Professional Documents
Culture Documents
and
Protagoras
Plato
and
Protagoras
ODED BALABAN
LE X I NGTON BOOKS
Lanham ' Boulder' New York' Oxford
LEXINGTON BOOKS
Balaban, Oded.
Plato and Protagoras truth and relath'ism in ancient Greek philosophy , Oded
Oaiaban.
p. em.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-7391-0075·0 (cloth ; alk. paper)
I. Plato-Conlribulions in concept of truth. 2. Protagoras-Contribut;ons in
concept oflruth. 3. Plato-Contributions in concept of values. 4. Protagoras-
Contributions in concept of values. 5. Truth-History. 6. Values-History.
I. Title.
8398.D8B35 1999
I 84-<1c21 99·37747
CJP
8 '"The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American
National Standard for Information Sciences- Permanence of Paper for Printed Library
Materials, ANS IIN ISO Z39.48- J992.
Protagoras’ statement that man is the measure of all things, is charac-
teristic and essentially Mediterranean. What did he mean? What does it
mean to measure? It is not to substitute for the object we are measuring
the symbol of a human act whose repetition obliterates this object? To
say that man is the measure of all things is thus to set up against the di-
versity of the world the ensemble or group of human potentialities; and
it is also to stand up against the diversity of our moments and the mo-
bility of our impressions, and even the particularity of our individuality,
our own unique and, as it were, specialized person confined in our local
and fragmentary life, a me who sums it up, dominates and contains it, as
a law contains the particular case, as the sense of our own powers con-
tains all the acts possible to us. We are conscious of this universal Self,
who is not our accidental self, determined by the coincidence of an infi-
nite number of conditions and chances, for (between you and me) how
many things in us seem to have been drawn by lot! . . . But I say we can
feel, when we deserve to feel, this universal Self who has neither name
nor history, and for whom our observable life, the life received and
lived or undergone by us, is only one of the innumerable lives that this
same Self might have adopted. . . . You must excuse me. I have allowed
myself to be carried away!
Paul Valery, Mediterranean Inspirations.
Abbreviations ix
Preface xi
Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction xv
PART I
A DISCUSSION OF INTERPRETATION IN GENERAL
Chapter 1 - De Interpretatione 3
PART II
PLATO’S AND PROTAGORAS’ GENERAL ASSUMPTIONS
PART III
THE INTERPRETATION OF THE PROTAGORAS
vii
viii Contents
PART IV
EXTRAPOLATIONS
APPENDIXES
Appendix A
What Does “Man” Mean in Protagoras’ “Man Is the Measure...?” 299
Appendix B
Critical Remarks on Some Interpretations of Plato’s Self-Consciousness 305
Bibliography 323
Index 339
About the Author 345
Abbreviations
To be, or to have, a measure. This is the question that Plato and Pro-
tagoras grapple with.
It is often said that Protagoras’ claim that “man is the measure of all
things” is applicable both to the field of knowledge and to the field of
values: he is unable to argue for the knowledge of any unconditioned re-
ality, and unable to endorse any moral or practical decision.
It is often said that the Socratic Plato has a positive theory of knowl-
edge and a positive moral theory. His moral theory, so it has been ar-
gued, produces a technique for resolving conflicts between opposing val-
ues. His theory of knowledge is resolved, in later Plato, into a theory of
Ideas.
I will propose, instead, the following:
When it comes to theoretical questions concerning either knowledge
of facts or knowledge of values, Protagoras is manifestly a relativist who
asserts that human beings provide their own pattern of measure. Plato, by
contrast, is looking for an absolute and absolutely knowable reality, in
the name of which he denies the very possibility of a theory of knowl-
edge.
However, when it comes to practical questions about values, Pro-
tagoras believes in values that are not deduced out of knowledge. By
contrast, Plato reduces values to knowledge. Thus, Plato is not a moral-
ist, and Protagoras is not a relativist.
When the question concerns the subject-object relationship, Pro-
tagoras refers everything to the subject, whereas Plato refers everything
to the object. When the question concerns the relationships between
xi
xii Preface
This book is the result of years of teaching Plato and specially the Pro-
tagoras at the University of Haifa. I am grateful to my graduate students
for their challenging questions and helpful criticism.
In my approach to Plato, I am strongly influenced by Michael Strauss,
my teacher, friend, and colleague, to whom I am deeply in debt. I give
my special thanks to Robert Goodman, Menachem Luz, Samuel Scolni-
cov, Mick Stern, and Henry Teloh for their intelligent and careful read-
ing of the manuscript.
This book has benefited from the generous comments and reflections
of a number of friends and colleagues, including Martin Bunzl, Celia
Abramowicz, Avner Cohen, Nicholas Denyer, Anan Erev, Bernard
Freydberg, Orna Harari, Giora Hon, Charles Kahn, Aida Aisensohn-
Kogan, Ruth Lorand, Michael Maidan, Ephraim Navon, Pedro Resnik,
Laura Roimiser, Yuval Steiniz, and Paul Woodruf. I am deeply indebted
to them even if I have not always seen things in the same light they do.
Specials thanks for the unconditional faith of my mother, sister, daugh-
ter, son, and to Shimeon Chosyd-Abraham.
Prolonged writing of any kind, creative or scholarly, is a lonely occu-
pation, alleviated in my lucky case by the constant warm support and
intelligent advice of my wife, Asnat, without whom this book could
hardly be written.
Scattered sections of this book draw on a number of my previously
published articles, parts of which are reproduced here with the permis-
sion of the publishers: History of Philosophy Quarterly and Theoria.
xiii
Introduction
xv
xvi Introduction
racy means that any major decision must be discussed by a popular as-
sembly. Thus, by its very essence, democracy does not tolerate demo-
crats. It grows out of controversy and depends on individuals who define
and defend their own points of view. Democracy enables those with con-
flicting values to live together. Indeed, what would happen if a demo-
cratic regime successfully persuaded all its members to abandon all their
individual opinions and convictions in the interests of social harmony?
Such a regime would lose its raison d’être, and perhaps disband itself by
decree. But here comes Protagoras the sophist, who so valued equality
and fairness that he seemed to oppose the very idea of taking a firm stand
on anything. Thus, Protagoras’ refusal to discuss the existence of the
gods springs, perhaps, entirely from a profound and exaggerated imparti-
ality.
Such disparate figures as Plato and Protagoras seem unlikely to have
anything to say to each other. Nevertheless, a dialogue takes place. It is
so colorful that we must believe that it is more than a literary conceit,
that such a conversation really took place as a real event there, in the
house of Callias, just before the beginning of the Peloponesian war, in
the year 433 B.C., when Protagoras was visiting Athens for the second
time and stirring up profound excitement among its citizens, at least the
intellectuals among them, those who were the friends of sophia.
Our interest in understanding ancient Greek culture in general and the
Protagoras in particular does not require justification. We cannot under-
stand ourselves without understanding what lies outside ourselves. If we
fail to confront another set of cultural values, we run the risk of falling
into a mere justification for our own values. Indeed, without such con-
frontation we can hardly begin to analyze our own presuppositions or
grasp the values underlying our thoughts and deeds. We are prone to be-
lieve, like the conscious stones Spinoza speaks of, that what is, ought to
be. We are prone to conclude that the ought can be deduced from the is.
So we transform our self-knowledge into an ideological a posteriori jus-
tification for our own values, and the analysis of other cultures as a mir-
ror in which we see but ourselves.
On the contrary, when we examine our values in the light of alterna-
tive ones, like those of ancient Greece (which we regard, paradoxically,
as the birthplace of Western civilization) we can look at ourselves as if it
were from outside. We can be humane without defending our humanity,
without becoming humanists; we can be social without being socialists;
we can become freer without becoming liberals. The peculiar character
of the irreducible differences between Greek culture and our own is a
matter for an epilogue.
Introduction xix
My main thesis in this book is that the issue under discussion in the
Protagoras is the question of standards of measure. The question that
underlies all the topics of discussion is, “What is the measure?” Not
“What are virtues?” Not even “How do diverse virtues relate to each
other?” The fundamental question concerns standards: knowledge as a
standard of valuation, as Plato tries to show, or values, as Protagoras ar-
gues.
The question of standards arises even regarding the form of the dia-
logue itself. Should discourse be short or long, simple or complex? What
is the standard for conducting literary criticism? Is there a criterion for
the measurement of values in general and of virtues in particular? At first
glance, it seems that Protagoras denies the existence of any criteria,
while Socrates argues that we need to establish criteria in every field of
analysis.
Though this first glance or impression is not false, I will try to show
that the dialogue also runs against this overt meaning, so that strict Soc-
rates, who defends the need for criteria, in the end accepts no criterion at
all, except one—knowledge. Even virtue is knowledge. Protagoras, per
contra, asserts that one may apply different criteria to different contents.
Plato reduces values to knowledge, whereas Protagoras reduces knowl-
edge to values. I believe that the philosophy of Protagoras is the real al-
ternative to Socrates. In this sense, Protagoras is the best partner for a
philosophical discussion with Socrates. He offers true opposition. For
this reason, our understanding of Protagoras will be a great help in un-
derstanding Socrates.
I will try, in this book, to interpret the Protagoras as impartially as I
can. As I go along I will expose my own assumptions insofar and where-
soever it may be necessary. I will be making a distinction (one not
clearly articulated by either Plato or Protagoras) between values and
knowledge. I believe this important distinction will clarify Plato’s reduc-
tion of values to knowledge and Protagoras’ reduction of knowledge to
values.
The last large work on the Protagoras, Patrick Coby’s Socrates and
the Sophistic Enlightenment (1987), tried to bring the philosophies of
Socrates and of Protagoras as close together as possible. I will try to
show, per contra, their deep differences. Coby asserts that “propositions
known as Socratic paradoxes: (1) virtue is knowledge, (2) virtue is one,
(3) virtue is easy, (4) knowledge is the cause of faring well, and (5) evil
is committed unwillingly” are, “to a remarkable degree,” also Protago-
rean.2 Nothing is further, in my opinion, from Protagoras’ philosophy. It
is interesting, indeed, that the same Platonic work is interpretable in so
xx Introduction
different and even opposite ways. Protagoras would have appreciated this
democratic confusion.
My relatively extended introduction on interpretation (Part I) will en-
able my critics to distinguish between, on the one hand, my interpretative
presuppositions, and on the other hand, my actual interpretation of the
Protagoras. I would like to anticipate critics who believe that arguing
against the content of my interpretation is the same thing as criticizing
my interpretative assumptions.
A note on gender bias: The words “he” and “him” only refer, in this
book, to the male gender when some actual male person, living or dead,
is under discussion. In all cases where the person referred to is hypo-
thetical (such as “the reader,” “the philosopher,” “the liar,” and so on)
the male pronouns must be taken in the broad sense of “he or she,” “him
or her.” Such locutions, though more accurate, tend to sound awkward
and forced, and may not be necessary. Indeed, we must all make an effort
to read “her” into “him” and women into “man” whenever and wherever
possible.
Notes
1. Let me quote Rutherford’s resume of the state of affairs about the inter-
pretation of the Protagoras:
[T]he dialogue has often puzzled and irritated students of Plato. Much
of the uncertainty felt by readers concerns the unity of the work—not
that anyone has ever seriously doubted that it is indeed entirely a work
of Plato, and wholly characteristic of him, but there is undoubtedly
room for discomfort on the level of conceptual unity: What is the sub-
ject of the Protagoras, what is it about? The main discussion seems to
wander bewilderingly, some would say perversely—from the nature of
Athenian democracy through the evolution of human society, the unity
of the virtues, the analysis of a poem by Simonides, back to the virtues
and particularly courage, and then on to a refutation of the popular view
of the power of pleasure and emotion over reason. At the end, very little
seems to have been settled. And what is the relevance of the introduc-
tory scenes, first between Socrates and an unnamed friend, then be-
tween Hippocrates and Socrates at the beginning of the narrated part of
the dialogue, before the two of them arrive in the presence of the great
sophist? (Richard B. Rutherford, The Art of Plato, 121).
2. Patrick Coby, Socrates and the Sophistic Enlightenment: A Commen-
tary on Plato’s Protagoras (London and Toronto: Associated University
Presses, 1987), 14.
Part I
A Discussion of
Interpretation in General
Chapter 1
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
De Interpretatione
I agree with him, if by “an object of study” he does not mean any ob-
ject, but some opinion or idea that remains confused or incomplete for
some reader. Not any object of study is a candidate for interpretation.
When we study the behavior of fish, we are not trying to interpret them,
since they are not trying to say something to us. Only a conscious effort
to transmit some content to another human mind can be an object of in-
terpretation, and only in the case that it remains unintelligible for the
reader or listener. Only in this case do we experience the need for an in-
ter-pretation, namely, a third party, as it were, whose task is to “trans-
late” or mediate between author and reader. Let me remark, that a reader
understands a text; it is only when he does not understand that he be-
comes an interpreter.
Since interpretation comes after incomprehension, we must begin by
proposing a general definition of the idea of incomprehension. Let me
distinguish between non-understanding and misunderstanding. I need the
distinction between misunderstanding and non-understanding to distin-
guish between the two basic processes of understanding and interpreta-
tion. Not all understanding is the fruit of interpretation.
Non-understanding precedes understanding, while misunderstanding
follows understanding, or the attempt to understand. I cannot misunder-
stand something that I did not previously attempt to understand, just as I
cannot misconceive something that I did not first conceive, in some way
or another. I mean that misunderstanding necessarily implies a prior un-
derstanding, though an incorrect one. I take “misunderstanding” as a kind
of error, as a kind of incorrect understanding and, as such, it is a kind of
misinterpretation.
Non-Understanding
does not allow me to grasp the full meaning of the text. Non-
understanding is a lack of meaning within meaning itself, and therefore
provides the occasion for reflection.
Non-understanding is, relatively to misunderstanding, something pri-
mary. Non-understanding is the correlative of understanding, and occurs
at the general level of understanding. By primary I mean, then, that it
comes before the advance yet of any interpretation.
Non-understanding is the first step toward reflection about meaning.
It is indeed a primary reflection, though not a full one. Both together,
understanding/non-understanding, define the field of understanding,
which is an original and somehow spontaneous field of consciousness.
Interpretation
Hermeneutical Reductionism
self. However, as a result of this attempt, neutrality gets lost when a to-
tally extrinsic criterion explains the text. When this is the case, creation
takes the place of identification. Since you cannot identify yourself with
the original meaning or intention, you have no option but to create a new
meaning. Interpretation thus becomes free creation. So nothing remains
for the interpreter to do but become aware of his presuppositions, for
they cannot be neutralized or set aside. Interpretation becomes self-
consciousness.
However, free creation goes beyond interpretation, since there will be
as many creations as interpreters. This is, in short, the Gadamerian ori-
entation taken to its extreme. Let me call this orientation “creative” since
interpretation depends on the free creative activity of the “interpreter.”
The creative orientation, then, asserts that any interpretation must be
understood relative to the context of questions to which it functions as an
answer, which means that any question posited to the text is ruled by the
conceptual world of the interpreter, so that identification becomes impos-
sible. Consciousness is, in this case, tantamount to self-consciousness.
Questions about the text are understood according to the presuppositions
of the interpreter. The interpretative effort cannot escape from being pre-
judicious. This attitude also sets aside the source text, not in order to
criticize it, but in order to leave it as it was—uninterpreted. Gadamerian
subjectivity reaches an objectivism that forbids the reader to “touch” the
text. The text is a limit that has a regulative function, like the Kantian
thing-in-itself: without it, nothing else can be referred to.
This subjectivist or contextualist tendency leads to a confusion be-
tween author and interpreter, or to put it another way, between the origi-
nal text (or source) and its interpretation.7 Rorty, a radical Gadamerian, is
already unable to offer a valid criterion for distinguishing between source
and interpretation, between creation and interpretation, so that the inter-
pretation itself becomes an act of creation. In another order of things, this
is like confusing the legislator with the judge, or equating the composer
with the performer. According to this view, the judge does not interpret
the intention of the legislator, but in fact makes the law. The performer
does not carry out the intention of the composer, but creates music, as if
his activity, performing, were no different from the composer’s activity,
composing. True, the performer and the judge, in their performing and
judging, do create something, but something that falls within well-
defined limits. The Gadamerian point of view asserts that there are no
limits to the scope of the interpretative freedom of the judge or the per-
former. The judge legislates, the performer composes, and the interpreter
writes the text.
10 Chapter 1
For Rorty, the question about content (“What are you talking about?”)
is not about what but about how we speak, which is a totally different
question. From the content of thought, he passes directly to the form,
though he believes he is still referring to the content. So it is understand-
able that he is left without an object, namely, without an original text,
and thus without the possibility of non-reflective thought.
Rorty is a radical intellectualist, in the sense of reducing the original
to the reflective thought. Philosophers tend to believe that every ordinary
reader thinks like a philosopher. Philosophers do not seem to realize that
they themselves can be (indeed, often must be) ordinary readers who ex-
perience non-reflective thinking, behavior, feelings, and values.
Let us look for a moment at Rorty’s analogy about non-Euclidean
space. Such space has a reference, which is just this space constituted by
certain axioms. But then, geometers are not interpreting a space that they
De Interpretatione 11
standpoint of Plato, who wrote about the central figures of the dia-
logue—Socrates and Protagoras. I mean that plagiarism, or the rendering
of the same idea or meaning with other words, is an interpretative
method that identifies itself with the text. It is just this identification that
prevents interpretation, even though it implies understanding. This is the
tendency of Dilthey and his followers. I call this tendency “identifica-
tory” since it aims at identification with the text. In theory, if not always
in practice, it stands at the opposite pole from contextualism.
