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Ἀρετή, Τέχνη, Democracy, and Sophists: Protagoras 316b–328d

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 September 2015

A. W. H. Adkins
Affiliation:
The University, Reading

Extract

At Protagoras 316b8 Socrates introduces Hippocrates to Protagoras, and explains why Hippocrates wishes to be his pupil; and for the next twelve pages of the dialogue the sophist, encouraged by Socrates, expounds his views and methods, and explains what Hippocrates may expect to learn from him. The passage is a confused and confusing piece of Greek, and forms the philosophical introduction to one of Plato's more baffling dialogues. The confusions are, I believe, present in the Greek: we are not here concerned merely with problems created for the modern reader by his misunderstanding of Greek words. In translation, however, and in the light of the intervening centuries of philosophy, Protagoras' position may well appear much less plausible than it must have appeared to a Greek of Protagoras' (or Plato's) own day. My purpose in this article is to try to explain why a Greek might have found it more plausible; what type of Greek was most likely to be convinced; and the motive of Protagoras in presenting his case in the manner in which he does present it. (‘Protagoras’ throughout, of course, is to be understood as ‘the Protagoras of Plato's dialogue’. I should not myself distinguish sharply between Plato's Protagoras and the historical Protagoras; but the question is not relevant to the present discussion.)

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1973

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References

1 On this see, for example, my Merit and Responsibility (Oxford, 1960) 226 ff.

2 For ἀγαθοὶ πολῑται, see Merit and Responsibility 226 ff.

3 An interesting sidelight on the kind of qualities whose possession benefited the Athenian orator when general political questions were under discussion.

4 He attempts to strengthen his argument at 319b4 by emphasizing the σοφία of the Athenians, the implication being that what they made no attempt to teach cannot be teachable. (The irony of many of Socrates' remarks does not affect the present discussion.) The fact that διδακτός spans both ‘taught’ and ‘teachable’ renders the discrepancy more difficult to detect in Greek.

5 P. 5.

6 For the terms ‘competitive’ and ‘co-operative excellences’ see Merit and Responsibility 6 ff.; and ‘Homeric Values and Homeric Society’, JHS xci (1971) 3 f.; and for loyalty to smaller and larger groups, Merit and Responsibility 231 f., 236 ff.

7 See Merit and Responsibility chapters ix to xiii.

8 Cf. Aristotle EN 1094b2 ff. The passage quoted in the text itself indicates that such analyses already existed.

9 E.g. Republic 332c ff.

10 Nor was it likely to do so. Aristotle's reasons, EN 1128b10 ff., for not treating αίδώς as an ἀρετή are even more cogent reasons against treating it as a τέχνη if this be interpreted as ‘skill’; and Aristotle here reflects the common usage of αίδώς.

11 See also Merit and Responsibility p. 241 (10).

12 Note Polus' dismay (Gorgias 462b5 ff.) at the suggestion that rhetoric is not a τέχνη but merely an (intellectually much less respectable) ἐμπειρία.

13 The fact that ἀρετή is traditionally a ‘successword’ renders the substitution of ἀρετή for τέχνη valid in many contexts; and this renders substitution in all cases easier.

14 Cf. the implications of Gorgias 503c ff.

15 Its absence from the present argument may not be accidental; see below, pp. 10–11.

16 For example, Miltiades, Hdt. vi 136, Pericles, Thuc. ii 65. See also Merit and Responsibility 217 (15).

17 See Merit and Responsibility, chapters iii, iv, viii.

18 CP. Plato, Ion passim, Aristophanes, Frogs 1006 ff.

19 Compare and contrast Gorgias' position, Gorgias 456a7 ff.

20 Or customs, since νόμος spans both; but 32607 ff. seems to suggest that written laws are more in Protagoras' mind.

21 Cf. Socrates' ironical regret that he did not hear Prodicus' fifty-drachma, but only the one-drachma, ἐπίδειξις, Cratylus 384b.

22 Cf. Meno in Meno 71e2, 73c9, 77b4, 78c1.

23 It may well have been modelled on an ἐπίδειξις of Protagoras known to Plato.

24 The importance of Athens' navy had little effect on this situation. See Merit and Responsibility 197 ff.

25 A confidence which might otherwise be absent; cf. my Moral Values and Political Behaviour in Ancient Greece (London, 1972) 140.

26 See From the Many to the One (London and Ithaca, N.Y., 1970) 79 ff., 94 ff.

27 The fact that all methods of learning are opposed to φύσις may help to emphasize their resemblances rather than their differences, and to encourage still further the tendency to treat both moral excellences and skills as τέχναι.

28 Cf. Moral Values and Political Behaviour in Ancient Greece 64 f., 110.

29 He is here, of course, speaking to a small and select audience of ἀγαθοί. The ἐπίδειξις, on the other hand, is suitable for general consumption.

30 See Merit and Responsibility chapters x and xi.