These are selected passages from Plato's Protagoras for
class discussion:
The Project Gutenberg EBook of Protagoras, by Plato
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Hippocrates and Socrates are discussing what Protagoras could
teach Hippocrates
311
Tell me, Socrates, and you Hippocrates, what is Protagoras, and why
are you going to pay him money,—... I know that Pheidias is a
sculptor, and that Homer is a poet; but what appellation is given to
Protagoras? how is he designated?
They call him a Sophist, Socrates, he replied.
Then we are going to pay our money to him in the character of a
Sophist?
Certainly.
... What will Protagoras make of you, if you go to see him?
312
...I suppose that he will make a Sophist of me.
... may you not learn of him in the same way that you learned
the arts of the grammarian, or musician, or trainer, not with the
view of making any of them a profession, but only as a part of
education, and because a private gentleman and freeman ought to
know them?
Just so, he said; and that, in my opinion, is a far truer account of
the teaching of Protagoras.
I said: I wonder whether you know what you are doing?
And what am I doing?
You are going to commit your soul to the care of a man whom you
call a Sophist. And yet I hardly think that you know what a
Sophist is; and if not, then you do not even know to whom you are
committing your soul and whether the thing to which you commit
yourself be good or evil.
...
What is the wisdom of the Sophist, and what is the manufacture
over which he presides?—how should we answer him?
How should we answer him, Socrates? What other answer could
there be but that he presides over the art which makes men
eloquent?
...
Then about what does the Sophist make him eloquent? Must not he
make him eloquent in that which he understands?
Yes, that may be assumed.
And what is that which the Sophist knows and makes his
disciple know?
313
...
If you were going to commit your body to some one, who might do good
or harm to it, would you not carefully consider and ask the opinion
of your friends and kindred, and deliberate many days as to whether
you should give him the care of your body? But when the soul is
in question, which you hold to be of far more value than the body,
and upon the good or evil of which depends the well-being of your
all,—about this you never consulted either with your father or
with your brother or with any one of us who are your companions.
But no sooner does this foreigner appear, than you instantly
commit your soul to his keeping. ...you call him a Sophist,
but are manifestly ignorant of what a Sophist is; and yet you are
going to commit yourself to his keeping.
...
take care, my friend, that the Sophist does not deceive us when
he praises what he sells, like the dealers wholesale or retail who
sell the food of the body; for they praise indiscriminately all
their goods, without knowing what are really beneficial or
hurtful: neither do their customers know, ...If, therefore,
you have understanding of what is good and evil, you may safely
buy knowledge of Protagoras or of any one; but if not, then, O
my friend, pause, 314 and do not
hazard your dearest interests at a game of chance. For there
is far greater peril in buying knowledge than in buying meat and
drink: the one you purchase of the wholesale or retail dealer, and
carry them away in other vessels, and before you receive them into
the body as food, you may deposit them at home and call in any
experienced friend who knows what is good to be eaten or drunken,
and what not, and how much, and when; and then the danger of
purchasing them is not so great. But you cannot buy the wares of
knowledge and carry them away in another vessel; when you have
paid for them you must receive them into the soul and go your way,
either greatly harmed or greatly benefited; ...
...
What does Protagoras teach? Virtue! Socrates ARGUES that virtue
is not likely to be teachable.
Protagoras, ... this is my friend Hippocrates, who is desirous of
making your acquaintance; he would like to know what will happen to
him if he associates with you. I have no more to say.
Protagoras answered: Young man, if you associate with me, on the
very first day you will return home a better man than you came,
and better on the second day than on the first, and better every
day than you were on the day before.
When I heard this, I said: ...'When you say that on the first day on
which he associates with you he will return home a better man, and
on every day will grow in like manner,—in what, Protagoras, will
he be better? and about what?
... 319 ... is your meaning
that you teach the art of politics, and that you promise to make
men good citizens?
That, Socrates, is exactly the profession which I make.
