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The Structural Unity of the Protagoras

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

G. M. A. Grube
Affiliation:
Trinity College, University of Toronto

Extract

To speak of ‘the real subject’ or ‘the primary aim’ of a Platonic dialogue usually means to magnify one aspect of it at the expense of other aspects as important. Such is not my intention. It is quite clear, however, without prejudice to the philosophic value of any of the topics discussed, that the Protagoras is an attack upon the sophists as represented by Protagoras, the greatest of them. Hippias and Prodicus are present and some of the great man's glory is reflected upon them; they are also no doubt to some extent implicated in his defeat, though they seem quite unaware of the fact.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1933

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References

page 203 note 1 Cp. the discussion as to the real subject of the Republic in Proclus (In Remp. I 711, Kroll, )Google Scholar. There is at least as much doubt as to the ‘real subject’ of the Phaedrus, the Sophist, the Politicus, not to mention the Hippias Major, and others.

page 203 note 2 What Plato himself thinks of this discussion on Simonides is clearly shown in 347b ff.

page 203 note 3 For discussions of these parts of the dialogue see Taylor, A. E., Plato, the Man and his Work, 234262Google Scholar; Wilamowitz, , Platon I, 140154Google Scholar; Ritter, , Platon I, 308340Google Scholar; and especially Friedländer, , Die Platonische Schriften, 136Google Scholar.

page 203 note 4 They must clearly be included under ντεχνος σοφα (321D) which provides men with the neces sities of life. Protagoras classes πολιτικ σοφα as something higher, which comes from Zeus, as the former came from Prometheus. That is, he has no notion of science except a purely utilitarian one. To Plato there was a higher conception of science (see Rep. vii, especially 326c–328a) and upon this real statesmanship must be based (Rep. v–vii and Laws xii, 960 to the end).

page 204 note 1 Rep. vii, 525 ff. Even there stereometry, it will be remembered, is spoken of as a science barely in existence.

page 204 note 2 As Taylor, points out (op. cit. 245–6)Google Scholar. Prot. 320c–328c.

page 204 note 3 It rests primarily on αἱδώς and δκη (322c), on δικαιοσνη and σωφροσνη (323a), and it is the opposite of δικα and σβεια. It is a product of δικαιοσνη, σωφροσνη and σιτης and these three can almost be considered as one (325a).

page 204 note 4 325a: νδρ;ς ρ;ετ. Cp. 323a: ν γρ; ταῖς ἄλλαις ρ;εταῖς. Among these is αὐλητικ (a contemptuous reference to music?) and, we must suppose, the other sciences rejected in 315d.

page 204 note 5 It is true that Protagoras says in 330a that wisdom is the greatest of the virtues, and that at 321d he speaks of πολιτικ σοφα. But he no-where puts σοφα in the foreground of his teaching, nor, as we saw, has he any true conception of it. To speak of it at all is to contradict himself. So also he agrees in 352d that men are ruled by knowledge and not by passion, because it would be ασχρν for him not to. The contradiction between this and the qualified hedonism he endorses is made clear in the following pages.

page 204 note 6 It might be suggested that Plato's special hostility to Hippias, so well shown in the Hippias Major, and to some extent in this very dialogue, was due in part at least to the fact that Hippias' aim was essentially similar to his own. However different their methods, Hippias, like Plato, sought mastery over the whole field of knowledge. His method was the encyclopaedic, a mere accumulation of uncoordinated bits of knowledge. Plato saw that this would only lead to superficial polymathy. His way was the architectonic coordination by means of mathematics and dialectic (the science of science first sought in the Charmides), a coordination that was to give one a sense of absolute values, and lead to the realization of the proper place of each science in the scale of truth. Mastery of some sort over the whole field is, however, their common aim.

page 205 note 1 See 3296 and 349d ff., 359b ff. The importance of the problem is shown by the Laches. Cp. Friedländer, , op. cit. 24Google Scholar.

page 205 note 2 Clearly so in 349d-e κα ἴτας γε …; it is obvious that the distinction between νδρ;εα and θρ;σος, the latter as a species of the former, only occurs to him after his attention has been drawn to it. But formally he is right to rebuke Socrates for arguing as if he had identified the two. The main point is that the distinction should be made, and Plato is quite willing to give Protagoras a little credit when he can. But the reason why Socrates switches the argument after this rebuke is that his argument is really not affected by it; it only needs to be stated a little more carefully.

page 205 note 3 As Hackforth, has pointed out in C.Q. 1928, 3942Google Scholar.

page 205 note 4 For Protagoras' contempt for the multitude see 317a. Note also that he tries to take refuge behind the opinions of ‘the many’ in 333c.

page 205 note 5 That Protagoras is taken to endorse this popular hedonism is also clear from 352b: πς ἔχεις πρ;ς πιστμην; πτερ;ον κα τοτ σοι δοκεῖ σπερ τοῖς πολλοῖς νθρ;ποις. … So he must be included in ὦ ἄνθρωποι οἱ λγοντες αὗ γαθ νιαρ;, at 354a, since that is exactly what he did say in 351d.

page 205 note 6 352d. See above n. 5, p. 204.

page 205 note 7 353a: τ δ … δεῖ μȃς σκοπεῖσθαι τν τν πολλν δξαν νθρώπων.

page 205 note 8 E.g. Meno 75d.

page 206 note 1 359c-d.

page 206 note 2 Gorgias 503a. Cp. Raeder, , Platans philosophische Entwichelung, 108Google Scholar.

page 206 note 3 Plato's own attitude to this ‘hedonistic calculus’ is a separate problem, which does not strictly concern us here. Certainly it is more than the mere argumentum ad hominem, for hedonism is a serious philosophy which deserves serious treatment. It is the philosophy of the ordinary man whose courage is based on fear, who knows not the better way to virtue, as described in the Phaedo (68d-69c). As Fried-länder says, ‘Gewiss ist es, dass ein Weg von Protagoras zu den Gesetzen sich ziehen lässt’ (op. cit. 27n). This path I hope to have an opportunity of following elsewhere. I cannot believe that Plato ever held the hedonistic position (Ritter, , Kerngedanken der Platonischen Philosophic, 20–1Google Scholar, and Hackforth, l.c.), for his earlier dialogues are by far more hostile to the pleasure instinct, but he always perceived the half-truth that hedonism contains, and soon came to see clearly that the best life must also be the most pleasant (Rep. ix, 582 ff., Phil. 53c, etc.), and at last came to look upon the desire for pleasure as a natural and healthy instinct, as will be proved by reference to Laws v, 732d–733d, a passage which offers a startlingly close parallel to this part of the Protagoras.

The above is in the main the view of Shorey (Unity of Plato's Thought, 20 ff.). For other opinions see also Bonitz, , Platonische Studien 246Google Scholar, Schleiermacher's introduction, the references quoted in n. 3, p. 203 and Cornford, in Cambridge Ancient History, Vi, 31Google Scholar; also Adam's, introduction to his edition, Natorp, , Ideenlehre, pp. 519 ffGoogle Scholar.

page 206 note 4 357b: ἤτις μν τουν τχνη κα πιστμη στν αΰτη, ες αὖθις σκεφμεθα …