Protagoras | Page 7

special individuals, but the common
property of all: this, which in all ages has been the strength and
weakness of ethics and politics, is deeply seated in human nature; (5)
there is a sort of half- truth in the notion that all civilized men are
teachers of virtue; and more than a half-truth (6) in ascribing to man,
who in his outward conditions is more helpless than the other animals,
the power of self-improvement; (7) the religious allegory should be
noticed, in which the arts are said to be given by Prometheus (who stole
them), whereas justice and reverence and the political virtues could
only be imparted by Zeus; (8) in the latter part of the Dialogue, when
Socrates is arguing that 'pleasure is the only good,' Protagoras deems it
more in accordance with his character to maintain that 'some pleasures
only are good;' and admits that 'he, above all other men, is bound to say
"that wisdom and knowledge are the highest of human things."'
There is no reason to suppose that in all this Plato is depicting an
imaginary Protagoras; he seems to be showing us the teaching of the
Sophists under the milder aspect under which he once regarded them.
Nor is there any reason to doubt that Socrates is equally an historical
character, paradoxical, ironical, tiresome, but seeking for the unity of
virtue and knowledge as for a precious treasure; willing to rest this
even on a calculation of pleasure, and irresistible here, as everywhere in
Plato, in his intellectual superiority.
The aim of Socrates, and of the Dialogue, is to show the unity of virtue.
In the determination of this question the identity of virtue and
knowledge is found to be involved. But if virtue and knowledge are one,
then virtue can be taught; the end of the Dialogue returns to the
beginning. Had Protagoras been allowed by Plato to make the
Aristotelian distinction, and say that virtue is not knowledge, but is
accompanied with knowledge; or to point out with Aristotle that the
same quality may have more than one opposite; or with Plato himself in
the Phaedo to deny that good is a mere exchange of a greater pleasure
for a less--the unity of virtue and the identity of virtue and knowledge
would have required to be proved by other arguments.

The victory of Socrates over Protagoras is in every way complete when
their minds are fairly brought together. Protagoras falls before him after
two or three blows. Socrates partially gains his object in the first part of
the Dialogue, and completely in the second. Nor does he appear at any
disadvantage when subjected to 'the question' by Protagoras. He
succeeds in making his two 'friends,' Prodicus and Hippias, ludicrous
by the way; he also makes a long speech in defence of the poem of
Simonides, after the manner of the Sophists, showing, as Alcibiades
says, that he is only pretending to have a bad memory, and that he and
not Protagoras is really a master in the two styles of speaking; and that
he can undertake, not one side of the argument only, but both, when
Protagoras begins to break down. Against the authority of the poets
with whom Protagoras has ingeniously identified himself at the
commencement of the Dialogue, Socrates sets up the proverbial
philosophers and those masters of brevity the Lacedaemonians. The
poets, the Laconizers, and Protagoras are satirized at the same time.
Not having the whole of this poem before us, it is impossible for us to
answer certainly the question of Protagoras, how the two passages of
Simonides are to be reconciled. We can only follow the indications
given by Plato himself. But it seems likely that the reconcilement
offered by Socrates is a caricature of the methods of interpretation
which were practised by the Sophists--for the following reasons: (1)
The transparent irony of the previous interpretations given by Socrates.
(2) The ludicrous opening of the speech in which the Lacedaemonians
are described as the true philosophers, and Laconic brevity as the true
form of philosophy, evidently with an allusion to Protagoras' long
speeches. (3) The manifest futility and absurdity of the explanation of
(Greek), which is hardly consistent with the rational interpretation of
the rest of the poem. The opposition of (Greek) and (Greek) seems also
intended to express the rival doctrines of Socrates and Protagoras, and
is a facetious commentary on their differences. (4) The general
treatment in Plato both of the Poets and the Sophists, who are their
interpreters, and whom he delights to identify with them. (5) The
depreciating spirit in which Socrates speaks of the introduction of the
poets as a substitute for original conversation, which is intended to
contrast with Protagoras' exaltation of the study of them-- this again is
hardly consistent with