The central problem with the identificatory approach is that, being
apparently the most objective attitude (since it annuls the interpreter in
favor of the almighty text), it also becomes the most subjective. Indeed,
by identifying with the source, the interpreter is obliged to assert (pre-
cisely at those parts to be interpreted, at those parts that remain unintelli-
gible) that the text or the author errs. Whoever asserts that the author
makes mistakes does so—paradoxically, perhaps—due to an extreme and
unconscious identification with it.
Upon what grounds indeed, can we attribute mistakes to the text? It
may be only based on what the interpreter believes, by way of identifica-
tion. He may feel that the text fails to state fully and explicitly what he
would have wished to read in it. Perhaps he finds statements that he be-
lieves are inconsistent with the general meaning of the text. Such a
reader blames the text for failing to meet his expectations.16
There is yet a deeper reason why identification leads a certain kind of
reader to claim that a text contains errors. Such a reader may think that
the text says something that it actually does not. If this is the way he
thinks, and there is nobody to correct him, he will not blame himself for
the resulting problems, for he would not hold an opinion that he himself
believes to be false. There is a tendency, when thinking by identification,
to think in the name of the author and to assert that he got it wrong, not I.
The interpretation that turns to error as a category of explanation ends
up by illuminating, in the harshest possible way, the limits and presuppo-
sitions of the interpreter. This subjectivism with pretensions of objectiv-
ism reaches such extremes that the interpreter often begins to argue with
his own object of analysis.
Furthermore, this extreme subjectivism, which fails in its attempt to
interpret the text, entirely accords with an extreme dogmatism. The in-
terpreter who asserts, for example, that Plato errs, has done nothing but
replace Plato’s concerns with his own. Such an interpreter has, in fact,
replaced Plato with something else. This attitude is dogmatic because it
allows us to take the liberty of accepting all those parts of the text that
coincide with our expectations and disregard the rest. At minimum, such
an attitude means that the interpreter is always right, because any dis-
De Interpretatione 15
crepancies between the evidence of the text and the conclusions of inter-
pretation can be blamed on the author’s own shortcomings or even in-
competence. A theory that turns to error as an explanatory category can
be neither proved nor disproved. Once the text has been shown inher-
ently inconsistent or flawed, there is no way to contradict or refute any
interpretation that may be brought to bear on it. Indeed, in these cases,
the text itself has been refuted.
I do not contend that the alternative attitude for avoiding the category
of error is the adoption of the so-called principle of charity. This princi-
ple hints that the interpreter takes part in the discussion (the content un-
der analysis) instead of interpreting it, no less than in the case of the turn
to the category of error. With the category of error the interpreter
expresses his disapproval, with the principle of charity his approval. I
will propose an alternative that, based on the distinction between the
form and the content of arguments, analyzes them by trying to reveal the
form, or the assumptions of the argument.17
“Socratic Irony”
standpoint is, in its relevant aspects, relational though not relative to the
source, which is the object to be interpreted.
On these grounds, we cannot interpret totally from the outside. If this
were the case, there would be as many interpretations as the available
number of interpreters. To interpret, we need to assume that there is
something in the text that allows interpretation to develop in certain ways
and not in others. This does not preclude the legitimacy of alternative
interpretations. However, it does imply a concept, however broadly de-
fined, of legitimacy. Nor does any of this imply the opposite attitude,
namely, that the only way to interpret is to identify with the text or with
the text’s presuppositions.
These are thus the limits of interpretation: it is neither a free creation
nor a slavish imitation of the text. If we are either too far away from the
text or too close to it, interpretation is impossible. The hermeneutical cir-
cle operates beyond these limits, and it is there that it reaches its para-
doxical conclusion—that interpretation is impossible.
The hermeneutic circle, obviously, contradicts our interpretative ex-
perience. Whoever defends the paradox enters into contradictions. But
this paradox gives us a deeper understanding of the problem. Now we
know the limits of our enterprise. Interpretation implies, apparently, a
paradox: the rescue of something that is already in the text, though unre-
vealed to the intellect.
When considering both orientations, each one passes easily into the
other, though without awareness. Dilthey is an unconscious Gadamer and
vice versa. The Gadamerian or contextualistic approach ignores the
source, which is a way of arguing with it, and the Diltheyian or identifi-
catory approach argues with it—which is a way of ignoring the source.
Each tendency takes a stand or stresses one of the aspects that must be
present in any interpretative labor. Each side absolutizes one of these two
factors and relativizes the other one. For Dilthey, the main issue is the
content of the interpretation, the object—the text. For Gadamer, the main
issue is the form, the subject, the interpreter and its milieu. Diltheyanism
tends, in principle, to assume that all the interpreter’s possible distortions
can be annulled if he can identify himself completely with the text.
Gadamerianism thinks that the interpretative aberrations can be avoided
by means of self-consciousness, by becoming aware of one’s prejudices.
Despite their differences, both sides have made much the same epis-
temological assumption: that the text has qualities independent of the
reader’s perception, or else that the reader has some perception, some
kind of understanding, that is unrelated to the text that he is reading. We
do not need to make such distinctions, for they distort the nature of
reading (and perception in general). When I read something or perceive
De Interpretatione 19
interpretations. The first axis pertains to the original level, the level of
understanding, which is the level that pushes, when there is a misunder-
stood content, toward reflection, namely, to pass over a second level. The
second axis pertains to the reflective level, the level of interpretation
proper.
The presupposition of interpretation is, thus, that something is already
understood to a certain degree beforehand and that, under such limits,
there are contents that have remained opaque or misunderstood, and
when the possibility of a limited number of alternative valid interpreta-
tions is given.
Therefore, the fact that there are alternative possibilities does not in-
validate but, on the contrary, bestows legitimacy to each interpretation as
such. It is not a valid argument to assert that there is no alternative to an
interpretation. On the contrary, an interpretation is only valid when other
alternatives exist.
Rorty asserts, by contrast, that “we are not talking about the same
thing if we say very different things about it.”23 What lurks here is the so-
called anti-essentialist claim, namely, put it in my words, that you cannot
really talk about anything. At the very moment you talk about some-
thing—you are not talking about it. I am tempted to ask Rorty if I can
even understand my own discourse if I do not understand its alternative.
This seems to be impossible, according to him, since to understand an
alternative is “to say very different things” about the issue in question.
Moreover, in interpretative questions, to understand means the under-
standing of an alternative interpretative discourse.
The claim I try to defend is that we interpret just when there is an al-
ternative interpretation, and that both my discourse and its alternative
refer to the same thing. This attitude needs a further explanation.
What makes alternative interpretations legitimate? The question arises
when we assert that alternatives do exist, because such an assertion as-
sumes a rivalry among differing interpretations. But different interpreta-
tions flourish because they are products of different interpretive criteria
(and not because they do not share a common source text).
However, some deny the text, in order to assert the importance of the
circumstances of the interpreter; and some assert the significance of the
source by suppressing the presuppositions of the interpreter. But all these
confusions can be solved if we make the following distinctions:
There are two basic ways to define the goal of interpretation and its
criteria, namely, the original approach and the reflective approach.
1. In the first case, my interest is not primarily about the author and
his work. I came to them motivated by a different interest: my interest in
an issue that I hope to find some reference to in the text. At this level, I
De Interpretatione 21
am only interested in what the author thinks about the issue I am con-
cerned with. I am interested in the text, though only insofar as it is some-
how related to my former interest. This is the Gadamerian tendency.
For example, I may be concerned with the issue of friendship and I
want to understand and interpret what Plato has to say about this. Thus,
Plato’s ideas are relevant to my own interests. In this case, I may even try
to argue with Plato and to enter into an imaginary dialogue with him—I
may criticize him, I may think that he is wrong on some point or that he
is right in another. In this case, I am not reflecting about Plato but—let
me put it this way—I am actively sharing his interest in the issue of ethi-
cal relativism. In this case, Plato is not an object of my research but my
colleague in thought, my partner in a discussion. Plato may even be the
representative of an alternative attitude that I must face in order to under-
stand better my own ideas.
Let us return to the example of friendship. Gadamer indeed asserts
that according to Plato in the Lysis,
he who feels friendship for someone sees in the other something
which he himself is not, but the thing which he sees, which he is
not, is more like something which has not yet been achieved in
himself, something more like a potential in himself, which leads
him to look for a model in another.24
Gadamer understands that for Plato the friend is nothing more than a
means:
as though the friend were nothing more than a means, as though he
were there only to rid me of my deficiencies . . . we would be re-
luctant to say that the essence of true friendship consists in one
person’s being the means of remedying the deficiencies of another.
We know, as a matter of fact, that he who understands friendship
in this way and who would thus reduce his significance to that of
being there solely for the other, destroys the communal basis of the
relationship.25
means looking for the assumptions that generate the ideas in the text,
rather than examining the ideas themselves.
The limits of such an interpretation, namely, the limits beyond which
it ceases to be an interpretation, are analogous to the limits of the inter-
pretation of the first type. These limits are, on the one hand criticism, in
the sense of assuming contexts that contradict texts, and on the other
hand the explanation of the text with justificatory intention, namely, as-
suming that the text is nothing but the product of the times in which it
was written, as if the text were a necessary product of them. In this case,
the text remains as if it were without any singular originality.
In short, to reach an authentic interpretation, if I may be permitted
such an adjective, we must accept that interpretation does not mean a
repetition of what is already expressed in the text, but implies a creative
act. We must also recognize, however, that this creativity has its limits:
(1) there is an interpretable text that imposes limits insofar as it is an in-
terpretable datum. (2) There is no place for arguing against the text, or to
presuppose arguments that the text “refutes.” The marine biologist does
not argue, for example, that the Zigzag Fish would be better off swim-
ming in a straight line. He only tries to understand why it swims as it
does. In this way, interpreters of texts must not criticize the zigzags of
the original texts.
Ways of Interpretation
this interpretative effort, we also try to become aware of our own cir-
cumstances and values. For two reasons: first, we do not want our values
to be mixed up with those of the text. Secondly, we learn something of
both sides when we compare our own values with those of the author.
To interpret a text, we must usually read it at least twice: once to un-
derstand it, and once to interpret it. Indeed, we cannot concentrate on two
different issues at the same time. Sometimes, however, we read the text
only once, but it is an interrupted reading, or rather an alternation be-
tween reading and reflecting, so that the ultimate effect is that of two
readings carried out side by side.
The interpretative effort is an effort of questioning. I totally agree
with Gadamer’s contention that we must take any assertion in the text as
an answer to a question:
Now the question is not always explicit, especially for a reader who does
not share the author’s presuppositions. An author may well consider
some questions so self-evident that he does not even feel the need to
formulate them. Now the reconstruction of a text needs to turn to the
question lying behind the explicit text. In this case, one must adopt those
questions that one assumes are the questions of the text—as one’s own
questions. I mean that one’s questions are text-oriented questions.
Oriented to the questions behind the text, one may ask, for example, what
Protagoras meant by repeating his own words, apparently or not—this is just
the question—in his famous dictum, quoted by Plato, Sextus Empiricus
and Diogenes Laertius, that “Man is the measure of all things (Panton
chrematon anthrôpos metron), of things that are as to how they are, and
of things that are not as to how they are not”” (fhs‹ gãr pou pãntvn xrhmãtvn
m°tron ênyrvpon e‰nai, t«n m¢n ˆntvn …w ¶sti t«n d¢ mØ ˆntvn …w oÈk ¶stin, Tht.
152a). A question oriented toward the source, for example, would ask
about the alternative, namely, that the sentence is a refutation of “the
De Interpretatione 25
existing things that are un-existent” and attempt to determine what that
would mean. Or a question may merely ask why Protagoras did not say,
plainly and simply, something about existing things, without
redundancy.28 Now the question is, does the addition (“that are as to how
they are” and “that are as to how they are not”) change the meaning of
the non-repetitive saying, of the (perhaps) non-tautological argument? In
this case, we are trying to complete an idea in order to understand it, and
this is a legitimate interpretive approach.
I would like to recall three interpretative categories: completion, sub-
stitution, and revelation.
Completion. We need an interpretative completion when there is a gap
in the continuum of the meaning—a gap completed by adding another
intermediate meaning. For example, the introduction, between two ap-
parently contradictory opinions sustained by Protagoras of a third idea
that may allow the mediation between the former ones and create thereby
a continuity of meaning. We need this method mainly in the case of in-
terpretations of philosophers like Protagoras, since we know him only
through fragments. We are even obliged to build scaffoldings. Comple-
tion is called for when we are faced with Plato’s strange definition of
virtues as analogous to crafts and arts, or when he reduces all the virtues
to knowledge. In these and similar instances, we remain unsatisfied with
explicit arguments, and feel that there is a gap in the continuum of
meaning.
Substitution. In other cases, we can offer a substitution in order to un-
derstand the source. This is the interpretative technique of Plato himself.
In the Theaetetus he corrects Protagoras’ phrase to make it be more in-
telligible for him, asserting that Protagoras really meant to say that so as
I feel them, so things are for me (see Tht. 151a). Plato claims that he is
merely substituting a clear formulation for a less clear one. But it is fair
to ask if the substitution actually clarified the meaning of the original
sentence or changed it in some way. We can only answer this question by
analyzing the content of the ideas.
Substitution means to replace one carrier of meaning with another. An
exemplary case of substitution is the translation of a word into another
language, or the substitution of a word by its synonyms. For the inter-
preter, the original word functions as a carrier of meaning in both cases.
But the same word can have different meanings, and different words can
have the same meaning. The difference in meaning occurs in context, a
circumstance that inspired a sophist like Prodicus of Ceos, who special-
ized in the differences between synonyms, and was able to perceive
similarities.
26 Chapter 1
Notes
1. Charles Taylor, Philosophy and the Human Sciences, Philosophical
Papers 2 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985), II, 16.
2. Nelson Goodman goes so far in his assertion as to say that philosophy
is world-making. See Ways of Worldmaking (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing,
1985), 22. The world “is as many ways as it can be truly described,” Languages
of Art (New York: Bobs-Merrill, 1968), 6.
3. Those who, like Wilhelm Dilthey and Max Weber, make a distinction
between interpreting and understanding as a distinction between natural and
human sciences respectively, or as a distinction between explanation in human
sciences (understanding or Verstehen) and explanation in natural sciences (in-
terpretation or causal explanation) are turning to a somehow artificial distinc-
tion, as if natural sciences were not themselves human sciences! However, a
critical analysis of these theses is far beyond my task in this book.
4. Brice R. Wachterhauser, ed., Hermeneutics and Truth (Evanston, Ill.:
Northwestern University Press, 1994), 1.
5. Rosemary Desjardins adopts the same point of view regarding the
analysis of Plato’s dialogues. She asserts that, like for Hans-Georg Gadamer,
understanding means for Plato interpretation. She goes so far as to assert that
Plato had in mind the same task that Gadamer had in trying to resolve the con-
flict between dogmatic absolutism and critical relativism. See “Why Dialogues?
Plato’s Serious Play,” in Platonic Writings, Platonic Readings, Charles Gris-
wold Jr., ed., (New York: Routledge, 1988), 111, 125. Gadamer contends that
German Romanticism taught us that “understanding and interpretation are the
same thing” (“Verstehen und Auslegen letzten Endes ein und dasselbe sind”),
and that “every understanding is an interpretation” (“Alles Verstehen ist
Auslegen,”) Wahrheit und Methode: Grudzüge einer philosophischen Herme-
neutik (Tübingen: J. C. R. Mohr, 1965), 366.
6. Indeed, Rorty, based on his interpretation of Gadamer, Sartre and Hei-
degger, understands knowledge directly as self-knowledge. See Richard Rorty,
Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1980), 360.
7. About Gadamer, See Stueber: “Gadamer’s own position concerning the
question of the relativism of truth is far from clear. On the one hand, he stresses
the dependence of understanding on the particular historical perspective of the
interpreter and maintains that we are not justified in speaking of understanding
better but only of understanding differently, since all understanding depends on
the contingent prejudices of a particular time. On the other hand, he insists that
this dependence on a historical situation does not exclude the correctness of un-
derstanding. But when he addresses the problem of relativism directly and con-
siders the question of how his position avoids the inconsistency of a relativistic
position, he seems to deny the validity of any formal argument which reveals the
inconsistency of relativism.” Karsten R. Stueber, “Understanding, Truth and
Objectivity: A Dialogue between Donald Davidson and Hans-Georg Gadamer,”
in Hermeneutics and Truth, Wachterhauser, 184.
32 Chapter 1
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
the same narration, one mundane—the other celestial. The first is a refer-
ence to the world of appearances, the last—to the realm of reality.
Socrates’ explicit interest in meeting Protagoras strongly contrasts
with the fact that Plato presents the dialogue in a narrated style, as an ac-
count of a very recent event. This structure is undeniably important,
whether or not we can explain what it means. Some other dialogues also
have the form of a report, but that does not explain why the Protagoras
itself has it.2 Moreover, we can better understand the Protagoras in its
idiosyncrasy just by comparing it with dialogues that Plato wrote in
straight dramatic style. I mean, we can better understand the Protagoras
by comparing it to dialogues that follow a different strategy.
Now, the question is why Socrates relates something that just hap-
pened instead of relating the events directly, without bringing an extra
auditor, one who was not present at the original discussion. It seems that
Socrates wants to experience the event twice, that he wants to live his life
twice, without any interval.
To a certain extent, we all attempt—with no chance of success—to
live twice: first as experience, then as reminiscence, which is a kind of
substitute for the original experience. However, this second reported ex-
perience requires a temporal distance between the original and its reca-
pitulation. In this case, no such interval exists. Why does Plato choose to
present things in this way?
A textual evidence for Plato’s intention (even if we do not know yet
in what it consists of), is that Socrates sustains the actual dialogue with
“a friend,” namely, with no specific person. Unlike other dialogues, it
matters little who listens: Here we have a friend without a name (what a
friend!), the presence of an absence. We, the readers, become anonymous
friends of Socrates as well.