Then, I said, you do indeed possess a noble art, if there is no
mistake about this; for I will freely confess to you,
Protagoras, that I have a doubt whether this art is capable of
being taught, ...
when the question is an affair of state, then everybody is free
to have a say—... because they are under the impression
that this sort of knowledge cannot be taught. And not only is this
true of the state, but of individuals; the best and wisest of our
citizens are unable to impart their political wisdom to others: as
for example, Pericles, the father of these young men, who gave
them excellent instruction in all that could be learned from
masters, 320 in his
own department of politics neither taught them, nor gave them
teachers; ... having these examples before me, am
inclined to think that virtue cannot be taught.
...
Protagoras' Myth of creation of mortal creatures
...Prometheus came to inspect the distribution, and he found that
the other animals were suitably furnished, but that man alone was
naked and shoeless, and had neither bed nor arms of defence. The
appointed hour was approaching when man in his turn was to go forth
into the light of day; and Prometheus, not knowing how he could
devise his salvation, stole the mechanical arts of Hephaestus and
Athene, and fire with them (they could neither have been
acquired nor used without fire), and gave them to man. Thus man had
the wisdom necessary to the support of life, but political
wisdom he had not; ...
322 ...mankind at first lived
dispersed, and there were no cities. But the consequence was that
they were destroyed by the wild beasts, for they were utterly weak
in comparison of them, and their art was only sufficient to provide
them with the means of life, and did not enable them to carry on war
against the animals: food they had, but not as yet the art of
government, of which the art of war is a part. After a while the
desire of self-preservation gathered them into cities; but when they
were gathered together, having no art of government, they evil
intreated one another, and were again in process of dispersion and
destruction. Zeus feared that the entire race would be
exterminated, and so he sent Hermes to them, bearing reverence and
justice to be the ordering principles of cities and the bonds of
friendship and conciliation. Hermes asked Zeus how he should
impart justice and reverence among men:... 'To all,' said Zeus;
'I should like them all to have a share; for cities cannot exist,
if a few only share in the virtues, as in the arts. And
further, make a law by my order, that he who has no part in
reverence and justice shall be put to death, for he is a plague of
the state.'
... 323 But when people meet to
deliberate about political virtue, ... they think that every man
ought to share in this sort of virtue, and that states could not
exist if this were otherwise.
...And I will now endeavour to show further that they do not
conceive this virtue to be given by nature, or to grow
spontaneously, but to be a thing which may be taught; and
which comes to a man by taking pains. No one would instruct, no
one would rebuke, or be angry with those whose calamities they
suppose to be due to nature or chance; they do not try to
punish or to prevent them from being what they are; they do but pity
them. Who is so foolish as to chastise or instruct the ugly, or the
diminutive, or the feeble? And for this reason. Because he knows
that good and evil of this kind is the work of nature and of chance;
whereas if a man is wanting in those good qualities which are
attained by study and exercise and teaching, and has only the
contrary evil qualities, other men are angry with him, and punish
and reprove him—of these evil qualities one is impiety,
another injustice, and they may be described generally as the very
opposite of political virtue. 324
... he who desires to inflict rational punishment does not
retaliate for a past wrong which cannot be undone; he has regard
to the future, and is desirous that the man who is punished, and
he who sees him punished, may be deterred from doing wrong again.
He punishes for the sake of prevention, thereby clearly implying
that virtue is capable of being taught. ...
What is the reason why good men teach their sons the knowledge
which is gained from teachers, and make them wise in that, but do
nothing towards improving them in the virtues which distinguish
themselves? ...325 ...
Education and admonition commence in the first years of childhood,
and last to the very end of life. Mother and nurse and father and
tutor ... and the teachers ...326 ...
the works of great poets... in these are contained many admonitions,
and many tales, and praises, and encomia of ancient famous men,
which he is required to learn by heart, in order that he may imitate
or emulate them and desire to become like them. Then, again, the
teachers of the lyre... introduce him to the poems of other
excellent poets, who are the lyric poets; ...When they have done
with masters, the state again compels them to learn the laws, and
live after the pattern which they furnish, and not after their own
fancies;...Now when there is all this care about virtue private and
public, why, Socrates, do you still wonder and doubt whether virtue
can be taught? ...
