Abstract
Like Plato, Protagoras held that young children learn virtue from fine examples in poetry. Unlike Plato, Protagoras taught adults by correcting the diction of poets. In this paper I ask what his standard of correctness might be, and what benefit he intended his students to take from exercises in correction. If his standard of correctness is truth, then he may intend his students to learn by questioning the content of poems; that would be suggestive of Plato’s program in Republic III. But his standard is more likely to be the accurate use of language; in that case he would intend his students to learn to express their thoughts clearly enough that their audience would understand what they were saying. That standard would be independent of the truth of what they are saying; and that would be a precursor to modern techniques by which we try to teach speaking and writing. Truth is not so easy to escape, however, and we shall see that Protagoras’ exercise must assume that the poet is trying to tell the truth.
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Notes
- 1.
This paper is based on material from my unpublished book ms., Plato and Protagoras.
- 2.
Thanks for comments by Rachana Kamtekar and Hallvard Fossheim.
- 3.
See Adam and Adam (1921, in loc).
- 4.
Aristoxenus reports that almost the entire Republic was written in the Antilogikoi of Protagoras (Diogenes Laertius, on Plato, 3.37). [Aristoxenus was a fourth century philosopher and music theorist who studied in Athens.]
- 5.
In my larger unpublished work on Protagoras, I have argued that Plato is wrong on both points. See below, notes 7 and 8.
- 6.
The interpretation of this passage (τὸ γὰρ μὴ ὂν oὐδεὶς ἐφάνη λέγων) is vexed; I take it to mean that no one means to say something false.
- 7.
The argument for this is based on a careful reading of the text at Euthydemus 286a–c. The speakers do not attribute the point about contradiction directly to Protagoras; they infer it from the teaching they have heard, from Protagorean circles, that no one says what is not [the case]. Later writers who attribute to Protagoras the teaching that it is impossible to contradict are plainly following Plato.
- 8.
Protagoras’ theory would still present difficulties: Simonides’ implicit belief that his verses are correct would have to be false; and this result would not seem to square with the unrestricted homomensura. A natural escape from this difficulty is to invoke a theory that limits “belief” to attitudes about the way things are, and excludes attitudes about the way things are said. But the evidence that Protagoras actually taught what is reported in Euthydemus 286 is slender. This may well be an inference from Plato’s interpretation of the homomensura.
- 9.
Burnyeat (1976) interprets Protagoras as a relativist—or at least makes a good case that Plato presents him as a relativist in the Theaetetus. In my unpublished ms. I came to the conclusions that (a) we cannot know what Protagoras meant by the homomensura sentence, owing to the lack of context, and (b) whatever it meant, Protagoras cannot have been the sort of relativist Plato show us in the Theaetetus.
- 10.
I am grateful to Rachana Kamtekar for the suggestion about relativism.
- 11.
But see Gagarin (2000). We have good reason to doubt the premise that the art Protagoras taught had persuasion as its aim.
- 12.
I am grateful to Hallvard Fossheim for emphasizing the importance of success. In defense of the poets, we should note that obfuscation of this kind represents a success in some contexts. A famous modern poem, Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken,” contains a contradiction: was the road he chose really “less traveled by” or was it “worn about the same?” It cannot be both, but the poet says both, and that is how he rescues the poem from banality.
- 13.
Licymnius of Chios (267c2) was a dithyrambic poet and rhetorician. This passage is the only evidence that he was among the teachers of Polus. See Aristotle Rhetoric 1413b14 (where L. is mentioned as a poet who writes to be read) and 1414b17. In the latter passage Socrates uses Licymnius’ book Ἡ Tέχνη as a bad example of the invention of technical terms, such as “a wind of speed,” “wandering off,” “branches.”
- 14.
Hermeias, the scholiast on Phaedrus 267c, identifies Licyimnius as having taught Polus distinctions among names, such as which ones are valid (κύρια), which are compounds, which epithets, etc., with respect to εὐέπεια. Koller (1958, 25) plausibly argues that the valid names are words in standard as opposed to poetic usage. I infer that Finespeech, then, is the catch-all for non-standard or poetical usage, and this is corroborated by its use here with πoήσις. That orthoepeia concerns verse is fairly clear; that Polus’ concern is with verse is suggested by the link to the Muses. Poetry is relevant to rhetoric because speakers spoke about poetry (as we learn from the Protagoras 338e ff.), and because elements of verse were used in high rhetorical style (as in the speech of Agathon in Plato’s Symposium).