The literary technique of having a character tells his own story is
sometimes called “framing.” In our search for the meaning of Plato’s
framing device, let us begin by asking about its alternative. What kind of
dialogue would it be without this first-person narrator? What would re-
main outside the dialogue? The answer is obvious: Socrates’ innermost
thoughts, those which he is not ready to share with Protagoras and with
the rest of those present at Callias’ house. Nevertheless, he is ready to
share these thoughts with those who are absent—the readers. There are
two kinds of audiences, two kinds of auditors, each one knowing some-
thing different from the other. The way Plato wrote the dialogue indi-
cates that there are two different discourses. Socrates’ narration is not
just a repetition of the events but the addition of something new, at least
for the second audience, for us, as his readers.
40 Chapter 2
We the readers are the absent audience for matters not shared with the
original audience present at Callias’ house. What Socrates hid from
them, he reveals to us. He wants to show us just what he intentionally
concealed from Protagoras. In dialogues that were written in a direct way
(like the Meno) he conceals his intimate thoughts and intentions from us.
At the very least, the Protagoras exhibits a Socrates who knows per-
fectly well how to conduct a dialogue without revealing his true inten-
tions. The Protagoras is indeed an insincere and a manipulative dia-
logue. But it manipulates the crowd at Callias’ house, not the minds of its
readers. From this standpoint, we can define it as the most genuine and
sincerely argued of all Plato’s Socratic dialogues.
The next question is obvious. Why does Socrates expose his manipu-
lations and intentions to us? No doubt to turn our attention to the hidden
side of his explicit discourse, in order to help us grasp the real meaning
of his exoteric discourse. For us, the readers, his exoteric discourse is just
the manifest part of the esoteric meaning of sophistry. It is Protagoras,
not Socrates, who makes a distinction between an exoteric and an eso-
teric content. Socrates only shows us that he is better prepared than Pro-
tagoras to do this.
In this regard, let me indicate that Plato’s dialogues do not reveal
something for the purpose of hiding something else. Plato’s dialogues do
not carry double intentions. It is only manipulative dialogues, only the
rhetoric of persuasion, that has this character. In a manipulative dis-
course, one does not reveal one’s thoughts and one does not believe what
one says. Sophist rhetoricians specialized in using words as a means of
persuasion or dissuasion. The sophists regarded speech as a technique, as
a means to achieve something other than mere communication. In rheto-
ric, communication becomes a means to achieve something else. The
sophists realized that words are capable of hiding real intentions. From
the formal standpoint, what is chiefly being hidden is precisely the use of
language as an instrument. When a speech is instrumental, when it is a
means, it must not reveal itself as such to the auditor. To be effective,
and as a mark of its success, rhetorical manipulation must pass itself off
as simple, ordinary communication. This is an issue put under theoretical
analysis and applied in practical life by the sophists.3
The issue is analyzed in the Gorgias, in which Socrates attempts to
make Gorgias say what he cannot say. Indeed, to remain coherent in his
defense of rhetoric, Gorgias would need to assert that it is a technique of
persuasion and, as such, does not bear directly on the subject matter un-
der discussion but aims at swaying the others’ mind. Gorgias is unable to
assert this, since he cannot reveal the manipulative character of language
without sacrificing its power to persuade and convince. For this reason,
Exoteric and Esoteric Content 41
Plato puts this confession in the mouth of Polus, who clearly explains the
contradiction implied in the rhetorical discourse:
Polus: And do even you, Socrates, seriously believe what you are
now saying about rhetoric? What! because Gorgias was ashamed to
deny that the rhetorician knew the just and the honourable and the
good, and admitted that to any one who came to him ignorant of
them he could teach them, and then out of this admission there
arose a contradiction—the thing which you dearly love, and to
which not he, but you, brought the argument by your captious
questions—[do you seriously believe that there is any truth in all
this?] For will any one ever acknowledge that he does not know, or
cannot teach, the nature of justice? The truth is, that there is great
want of manners in bringing the argument to such a pass (Grg.
461b-c).
the technique of sophistic speech by exposing for the reader his own use
of this very technique. All this besides and beyond the discussion of vir-
tue that is being carried on.
The narrated dialogue, in which the central conversation is reported in
indirect discourse, allows Socrates to sustain a double dialogue: He dia-
logues publicly with Protagoras and intimately with himself and the
reader. There are two partners: on one side Protagoras and all those pre-
sent in Callias’ house, and on the other Plato and ourselves, the readers.
In the direct dialogue method, this duality could simply not be expressed.
For this task, he needs a friend, an anonymous listener—anonymous be-
cause it is not relevant who he is or what he thinks. Through the device
of this listener, he hopes to succeed in reporting not only what Protagoras
says, but also what he himself (Socrates) thinks about Protagoras, with-
out having to share his thoughts with him. And not only what he thinks
about Protagoras, but—this is the crucial point—to reveal his hidden in-
tentions to the readers, and furthermore, to raise the possibility that the
sophists are also concealing their intentions. Plato obliges Protagoras to
say just the opposite, namely, that he has nothing to hide. Protagoras says
that unlike former “sophists” he openly admits that he is one of them
and, therefore, the best of them (see Prt. 317c-d).
Socrates, after this declaration of sincerity, makes a remark that re-
veals the “real” intention of Protagoras: “Now I had a suspicion that he
wanted to show off to Prodicus and Hippias, and parade the fact that the
new arrivals were admirers of his. So I said: ‘Well then, why don’t we
call Prodicus and Hippias and their companions? They can listen in on
our conversation as well.’” (Prt. 317c).
Now it is clear that Protagoras only wants to show his rhetorical ca-
pabilities. This sort of remark would not be possible in a direct dialogue.
And in general, Plato uses the narrated dialogue to say what is not said
and what cannot be said at an exoteric, direct level.6
Socrates, then, shows himself to be sophistic so that the reader grasps
him as insincere in his approach to Protagoras. Plato intends this effect.
Thus, the formal analysis of the dialogue reveals its first non-explicit
subject matter—the hidden discourse and the double intention. The first
subject matter is insincerity, about which Plato is an expert.
Exoteric and Esoteric Content 43
least two kinds of lies, or rather two ways of lying. We may distinguish
between (a) the expert lie, uttered for professional reasons, or as means
to an end and (b) the spontaneous and frank lie. The expert deceit and lie
consists of the use of language as a means for an end, whereas the spon-
taneous lie is the lie for itself, the pathological lie for instance, which
lacks any conscious end, or might be uttered out of fear of telling the
truth, which, though conscious, is not premeditated, and is not the same
thing as a professional lie. For the sake of the analysis, let me call the
intentional lie a “technical lie” and the non-intentional one a “spontane-
ous lie.”
Let me begin with the technical lie. Whoever makes use of the techni-
cal lie knows what he’s lying about. That is, he knows the truth. Thus,
Plato asserts that the intentional liar is better, even morally better, than
the unintentional liar is. The intentional kind of liar is superior because
he knows the truth and possesses knowledge. The issue is under explicit
analysis in the Hippias Minor. There, Socrates debates Hippias’ argu-
ment that Achilles is better than Odysseus, for Achilles is sincere and
utters the truth, whereas Odysseus is cunning and deceitful.
The “technical liar,” according to Socrates, is one who possesses
something that others do not possess. The technical liar has an advantage
over the rest of the humans. He has certain astuteness; he is intelligent or
has knowledge. He lies “in virtue of a perfidious intelligence” (Hip. Min.
365e). Being intelligent, the technical liars know what they are doing and
what they are saying.
Thus, it is not true what Hippias asserts—that liars are different from
truth-tellers. Moreover, the liar is not an ignoramus. The ignoramus is
unable to deceive and lie. Socrates refers to Hippias himself as an exam-
ple. As an expert mathematician, he is also the person who can do the
best job of lying if he decides to lie in such issues. The ignoramus, on the
contrary, cannot be a good liar. He might inadvertently err and tell the
truth. The knowledgeable liar, by contrast, can keep his lies consistent.
Thus, those who tell the truth are no better than those who lie, since
both are one and the same (Hip. Min. 365-368). Whoever knows the truth
has the ability to hide it. Ignorant people do not possess this ability. This
is the reason that one can lie only to others, and not to oneself, since the
mind cannot conceal from itself the truth it knows. There is no place for
self-deception. No one can ignore what he knows. If Plato defends the
thesis that virtue is knowledge—as he does in the Protagoras and in
other places—then he is asserting, implicitly, that the liar is also a virtu-
ous person due to his knowledge.
Exoteric and Esoteric Content 45
Notes
1. Actually persecuted by Alcibiades’ love, Socrates sustains that love is a
46 Chapter 2
~ • 0 ~ 0"; I-' '1 v ~ '1 H )" ~ y 0 ~). Here, clearly Socrates is imitating the man ipu·
lative philosophizing of the sophists (as he understands them, obv iously). (8)
[Soc]: " Then-and to be perfectly candid with you, I was trying to gain time 10
think oul what the poet d id mean- J lumed and called on Prodicus" CPr!. 33ge,
Hubbard·Kamofsky's trans.). In what fol lows, there is no hint that he really
thought such thoughts. (9) "Prolagoras seemed 10 me to be slung by this, be·
cause at these words of A1cibiades, and with Callias and most of the others
adding their pleas, he reluctantly agreed to take up the discussion and told me
that I could ask the questions while he answered" (Prl. 348c). It is surprising
that Stewart misperceived thc disparity between Socrales' e.'(oteric words and
his idea about Protagoras' speech, believing that Plato is really praising Pro-
tagoras.
7. See Aryeh Kosman, "Silence and Imitation in the Platonic Dialogues,"
in OSAP. Julia Annas, ed., (1992), 9l.
8. For a same interpretation of deceive in Plato, see Paul Friedlander,
Plaro 2 The Dialogues. First Period (New York: Bollingen Foundation, Pan·
theon Books, 1964), 145; and Michael O'Brien, The Socratic Paradoxes and (he
Greek "'"ind (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 1967), 102ss.
9. Vlastos, in order to avoid to interpret Plato as an extreme intellectualist,
takes "virt ue is knowledge" as meaning that knowledge is ;'the necessary and the
sufficient condition of virtuous action" (Gregory Vlastos, Plmo's Pro/agoras
( Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1965), xxxviii n. 47. See Michae l O' Brien , The
Socratic Paradoxes. 137. And V lastos adds: "anyone who knows what is the
best course of action open to him in any given situation cannot fail to fol1ow it"
(Vlastos, Protagoras, xxxviii n. 47). This expression, due to its vagueness, mo re
than clarifYing Plato's intention, obscures it and, just for this very reason, makes
it more plausible for common sense. See also my critique to Robert Nozick in
Appendix B § 5.
10. See Aristotle:
He who claims more than he has with no ulterior object is a contemptible sort of
fellow (otherwise he would not delight in falsehood). but seems futile rather than
bad; but ifhe docs it for an object. he who does il (lies) for the sake of reputation
or honor is (for a boa,,;ler·bOa<iI, vain) nO! very much to be blamed, but he who
does it for money, or the things that lead to money. is an uglier character (it is not
the capacity that makes the boaster. but the choice; for it is in vit1ue of his state
and by being a man of a ('eMain kind that he is a bO:lster): as one man is a liar be·
cause he enjoys the lie itself. and another because he desires reputation or gain.
Now those who boast (boastful ) for the sake of repUiation claim such qualities as
win praise or congratulation. but those whose object is gain claim qualities which
arc of value to onc's neighbors and one's lack of which is not easily detected. e.g.
the powers of a secr, a sage, or a physician. For this reason it is such things as
these that most people claim and boast about; for in them the above-mentioned
qualities arc found VNc. Ell!. 1127bIO-1127b22).
Chapter 3
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
I believe that Plato’s opinion about lying is based, ultimately, on two as-
sumptions: (1) Knowledge should be the only reason, cause, and/or mo-
tive of human thinking and action. I mean, it is the only reason for hu-
man values, namely, for the stands people take and the standards by
which they valuate deeds and thoughts. (2) Plato rejects the idea of self-
knowledge. Self-knowledge, that is, the knowledge of knowledge itself,
adds nothing new to the knowledge one already possesses, so that self-
knowledge is nothing more than mere knowledge.
To begin with, a paradox emerges: It is true that the most skillful cal-
culator is the one who is best able to make a false calculation. Therefore,
the wise person lies more successfully than the ignorant person, but only
concerning those matters about which he is lying.1
On these grounds, the question arises, who is morally better, the one
who utters a technical lie, or the one who utters the “ignorant” lie? Only
the wise person lies, not the ignorant person. When the ignorant person
commits what is called lying, he believes he is telling the truth. He has
simply mistaken the false for the true. Therefore, the ignorant person is
unable to lie. For this reason, there is no such thing as a spontaneous lie,
but only a technical lie or at least a conscious lie. We cannot attribute to
Plato the idea that the ignorant person is morally better than the wise per-
son, for this notion runs counter to the core of all of Plato’s philosophy.
Moreover, to remain consistent, he needs to praise the wise liar. The liar
49
50 Chapter 3
"And our answer might possibly be true, too,'· I said, "but not suf-
ficient. For the answer raises a further question as to what (Italics
mine] the sophist makes a man clever at speaking about. For ex-
ample, the Iyri st presumably makes people clever at speaking on
the subject [object] about which he makes them knowledgeable"
(Prl.312e) .
PlaIa's Epistemological Presuppositions 53
Plato seems to consider only two possible meanings for the knowl-
edge of knowledge: to know what is known (to know the content), or to
know only that one knows or does not know. He rejects the first possi-
bility, but appears to accept the second. Regarding the first one, Socrates
asks:
How will this [knowledge of knowledge] help [someone] to know
what he knows? For of course he knows health by means of medi-
cine, not [knowledge of knowledge], and harmony by means of
music, not [knowledge of knowledge], and building by means of
the builder’s art, not temperance; and so it will be in every case,
will it not? . . . Then he who is ignorant of all this [medicine, music
and the art of building] will not know what he knows, but only that
he knows (Chr. 170c).
We may conclude that for the Socratic Plato there is no place for a
theory of knowledge, or rather, he sustains a theory of knowledge that
denies the possibility of such a theory. Theory of knowledge analyzes the
form of knowledge, but Plato believes that such a form is plainly noth-
ing. If there is no place for such a theory, there is no place for any kind
of teaching of methods without relation to the content those methods
serve.
This is the ground for his opposition to rhetoric in the Protagoras.
If we understand Plato’s approach to rhetoric, we can go a long way
toward explaining his whole philosophy. If I am right about Plato’s phi-
losophy (which I will later call, following Michael Strauss, “anti-formal-
ist”), his attitude to rhetoric must be thoroughly negative. Indeed, rheto-
ric, as a science, or as a field of analysis in itself, without relation to its
content, can be developed only under assumptions that allow room for a
theory of knowledge.23
himself seems not to distinguish between the content and the form of
knowledge.27
In the following chapter, I will analyze the sophistic alternative to
Plato, trying to summarize the discussion between Plato and the sophists.
I will contend that while the Socratic Plato maintains an anti-formalist
philosophy, the sophists propose a formalist tendency.
Notes
1. The following analysis is based in Yigal Wagner, and Michael Strauss,
Thinking—On Unrequested Results of Praxis in Cognition, [Hebrew], Haifa,
pub. by the authors, 1962, 155-65, to whom I am in debt.
2. It seems that Whitlock Blundell is unable to believe that this is indeed
Plato’s assertion, and instead of realizing that this is what Plato asserts, she as-
serts that we have here an exemplification of what Vlastos calls “complex
irony.” About the “overinterpretation” that results from the use of the category
of complex irony, see chapter 1, where I discussed interpretations that fall into
an identification with the text resulting in dogmatism. See Mary Whitlock Blun-
dell, “Character and Meaning in Plato’s Hippias Minor,” in OSAP, Supplemen-
tary Volume, Julia Annas, ed., (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 131-72.
3. Michael O’Brien, The Socratic Paradoxes and the Greek Mind (Chapel
Hill: University of North Carolina, 1967), 17.
4. See Rep. (334a10) where if justice is like the rest of the arts, it will in-
clude the ability to do wrong efficiently.
5. We may distinguish in Plato two meanings of evil: purposeful and non-
purposeful evil. Purposeful evil is done as a means for the sake of the good,
namely, it is not really evil. Real evil, on the other hand, does not exist. It is
merely ignorance. Thinking of this second meaning of evil, Reino Palas asserts
that Plato was unconcerned with the problem of evil. See Reino Palas, Die Bew-
ertung der Sinnenwelt bei Plato (Helsinki: Druckerei A.G. der Finnischen Lit-
eraturgesellschaft, 1941), 52. I would like to put this idea even more radically,
and to assert that for Plato, at least the early Plato, evil (not as a means) does not
exist, and it is only a sign of, or is itself, ignorance. And good, on the other
hand, exists only if reduced to knowledge, which is a way to assert that even the
good does not exist iff it is deduced out of knowledge. Out of this radical idea of
evil as inexistent, namely, as ignorance, the latter Plato constructs a more com-
plex idea though in the same spirit. About the latter Plato, see Harold Cherniss,
“The Sources of Evil According to Plato,” in Plato: A Collection of Critical Es-
says I, Gregory Vlastos, ed., (Garden City, N. Y.: Anchor Books Doubleday,
1971), 244-58.
6. Terence Irwin, Plato’s Moral Theory: The Early and Middle Dialogues
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977), 7. Irwin explains Plato against those who do
not take him seriously in his “craft-analogies.” See also, for a similar position,
David L. Roochnik, “Socrates’ Use of the Techné-Analogy,” in Essays on the
Philosophy of Socrates, Hugh H. Benson, ed., (Oxford University Press, 1992),
66 Chapter 3
! 85-8. [ agree with his thesis. 1 cannot agree, however, with his assertion, that
"Socrates' theory provides answers to central questions that face any moral th e-
ory. and to that extent satisfies his demand ror a ra tional account," Irwin, Plato's
Moral Theory. 97-8.