But why then do the sons of good fathers often turn out ill? ...327
...virtue is not any man's private possession. ... all of us have a
mutual interest in the justice and virtue of one another, and this
is the reason why every one is so ready to teach justice and the
laws; ... do you imagine, Socrates, that the sons of good
flute-players would be more likely to be good than the sons of bad
ones? I think not. Would not their sons grow up to be distinguished
or undistinguished according to their own natural capacities as
flute-players, ... all men are teachers of virtue, each one
according to his ability; ... 328 You
might as well ask, Who teaches Greek? For of that too
there will not be any teachers found. ... there would be no
difficulty in finding a teacher of those who are wholly ignorant.
And this is true of virtue or of anything else; if a man is better
able than we are to promote virtue ever so little, we must be
content with the result. A teacher of this sort I believe myself to
be, and above all other men to have the knowledge which makes a man
noble and good;...
(Socrates speaks) I have still one very small difficulty
which I am sure that Protagoras will easily explain, ... I want you
to tell me truly whether virtue is one whole, of which justice
and temperance and holiness are parts; or whether all these are
only the names of one and the same thing: that is the doubt
which still lingers in my mind.
There is no difficulty, Socrates, in answering that the qualities of
which you are speaking are the parts of virtue which is one.
And are they parts, I said, in the same sense in which mouth,
nose, and eyes, and ears, are the parts of a face; or are they
like the parts of gold, which differ from the whole and from one
another only in being larger or smaller?
I should say that they differed, Socrates, in the first way; they
are related to one another as the parts of a face are related to the
whole face.
And do men have some one part and some another part of virtue?
Or if a man has one part, must he also have all the others?
By no means, he said; for many a man is brave and not just,
or just and not wise.
You would not deny, then, that courage and wisdom are also parts
of virtue?
330
Then, I said, no other part of virtue is like knowledge, or like
justice, or like courage, or like temperance, or like holiness?
No, he answered.
...what about this thing which you were calling justice, is it
just or unjust?'—... nothing can be holy if holiness is
not holy.' ...
... 331 ...
A brief digression: whose argument is it anyway?
this is a meta-discussion, because it is a discussion ABOUT
discussion itself: it rises outside of the discussion to look at
the discussion itself.
'You certainly heard that said, but not, as you imagine, by
me; for I only asked the question; Protagoras gave the answer.'
...
Well then, Protagoras, we will assume this; and now supposing that
he proceeded to say further, 'Then holiness is not of the nature
of justice, nor justice of the nature of holiness, but of the
nature of unholiness; and holiness is of the nature of the not
just, and therefore of the unjust, and the unjust is the unholy':
how shall we answer him?... He replied, I cannot simply
agree, Socrates, to the proposition that justice is holy and that
holiness is just, for there appears to me to be a difference
between them. ...
Digression about meta-discussion again: whose argument is it?
(Protagoras speaks) But what matter? if you please I
please; and let us assume, if you will I, that justice is
holy, and that holiness is just.
Pardon me, I (Socrates) replied; I do not want this 'if
you wish' or 'if you will' sort of conclusion to be proven,
but I want you and me to be proven:
...
Figure out Socrates' point and Protagoras' point in the following
Well, he (Protagoras) said... there is always some
point of view in which everything is like every other thing; white
is in a certain way like black, and hard is like soft, and the
most extreme opposites have some qualities in common; ...
That is an interesting point that is not explicitly explored.
332
An argument from and about opposites:conclusion is that virtue is
a unity
we admitted that everything has one opposite and not more
than one?
We did so.
And we admitted also that what was done in opposite ways was done by
opposites?
Yes.
And that which was done foolishly, as we further admitted, was done
in the opposite way to that which was done temperately?
Yes.
And that which was done temperately was done by temperance, and that
which was done foolishly by folly?
He agreed.
And that which is done in opposite ways is done by opposites?
Yes.
And one thing is done by temperance, and quite another thing by
folly?
Yes.
And in opposite ways?
Certainly.
And therefore by opposites:—then folly is the opposite of
temperance?
Clearly.
And do you remember that folly has already been acknowledged by us
to be the opposite of wisdom?
He assented.
And we said that everything has only one opposite?
Yes.
333
Then, Protagoras, which of the two assertions shall we renounce? ...
For both of them together are certainly not in harmony; ...if
everything is assumed to have only one opposite and not more than
one, and yet folly, which is one, has clearly the two
opposites—wisdom and temperance... Then temperance and wisdom are
the same, as before justice and holiness appeared to us to be nearly
the same. ...
