Protagoras | Page 8

the serious defence of Simonides. (6) the marked

approval of Hippias, who is supposed at once to catch the familiar
sound, just as in the previous conversation Prodicus is represented as
ready to accept any distinctions of language however absurd. At the
same time Hippias is desirous of substituting a new interpretation of his
own; as if the words might really be made to mean anything, and were
only to be regarded as affording a field for the ingenuity of the
interpreter.
This curious passage is, therefore, to be regarded as Plato's satire on the
tedious and hypercritical arts of interpretation which prevailed in his
own day, and may be compared with his condemnation of the same arts
when applied to mythology in the Phaedrus, and with his other parodies,
e.g. with the two first speeches in the Phaedrus and with the
Menexenus. Several lesser touches of satire may be observed, such as
the claim of philosophy advanced for the Lacedaemonians, which is a
parody of the claims advanced for the Poets by Protagoras; the mistake
of the Laconizing set in supposing that the Lacedaemonians are a great
nation because they bruise their ears; the far-fetched notion, which is
'really too bad,' that Simonides uses the Lesbian (?) word, (Greek),
because he is addressing a Lesbian. The whole may also be considered
as a satire on those who spin pompous theories out of nothing. As in
the arguments of the Euthydemus and of the Cratylus, the veil of irony
is never withdrawn; and we are left in doubt at last how far in this
interpretation of Simonides Socrates is 'fooling,' how far he is in
earnest.
All the interests and contrasts of character in a great dramatic work like
the Protagoras are not easily exhausted. The impressiveness of the
scene should not be lost upon us, or the gradual substitution of Socrates
in the second part for Protagoras in the first. The characters to whom
we are introduced at the beginning of the Dialogue all play a part more
or less conspicuous towards the end. There is Alcibiades, who is
compelled by the necessity of his nature to be a partisan, lending
effectual aid to Socrates; there is Critias assuming the tone of
impartiality; Callias, here as always inclining to the Sophists, but eager
for any intellectual repast; Prodicus, who finds an opportunity for
displaying his distinctions of language, which are valueless and
pedantic, because they are not based on dialectic; Hippias, who has
previously exhibited his superficial knowledge of natural philosophy,

to which, as in both the Dialogues called by his name, he now adds the
profession of an interpreter of the Poets. The two latter personages have
been already damaged by the mock heroic description of them in the
introduction. It may be remarked that Protagoras is consistently
presented to us throughout as the teacher of moral and political virtue;
there is no allusion to the theories of sensation which are attributed to
him in the Theaetetus and elsewhere, or to his denial of the existence of
the gods in a well-known fragment ascribed to him; he is the religious
rather than the irreligious teacher in this Dialogue. Also it may be
observed that Socrates shows him as much respect as is consistent with
his own ironical character; he admits that the dialectic which has
overthrown Protagoras has carried himself round to a conclusion
opposed to his first thesis. The force of argument, therefore, and not
Socrates or Protagoras, has won the day.
But is Socrates serious in maintaining (1) that virtue cannot be taught;
(2) that the virtues are one; (3) that virtue is the knowledge of pleasures
and pains present and future? These propositions to us have an
appearance of paradox--they are really moments or aspects of the truth
by the help of which we pass from the old conventional morality to a
higher conception of virtue and knowledge. That virtue cannot be
taught is a paradox of the same sort as the profession of Socrates that
he knew nothing. Plato means to say that virtue is not brought to a man,
but must be drawn out of him; and cannot be taught by rhetorical
discourses or citations from the poets. The second question, whether
the virtues are one or many, though at first sight distinct, is really a part
of the same subject; for if the virtues are to be taught, they must be
reducible to a common principle; and this common principle is found to
be knowledge. Here, as Aristotle remarks, Socrates and Plato outstep
the truth--they make a part of virtue into the whole. Further, the nature
of this knowledge, which is assumed to be a knowledge of pleasures
and pains, appears to us too superficial and at variance with the spirit of
Plato himself.