7. 1rwin, PlaID '.I' Moral Theory, 73. For a discussion around the craft anal-
ogy, see the discussion between Irwin and Vlastos in The Times Literary SIIP-
plemelll, Feb. 24, April 21, June 9, July 14, Sept. 27,1978. Against Irwin, see
also Gregory Vlastos "Happiness and Virtue in Socrates' Moral Theory" in Soc-
rates, Crilical Assessments. IV, William Pri or, ed., (London: Routledge, 1996),
167· 202; and, though more moderate, Donald J. Zeyl, "Socratic Virtue and Hap-
piness," in Socrates [V, William Prior, ed., 153-66.
8. For a more complete analysis of the meaning of goal-oriented activities,
see " The Promethean Function" in chapter 7.
9. I can understand, though not ag ree, with Donovan's contention that the
reduction of virtue to knowledge, and the reduction of kno wledge to craft-
knowledge brought Plato to retreat from the teaching of virtue. [ concede Ihat
there are textual evidences for such an approach. However, [ understand Plato's
reductions as proposing that virtue is knowledge, know ledge is a lways craft-
knowledge, then virtue is teachable. See Brian R. Donovan, "The City and the
Garden, Plato's Retreat from the Teaching of Virtue," Educational Theory 45
(1995): 453-5, 462-3.
[0. See my " The Sources of Wittgenstein's Negation of the Knowing Sub-
ject," Semiotica 113 (1997): 159-69
I I. To believe that the virtues, having thc same object or reference, can still
be different, is a misunderstanding of Plato's approach. Thc error of Ferejohn is
to attribute to Plato this distinction between virtuc-temls tllat, though core fer-
entia!, are not synonyms. Michael T. Ferejohn " The Unity of Virtue and the Db·
jects of Socratic Inquiry," JflPhil20 (1982): 1-21.
12. Guthrie, flGP. vol. IV, 169.
13. The process of perception may be explained as the encounter between
sense organs and objects of perception. Plato however is not ready to accept this
even in later periods. Friedlander, discussing the Theaetel!ls. states the same idea
though more moderately: "Plato might well have accepted this theory [the rela-
tional character of sense qualities, DB) provided it were confined in scope- and
also provided we did not fail to see that there is something beyond it, something
"ordered" (iv toEfl), or --fixed" (I"EVOV), or "in and by itself' (O~tO >:a 64>
auto). This is mentioned only in passing, however, in order to be discarded as
unreal" (! 53E), Paul Friedlander, Plato 3: The Dialogues. Second and Third Pe-
riods (London: Routledge Kegan Paul, 1969), 157.
14 . Hintikka has observed that the --linguistic counterpart to Plato's idea of
knowledge . . is the use of verbs for knowing together with a direct (grammati-
cal) object in contradistinction to their uses with propositional clauses (knowing
that, knowing whether. knowing wh o, and so forth)." See laakko Hintikka,
"Knowledge and Its Objects," in Palferns in Plato's Tlwuglll. Julius Moravcsik,
ed., (Dordrecht and Boston ' Reidel, 1973), 18.
PlalO's Epistemological PreSlippositions 67
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
from the appearance of things to th eir essence, the sophist tried the return
from essence to appearance. Ju st for this reason, there was also a shift in
the object of interest. Th e interest in nature is now replaced by an interest
in human beings and their social life. They adopted the soc ial (or human)
perspective in their discussions about nature. Nomos replaces phusis . The
pre-sophists' principles of nat ure became the sophists' human principles.
The unconscious principle of the pre-sophists, the anthropocentric under-
sta nd ing o f nature, became the sophists' conscious principJes. 2
The sophists were phi losophers of appea rance. This is not to say they
denied nature. On the contrary, they believed th at the only reality is not
what lies beyond appearances and contradic ts them, but rather what ac-
cords with our senses and with our common ways of thinking.
The q uestion now is not how things are, but how human beings grasp
them. Guthrie defines th is epoch as "a reacti on from an interest in exter-
nal nature to a concentration on human affairs.") The philosopher of the
rea l may be interpreted as saying " what Is, is" (Pannenides).~ T he phi-
losopher of th e appearance- as say ing "what Is is not (ovS'( TO OV
'(O' HV ) and nothing exists" (Gorg ias).s The quest ion is not, then , what
things are in and for themselves, but what they are for human beings.6
They di scovered the relational aspect of human knowledge and va lues.
Pannenides cou ld not discover this c haracter because of his identification
of thinking with its content.
That the truth is hidden to the sen ses is an assertion that can be as-
cribed both to Democritus and to Protagoras. Democritus however, de-
duced out of it a negative skept ic ism , whereas Protago ras a pos itive o ne .
By negativ e skeptic ism , I mean the assumption that there is a truth be-
hind th e appearance- for appea rance offe rs a false picture of reality .
Protagoras' skepticism assumed that the appearance itself was the truth,
and all that lay behind it is nothing but mere speculation. It is a conjec-
tural, abstract and hypothetical reality, one beyond the possibility of
human life to decide about it and , therefore , someth ing unk nowab le.
Democri tll S traveled around the world seeking for the hidden truth. Pro-
tagoras searc hed for the natu re of the appearance itse lf, trave li ng not
quite around the world, but certainly around G reece , spread in g th e
irrefutable truth of the senses. He regarded " appearance" as a subject
matter of an a lys is, and the only scrutab le real ity. The pre-sophists we re
interested in the principles of reality, the sophists in th e reality of princi-
ples themselves.
Conceptua lly, disregarding the controversies about the historical dates
of their li ves, Protagoras' phil osophy can be interpreted as a reaction
against DemocrilUs, whose emp iricism grew out o f his skepticism con-
cerning (he possibility of acquirin g any true knowledge through the
Socrates alld the Sophistic Movement 71
7
senses. Protagoras tried to solve the main contradiction in pemocritus'
philosophy, at least as expressed in Aristotle's writings. Aristotle states
that Democritus "identifies what appears with what is true" (De Anima
404a27-29), and that for him ;'either there is no truth or to us at least it is
not evident" (Mel, 1009b 11 - 18). Prolagoras, instead of asserting that
there is no truth or that sense-perception does not grasp it, expresses the
principles of know ledge as a question of the principle of measure, which
makes it a question about the form of knowledge rather than about
knowledge itself. Things have an extrinsic measure that is intrinsic for
human beings, so that there is no contradiction betwe·en perception and
truth.
The distinctions that I have been making do not yet touch the basic
tendency that distinguishes the sophists from their precursors. The ques-
tion remains, why the pre-sophists were phi losophers of the real, while
the sophists were philosophers of the appearances. Why the pre-sophists
were interested in the principles of reality and the sophists-in the reality
of the principles? I thi nk the answer is that th e Greek science had
reached its limits, in the sense that the fonn of thought prevalent in an-
cient Greece did nOI allow for any new radical advance in the paradigm
of their understanding of nature. This circumstance pushed the Greeks
toward reflection about the way of thinking about nature, a totally differ-
ent task.s
We may properly call thi s period anthropological, under the condition
that Ihe earlier period can also be regarded as interested in human nature.
Both were interested in human beings. The earlier philosophers objecti-
fied their interest for the principles of natufe, thinking that they might
find in nature even their own attitude toward it, while the later phi loso-
phers, the sophists, subjectified their own approach, believing that they
could find nature with in the relation to nature itself. The pre-sophists re-
duced the relation to nature to the principle or the form of nature itself,
whi le the soph ists reduced the fonn of nature to the relati on to it. The
former reduced relation to o bject, the latter---object to relation. Now the
question is how the sophists tfied to su bjectify the principles of nature.
Let me tum to this question.
The anthropological peri od is the result of the acknowledgment of the
singularity of human existence itself. Now comes the attempt to kn ow,
elaborate , and change human existence acco rding to values. PhI/sis , the
principle of the natural, gives way to lIo mos, the principle of the artifi-
cial. Now, instead of allowing human nature to develop by itse lf, without
consciOllsness and without be in g the objec t of a subject, human beings
have themselves for themselves, both as objects of political and social
72 Chapter 4
I am not sure if I can agree with Romilly. Though this discussion may
be only about labels, I believe that the sophists were really philosophers,
though of a singular kind: they were philosophers of reflection. That
means, according to their own definition, seekers of truth. More pre-
cisely, it means seekers for the truth about human capacities, skills,
abilities, including intelligence.13 I would even venture to say that the
sophists are more genuine philosophers than those who fail to take into
account the method of thinking, the form of thought as a subject matter,
74 Chapter 4
not just for the sake of knowledge or theoretical analysis, but for the sake
of practical improvement and of values. Protagoras at least tried to dis-
tinguish between knowledge and valuation.
Pre-sophist philosophy grappled with mythology and rejected the idea
of a divine intervention in natural processes. The sophists grappled with
both modes of thought and transformed human beings into the basis for
understanding both mythical and natural explanations.
The sophists take a formalist point of view, that is, a point of view
that reduces the content of knowledge to its form assuming that the con-
tent is the content of the form. The Socratic Plato reduces (in his reflec-
tion) the form of knowledge to its content assuming that the form is the
form of the content. The sophists are interested in human values, in cul-
tural phenomena. They direct their attention to the nature of thought and
of knowledge, rather than the content of thought and knowledge.
In addition, they consider language not as a means to grasp something
extra-linguistic (as non-reflective consciousness treats it) but as an object
of research in itself. In fact, language increasingly becomes an object of
research. It grows to occupy the entire field and horizon of conscious-
ness. Everything else, the content of all thought, is either relegated to a
secondary importance or completely annihilated by skepticism about the
accuracy or stability of semantics. Sophist skepticism is a sign of the tri-
76 Chapter 4
status granted to muthos and preparing the way for what now would be
called an anthropological approach to theology.”14
Protagoras gives us three subjectivistic reasons to explain why he
cannot know whether the gods exist. First, the matter is obscure. Second,
life is short, and third, the more profound reason, we lack sense-
experience of the gods. They have no phenomenal existence.15 Since the
gods are unknowable, then human nature and what it grasps through
sense-experience remains the only subject of study. The senses are part
of human nature—including perceptible things, insofar as they are per-
ceived.
The scientific and philosophical concern becomes now a concern for
what is human. Medicine, gymnastics, rhetoric, politics, ethics, natural
sciences (the methods of natural inquiry and not natural inquiry in itself),
language, and so forth. All these become now at the focus of attention.
The concern with natural science has become concern for the nature of
science. Logos is no more opposed to Being, but Being becomes now
experience (pragma), and pragma becomes logos.
Myth is not, for Protagoras, knowledge. He does not think mythically,
like Homer. His myths are allegories, carriers of meaning alone—they
are tales. Their true meaning lies elsewhere, outside the story. Protagoras
understands myths as symbolic expressions with a content that is not the
manifested expression itself. They are an expression of human nature,
and refer to human beings, but one must be aware of this level of mean-
ing, which provides explanations about human values and behavior.16
The succinct way in which Protagoras relates his tale already signals to
his audience that he intends to offer a conceptual account of myth, rather
than settling for the myth’s own account of its meaning.
The sophists (Protagoras included) offer a reductionist and reflective
point of view. I mean that in their reflection they reduced the content of
knowledge to its form. For this very reason, they regarded the form, the
way of knowledge, not as a way, not as a relation, but as a thing. Ferdi-
nand Schiller correctly asserts that they never raised the question “If man
is the measure, then how do we manage to measure?”17 When the Greeks
perceived that “all things flow,” the next question would be “at what
rate?” When Protagoras asserted that man is the measure of all things,
the next question was not “how does he measure?”18
Beyond the question of whether this criticism should be directed at
the interpreters of sophistry or at the sophists themselves, it seems clear
enough that Protagoras, like Plato, was unable to ask such questions.
Both of these reductionist philosophers transformed the relation itself
into a thing, into a substance; you cannot ask how an Idea (or a sub-
stance) is, but only what it is. The relational character of the form be-
78 Chapter 4
Knowledge has a content, and this content can be true or false. How-
ever, the dedicated formalist, the one who wishes to remain coherent,
must reject this notion. For the formalist, everything is a matter of
knowledge, in the sense that knowledge has no content beyond itself; the
form of knowledge is the content. Formalist reflection only takes into
account the situation of the subject. There is no other reality for the sub-
ject but the subject. To recognize a reality outside the subject would lead
him, due to his own perspective, to insurmountable contradictions. In-
deed, if reality is always known only in the context of the form of
knowledge, how can reality be knowable at all?
The Socratic Plato, who adopts, against the sophists, an anti-formalist
viewpoint, makes this reality, which is not the subject, but for the sub-
ject, the central issue. He reduces all form to this reality. To avoid be-
coming entangled in contradictions, he adopts the standpoint of the con-
tent, denying any independence to the form of knowledge. Plato sees
only the content of knowledge, and does not grasp the idea as such. What
he calls “Idea” is the ideatum alone. Plato reduces the knower-subject
and the knowing process to pure appearance. The subject’s only reality is
the Idea, the known-object, the product of the process.
Let me remark that Plato’s attitude is no less reflective than the soph-
ist approach. Nevertheless, Plato’s reflection stresses the very aspect that
the sophists purposely forget.
It is not easy to explain Plato’s attitude or account for its strangeness.
Its origins can be found in his sui generis way of understanding the epis-
temic process: He does not understand the process as a process. Let me
examine the assumptions of his viewpoint.
Socrates and the Sophistic Movement 79
Meno, however, Plato deals both with specific ideas (as he does in
Charmides, Laches, Republic I, Euthyphro, Protagoras, and so forth)
and, as I will argue, with the Idea per se.
I believe that only through replacing Virtue with predicate (or Idea)
can we understand the origin of the Theory of Recollection in the Meno.
Plato’s Theory of Recollection intends to refute the “heuristic principle,”
according to which it is impossible to search either for the known or the
unknown. To search for the known is superfluous; to search for the un-
known is impossible. One cannot search for the known since it is already
known, and one cannot search when one does not know what to search
for (see Meno 80d-e).24 I shall attempt to show that the Theory of Recol-
lection neither refutes nor replaces the heuristic principle. This is because
Plato’s theory and the heuristic principle share the same presuppositions.
Taken at face value, Plato’s words seem to reject unambiguously the
heuristic principle (see Meno 81a). A careful analysis of his theory, how-
ever, reveals that Plato does not show how new ideas are produced. He
only rejects the heuristic assumption of the absence of knowledge by as-
serting that knowledge, or science, exists in a finished manner; he as-
sumes that the question has been answered before it was asked. It turns
out, then, that the heuristic principle and the Platonic Theory of Recol-
lection have in common much more than is generally assumed. They
both reject the possibility of acquiring or generating new knowledge.
Neither Socrates nor Meno acknowledge the possibility that ideas can be
generated.25 The only difference between them is that, for Meno, knowl-
edge either is or is not, whereas for Socrates it always is. For Plato, in-
deed, knowledge is innate. Therefore, he does not ask how we generate
new ideas, but only how we recollect what we already somehow know.
To prove his point, he presents his famous demonstration that the
slave does not learn but only remembers. The geometrical exercise that
shows that a slave can understand what is meant by an irrational propor-
tion (Meno 82c-86c) does not explain how knowledge or science is pro-
duced. It only proves that the result can be recalled.26
What is the source of this astonishing theory? To say that the theory
of anamnesis derives from Plato’s belief in the eternity of Ideas would be
a petitio principii. Because this leads to the question about the source of
Plato’s belief in the eternity of Ideas.
The clue for understanding Plato’s belief lies, in my opinion, in his
consideration of the functions of subject and predicate in sentences. Even
in his earlier dialogues, Plato discovered their different functions.27
These different functions are the key to understanding his dialogues,
which express, in different ways, his discovery of the predicate.
82 Chapter 4
content, though positive from the point of view of the form of the sen-
tence.
How, then, does predication produce ideas? Predication is a process
that relates a universal-predicate (that functions as the known and there-
fore as explanans) to a particular subject (that functions as the unknown
and therefore as explanandum). Subject and predicate, it should be noted,
are not absolutely unknown or known; they are only unknown and
known in the context of the specific proposition. Although a subject can
be absolutely unknown, it is usually “unknown” only relative to the spe-
cific proposition in which it appears. It has an unknown aspect that the
proposition purports to make known. The same is true of the predicate. It
can have unknown aspects, granted, but when viewed in a specific
proposition, only the known aspects of the predicate are relevant—the
aspects that enable it to function as explanans.
We must regard every proposition as a two-way process. The propo-
sition leads first from subject to predicate, from the unknown to the
known. Then it moves in the opposite direction, from the predicate (the
known) to the subject (the unknown). The result—the raison d’être of the
proposition—is that the particular-unknown subject becomes something
known: an idea, a universal. The predicate, then, tells what this subject is
and is, therefore, a means for converting the subject into an idea. Thus, in
every proposition, knowledge begins with the predicate, not with the
subject. Knowledge cannot start where it does not exist. As Plato as-
serted, this is why an unknown word can function as subject, though not
as predicate. Plato claimed that a speaker cannot use predicates unknown
to the listener (see Meno 75d). If this were the case, words would
constitute a set of meaningless sounds rather than a proposition. The
content of predication must fulfill the requirement that the predicate must
be known before it may be used in a proposition.
Now we may ask what happens to the subject-term once the predica-
tion has been made. Usually, content of the predicate not only passes to
the subject but also joins all the other predications that have been cou-
pled with the same subject in previous propositions.32
The accumulation of content in the subject-term enriches and changes
it by means of different predicates. For example, my idea of Plato’s phi-
losophy changed when I began to consider the problem of predication.