Another argument: can the unjust person be temperately unjust?
Do you think that an unjust man can be temperate in his injustice?
...You think that some men are temperate, and yet unjust?
Yes, he said; let that be admitted.
And temperance is good sense?
Yes.
And good sense is good counsel in doing injustice?
Granted.
If they succeed, I said, or if they do not succeed?
If they succeed.
And you would admit the existence of goods?
Yes.
And is the good that which is expedient for man?
Yes, indeed, he said: and there are some things which may be
inexpedient, and yet I call them good.
...334 When you say, Protagoras,
that things inexpedient are good, do you mean inexpedient for man
only, or inexpedient altogether? ... 335
Protagoras seems to have "dug himself into
a hole." What is the nature of that hole? What trouble
awaits Protagoras in it?
....336
digression about whether they should argue in a way Socrates can
understand or should Protagoras be allowed to argue as he pleases:
the issue seems to be "spin control" and "controlling the
initiative": it's all incredibly important in rhetoric, and there
is no escaping rhetoric. Remember, however, that Plato has
ultimate control: how is HE manipulating us? What advantages does
HE have?
337
338 ... (Socrates' solution:)
If Protagoras is not disposed to answer, let him ask and I will
answer;
340
Poetry arguments: interesting, but hard to know what to make of
them:
Protagoras said: Your correction, Socrates, involves a greater error
than is contained in the sentence which you are correcting.
The poet ... could never have made such a mistake as to say that
virtue, which in the opinion of all men is the hardest of all
things, can be easily retained.
345 ...Simonides was not so ignorant
as to say that he praised those who did no evil voluntarily, as
though there were some who did evil voluntarily. For no wise
man, as I believe, will allow that any human being errs voluntarily,
or voluntarily does evil and dishonourable actions; but they are
very well aware that all who do evil and dishonourable things do
them against their will.
347
Farewell to poetry
I said: I wish Protagoras either to ask or answer as he is
inclined; but I would rather have done with poems and odes, if he
does not object, and come back to the question about which I was
asking you at first, Protagoras, and by your help make an end of
that. ...348 ...let us try the
mettle of one another and make proof of the truth in conversation.
If you have a mind to ask, I am ready to answer; or if you would
rather, do you answer, and give me the opportunity of resuming and
completing our unfinished argument.
Resumption of argument from before the poetry-explication section
FIRST STEP: recapitulation of the claims and where argument
stands
...(Socrates speaks: ) ...349
...the question was this: Are wisdom and temperance and courage and
justice and holiness five names of the same thing? or has each of
the names a separate underlying essence and corresponding thing
having a peculiar function, no one of them being like any other of
them? And you replied that the five names were not the names of the
same thing, but that each of them had a separate object, and that
all these objects were parts of virtue, not in the same way that the
parts of gold are like each other and the whole of which they are
parts, but as the parts of the face are unlike the whole of which
they are parts and one another, and have each of them a distinct
function. I should like to know whether this is still your opinion;
or if not, I will ask you to define your meaning, and I shall not
take you to task if you now make a different statement. For I dare
say that you may have said what you did only in order to make trial
of me.
Next Step: going forward with the argument/discussion: Protagoras
makes an amendment: Courage is different from the other virtues.
Socrates tests it. Protagoras defends it.
I answer, Socrates, he said, that all these qualities are parts of
virtue, and that four out of the five are to some extent similar,
and that the fifth of them, which is courage, is very different from
the other four, as I prove in this way: You may observe that many
men are utterly unrighteous, unholy, intemperate, ignorant, who are
nevertheless remarkable for their courage.
Stop, I said; I should like to think about that. When you speak of
brave men, do you mean the confident, or another sort of nature?
Yes, he said; I mean the impetuous, ready to go at that which others
are afraid to approach.
In the next place, you would affirm virtue to be a good thing, of
which good thing you assert yourself to be a teacher.
Yes, he said; I should say the best of all things, if I am in my
right mind.
And is it partly good and partly bad, I said, or wholly good?
Wholly good, and in the highest degree.