- 15.
Πρoταγόρεια (267c4): This expression is used in the Sophist for a single book that evidently had many headings and discussed many arts (232d9). Here it is parallel to Polus’ gallery of teachings, and so may refer to the headings in Protagoras’ book. Whatever these Protagorean elements are, the following line shows that there were many of them. It is unclear whether this means that Protagoras wrote many books on such matters, or that he coined many technical terms, but the latter is intrinsically more likely.
- 16.
- 17.
Hermeias: ὀρθoέπειά γέ τις: τoυτέστι κυριoλέξια: διὰ γὰρ τῶν κυριῶν ὀνoμάτων μετήρχετ᾽ ὁ Π. τὸν λόγoν καὶ ὀυ διὰ παραβoλῶν καὶ ἐπιθέτων (Orthoepeia: that is valid diction: Protagoras pursues speech through valid words, rather than through indirection or ornament).
- 18.
Aristotle, Soph. El. 173b19, cf. Aristophanes Clouds, 657 ff., where unconventional instruction in the genders of nouns is given as an example of the “unjust logic.” Cf. Fehling (1965, 212–17).
- 19.
So, I think, Koller, who does not distinguish Orthoepeia from Orthotes Onomaton (Koller 1958).
- 20.
That is the method of interpretation applied by Socrates to the oracle (Apology 21b3, ff.) and a famous saying of Simonides (Republic 1, 332b9, ff.).
- 21.
Hermogenes’ brother is Kallias, host to Protagoras and other teachers of the new learning; the host in the Protagoras.
- 22.
[Socrates:] Yes, Hermogenes, by the god, if we have any intelligence we will observe the very best type of correctness, to whit: about the gods we know nothing, neither about them nor about the names by which they call themselves. But clearly the names they use are true. There is, however, a second type of correctness, as it is our custom in our prayers, to address them as whoever they are pleased to be called, and from whatever parents, since we don’t know any more than that. I think that is a fine custom (Cratylus 400d6–401a5).
- 23.
I assume here without argument that Plato and Protagoras share a roughly referential theory of meaning.
- 24.
As with the gender issue, the poet has not violated any of the rules of Greek construction. Prayers are often couched in the imperative. But constructions with infinitive or optative are possible, and might appear more reverent. Protagoras evidently wishes his students to pay more attention to mood.
- 25.
The infinitive is a rare form of the perfect (ἐκτῆσθαι), in which tense κτάoμαι means to possess, rather than its usual meaning, to acquire. On Plato’s usage, see Adam and Adam’s note to 319a.
- 26.
Protagoras refers to Socrates’ citation of Hesiod at 340d4.
- 27.
“That’s how it is in gatherings like this, if they’re made up of such men as most of us say we are: they have no need of an alien voice, no need of poets who cannot be questioned as to what they mean. When most people bring a poet into a discussion, some say he intended one thing, others disagree; for they are discussing a subject on which they cannot possibly be tested” (347e1–7). Note that in the Ion Socrates interrogates a surrogate for Homer, not by way of interpreting Homer’s texts, but in order to explode the claim that poets such as Homer are wise—a claim he is allowing here in the case of Simonides.
- 28.
See Aristophanes Frogs, 1032 ff.
- 29.
For Plato’s attack on poetic wisdom and on the tradition of teaching from poetry, see Apology 22a–c, Ion passim (esp. 540b), Republic 386c ff., 588d ff.
- 30.
“Protagoras’ Legacy to Socrates,” unpublished paper, presented at Rice University, March 14, 1992.
- 31.
Most importantly Richard Bett (1989); I reach a similar conclusion in my unpublished book on Protagoras.
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Woodruff, P. (2017). Why Did Protagoras Use Poetry in Education?. In: Pettersson, O., Songe-Møller, V. (eds) Plato’s Protagoras. Philosophical Studies Series, vol 125. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-45585-3_13
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