My ideas on Plato may change again if I consider them in light of a new
problem (a new predicate). Ideas are not fixed. The accumulative char-
acter of the idea implies changeability. Plato did not realize this aspect of
the idea. He conceived of the Idea as fixed and eternal. Plato’s kind of
reflection grasped only the results, and not the process that produced
them, and certainly not the process qua process. From the standpoint of
84 Chapter 4
the content indeed, the predicate (the universal) appears to have a rela-
tively fixed meaning.
The accumulative character of an idea enables the retention of new
content even after the predicative process has been finished. The intro-
duction of new content leads to a new idea. Predication, therefore, pro-
duces an idea out of the subject, an idea that can go on to function as a
predicate in future propositions. This explains the Platonic require-
ment—that predicate-terms should function first as subjects. Plato does
not accept (and rightly so) an explanans that has not previously func-
tioned as an explanandum.
To summarize, we may now claim that every proposition—every
subject-predicate relationship—has two aspects:
1. The content of the proposition. The result or product of the process:
the idea on which we normally focus our attention.
2. The form of the proposition. The predicative process, with its back-
and-forth movement, which normally escapes our attention.
Plato, in the Meno, discovered the form of propositions and this is
perhaps the most notable achievement of his philosophy. However, he
interprets form in terms of content, and regards propositions as products,
not as processes.
No accident or inadvertence here; these attitudes have deep roots in
Plato’s thought. In his reflection on the form of thinking (or the form of
the proposition as the elementary unit of thought) Plato refused to ac-
knowledge the predicative process. This is because the consciousness on
which he bases his thought—normal human consciousness—does not
identify it either. Indeed, the content of Platonic reflection, the object of
his analysis, is normal consciousness. He cannot transcend it. Plato
grasped the proposition only from the standpoint of the product, or of the
content, and not as an active relationship between subject and predicate.
Reginald Allen suggests that in Plato we have “a theory of predication
without predicates.” It might be more accurate to say we have a theory of
predicates without predication.33
Because Plato’s theory is based on predication’s results rather than its
processes, he identified Idea with words. In the multitude of predications,
words remain unchanged.34 Ideas, however, change according to the
predications acquired by the word in its function as subject. A word,
while accumulating new meanings or ideas with every new predication,
nevertheless remains the same. Therefore, it is not an idea or meaning
itself, but simply the vehicle for transmitting ideas or meanings. The dif-
ference between the word and the idea that it conveys gives rise to the
illusion that the subject-idea has an existence independent of its predi-
cates—the illusion that ideas exist before their predicates, or that predi-
Socrates and the Sophistic Movement 85
cates do not in any way affect or change ideas. Rather, the subject-idea
exists only because of its predicates, and without either an expressed or
an implied predication, the subject word is an empty word, devoid of
idea.35
When we think, when we produce new ideas (not when we merely
recollect and re-produce an already existing idea)—the proposition pre-
cedes the idea that it produces. Therefore, the idea is not something
fixed. It changes with each new predication. However, since the word
precedes the proposition, Plato attributed the stability of the word itself
to the changeable idea denoted by the word. To Plato the source of the
idea is not predicative motion, but its result: the idea as a product and as
telos. He does not perceive of the idea as crystallization of diverse predi-
cations. Plato recognizes the what, but not the how, of the Idea. For him,
the only question that arises concerning the product is “What is the
idea?” He never asks, “How has it come about?” The “how” question
refers to a process, not to a product.
We may ask how predicative motion happens, as well as what its re-
sults are. The what question addresses a completed object or a completed
state. Because the process is complete, one cannot ask “how” this object
or that state came to be. In this kind of reflective framework, one does
not ask how, because this question will instantly provoke another ques-
tion: “How what?” The how-question inevitably is reduced to a what-
question. If, however, we wish to analyze a process, and not a completed
object or a state, we must ask how, and only how. Plato answered the
what-question. However, because he did not consider the process, he in-
evitably arrived at a mythical rather than a philosophical solution to the
problem of the origin of Ideas. This explains why he had to make re-
course to his Theory of Recollection and, later on, to his Theory of Ideas.
The Theory of Recollection contains the germs of Plato’s later Theory of
Ideas.
Plato’s Reductionism
Plato reduced the predicative process to its product, the idea. In fact,
there is no essential difference between the idea as the product of the
predicative process (the what—the content of thought) and the predica-
tive process (the how—the form of thought). Though we can distinguish
between them for purposes of analysis, in actual practice, they cannot be
separated. One cannot exist without the other.
86 Chapter 4
edge. The only tools Plato recognized were memory and recollection,
because all of knowledge was already complete, fixed, eternal, and pres-
ent in our minds.
This brings us into the domain of the theory of anamnesis, a theory
that does not explain the generation of the Idea in the predicative proc-
ess. In this theory the Idea is a mysterious entity, apprehensible only by
“initiation in the mysteries” (see Meno 76e)—an existing but forgotten
form.
Seeing as Plato believed that the predicate does not influence the
subject, we must ask how he interpreted the subject, the particular, and in
what sense the particular subject is different from the universal-predicate.
Plato knew that the subject is the changeable and creative element in the
proposition. However, he did not regard this creative process as imma-
nent in the predication. He invested the form (or process) of thinking
with ontic existence. He projected the form of thought (or process) onto
reality, and then interpreted the form of thought, the predication, as a re-
flection of reality. Subject and predicate, then, are not merely forms of
thought for him, but forms of reality, forms of Being. For him, the par-
ticular and the universal are not merely forms of thought; they are forms
of being which exist independently of each other.
As we have already seen, Plato’s philosophy was based upon the
predicate. Predicates have, for him, an epistemic primacy over subjects.
This epistemic primacy, expressed in his reflection on language, became
an ontic primacy of the Idea over the senses. The ontic correlate of the
predicate is the Idea; the ontic correlate of the subject is sense-data.36 The
subject is the variable aspect and the predicate is the fixed aspect of
thought. Plato believed that the predicate does not constitute the subject
and, therefore, the various predicates are not accumulated in the subject.
Thus, the only remaining possibility for the subject is to participate ex-
trinsically in the predicate. Indeed, the sensible and phenomenal either
participate (metexeis) and are present (parousía) in the Idea,37 or they
imitate it.38
Plato’s philosophy is, therefore, anti-formalist because it ends by on-
tologizing the Idea. For this reason the Theory of Recollection is a theory
of the innate, of the given. Unable to explain the production of ideas, it
assumes their factual existence, as if they sprang up independently of
predication.
According to the interpretation I have suggested, Plato’s Theory of
Recollection and Theory of Ideas evade, rather than explain, the question
of the generation of Ideas. To understand Plato and, more generally, to
understand the problem of the generation of Ideas, we must first attempt
to explain this Platonic evasion. This is a paradox resembling Meno’s
88 Chapter 4
goals are, science will be of little use to us. Plato interpreted this as the
triumph of ignorance over science and vehemently opposed this intel-
lectual movement. He opposed the alliance of technique and democracy.
This is the source, in my opinion, of his anti-democratic attitude.40 And
Athens, the cultural center of ancient Greece, was the place where the
contradiction between science and democracy became most pronounced.
The contradiction between technique and democracy, between the
sphere of means and the kingdom of ends, between means applied to
nature and ends determined by social decision, democratically resolves
itself in the transformation of the kingdom of ends itself into means.
Now thinkers pay attention, reflectively, to persuasion, especially to the
technique of persuasion. The methods they once employed in investigat-
ing nature are now applied to an investigation of social consciousness.
One of the chief issues concerns the techniques of persuasion, which
promise to yield practical benefits in commerce and politics. Science
thus becomes a path to worldly advantage and profit. Therefore, the
sophists are in a position to sell science, specifically, the technique of
manipulating an audience with words. This skill is indispensable in a so-
ciety where every free-born man has the right to hold opinions and give
out advice, whether or not he can claim any expertise in the matter; Pro-
tagoras asserted so and Socrates approved, albeit only as an account of
the thinking and behavior of the Athenians.41
In short, democracy rewards those who know how to speak to the
public, and the sophist teaches this skill. This technique replaces the ear-
lier science. The student of nature becomes a teacher of eloquence.42
At this point, a clarification may be in order. I have generalized the
situation to emphasize certain important features. In fact, the sophist
movement was divided into two camps: the Gorgias school, which trans-
formed the end into a means, and the Protagoras school, which regarded
society as a kingdom of ends. Both tendencies had a practical character,
though practical in very different meanings: Gorgias and Trasymachus
were ready to regard human consciousness as a means, to manipulate it,
whereas Protagoras regarded it as an end in itself, and regarded himself
as an educator of human souls.
This practical tendency clashes with another sophist tendency, their
scientific attitude. The focus of the new science was not, as I already
said, the science of nature, but the social relations of science. With the
same reflective force, the issue that began to concern them was not sci-
ence itself, but scientific methodology. Interest shifted from the object of
science to its subject. On the one hand, then, practice prevailed over the-
ory and, on the other hand, to put it in Cartesian terms, formal reality im-
posed itself over the objective reality.
Socrates and the Sophistic Movement 91
George Kerferd finds continuity between the sophists and their prede-
cessors, pointing out that the sophists still were interested in physical
speculation.43 I think, however, that the discontinuities become more
striking when we consider the difference between the objects that occu-
pied the attention of the pre-sophists and the sophists. The pre-sophists
contemplated the principles of nature, whereas the sophists contemplated
their own contemplation of these principles.
The difference between the notions of nomos and phusis will illumi-
nate my thesis. The former is generally considered artificial and the latter
natural. Sometimes the nomos is regarded as false and the phusis is re-
garded as true.44 However, we can find an Empedocles denying birth and
destruction, asserting that they conform to nomos, and a Democritus de-
claring that sensible qualities exist only in nomos. That means that nomos
is “for us” and phusis is “in and for itself.” In this sense, the sophists are
philosophers of the nomos; this is the source of Protagoras’ alleged rela-
tivism.45
This understanding does not contradict the view most commonly ac-
cepted by the interpreters, namely, that nomos implies “(i) usage or cus-
tom based on traditional or conventional beliefs as to what is right or
true, (ii) laws formally drawn up and passed, which codify “right usage”
and elevate it into an obligatory norm backed by the authority of the
state.”46 Rather it elucidates them. Nomos indicates the form and not the
content, and the form, in reflection, is the object of analysis. Discussion
of religion turned on whether the gods existed by phusis—in reality—or
only by nomos.47 Guthrie believes that the intellectual climate of ancient
Greece was similar to that of England in the seventeenth century, which
was (so he claims) a utilitarian era.48 However, if I am right, the sophists
were not utilitarian, at least Protagoras was not.
One very interesting scholarly debate turns around the question of
whether the sophists were rhetoricians, namely, people dedicated to the
social life, or whether they lived in seclusion (Ettore Bignone). The ex-
treme advocate of the former opinion is Theodor Gomperz.49 Bignone
stands at the other extreme. He contrasted the orators, “living amid the
harsh realities of politics,” with the sophists, who led the “sheltered and
sequestered lives of paid educators of the public.”50 I imagine that this is
the first and last time that we can expect to see the life of the Sophists
described as “ombratile e appartata.” Indeed, it was the first, but not the
last. I agree with Bignone, though only partially. Guthrie follows Plato’s
opinion of the sophists. Plato says that “Every one of these individual
professional teachers, whom the people call Sophists and regard as their
rivals in the art of education, in fact teaches nothing but the beliefs of the
92 Chapter 4
the audience. Sometimes a long speech will do the trick and sometimes a
short one, depending on the circumstances.
Sophistry, which begins as the art of verbal persuasion, in the end
turns its attention to its object: human consciousness. Human thinking
and willing become the subject matter of theory. This is not annulment of
traditional science but the birth of a new one. Anthropology, or subjec-
tivity, is the new issue. With Prodicus, for example, speculations on lan-
guage replace cosmic theories, just because these theories are expressed
in language, and only in language. Speculation about the origin of the
cosmos is replaced by speculations about the origins of language. We can
clearly see this reflective shift in sophist thought in Prodicus’ assertion
that the first natural objects to be venerated were those which exercise
the most lasting and beneficent influence on human life. Among these
objects, he counted the sun, the moon, and the rivers (reminding his
readers at that point of the Egyptian worship of the Nile).51 Prodicus is
thus on the verge of asserting that human beings create their gods ac-
cording to their aspirations and needs. Critias, who was more extreme,
explained that the belief in the gods was an invention of rulers.52
Another sophist, Antiphon, seems to have been the discoverer of the
phenomenon that is variously called hypostasy, reification, or the “con-
cretization’ of ideas. This is the case when he speaks of time as “a con-
ception or a measure, not a substance.”53 Antiphon’s distinction between
substance and conceptualization tells us a lot about the new philosophical
interest.
In another fragment, Antiphon asserts that “He who recognizes any
long objects neither sees length with his eyes nor can perceive it with his
mind.”54 The true point at issue was undoubtedly the substantial exis-
tence of general ideas, a motive for Gomperz to refer to Antiphon as the
earliest of the nominalists.55
Formerly, in the cosmological period, science asked—already in a
philosophical spirit—about what is universally valid. What is the arche,
or the principle that explains natural variances? Water, air, fire, and so
forth were all given as basic principles. All these principles, though
spiritual in kind, still maintained the character of “incarnated” spirits,
namely, of things perceptible to the senses. Later, Anaxagoras’ nous,
Anaximender’s apeiron, Parmenides’ Being, and Heraclitus’ logos freed
themselves from the senses and thus took the first steps toward an an-
thropological world view. These principles are the prelude to the sophist
interest in human beings, who are the carriers of principles. All these
principles are already beyond the content of perception as a criterion.
The subject as a criterion is a notion that can already be discerned on the
horizon.
94 Chapter 4
was not the heart of his interest, but ethics, the inquiry and recommenda-
tion for certain kinds of ought, rather than a pure inquiry into the is. The
ought is the order of the day.
Socrates solved the contradiction, science/democracy, is/ought, in a
different way. He asserted that virtue lies in knowledge, in science. He
rebelled, in this way, against the power of nomos over phusis, that is,
against the power of prescriptions of changeable validity over immutable
natural laws. Plato tried to introduce criteria of phusis in a world of no-
mos. He tried to reduce nomos to phusis. We will see later, in more de-
tail, how this exigency functions in the Socratic Plato.
The sophists tend to the opposite reduction, of phusis to nomos. The
case is not that they tried, as it were, to project their opinions about law
on the natural world. They had two alternative approaches instead. The
first approach was to state that man is the criterion of validity of nature.
The more moderate approach, endorsed by Protagoras, was to ignore
natural phenomena because they transcend the capacities of human un-
derstanding. I shall insist that, in the sophist milieu, even the recommen-
dation to pursue natural law, to let natural law guide one’s life, is still
anthropocentric. It is really only a recommendation because it is suffused
with awareness about the alternative; otherwise, it would not be a rec-
ommendation but an obligation.
For purposes of clarity, willingly and consciously, I am exaggerating
the history of the sophist movement. In fact they did not all endorse the
same approach. One finds important differences among them. I am em-
phasizing certain features, however, in order to prepare for an analysis of
Protagoras’ thought.
A main feature of Protagoras’ philosophy is his sui generis way of
distinguishing between phusis and nomos and, which is the same, the
distinction between science and democracy. According to him, we know
nothing and there is nothing we can know about the natural world or
about the gods. We can know only whatever directly affects our human
life and registers as sense experience. Protagoras does not refer, for ex-
ample, to the justice imparted by Zeus, but to the quality of justice that
belongs to those who received it from Zeus—human beings. Justice is
not a subject matter in itself, but a capacity, the capacity to be just. This
is the difference between a divine and a human ethics. Regarding rela-
tionships with the divine world, Protagoras emphasizes that we can only
speak about what is immanently human; thus, he refused to engage in
discussions about transcendent realities. Regarding our relationship to
nature, we cannot know what it exactly is, in itself. We can only know
nature to the extent that it responds to our technical capacity to dominate
Socrates and the Sophistic Movement 97
it. The main point here concerns not nature, but our technical capacity,
the Promethean capacity or quality.58
Once installed in the human field, Protagoras makes other distinc-
tions: phusis, which is something impenetrable, is replaced
1. By human desires and impulses, namely by pleasure, which is the
leading value. They are, as it were, a phusis within the nomos.
2. There is place, in his philosophy, for the technical-utilitarian rela-
tionship with the external phusis that refers to phusis from the point of
view of nomos.
3. Morality, which is nomos properly, namely, the moral relationships
between persons expressed by the value of the moral good. Morality does
not have a utilitarian character. For Protagoras indeed, democracy is an
expression of morality and therefore democracy itself does not have a
utilitarian character.
From an analysis of the Protagoras, it is clear enough that Socrates,
contrariwise, regarded ethical virtue as analogical to technical ability.
That is, he reduced ethics to utility to later identify utility with rationality
by defining rationality as the technique that calculates benefits and losses
that can result from certain hypothetical decisions; calculations of this
sort can be the ground for the effective taking of decisions. This is what
Plato understood as sophrosune, moderation in behavior.59 Indeed, for
Socrates, contrary to all appearances, nothing is merely good for its own
sake, but always as a means for something else, as a matter of utility.
Protagoras defends both the rights of the passions and the rights of
morality to exist for their own sake, which is something more in accor-
dance with democracy. Plato’s opposition to democracy is deeply rooted
in his philosophical presuppositions.