350
Tell me then; who are they who have confidence when diving into a
well?
I should say, the divers.
And the reason of this is that they have knowledge?
...And have you not seen persons utterly ignorant, I said, of these
things, and yet confident about them?
Yes, he said, I have seen such persons far too confident.
And are not these confident persons also courageous?
In that case, he replied, courage would be a base thing, for the men
of whom we are speaking are surely madmen.
Then who are the courageous? Are they not the confident?
Yes, he said; to that statement I adhere.
And those, I said, who are thus confident without knowledge are
really not courageous, but mad; and in that case the wisest are also
the most confident, and being the most confident are also the
bravest, and upon that view again wisdom will be courage.
Nay, Socrates, he replied, you are mistaken in your remembrance of
what was said by me. When you asked me, I certainly did say that the
courageous are the confident; but I was never asked whether the
confident are the courageous; if you had asked me, I should have
answered 'Not all of them': and what I did answer you have not
proved to be false, although you proceeded to show that those who
have knowledge are more courageous than they were before they had
knowledge, and more courageous than others who have no knowledge,
and were then led on to think that courage is the same as wisdom.
But in this way of arguing you might come to imagine that strength
is wisdom. You might begin by asking whether the strong are able,
and I should say 'Yes'; and then whether those who know how to
wrestle are not more able to wrestle than those who do not know how
to wrestle, and more able after than before they had learned, and I
should assent. And when I had admitted this, you might use my
admissions in such a way as to prove that upon my view wisdom is
strength; whereas in that case I should not have admitted, any more
than in the other, that the able are strong, although I have
admitted that the strong are able. 351
For there is a difference between ability and strength; the former
is given by knowledge as well as by madness or rage, but strength
comes from nature and a healthy state of the body. And in like
manner I say of confidence and courage, that they are not the same;
and I argue that the courageous are confident, but not all the
confident courageous. For confidence may be given to men by art, and
also, like ability, by madness and rage; but courage comes to them
from nature and the healthy state of the soul.
Did Protagoras score a point? Or should we not be looking at it
that way?
Next step: Socrates takes a new tack: is pleasure good
and is pain bad?
I said: You would admit, Protagoras, that some men live well
and others ill?
He assented.
And do you think that a man lives well who lives in pain and grief?
He does not.
But if he lives pleasantly to the end of his life, will he not in
that case have lived well?
He will.
Then to live pleasantly is a good, and to live unpleasantly an evil?
Protagoras resists: some pleasure is bad, some pain good
Yes, he said, if the pleasure be good and honourable.
And do you, Protagoras, like the rest of the world, call some
pleasant things evil and some painful things good?—
Socrates amends: pleasure in and of itself good and pain
in and of itself bad
for I am rather disposed to say that things are good in as far as
they are pleasant, if they have no consequences of another sort, and
in as far as they are painful they are bad.
I do not know, Socrates, he said, whether I can venture to assert in
that unqualified manner that the pleasant is the good and the
painful the evil. Having regard not only to my present answer, but
also to the whole of my life, I shall be safer, if I am not
mistaken, in saying that there are some pleasant things which are
not good, and that there are some painful things which are good, and
some which are not good, and that there are some which are neither
good nor evil.
And you would call pleasant, I said, the things which participate in
pleasure or create pleasure?
Certainly, he said.
Then my meaning is, that in as far as they are pleasant they are
good; and my question would imply that pleasure is a good in itself.
...352
Socrates asks about seemingly unrelated matters: knowledge
and what controls the soul
...the rest of the world are of opinion that knowledge is a
principle not of strength, or of rule, or of command: their notion
is that a man may have knowledge, and yet that the knowledge
which is in him may be overmastered by anger, or pleasure, or
pain, or love, or perhaps by fear,—just as if knowledge were a
slave, and might be dragged about anyhow. Now is that your view? or
do you think that knowledge is a noble and commanding thing, which
cannot be overcome, and will not allow a man, if he only knows
the difference of good and evil, to do anything which is contrary to
knowledge, but that wisdom will have strength to help him?
I ...said Protagoras ... am bound to say that wisdom and knowledge
are the highest of human things.
