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The Argument of the Protagoras

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 May 2010

William S. Cobb
Affiliation:
College of William and Mary

Extract

It is widely assumed that the arguments tendered by Sokrates in the Protagoras involve serious logical fallacies. My contention is that this view is mistaken, and I shall argue that Sokrates makes no significant logical errors in this dialogue. I shall begin with a few general assertions about the dialogue as a dramatic whole, since I believe that a grasp of the general theme and character of the dialogue is essential for understanding the argumentation.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 1982

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References

1 Vlastos, Gregory in his introduction of the Library of Liberal Arts edition of the Protogaras (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1956)Google Scholar provides one of the best known statements of this view.

2 See Protagoras' remark: “I consider, Sokrates, that the most important part of a man's education is being knowledgeable about poetry,” 338e, which is analogous to a contemporary American instructor stressing the importance of knowledge of the Scriptures; and note his claim that his initial speech is an expression of the views of Athenians, 328c; also, Plato has Protagoras speak for the commonly held view in the crucial argument about doing evil as a result of being overcome by pleasure, 352d–358a.

3 This view of the general theme of the Protagoras is defended effectively by Rudolph H. Weingartner in the chapter on the Protagoras in his The Unity of the Platonic Dialogue (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1973)Google Scholar. I am much indebted to Wein gartner for the analysis of the logical structure of the argumentation which follows below, but I do not agree with his interpretation of Plato's views on any of the issues raised in the arguments, nor with all of his claims about the logic of the argumentation. He, for example, thinks that there is an invalid argument at 349d–351b.

4 I use “excellence” as the translation of ἀρετή rather than the traditional “virtue”, which has inappropriately narrow and moralistic overtones. “Excellence” may fore stall tendencies to make neat distinctions between different sorts of excellence in human being, such as moral, aesthetic, physical, spiritual, and intellectual—a type of categorizing which, while quite comfortable to ourmodes of thought, was quite foreign to Plato. Moreover, “excellence” in place of “virtue” may help us to notice that Plato is dealing with an issue of considerable current interest: What counts as excellence in human beings and what part does education play in acquiring it?

5 I prefer “judiciousness” as a translation of σωφροσύνη.

6 It should be noted here, for future reference, that Protagoras does not make any distinction between the two forms of negation used here. This parallelism between “unjust” and “not wise” suggests that no change in meaning would result from saying “not just” and “unwise”.

7 Cf. Allen, R. E., “Predication and Participation in Plato's Middle Dialogues,”Google Scholar reprinted in Gregory Vlastos, ed., Plato I: Metaphysics and Epistemology (New York: Double-day Anchor, 1971), 167–171.

8 Cf. Vlastos, Gregory, “The Unity of the Virtues in the Protagoras,” in Platonic Studies (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973), 238.Google Scholar

9 David Gallop provides a particularly careful statement of this interpretation. Justice and Holiness in Plato's Protagoras,” Phronesis 6 (1961), 8693.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10 Gallop notes that “in ordinary usage the transition from μἡ δίκαιον to ἅδικον might, on occasion, be as well warranted as the transition from ‘not honest’ to ‘dishonest’.” (“Justice and Holiness”, 92, note 1.) Nevertheless, he holds that there is a fallacy here based on confusing contraries with contradictories.

11 Cf. note 6 above about 329e5–6, and Protagoras' statement at 349d.

12 This claim would be compatible with some traditional stories about the gods, but not with those Protagoras would approve of, given his presentation of the gods in his initial speech in which justice is a gift of such significance it is under the direct control of Zeus (321d–322d).

13 Sokrates does not depart from this view in the Euthyphro, although the claim that he does is made universally among contemporary interpreters. At the beginning of the discussion of the relation between justice and piety in the Euthyphro, Sokrates suggests that they are the same, but this proposal is ignored by Euthyphro: Sokrates: “For see if it does not seem to you necessarily that all the pious is just.” Euthyphro: “It does to me, indeed. “Sokrates: “Then so also is all the just pious? Or is the pious all just, but the just not all pious, but rather some of it is pious and some is also something different?” (11e4–12a2). Modern interpreters apparently assume that the “something different” which just acts that are not pious are characterized as will be simply “outside the category of acts pious or impious”. Such an assumption will not stand up to reflection. As A. E. Taylor noted (Plato: The Man and His Work [7th ed.; London: Methuen, 1960], 154Google Scholar), Sokrates would certainly not support the view that acts serving humans and those serving gods are mutually exclusive. Ajust act which is not pious will be impious. The main source of the modern misreading, however, is the failure to be sensitive to the dramatic character of the dialogues. Otherwise, interpreters would be more suspicious of the philosophical adequacy of a view which is so enthusiastically adopted by the likes of Euthyphro. Piety does not consist of special actions which aim at service to the gods rather than to human beings. Sokrates makes it clear in the Apology that he sees his religious duty to consist precisely in acting for the good of his fellow citizens.

14 I have given a rather simplistic statement of a very complicated matter. Cf. e.g., the discussions by C. C. W. Taylor, Protagoras, Clarendon Plato Series (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976), 104–108; and Penner, Terry, “The Unity of Virtue,” Philosophical Review 82 (1973), 3543CrossRefGoogle Scholar. I will only reassert that Plato consistently takes these terms as picking out different characteristics of persons or actions and that this awareness of difference must not be obscured by our interpretation of what he means by their sameness.

15 Vlastos, Protagoras, xxviii–xxix.Google Scholar

16 Vlastos says that the inference from “not judicious” to “the opposite of judicious” in this argument is fallacious (Protagoras, xxix, n. 19). I have spoken to this issue in dealing with the argument about justice and piety.

17 Taylor, , Protagoras, 124129.Google Scholar

18 Weingartner, , Unity, 104105.Google Scholar

19 Vlastos, , Protagoras, xxxiii.Google Scholar

20 The ‘Fallacy’ in Protagoras 349D–350C,” Transactions of the American Philological Association 92 (1961), 408417.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

21 I translate λόγος as “explication” because the term is broader than the usual translation in this passage as “argument” suggests. I will say more below on the tendency of translators to impose “argumentative” terminology on this passage.

22 W. K. C. Guthrie translates this, appropriately, as “How then do you define the courageous?”, Protagoras and the Meno (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1956), 86.Google Scholar

23 Vlastos, , Protagora, xxxiii–xxxiv.Google Scholar

24 Weingartner, , Unity, 107.Google Scholar

25 Not “of arguing” as in Martin Ostwald's revision of Benjamin Jowett's translation in the Bobbs-Merrill edition of the Protagoras edited by Vlastos.

26 Not “conclude” as Guthrie translates.

27 Not “arguments” as C. C. W. Taylor translates, nor “proofs” as Guthrie translates. That translators have assumed this passage to contain argumentation in the form of earlier sections of the dialogue is a major reason readers have missed the dramatic change in Sokrates' style when the debate is “resumed” after the discussion of Simonides' poem. The change actually occurs in the analysis of the poem and continues in the renewed discussion of the relations between the parts of excellence. Treating the analysis of the poem as a “digression” is another reason for interpreters' misun derstanding of this passage.

28 Taylor, , Protagoras, 161162.Google Scholar