At this point, we might do well to ask how Protagoras and Socrates
differ regarding Protagorean relativism. Both philosophers appear to be
relativists. It seems indeed that the criteria employed by them are the
same. However, if we compare Protagoras with Socrates, we discover
that his thought is somewhat less relativist and Socrates’ thought some-
what more relativist than is generally believed. For Protagoras, indeed,
some things are good in themselves, for example justice and pleasure
(Zeusian and Epimethean values). Moreover, as an educator, Protagoras
clearly preferred Zeusian values to all others; there is nothing relative
about those preferences. The problem of relativism is actually more a
problem for Socrates than it is for Protagoras.
It is noteworthy that Socrates, or at least the Socratic Plato, tries to
reconcile Good with Utility. Though he reduces Good to Utility, the Su-
preme Good is the last end for the sake of which something can be use-
ful. Put thus, it will seem that I am contradicting myself or that the re-
98 Chapter 4
duction goes the opposite way, that Utility is actually reduced to Good.
Indeed, the reduction does not consist of asserting that the Good is good
for something else, but that something useful is useful for the sake of the
Good. However, the point here is that when Socrates reduces Good to
Utility, he calls utility “Good.” Socrates may say, as it were, that the
good is good for the sake of the good, namely, as a means for an end. In
fact, he does use this line of argumentation, but only very indirectly after
a lot of beating around the bush, by means of a series of definitions; all
this in order to avoid being caught in a tangle of contradictions. I will
analyze these matters later in more detail.
Protagoras, in criticizing Plato’s approach, was not renouncing sci-
ence. He only thought that the only possible science is the science of
human affairs. What was, formerly, an art—speaking persuasively and
eloquently—becomes for him a science. We can regard him as the crea-
tor of grammar and syntax. With Protagoras, linguistics takes its first
steps. He studied the parts of the sentence, articulated the tenses of verbs,
and divided speech into its different modes of voices.60 He studied the
use of words, etymology, and synonymity. He was the first to see lan-
guage as an object of inquiry, rather than as a tool whose function can be
taken for granted. He was also the first Greek thinker on record to have
noticed the gender of word endings.61 Accordingly, he was concerned
with literary criticism. His analysis of Simonides’ poem in the Pro-
tagoras is a good example in kind.
The issue now is not the object to which science must offer proofs,
but only proofs as such. The proofs themselves become the object of
analysis.
In my opinion, if we understand properly this interest in proofs—in
and of themselves—we will better understand the sophistic spirit in gen-
eral. The interest in proofs, properly understood, will bring us to recog-
nize that even proofs are not the central matter of analysis, but just the
opposite—refutations. In the field of proofs, indeed, when something is
proven—for instance, the existence of something in nature—the proof
sends us, as it were, to the proven object. A refutation, however, does not
coincide with the refuted notion, but rather remains separate from it in
our minds. Thus, the refutation seems to exist on its own account, so to
speak. We grasp it more easily as something in itself; for this reason,
refutations are easier to examine than proofs.
Refutations became more important than proofs. They are more
closely related to the workings of the human mind than are proofs used
in natural inquiry. In the field of logic, for example, the central issues are
now contradictions, paradoxes, and absurdities. Let me state this as fol-
lows: Nothing can be proved but everything can be refuted. This is the
Socrates and the Sophistic Movement 99
central point of sophist logic, and it has given rise to the widespread as-
sumption that Protagoras espoused an extreme relativism. But was Pro-
tagoras really defending an “ism,” and was he merely attempting to de-
scribe refutatory logic? I think the latter—that on the one side he took a
stand in value matters, being therefore non-relativist, and, on the other
side, in his meta-theory, his relativism consisted of elucidating certain
kinds of logic in a very neutral and scientific spirit. Indeed, Protagoras
has been credited with the development of a principle for refutatory
logic, a law of contradictory judgments that states that two contradictory
sentences can be offered for each object.
Zeno the Eleatic paved the way for Protagoras. However, while Zeno
used paradox in order to dramatize the truth of Being against motion and
change, Protagoras was interested in the very logical form of the paradox
itself.
A sign of the sophistic’s shift can be found in their sense of humor.
Sometimes they ended up with absurd questions and absurd answers,
which occurred when they could not find sensible alternatives to their
intellectual dilemmas. This humor signals the reflective shift that char-
acterized the sophistic thought (as opposed to common sensical thought).
Therefore, neither were they outspoken advocates of ordinary common
opinion, nor did they criticize it. The sophistic scientific spirit was
sweetened with humor, which did not hurt its success in assemblies. And
both sophistic tendencies, practice and theory, were essentially reflec-
tions about thought. The word was a matter of effective expression. The
sophistic tendency to theory was not audience-oriented. Sophist theory
allowed no room for ambiguity of expression or lack of coherence. In a
debate, they attempted to put their opponent in the position of defending
absurdities, and that was enough.62 The sophists played with words, with
special recourse to etymology (Etymology indeed, is usually a matter for
reflection, not for ordinary common sense.) Such new uses of language
excited the surprise of the public. The sophists knew how to turn a ques-
tion inside out and hand it back in an unrecognizable shape. The answer,
therefore, whether positive or negative, would be necessarily absurd, thus
preventing their intellectual opponent from reaching an expected conclu-
sion. The sophists became champions of debate, of heuristic reasoning.
Their theoretical achievements in the field of language were recognized
as very useful in such very practical fields as law (the art of cross-
examination) and politics (interrogation of the opposition’s motives).
The sophists discovered and consciously practiced the instrumental use
of language, namely, its political use. This tendency culminated with Di-
odoros Cronos. He was famous for his sophisms, aporias, and contradic-
tions.63
100 Chapter 4
This but inverts the order, since for Protagoras, the fact that every-
thing continually changes is a function of the knowing subject and not of
the known object. Mutable things do not form the basis for the measure
of nature, but the mutable opinion. I mean, that Protagoras’ idea of na-
ture is not deducible from his natural investigations, but from his investi-
gation into human nature, into knowledge and valuation themselves. He
is not a natural scientist, but a human scientist.66
Sextus adds: “all things that are apparent (perceptible) to men actually
are (exist), and what is apparent to nobody is not (does not exist).” To
this passage, Mario Untersteiner, who accepts Sextus’ interpretation,
quotes Giuseppe Rensi with approval. Rensi says that for Protagoras,
the act of appearing, of manifestation, is the essence of being a
thing, i.e. that in which being a thing consists. But what is meant
by appearance, manifestation? Recognizability. The essence of that
which is a thing, therefore, is to be manifest, recognizable. “Thing”
means “recognizability.” Hence it is correct to say: “The subject is
the necessary correlate of the object.” But not in the further sense
that the subject is cognition in action, endowed with life, that is,
capable of experience, having a soul (since Protagoras, as has been
said, excludes the concept of soul from his epistemology); only in
the sense that things in order to exist must be grasped by cognition,
or rather understood and thought; and certainly also in the sense
that as a correlate to the object there is the pure subject, which
simply means the capacity, potentiality, possibility of cognition.”
Therefore “Nature, in order to exist, must manifest itself, reveal it-
self, appear, that is, conform to the conditions of cognition.”67
tions of the subject are then functions that belong to the subject, that
change, that are not always, even in the same subject, identical to them-
selves. This is the essence of his homo mensura tenet.
Knowledge is not the subject-object relationship, as Rensi would have
it, but the reduction of content to form, of object to subject. From the
point of view of content, there is no universal and necessary Being. From
the point of view of the form, there is no epistemic community. This
does not mean that “man is the measure of all things” implies the ab-
sence of a criterion. On the contrary, there is a measure and a measured
thing as well. If Plato’s predicate bestows the measure, as indeed it ap-
pears to be in isolated sentences, in Protagoras we find an inverted im-
age: the subject bestows the measure.
In this reflection (and it is possible to take such an epistemic stand
only in reflection) man is the measure for the essence and for the exis-
tence of things. The subject determines the essence of things. Essence
depends on the stand that the subject takes. And that on which the subject
takes a stand has not an ontological status. This is the meaning of the ad-
dendum: “of all things that are as to how they are.” This abstract idea of
matter is the result of Protagoras’ reflection, in which Being is reduced to
its appearance or manifestation.74 He does not and cannot deal with the
factual Being but with the being in the copulative sense in the sentence,
as in Parmenides (when the latter is interpreted, at least, in a non-
ontological way).
Aristotle (Met. 1062b12) asserts that Protagoras’ “man as the meas-
ure” implies a contradiction since, according to this principle, one and
the same thing may be and not-be at the same time, namely, to be good
and bad, beautiful and ugly, since what seems to each one is the standard
for knowledge. This is an ontologistic interpretation. However, Pro-
tagoras did not say that the same thing is good and bad (and so forth) at
the same time and under the same perspective. It may be good and bad at
the same time but in different perspectives, namely, for different people.
It may also be good and bad under the same perspective, namely, for the
same person, but at different times. Things are their epistemic or valua-
tive properties, namely, as dependent on the subject, and do not possess
substantial realities beyond and away from the subject. The subject is the
real substance. True, Protagoras, in this opinion, contradicts the idea of
“the masses,” but contradicts it as it contradicts itself in its own reflec-
tion. Indeed, popular opinion becomes, when it reflects on its opinions,
relativist; such relativism, in fact, contradicts the original position. If
they were also relativist at the original level, they would not even be able
to affirm that something is good, bad, beautiful, just, and so on; that is,
values are regarded as qualities of things. If this were not so, the asser-
104 Chapter 4
tion would be that it is not the thing that is good or bad, but only the
opinion, and this is by no means the original valuative intention in hu-
man language and thought.
Protagoras, however, does not merely adopt a relativist understanding
of ordinary reflection in order to transform it, as it were, into the impos-
sible task of establishing it as the criterion for truth. He goes a step fur-
ther than that. People believe that some of their representations are true
and others false. Protagoras responds that any perception as such is ac-
tual, real. Plato quotes Protagoras as saying that any perception is true.
What the multitude would interpret, perception as such, as being some-
times neither true nor false, and other times as true or false, Protagoras
interprets as always being, in Plato’s account at least, “true,” or better in-
terpreted, neither true nor false. This is the case at the reflective level. At
the non-reflective level, on the other hand, when Protagoras educates in
the name of certain values, he takes a stand for some perceptions over
others. He adopts the point of view of what is convenient or beneficiary.
And since convenience is for someone or for something, he contradicts
himself in his capacity as educator, since as such he predicated for a
change in the soul in name, or for the sake of socially positive values
against others.
In his educative efforts, then, Protagoras provided the ideological jus-
tification for the conscious (and democratic) change of the social institu-
tions. In the previous period, the gods were responsible for the character
of social institutions, but now Protagoras asks if the gods really exist.75
This attitude does not mean neglect of science, I shall insist, but the
discovery of a new one, the science of the form of knowledge.
The central concern of Protagoras was with the problem of represen-
tation. Gorgias, on the other hand, was concerned with the impossibility
of knowledge of Being. However, they shared the same presupposition:
that there is a gap between what things are in themselves, and what they
are for the knower-subject. Once this gap is recognized, Protagoras ori-
ents himself toward the subject, as well as toward perception, language,
and thought.
Therefore, the anonymous Dissoi Logoi (“double-, alternative-
accounts” or “twofold arguments”) fragment (DK 90) is an expression of
the Protagorean translation of Heraclitus’ thinking into the field of lin-
guistics, a field into which Heraclitus did not venture.76
The idea that there are two logoi about a thing demonstrates that Pro-
tagoras posits a distinction between thought and reality, and then directs
his attention toward thought and the thinker. The opposite attitude, Soc-
rates’ anti-formalism, is expressed in Plato’s theory of denotation in the
Socrates and the Sophistic Movement 105
.'
pearance with truth and of reducing truth to falsehood and being to ap-
pearance . -
Plato's version of Protagoras' statement, besides making a place for
criticism from an objectiv ist point of view, constitutes an attempt to
make Prolagoras out to be more subjective than he actually is.
Let me ask why Plato does not say that, according to Protagoras,
"everyth ing is the way it appears"? Why does he add "to me"?
If everything is simp ly "the way it appears," then everything is differ-
ent for each person. Things cannot be both what they appear to me, and
what they appear to another, since this would imply a contradiction. The
addendum tries to avoid this contradiction. Therefore, in order [0 make it
clear that he is not speaki ng about things in themselves, he adds "for
me." Hi s addendum asserts that what appears to me is my perception of
the world, without emphasizing the world upon which or in which I act;
that world is the world from which I receive my knowledge. I do not
have any other perceived world, any other source of knowledge. How-
eve r, it may be that another person has another percept ion of the same
source of knowledge. s3 What is the nature of that source? About this,
nothing can be said, except that such a source exists.
In any case, th is does not imply what things are without their relation
to me . Namely, what is not related to me is not relevant. My concern or
commitment is to my world, and only m)' world . The world in itse lf is
something unreachable, as the gods are. s Why do 1 not concern myself
with the mystery that we call the gods? Because life is too short. That is,
because the gods are not relevant to my life, , have no sense-experience
of them. Protagoras' intention is twofold: to avoid making a judgment
about the world, and to reduce subjectiv ism to its necessary minimum.
He does not bluntly assert that the gods do not ex ist, but that they are
relevant only regarding the world within which I act, think, and perceive.
Protagoras' reasons for doubting the existence of gods, therefore, are
more radical than it is generally assumed. They are also valid for hi s
doubts about the existence of nature. 8S As in the case of the gods, we
may know nothing about nature, or at least we only kn ow whatever co n-
fonns to our senses. Th us, without extrinsic nature and transcendent gods
108 Chapter 4
which is neither true nor false. In so doing, he takes the form as the crite-
rion for the content. However, this approach requires a kind of truth—the
truth of reflection. What is relative in his reflection is only the content of
reflection, that is, the way people judge and know. What is not relative
and true is the form of this reflection, namely, what is said about relativ-
ism, which is a third level of reflection, a reflection about the ways of
thinking (which is itself a reflection). For this reason Protagoras dedi-
cates himself to the interpretation of poems and not to the investigation
of realities. And, when he interprets poems, he believes he can find
errors in them. As we shall see, Protagoras accuses the poet Simonides of
contradicting himself.87
Indeed, there is no truth beyond the way people understand the truth.
There is no truth beyond poems or beyond the form of knowledge in
general. It has been reported that Protagoras’ books were books of argu-
mentation, not of science. Or rather, his science was the science of argu-
mentation. He was concerned with the truth of argumentation, and not
with the argumentation of truth, with the truth of the appearance, with the
truth of opinion, and not with opinion as truth. It is in this context that we
may understand his approach even in its minor details like the correc-
tions about the gender of words.88
Ronald Polansky, in his analysis of Protagoras’ homo mensura, states
the deep motivation of Protagoras’ approach in a right way:
[Protagoras] teaches rhetoric . . . rather than physics. So the doc-
trine that “as things appear, so they are” is no physical theory, but
the basic principle of rhetorical practice. It makes little difference
in the courtroom or political assembly how things really are, he
seems to say, but all the difference how people suppose they are,
for once people are persuaded that something is the case it is the
case for them.89
frame of a referential theory of truth that assumes the primacy of the ob-
ject over the subject, of the thing over its name. Names have their own
gender, independently of the object, but depending on their morphology.
We may understand the Cratylus as Plato’s response to this non-
referential theory.
Protagoras says, in the so-called “apology” of Protagoras:
[T]o a sick man what he eats appears, and is, bitter, whereas to a
healthy man it is, and appears, the opposite. Now what must be
done isn’t to make either of them wiser because that isn’t even
possible: nor is it to accuse the sick one of being ignorant because
he makes the sort of judgments he does, and call the healthy one
wise because he makes Judgments of a different sort (Tht. 166e-
167a).
because of ignorance, call true; but I call them better than the first
sort, but not at all truer (Tht. 167b).
And when he asserts that some people may be wiser than others, this
does not imply, for him that the latter hold false opinions (“It’s true, both
that some people are wiser than others, and that no one judges what’s
false”) (Tht. 167d). The difference is a difference of values and openness
to education; it is a difference not of the content of knowledge, but of its
form.
Does Protagoras renounce the idea of validity in knowledge? Does he
indeed assert that things exist only for the perceiver and at the very mo-
ment of their being perceived? If this is the case, is this very criterion
devoid of general validity? In short, is Protagoras a phenomenalist who
accepts the presence of a general criterion, or a skeptic that denies even
this?
All agree, I think, that Protagoras asserts that each one has his own
opinion of the truth at the moment he states it. This is also the way Plato
interprets him in the Theaetetus. Indeed, whoever opines cannot be a
skeptic, since a consistent skeptic must refrain from judging. If this is
indeed Protagoras’ theory, then he is not a skeptic.
In his reflection about these individual opinions, therefore, he is
merely describing knowledge and valuation, and not taking a stand. On
the other hand, in his valuative attitude, when he indeed takes a stand,
Protagoras is anti-relativist, for he supports some values over others.93
Protagoras is a moderate relativist in his reflective epistemic account of
knowledge and valuation, but he is distinctly anti-relativist in his valua-
tive attitude. That is, in his valuative attitude, Protagoras actually contra-
dicts his object of analysis as it appears in his reflection. Pursuing this
line of thought, some post-Protagorean sophists even asserted that error
is impossible and that we cannot only assert anything about anything, but
also about nothing. Protagoras does not touch these extremes. He be-
lieves that we cannot assert something about nothing, since we cannot
have in our judgment “the things which are not, or anything other than
what one’s experiencing, which is always true” (Tht. 167a-b).