...Suppose, then, that you and I endeavour to instruct and inform
them what is the nature of this affection which they call 'being
overcome by pleasure,' and which they affirm to be the reason why
they do not always do what is best. 353
Pleasures are evil purely because of evil consequences: pains
are good purely because of good consequences
... What account do you give of that which, in our way of speaking,
is termed being overcome by pleasure?
...When men are overcome by eating and drinking and other sensual
desires which are pleasant, and they, knowing them to be evil,
nevertheless indulge in them, would you not say that they were
overcome by pleasure? ...
Do you think them evil for any other reason, except because
they end in pain and rob us of other pleasures:—there again
they would agree?
354
...
'Are these things good for any other reason except that they
end in pleasure, and get rid of and avert pain? Are you looking to
any other standard but pleasure and pain when you call them good?'—they
would acknowledge that they were not?
I think so, said Protagoras.
'And do you not pursue after pleasure as a good, and avoid pain
as an evil?'
He assented.
'Then you think that pain is an evil and pleasure is a good:
and even pleasure you deem an evil, when it robs you of greater
pleasures than it gives, or causes pains greater than the
pleasure. If, however, you call pleasure an evil in relation to
some other end or standard, you will be able to show us that
standard. But you have none to show.'
I do not think that they have, said Protagoras.
'And have you not a similar way of speaking about pain? You call
pain a good when it takes away greater pains than those which it
has, or gives pleasures greater than the pains: then if you have
some standard other than pleasure and pain to which you refer when
you call actual pain a good, you can show what that is. But you
cannot.'
...
355 And even now, if you see any
possible way in which evil can be explained as other than pain, or
good as other than pleasure, you may still retract. Are you
satisfied, then, at having a life of pleasure which is without
pain? If you are, and if you are unable to show any good or evil
which does not end in pleasure and pain, hear the consequences:—If
what you say is true, then the argument is absurd which affirms
that a man often does evil knowingly, when he might abstain,
because he is seduced and overpowered by pleasure; or again, when
you say that a man knowingly refuses to do what is good because he
is overcome at the moment by pleasure. ...
...Is not the real explanation that they are out of proportion to
one another, either as greater and smaller, or more and fewer?
This we cannot deny. And when you speak of being overcome—'what do
you mean,' he will say, 'but that you choose the greater evil in
exchange for the lesser good?' Admitted. And now substitute the
names of pleasure and pain for good and evil, and say, not as
before, that a man does what is evil knowingly, but that he does
what is painful knowingly, and because he is overcome by pleasure,
which is unworthy to overcome. 356
What measure is there of the relations of pleasure to pain other
than excess and defect, which means that they become greater and
smaller, and more and fewer, and differ in degree?
An obvious objection: present versus future: modern economists
speak of a "discount rate" here: Plato does not.
For if any one says: 'Yes, Socrates, but immediate pleasure
differs widely from future pleasure and pain'—To that I should
reply: And do they differ in anything but in pleasure and pain?
There can be no other measure of them. And do you, like a skilful
weigher, put into the balance the pleasures and the pains, and their
nearness and distance, and weigh them, and then say which
outweighs the other.
... Do not the same magnitudes appear larger to your sight when
near, and smaller when at a distance?
...suppose happiness to consist in doing or choosing the greater,
and in not doing or in avoiding the less,
...
...what would be the saving principle of our lives? 357
Would not knowledge?—a knowledge of measuring, ...
And this, as possessing measure, must undeniably also be an art
and science?
...
... men err in their choice of pleasures and pains; that is, in
their choice of good and evil, from defect of knowledge; ... not
only from defect of knowledge in general, but of that particular
knowledge which is called measuring. And you are also aware
that the erring act which is done without knowledge is done in
ignorance. This, therefore, is the meaning of being overcome by
pleasure;—ignorance, and that the greatest. ...
358 ...
Then, my friends, what do you say to this? Are not all actions
honourable and useful, of which the tendency is to make life
painless and pleasant? The honourable work is also useful and
good?
This was admitted.
Then, I said, if the pleasant is the good, nobody does anything
under the idea or conviction that some other thing would be better
and is also attainable, when he might do the better. ...
...
