or men in general. Moreover, perception and appearance play no role in the argument. Protagoras is concerned with what is beneficial to this or that creature, and not with what appears so to that creature. Indeed, it is difficult to see what it would mean to say that something ‘appears’ beneficial to a plant, much less to its roots.
21 The dialogue itself furnishes no evidence of this poor memory, and Alcibiades airs his doubts about it even in the course of defending Socrates. More importantly, it is worth remembering that the ostensibly forgetful Socrates is recounting every word of this conversation to an unnamed companion. As for the substance of Socrates’ complaint about long speeches, Benitez (n. 2), 240 helpfully points out that only one of Protagoras’ rhetorical displays is extensive, and that Socrates himself is guilty of making eight speeches of equal or greater length.
22 Few commentators go beyond reading the methodological dispute as a mere dramatic intrusion into the dialogue's dialectical arc, since the elenchus leading up to it ends prematurely and never resumes. An exception is Gonzalez (n. 2), 113, who decries this neglect and regards the episode (in which he includes Socrates’ subsequent interpretation of Simonides) as both the literal and the philosophical centre of the dialogue. Explanations for Plato's editorial decision to derail the debate about temperance and justice are hard to come by. For a speculative reconstruction of how the rest of this debate might have reached its end, see McKirahan (n. 19).
23 The makeup of the audience for this discussion is significant. As Brochard, V., ‘Sur le Banquet de Platon’, Études de philosophie ancienne et de philosophie moderne (Paris, 1912), 60–94Google Scholar, at 67; Frede, D., ‘Socrates’ criticism of Simonides’ poem in the Protagoras’, Review of Metaphysics 39 (1986), 729–53Google Scholar, at 747; Kahn, C.H., ‘On the relative date of the Gorgias and the Protagoras’, OSAPh 6 (1988), 69–102Google Scholar, at 98–9 and others have noted, all of the orators of the Symposium except Aristophanes are listening to this conversation.
24 This show of support is presumably what Socrates has in mind when he reports to his unnamed friend at the dialogue's opening that Alcibiades spoke in his defence earlier that day (309b6–7). Cf. Schultz (n. 14), 88–9 for an insightful comparison of Alcibiades with Hippocrates on this point.
25 This is the translation of συμφιλονικεῖν in Hubbard, B.A.F. and Karnofsky, E.S., Plato's Protagoras (Chicago, 1984)Google Scholar. Lombardo and Bell (n. 4) translate the line as ‘But there's no need for any of us to lend partisan support to either Socrates or Protagoras’, which is too weak.
26 This again is the Hubbard and Karnofsky translation (n. 25). Lombardo and Bell (n. 4) translate the line as ‘bicker with each other as if we were the dregs of society’.
27 As both Coby (n. 1), 94 and Schultz (n. 14), 86 observe, Plato's Homeric depiction of the scene as Socrates and Hippocrates enter Callias’ house foreshadows Hippias’ fondness for umpires: Socrates spots him seated on a throne (315b6–c3).
28 Cf. Berger (n. 1), 78, who seems to attribute sophistic competitiveness to πλεονεξία.
29 Protagoras makes it known in his speech that he accepts Socrates’ characterization of the assembly (324c6–d3). So he and Socrates seem to agree that technical matters are contentious in a way that non-technical matters are not.
30 Compare Grg. 452a–d4, where Socrates deploys a similar line of argument, pitting Gorgias against three craftsmen for supremacy: a doctor, a physical trainer and a financial expert.
31 Cf. Coby (n. 1), 45.
32 Add to this the insight in Corey (n. 9), 55 that Epimetheus’ ‘failure stems precisely from his desire to work by himself, contrary to what the gods as a group had commanded (320d), which was for Prometheus and Epimetheus to work together’.
33 Woodruff, P., ‘Εὐβουλία as the skill Protagoras taught’, in van Ophuijsen, J.M., Raalte, M. and Stork, P. (edd.), Protagoras of Abdera: The Man, His Measure (Leiden, 2013), 179–93Google Scholar, at 185. Cf. Coby (n. 1), 49.
34 Cf. Landy (n. 19), 300: ‘Those who assume such roles [i.e. those requiring political virtue] are rarely brought to court to face charges of incompetence, unless their blunders are especially gross, because we recognize that the artisan's accuracy in determining what consequences follow from what actions is not available when the range of causes and effects that such men are expected to manage is so large and complex.’
35 Woodruff (n. 33), 192. Cf. Landy (n. 19), 295, whose picture of Protagorean εὐβουλία and its application is considerably more sinister.
36 Representative of this ad hominem way of reading the dialogue is Grube, G.M.A, ‘The structural unity of the Protagoras’, CQ 27 (1933), 203–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 203, when Grube interprets the exercise in poetic interpretation following the methodological dispute as ‘an interlude wherein Socrates outsophisticates the sophists’. Similarly, Weiss, R., ‘Socrates and Protagoras on justice and holiness’, Phoenix 39 (1985), 334–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 334 n. 2 interprets even the dialogue's doctrine of the unity of virtue as merely part of a reductio of the sophistic conception of virtue. On Weiss's view, it represents no genuine Socratic commitments.
37 Cf. McCoy (n. 10), 60: ‘Plato is not interested in the wholesale rejection of the rhetorical tradition so much as in reshaping that tradition's meaning in light of the aims of philosophy.’
38 As Landy (n. 19), 302–3 helpfully points out, Socrates’ opening exchange with the unnamed companion in the dialogue's outer frame on the subject of Alcibiades’ developing beard references either Il. 24.348 or Od. 10.279. In both passages Hermes disguises himself as a young man to help someone in need. This comparison of Alcibiades with Hermes clearly foreshadows both Hermes’ vital assistance in the myth of the Great Speech and Alcibiades’ vital assistance in the methodological dispute. I would like to thank Rachel Barney, Tom Angier and participants of the 2017 conference, ‘Virtue, Skill, and Practical Reason’ at the University of Cape Town, for helpful comments on a draft of this paper. My thanks also to an anonymous reviewer for many helpful suggestions.