Protagoras is neither a total skeptic nor a total relativist.94 An extreme
relativism and an extreme skepticism undermine themselves the moment
they emerge. A consistent relativism must assume something beyond
relativism toward which the relativistic consciousness intends. It should
be added that Protagoras was a democrat, and complete skepticism is in
essence anti-democratic. Indeed democracy does not need the suspension
of opinion, but just the opposite. Holding an opinion, any opinion, al-
ready removes one from radical skepticism. Democracy needs to assume,
112 Chapter 4
on the one hand, an idea of the original level that asserts that opinion is
valid nor invalid in itself, and that anyone may regard his own opinion as
valid and others’ as invalid. That means, on the level of reflection, that
anyone’s opinion is valid, while at the valuative level, some opinions are
more valid than others. This is the inner contradiction that defines de-
mocracy and his own philosophy. Democracy and Protagoras presuppose
pluralism, namely, a degree of tolerance toward others’ opinions.
Democracy is based only on opinion, which is similar to argumenta-
tion; both are the only available logos. Thus, the democratic regime as-
sumes that knowledge is not the source for decisions making. Each logos
can be matched by a counter-logos or anti-logos, and every argument can
be understood as a response to some other contrary opinion. Arguments
cannot be refuted.95 What then is the source of decision? Protagoras’ an-
swer may be: values, not knowledge.
Whatever Protagoras may have thought of this, the post-Protagoreans,
being more extreme, believed that contradiction is impossible. They be-
lieve that each individual continually perceives continuously new con-
tents, and thus the same object of knowledge cannot accept different
predicates. What is clear is that Protagoras himself rejected the positive
determination of things. Real, changeable things did not worry him.
Rather, he was concerned with motion and the appearances that things
provoke in perception. He looked at the form of motion, not its content,
not what moves by itself. Protagoras’ theory of knowledge fed out of the
atomistic school of Abdera, to which this reduction of quality to quantity
was something essential. Not what moves but the quantity, that is, a more
abstract principle, one independent of the content. This is another sign of
formalism, one that refrains from analyzing the object or the content of
thought.
When Protagoras spoke of perception, he meant not only sensations
and intuitions, but also emotions and desires. Just as we do not argue
against perceptions, we cannot argue against emotions. What appears
pleasant, useful, and valuable to somebody, is so for him and only for
him. The measure of things is also this ephemeral and individual con-
sciousness. There is no place here for a universally valid valuation of
objects. In this sense, Aristippus’ hedonism is fed by Protagoras’ doc-
trine. Aristippus teaches that we do not know things in themselves but
only the value they may have for us and our own emotional states
(pathée).
There is in Protagoras, however, a model for his model. The model of
perception has human activity in general as his model, in all its modes.
The foundation of his theory of knowledge is neither perception nor rea-
son, but practice. When he states that man is the measure of all things,
Socrates and the Sophistic Movement 113
Notes
1. For a detailed analysis of the historical impact of the sophistic move-
ment, see George Grote, A History of Greece from the Earliest Period to the
Close of the Generation Contemporary with Alexander the Great (London: John
Murray, 1888).
2. For an account of the distinction between nomos and phusis in Greek
thought, see H. D. Rankin, Sophists, Socratics and Cynics (London: Croom
Helm, 1983), 79-9J.
3. Guthrie, HGP, vol. I!!, 14.
4. See Guthrie, HGP. vol. II , 14. I am nO( trying to say Ihat Pannenides
was a natural philosopher, but he was renecting on natural philosophy. I mean,
he was thinking about thinking about nature. However, he defined thinking by
means of the content of thinking, so that exists only that which can be thought
about. He defined thinking by means of its content, whereas the soph ists defined
the content of thought by means of its form. In this sense, they reflected on Par·
men ides' renection, staying at a higher level or order of reflection.
5. See Aristotle: "Plato was in a sense not wrong in saying that sophistic
deals with that which is not" (Met. 1026b). " Plato was not wrong when he said
that the sophist spends his time on non-being" (Met. 1064b29).
6. See Joseph P. Maguire, " Protagoras or Plato?" Phronesis 18 ( 1973):
120-1.
7. See Havelock: "Chronol ogically Protagoras in the tradition is usually
regarded as the oldest of the Sophists and as a little older than Democritus. The
difference in years must have been trivial. It is at least clear that, while De·
mocritus even in his politics still represents the scientific objectivitY and severity
of the physicist, Protagoras is the father of the communications·men." The Lib·
era! Temper in Greek Politics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1957),156.
Nill sustains an opposite and well-argued point of view. See Michael N il1 , Mo·
ratify and Self-Interest in Praagoras Antiphon and Democritus (Leiden : E. J.
Brill, 1985), 1·3.
8. Contrary to Burnet's contention, therefore, Protagoras does not take a
negative attitude toward science . See John Burnet, Greek Philosophy, Thales to
Plato (London: Macmillan, 1943), 109. By the radical limits of the ancient kind
of science, I mean the limits imposed by the conce pt of genus as a category of
explanation. The alternative way of thinking appeared first in the Renaissance,
with the conception of the category of natural laws. Genera and species explain
mOlion by means arrest, whereas laws explain rest by mean~ ormotion. Thi.~ is
an issue that goes far away from aU f subject matter.
9. See Jacqueline de Romilly, The Great Sophists ill Periclean Athens
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), 1-30.
10. See Havelock, The Liberal Temper. 180ss.
I L For the etymology of the tenn sophist, see George B. Kerferd. The So·
phistic Movement (Cambridge: Cambridge Univers ity Press, 1981 ), 24-41; and
Guthrie, HGP. 111 , 26ff.
12. Rami lly, The Great Sophists, l.
13. Romil1y is not even consistent, since she defi nes the sophi sts as phi·
losophers. See The Great Sophists, 9
14. Edward Schiappa, Pro/agoras and Logos: A Study in Greek. Philosophy
Socrates and the Sophistic Movemelll liS
1964), 45-7.
28. For Plato, the predicate only defines Ideas, and does not produce them.
The predicate defines an already eternally existing Idea.
29. See previous footnote.30. On this subject, see my Subject and
Consciousness (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1990), 135-41. See also
my “Quality, Genus and Law as Forms of Thinking,” Auslegung 13 (1986): 71-
85.
31. This includes statements whose predicate relates to existence (e.g.,
“God exists”) and statements that make comparisons (e.g., “the length of the
desk is the same as the length of the table”). In the latter, the predicate functions
as the measuring scale (universal) and the subject is the object measured (par-
ticular); and the statement is not, strictly speaking, reversible.
32. There are cases in which accumulation of content does not occur. In
these cases, the subject is not a conceptual term but, rather, a value, or signal,
and so on. This issue is beyond the scope of this book.
33. Allen, “Participation and Predication,” in Allen, Studies in Plato’s
Metaphysics, 46.
34. While change in the form of words does take place, this does not occur
intentionally. Rather, it is the result of their repeated use as predicates. Such
change is comparable to the change undergone by tools (which wear and tear
during production).
35. I wish to stress that I am referring to ideas, not to words or sense-
images.
36. In order not to fall into the error of explaining Plato’s earlier thought in
the light of his later thought, I deliberately refrain from referring to Plato’s later
thought. In later dialogues, he adopts more concessive and moderate attitudes.
37. “Nothing else makes a thing beautiful but the presence or communion
of the beauty-in-itself, however this presence may have been achieved” (Phaed.
100d).
38. “I think the most likely view is, that these ideas exist in nature as pat-
terns, and the other things resemble them and are imitations of them; their par-
ticipation in ideas is assimilation to them, that and nothing else” (Parm. 132d).
39. For a similar problem in Hegel’s philosophy, see my Subject and Con-
sciousness, 95-109.
40. On this point it is crucial the way we interpret Plato’s definitional ques-
tions on values (“What is x”). If we interpret that he has an answer to his ques-
tions, Plato becomes an enemy of democracy. If we interpret him as having not
an answer, he becomes a defender of democracy. If each particular virtue is
knowledge and if virtue in general is knowledge, and if knowledge implies ex-
pertise, he is an enemy of democracy. If virtue is knowledge but he has not, in
principle, an answer for this question, democracy is justified. For the opinion
that he has not an answer, see Kraut, who believes that such an opinion is a mere
myth sustained by interpreters. Richard Kraut, Socrates and the State (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1984), 245-306. For the opinion that he has an an-
swer, see Laszlo Versényi, Socratic Humanism (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1963), 75-110; and Henry Teloh, The Development of Plato’s Metaphys-
ics (Pennsylvania State University Press, 1981), 46-64. As a third interpretation,
I think that Plato has an answer, though one that annuls the very turn to virtues
by reducing them to knowledge of their objects. Thus, Plato, remains anti-de-
Socrates and the Sophistic Movement 117
mocratic, but for a different reason than the reasons under discussion. It is be-
cause he believes in knowledge, not of virtue, but of its content.
41. See Prt. 323c. Socrates agrees with Protagoras, though only with the
facts under analysis, since while for Protagoras political questions concern val-
ues, for Plato values depend, as in any other field, on knowledge, even if for him
knowledge and valuation are indiscernible.
42. The idea that Protagoras tried to “make the weaker argument the
stronger” (Rhet. 1402a22), is but an expression of this democratic spirit. It
means the theoretical effort to help each side to present his case as best as possi-
ble in order to make it transparent for the others. See Versényi, Socratic Hu-
manism, 36.
43. George B. Kerferd, The Sophistic Movement (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1981), 13.
44. See Guthrie, HGP, vol. III, 56.
45. Though Protagoras does not explicitly refers to the nomos-phusis dis-
tinction, his philosophy is fully embedded by it. See Versényi, Socratic Human-
ism, 29-32.
46. Versényi, Socratic Humanism, 55.
47. Versényi, Socratic Humanism, 57.
48. See Versényi, Socratic Humanism, 59.
49. “The prime necessity was to master the art of persuasive speaking, and
it has even been argued (by Gomperz) that the whole teaching of the Sophists is
summed up in the art of rhetoric.” Versényi, Socratic Humanism, 19.
50. Ettore Bignone, Studi sul Pensiero Antico (Roma: Edition Anastatica
“L’erma” Di Bretschneider, 1965), 32.
51. See Gomperz, GT, vol. I, 430.
52. See Sextus Empiricus, Against Math, IX, 51-4.
53. DK 87-8.
54. DK 87-1.
55. See Gomperz, GT, vol. I, 434, 585.
56. Protagoras was a pioneer of democracy, providing ideological argu-
ments for its advancing. See Schiappa, Protagoras and Logos, 169ff.
57. For other views on sophistry and democracy, see F. Rosen, “Did Pro-
tagoras Justify Democracy?” Polis 13 (1994): 12-30; Cynthia Farrar, The Ori-
gins of Democratic Thinking: The Invention of Politics in Classical Athens (New
York: Cambridge University Press, 1988); Stanley Moore, “Democracy and
Commodity Exchange: Protagoras versus Plato,” HPQ 5 (1988): 357-68; Arthur
W. H. Adkins, “‘Areté’ ‘Techné,’ Democracy and Sophists: ‘Protagoras’ 316b-
328d,” JP 93 (1973): 3-12; Arnold H. M. Jones, Athenian Democracy (Oxford:
Blackwell, 1957); Sir Moses Finley, Democracy Ancient and Modern (London:
Chatto & Windus, 1973); Harold Barrett, The Sophists: Rhetoric, Democracy,
and Plato’s Idea of Sophistry (Novata, Calif.: Chandler and Sharp, 1987); Sam-
uel Perlman, “The Politicians in the Athenian Democracy of the Fourth Century
B.C.” Atheneum 41 (1963): 327-55; R. K. Sinclair, Democracy and Participa-
tion in Athens (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988); Martin Ostwald,
118 Chapter 4
Science and Politics in the Ancient World (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1965),
82. See also Benjamin Farrington, Greek Science: Its Meaning for Us (London:
Penguin Books, 1953), 87.
76. Heraclitus indeed was not concerned with a critical analysis of poems,
but was against poetry in general. See Schiappa, Protagoras and Logos, 57.
77. Julius M. E. Moravcsik, “Heraclitean Concepts and Explanations,” in
Language and Thought in Early Greek Philosophy, Kevin Robb, ed., (La Salle,
Ill.: Hegeler Institute, 1983), 139.
78. Diogenes Laertius, LEP, IX, 51.
79. Let me add here that what Plato calls the “secret doctrine” of Pro-
tagoras, the doctrine that everything is the offspring of flux and change (Tht.
152d-153d), is not, as several interpreters contend, but Plato’s own invention.
Thinking on secret doctrines fits Plato more than Protagoras. See chapter 2 in
this book. See Gomperz, GT II, 231; Guthrie, HGP III, 185; David Bostock,
Plato’s Theaetetus (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), 60-2. For the oppo-
site view, see Schiappa, Protagoras and Logos, 126ss; and Nicholas Denyer,
Language, Thought, and Falsehood in Ancient Greek Philosophy (London:
Routledge, 1991), 84-94.
80. See Crt. 386a-d; and Aristotle, Met. 1062b13.
81. See Thomas. M. Robinson, Contrasting Arguments: An Edition of the
Dissoi Logoi (Salem, N.H.: Ayer, 1979), 90.
82. Kerferd, like most modern interpreters, was led astray by Plato’s inter-
pretation of Protagoras’ dictum. He believes, like Plato, that the question is
about things. In this respect, he resumes the attitudes of modern interpreters re-
garding the object of perception: 1) There are not things but private things each
one defined by its sense-qualities. 2) There are public things that have no quali-
ties, and 3) things have opposite qualities, and each one perceives one of them.
See Kerferd, Sophistic Movement, 85-7. Vlastos is an exception, since he thinks
that Plato was not concerned to pronounce on the status of the unperceived
wind. In my opinion, it is just Plato and the interpreters who believe that Pro-
tagoras was concerned with the status of things, while Vlastos believes that it
was Plato who was not concerned with the status of things. In fact, Plato was
concerned, though Protagoras was not. Also Cornford’s opinion, following
Plato, that Protagoras is following Heraclitus’ coexistence of opposites in things,
is inadequate, since Protagoras is unconcerned with the nature of things at all.
See Francis M. Cornford, Plato’s Theory of Knowledge: The “Theaetetus” and
the “Sophist” of Plato (London: Routledge Kegan Paul, 1935), 34-6.
83. Burnyeat’s translation of Protagoras’ dictum as “true for x meaning
true in x’s world,” is an anti-formalistic interpretation of his formalism.
Burnyeat disregards the relational character of the dictum, which is not at-
tempting to contend something about the world not even about “x’s world.” See
Myles F. Burnyeat, “Protagoras and Self-Refutation in Later Greek Philosophy.”
Philosophical Review, 85 (1976): 44-69. See Bostock, Plato’s Theaetetus, 90.
84. See DK, 80 B4.
85. I agree with Charles H. Kahn, who asserts that Protagoras’ agnosticism
represents “a new, more critical attitude in regard to natural theology and the
120 Chapter 4
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
What Is Consciousness?
121
122 Chapter 5
On the other side, when he tries to offer an answer, Plato denies the
very question. Rather, he denies the object of the question. He always
answers by turning to the object of the object of the question. The ques-
tion about virtue, for instance, resolves itself into an answer that inquires
about the object of opinion. It is due to his rejection of the object of the
question—namely, his rejection of the form of knowledge—that we can
label Plato’s approach as “anti-formalist.” However, since he achieved a
level of reflection that enabled him to question opinion itself, virtue itself
(and so forth), I call him a “third level anti-formalist.” Indeed, the ques-
tion does concern the form of knowledge. It is thus a question about the
second level of reflection. In other words, Plato reflects on reflection. In
his answers however, we find him denying this third level reflection and
adopting the point of view of the object of reflection, namely, the content
of second level reflection. For this reason, I assert that Plato is offering a
self-conscious philosophy that is unaware of being self-conscious.
For this reason, Plato makes no distinction between asking about the
nature of knowledge and asking about the nature of reality. For him the
two questions are the same question. They are the same because he
passes over the epistemic process and attends only to its results. He is
unable to distinguish between epistemology and ontology, because he
has reduced the former to the latter. This is the essence of his third level
anti-formalism.1
On these grounds, we are better qualified to analyze the Protagoras.
But we still need to take a further step. If we assume, contrary to Plato
and Protagoras, that there is a difference between the process and the
content of knowledge, and if we do not reduce the one to the other in
some way, then we will see that the question “What is knowledge?” is
not the same question as “What is reality?” Knowledge has a role in
constituting the knowable object, but that does not mean that knowledge
is identical to the object. Knowledge is the being-in-relation to the object
and, as such, is not part of the object but rather aligns itself toward it.
Knowledge is not part of what is being known, and what is being known
is not part of knowledge. This is the same as saying that the process of
knowledge or the epistemic relation is not part of the object of knowl-
edge and the object of knowledge is not part of the epistemic relation.
On the other hand, knowledge and its object are not totally alien to
each other. Neither knowledge, nor the object of knowledge, can be un-
derstood outside of their relationship. When we look at one or the other
in isolation, we will inevitably fall into some kind of fallacy. Either (1)
we will transform cognition into something more than mere relation and
deny the objectivity of the object, as Protagoras does, or (2) we will
What Is Consciousness? 125
sophist himself has knowledge and gives knowledge to his pupil?” This
is the question that Socrates asks and Hippocrates fails to answer (Prt.
312e). Indeed, there is no answer to the question because Plato is un-
willing to accept the study of a science in isolation from the specific ob-
jects of its concern. For him, science exists only as an end product, and
not in its methods or manner of apprehending reality. Science is consti-
tuted by its content, and not by the manner by which that content is
reached. Plato demands from any science to be defined according to what
it does (produces), to its object, and not by means of what it is, say, a
technique or a knowledge as such.