Then, I said, no
man voluntarily pursues evil, or that which he thinks to be
evil. To prefer evil to good is not in
human nature; and when a man is compelled to choose one of two
evils, no one will choose the greater when he may have the less.
All of us agreed to every word of this.
Well, I said, there is a certain thing called fear or terror;
and here, Prodicus, I should particularly like to know whether
you would agree with me in defining this fear or terror as
expectation of evil.
...
I would beg Protagoras to explain to us how he can be
right ... that of the five virtues four were nearly akin to each
other, but that the fifth, which was courage, differed greatly
from the others. ...
tell us against what are the courageous ready to go—against the same
dangers as the cowards?
No, he answered.
Then against something different?
Yes, he said.
Then do cowards go where there is safety, and the courageous where
there is danger?
Yes, Socrates, so men say.
Very true, I said. But I want to know against what do you say
that the courageous are ready to go—against dangers, believing
them to be dangers, or not against dangers?
No, said he; the former case has been proved by you in the previous
argument to be impossible.
That, again, I replied, is quite true. And if this has been rightly
proven, then no one goes to meet what he thinks to be dangers,
since the want of self-control, which makes men rush into dangers,
has been shown to be ignorance.
He assented.
And yet the courageous man and the coward alike go to meet that
about which they are confident; so that, in this point of view,
the cowardly and the courageous go to meet the same things.
And yet, Socrates, said Protagoras, that to which the coward goes
is the opposite of that to which the courageous goes; the one,
for example, is ready to go to battle, and the other is not ready.
And is going to battle honourable or disgraceful? I said.
Honourable, he replied.
And if honourable, then already admitted by us to be good; for all
honourable actions we have admitted to be good.
That is true; and to that opinion I shall always adhere.
360
True, I said. But which of the two are they who, as you say, are
unwilling to go to war, which is a good and honourable thing?
The cowards, he replied.
And what is good and honourable, I said, is also pleasant?
It has certainly been acknowledged to be so, he replied.
And do the cowards knowingly refuse to go to the nobler, and
pleasanter, and better?
The admission of that, he replied, would belie our
former admissions. (In other words, "no.")
But does not the courageous man also go to meet the better, and
pleasanter, and nobler?
That must be admitted.
And the courageous man has no base fear or base confidence?
True, he replied.
And if not base, then honourable?
He admitted this.
And if honourable, then good?
Yes.
But the fear and confidence of the coward or foolhardy or madman, on
the contrary, are base?
He assented.
And these base fears and confidences originate in ignorance and
uninstructedness?
True, he said.
Then as to the motive from which the cowards act, do you call it
cowardice or courage?
I should say cowardice, he replied.
And have they not been shown to be cowards through their ignorance
of dangers?
Assuredly, he said.
And because of that ignorance they are cowards?
He assented.
And the reason why they are cowards is admitted by you to be
cowardice?
He again assented.
Then the ignorance of what is and is not dangerous is cowardice?
He nodded assent.
But surely courage, I said, is opposed to cowardice?
Yes.
Then the wisdom which knows what are and are not dangers is
opposed to the ignorance of them?
To that again he nodded assent.
And the ignorance of them is cowardice?
To that he very reluctantly nodded assent.
And the knowledge of that which is and is not dangerous is
courage, and is opposed to the ignorance of these things?
...
I want to know whether you still think that there are men who are
most ignorant and yet most courageous?
You seem to have a great ambition to make me answer, Socrates, and
therefore I will gratify you, and say, that this appears to me to be
impossible consistently with the argument.
... 361
The IRONY of it all:
... if the argument had a human voice, that voice would be heard
laughing at us and saying: 'Protagoras and Socrates, you are
strange beings; there are you, Socrates, who were saying that
virtue cannot be taught, contradicting yourself now by your
attempt to prove that all things are knowledge, including justice,
and temperance, and courage,—which tends to show that virtue can
certainly be taught; for if virtue were other than knowledge, as
Protagoras attempted to prove, then clearly virtue cannot be
taught; but if virtue is entirely knowledge, as you are seeking to
show, then I cannot but suppose that virtue is capable of being
taught. Protagoras, on the other hand, who started by saying that
it might be taught, is now eager to prove it to be anything rather
than knowledge; and if this is true, it must be quite incapable of
being taught.'
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