Let me reassert that in his Socratic period Plato maintained that we
can know only the “what” of knowledge, not the “how”; Plato does not
conceive of knowledge as an ongoing process, but as a finished product
or result. The content already embeds the means eliciting a particular
item of knowledge. Therefore, a theory of knowledge—insofar as Plato
might admit that such a thing were possible—would merely replicate a
content that was already in existence, and so would be pointless.2 The
content of knowledge absorbs, as it were, the form. And, since theory of
knowledge means the knowledge of the form of knowledge, the mere
presence of a theory of knowledge means that we have not yet arrived at
knowledge itself. Knowledge rises, like hot-air balloons, by discharging
weights. In this case, the weights are forms of knowledge. In another
sense, the form of knowledge is like a distorting glass that must be cast
off if we are to see clearly. Therefore, when Plato speaks about knowl-
edge of knowledge, he speaks of it as an obstacle to be removed, a bar-
rier to be overcome. Whoever has it does not know, and whoever knows
does not have it.
There would seem to be a contradiction between Plato’s rejection of
reflective knowledge and the statement attributed to Socrates in both the
Apology and the Alcibiades that he only knows that he doesn’t know, so
that it is his awareness of his own ignorance that makes him the wisest of
the Athenians.3 In the Alcibiades, moreover, self-knowledge is presented
as a prerequisite of knowledge.4
This is not a contradiction, though it certainly looks like one. In the
Apology, the focus is on the content of knowledge alone. When Socrates
sets out to find wise citizens to disprove the assertion of the Pythian ora-
cle, he discovers that human claims to knowledge are not borne out by
what they actually know. In this context, the Delphic injunction, in Soc-
rates’ words “Know thyself,” may only mean “Know what thou know-
est”; be aware of the range and limits of your knowledge. Socrates dis-
covers that people do not really know what they think or vaguely feel
they know. Hence self-awareness here refers solely to the discrepancy
What Is Consciousness? 127
between what people claim they know and the actual state of their
knowledge. Moreover, for these reasons, it is highly improbable that the
dictum “Know thyself” can be attributed to Socrates. It is totally alien to
his philosophical spirit. The subject is not something to be known (inso-
far as it is a relation to an object). For this and other reasons I explore in
my discussion of Annas’ approach, I do not believe that we should at-
tribute the Alcibiades to Plato.5
Notes
1. The real alternative to Plato’s anti-formalism is, for example, the mod-
erate formalism of Aristotle, not Protagoras’. However, an analysis of Aris-
totle’s philosophy goes far beyond the intention of this book.
2. Hence Gould is mistaken in claiming that “the episteme which Socrates
envisaged was a form of knowing how, knowing, that is, how to be moral,” John
Gould The Development of Plato’s Ethics (New York: Russell & Russell, 1955),
7. For a criticism of Gould’s argument, see Gregory Vlastos, “Socratic Knowl-
edge and Platonic ‘Pessimism,’” Philosophical Review 66 (1957): 226-38. Here
Vlastos counters Gould by asserting that “Throughout Plato’s Socratic dialogues
we see a man who uses ‘knowledge’ constantly to explain other things but never
once doubles back on this term to turn on it his ‘What is?’ question” (p. 229).
And in a footnote he adds: “Even when he is under urgent provocation to do so,
as when he inquires into the possibility of ‘knowledge of knowledge and un-
knowledge’ in the Charmides [165c]. . . The question [Plato] raises is quite dif-
ferent: ‘What is this or that knowledge?’, and the answer he expects is one that
will distinguish areas of knowledge (by their specific object and use) not modes
of knowing” (“Socratic Knowledge and Platonic ‘Pessimism,’” n. 7). But Vlas-
tos inverts the order of the argument. What he takes as Plato’s question is in fact
Plato’s answer. It is precisely the question “What is Knowledge?” that is being
asked in the Charmides. The question is about whether knowledge can be con-
sidered apart from its content, as something separate from the known object.
And Plato’s answer is that it cannot. Even so, Vlastos is right in asserting that
Plato rejects “modes of knowing” per se.
3. See Apl., 21.
4. See Alc., 259.
5. See “Julia Annas: Self-knowledge is knowledge of the self,” in appen-
dix B.
Part III
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
the you ng Athenian wishes to become a pupil of soph ists, he cannot de-
clare his intention publicly. The techniques of power are, by necess ity,
esoteric in character.
Thus, the prelude already hints at the background of the dialogue. The
first (typically Socratic) question conce rn s the content of Protago ras'
teachings. If yo u become the studen t of Hippoc rates of Cos, the physi -
cian, you learn how to be a physician. If you become a sculptor'S student,
you learn how to be a scu lptor, and so forth. By this logic, if you go to a
sophist, you will ieam how to be a sophi st. But what does it mean to be a
sophist?
Hippocrate s defines
~ '"'
who a soph ist is- "he who .- is wise about wise
, ~ ~ ,
drotion, together with some foreigners from his own native city,
and some others. As it appeared, they were plying Hippias with
questions about natural science and astronomy while he, from his
chair of state, was deciding any arguments which arose and giving
lengthy expositions in answer to their questions (Prt. 315c).
At the height of his chair, a substitute for the real sky, Hippias ex-
presses the distinction between the sophists and natural philosophers.
The chair, as the point of view out of which stars and sky are being ex-
plained, is not already a scanning of the sky itself. Plato takes it as a sub-
stitute, as a copy instead of the original. It is, however, an expression of
the sophists’ awareness of the distinction between the subject in its rela-
tion to its sky as object. Here, the subject comes instead of the object.
Thales scanned the sky by looking at it. The new astronomy is conducted
indoors. It is the science of the method of astronomy, and not the science
of stars and their relative movements itself.
Contrasting again with this second scene,
Prodicus was still in bed, wrapped in sheepskins and blankets—a
considerable quantity, to judge from his appearance. Sitting beside
him on the nearby couches were Pausanias from Cerameis, and
with Pausanias a young stripling, of good breeding, I think, and
extremely good looking. I heard his name as Agathon, I think, and
I shouldn’t be surprised if he isn’t actually Pausanias’ boyfriend.
Anyway, there was this lad, the two Adeimantuses, one the son of
Cepis and the other the son of Leucolophides, and apparently some
others. But from where I was standing, outside, I was unable to
discover what they were discussing, though I was eager to hear
Prodicus. For I think he is a very wise man indeed—wonderfully
so. But his voice was so deep that the reverberation of the room
made his words indistinct (Prt. 315d-316a).
But I differ from all of them. I consider that they failed to accom-
plish their objective: for they did not pass undetected by those men
who played a leading part in their communities, and for whose
benefit they put up these façades in the first place; after all, the
masses (polloi) notice hardly anything for themselves, merely ac-
claiming whatever these leading citizens pronounce. For a man to
run for cover, and not only to fail to get away but actually to make
himself conspicuous in the process is in itself sheer stupidity; be-
sides which it will inevitably make people even more hostile, since
they regard that sort of man as unprincipled into the bargain.
Which is why I have taken precisely the opposite course from these
men and openly admit to being a sophist and an educator, thinking
it a better precaution to admit to it openly than to be caught deny-
ing it. And in addition to this I have taken other precautions which,
with the help of God, ensure that I can openly admit, without any
unpleasant consequences, that I am a sophist. And yet I have been
practicing the art for many years now; indeed I have been alive for
a great many years—indeed, I am old enough to be the father of
any one of you. So if there is something you want, much the most
agreeable course for me would be to talk it over in front of all the
other visitors to this house (Prt. 317a-c).
138 Chapter 6
The question is then, for Socrates, not in what manner he can grow
better but in what matter. What is the content of this so-called improve-
ment, what is the object of knowledge? He hints that there is no such
thing as “growing better” without knowledge, or that it is not a manner of
growing better besides knowledge. There is no process of knowledge, but
only results; more precisely, the process is crystallized and defined by its
result and has neither value nor existence in itself. It is not a form of
knowledge.
Protagoras very well understands the question and the subtle critique
it implies. Now the dialogue begins. Protagoras offers a distinction that
shows he knows exactly what is under discussion:
You ask a good question, Socrates . . . and I’m always pleased to
reply to a good question. If Hippocrates comes to me he won’t
have the same experience as he would have had by associating
with one of the other sophists. These others are a curse on young
men. Just when they have escaped from technical subjects they
bring them unwillingly back and throw them once again into tech-
nical subjects—arithmetic, astronomy, geometry, music—this with
a pointed look at Hippias but with me he will learn only the subject
which he came to learn and no other. The course of instruction is
good planning both of his own affairs, to the end that he would
best manage his personal estate, and of the city’s to the end that he
would be in the strongest position to conduct, in speech and action,
the common business of the city [Italics mine] (Prt. 318d-319a).
Protagoras’ teachings are not the objects of sciences, but the way these
objects are approached. His focus is on the subject of the activity, not on
its object. His aim is to know the subject better. He does not seek to im-
prove knowledge in the sense of knowing different matters, but to im-
prove the form of knowledge—our patterns of thought—as well as the
patterns of behavior in the polis.18 Thus understood, it makes sense to say
that one grows better without referring to the Socratic question, namely,
“in what,” since for Protagoras the “what” becomes irrelevant.
Besides, to put it in Kantian terms, politics belongs to the Kingdom of
ends, and as such is a matter of values and not of facts.
If Protagoras had been conducting this particular discussion with the
other sophists, rather than with Socrates, his words would have no doubt
transcended their individual differences and elicited a general agreement.
The other sophists did not teach content, either. Even Hippias the as-
tronomer was concerned with the methods of astronomy rather than with
the stars themselves. The sophists were not interested in science but in
the scientific mind. Sophistry was not science but meta-science—the
philosophy of science.
The sophists dwelled plainly and purely at the level of
anthropocentrism. However, sophist thought differs considerably from
primitive and mythic anthropocentrism. The sophists were quite con-
scious of being anthropocentric. They realized that human consciousness
is not the sum total of reality, but theorized that human consciousness is
all we can know of reality.
Socrates, however, is not at all ready to accept a reality bounded by
human consciousness. Quite the contrary. He responds, with some irony,
that he does not believe that political virtue can be taught. He offers a de
facto argument.19 When citizens are convened in assembly, he points out,
they must make decisions on technical matters, which means taking ad-
vice from various specialists. They must consult builders in matters of
building, shipwrights in matters of ship construction, and so forth.
And if someone else attempts to give them advice (sumbouleuein),
whom they don’t consider a skilled professional, be he handsome
(kalos) and wealthy and well-born, they will have none of him, for
all that, but laugh and jeer at him until this man who has ventured
to speak either stands down of his own accord, discouraged by the
uproar, or is dragged from the platform by the police or removed
on the order of the presidents. That is what they do when they con-
sider a technical skill (techné) to be at issue. But when they come
to deliberate (bouleuesthai) political issues, then a builder can get
up and give advice (sumbouleuein), or, equally, smith or cobbler,
merchant or shipper, rich or poor, high-born or low without dis-
Introduction to the Dialogue 141
Taylor is not arguing against Plato, but rather against Protagoras, and
perhaps, mutatis mutandis, also against David Hume or even against Ar-
istotle. He is paving the route to Plato’s reductionism of values to knowl-
edge.
More precisely, Taylor’s approach falls halfway between Plato and
Protagoras. Unlike Plato, Taylor distinguishes between matters of fact
and matters of value, but not sharply; Plato understands the distinction,
but opposes it strongly. Protagoras, as we will see, together with the
opinion of the masses on democracy matters, makes a sharper distinction
than Taylor is prepared to accept. The fact that one can be trained in de-
cision-making does not imply that the training itself involves no deci-
sions, and the fact that one is an expert in temple building does not imply
that they must be built, as Taylor himself may be ready to accept. Tech-
nical matters address means, while value issues (What Taylor calls ques-
tions of preference) address ends. So the distinction between, on the one
hand, decisions taken out of values and concern to ends, and on the other
hand, knowledge of facts that concern means—remains clear and sharp.
It seems that Taylor, in his haste to take up a position, fails to make a
distinction between Protagoras’ and Plato’s points of view. Plato indeed
thinks that the whole matter is one of experts, while Protagoras believes
that in these matters there is no such thing as expertise. Plato reduces
“preference” matters to knowledge of facts. This is the source for the su-
periority he attributes to expertise.23 For Plato there are only technical
subjects; that is, he reduces all other patterns of activity to goal-oriented
or purposive activity.24 Protagoras thinks that the means-ends distinction
has nothing to do with political life. For Protagoras, politics is not a
technical matter. He is neither a Machiavellian nor a representative of the
modern State.
Let me return to Plato’s line of argumentation. Socrates concludes at
the end of this discussion that virtue is not teachable. Now he asks Pro-
tagoras to prove that it is teachable. Plato’s genuine and non-ironic point
of view is that virtue is teachable in principle, but not in practice.
Let me now resume Socrates’ arguments. Socrates begins his discus-
sion with Protagoras by offering two arguments that challenge Pro-
tagoras’ pretensions of being a teacher of political virtue.
First Socratic Argument. If virtue were teachable, then its teaching
should be left to experts. Most Athenians do not accept this assumption,
144 Chapter 6
however. They allow all citizens to express their ideas on political mat-
ters. Democracy assumes that there are no such experts, that there is no
need for special training or certificates of any kind. Athenians assume
that virtue is not teachable.
Second Socratic Argument. If virtue were teachable, then political
leaders as Pericles would teach it to their sons. This, however, is not the
case, since Pericles leave his sons, Xenthippos and Parallos, to “wander
about on their own like sacred cattle looking for pasture, hoping to pick
up virtue by chance” (Prt. 320d). Virtue is then, regarded as non-
teachable, even by the best of the Athenians.
This is the case, however, if we take into account only what Socrates
explicitly asserts. A more profound interpretation, however, would reveal
that the argument here is not that virtue is not teachable, but only that
(according to the presuppositions of Protagoras) we do not know how to
teach it. Indeed, it is not Socrates who assumes that virtue is not teach-
able, but the Athenians, at least as he portrays them in his first argument.
It is noteworthy, however, that the discussion is not between the
Athenians and Protagoras, nor is it about the way Socrates understands
the Athenians, nor even is it between Socrates and Protagoras about how
they understand the Athenians. The discussion is between Protagoras and
Socrates. Placing just their discussion at the focus, the question about the
possibility of teaching virtue becomes much more complex than it looks
at first glance. Indeed, apparently, there is no discussion between Pro-
tagoras and Socrates on this point. Indeed, both agree that virtue is teach-
able. This is, therefore, not the issue under discussion. The issue under
discussion, as I will try to show, concerns why virtue is teachable and the
way each one understands the meaning of teaching.
As a matter of principle, Plato maintains that virtue is teachable be-
cause it is knowledge. Protagoras also maintains that virtue is teachable.
Indeed, they have no quarrel on this point. Due to this apparent agree-
ment, John Stewart even asserts, against George Grote and Friedrich
Schleiermacher’s opinion,25 that the Protagorean myth is a Platonic
myth—a story that embodies Platonic philosophy.26
However, the discussion is precisely on the point were they seem to
agree. For Protagoras, indeed, virtue is teachable because it is not knowl-
edge. If virtue were knowledge, it would then be unteachable.
Protagoras and Plato understand virtue and knowledge in very differ-
ent ways. Michael O’Brien summarizes the discussion quite cogently:
“Virtue is knowledge, says Socrates, and yet no one teaches it or learns
it. Everyone teaches it and learns it, says Protagoras, but it is no knowl-
edge.”27 Obviously, the fact that no one teaches something does not nec-
Introduction to the Dialogue 145
rhetoric , full of sp irit and life," and that " the exact amount of resem-
blance between the original and the caricature is impossible to de-
termine. ".lOA: I tried to explain in my introduction on interpretation, any
e.asy assumption that the text itself is confused or contradictory effec-
tively prevents us from thinking further about it. On the other hand, I
agree with Vlastos' observation that the theory of measurement is the
counterweight in length and substance to Protagoras' "G reat Speech.,,31
We can understand the tale of Protagoras as a reflection on values
whose value is decisive for the whole discussion. In the dialogue, indeed,
what is under discussion is whether the difference suggested in the tale
between pleasure (represented by the image of the Titan Epimetheus),
efficiency, or technical skill (represented by the Titan Prometheus) and
the moral good (represented by Zeus) is a qualitative difference, o r al l
values are reducible to one--<;alled Virtue, Good, or Truth. Protagoras'
homo mensura proposes a qualitative distinction between values. Plato's
theory of measurement proposes to reduce all o f them to one. But we
must now pass directly to an analysis of the tale and after that to an
analysi s of Protagoras ' discourse.
Notes
and John Walsh, “The Dramatic Dates of Plato’s Protagoras and the Lesson of
Areté,” CQ 34 (1984): 101-6.
6. One problem with the interpretation of irony is to ascribe it to Socrates
also when he did not intend to be ironic; turn to the use of irony as an explana-
tory device. This is the case, I believe, with Vlastos’ assertion that Socrates dis-
avowal of knowledge and teaching (education) includes irony. See Gregory
Vlastos, Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher (Cambridge [England]: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1991), 31 ff., 83 ff. Vlastos however, asserts that So-
cratic has a moderate, “complex irony,” namely, “a figure of speech in which
what is said both is and isn’t what is meant” (Vlastos, Socrates: Ironist and
Moral Philosopher, 13-4).
7. Paul Friedländer, Plato I: An Introduction (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton
University Press, 1964), 7.
8. Koyré, Discovering Plato, 20.
9. Robinson refers to a method of inference, missing, in my opinion, the
point, namely, Plato’s attempt to reduce the form of knowledge to its content.
See Richard Robinson, Plato’s Early Dialectic (London: Oxford University
Press, 1953), 33-7.
10. This idea comes to them from Aristotle, who said that Socrates used in-
ductive arguments (see Met. 1078).
11. Christopher C. W. Taylor, ed., Plato: Protagoras (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1976), 67.
12. See Diogenes Laertius, LEP, bk. IX, 54.
13. About the comic aspect of the dialogue, see Philip Ambrose, “Socrates
and Prodicus in the Clouds,” in Essays in Ancient Greek Philosophy, ed. John P.
Anton (Albany: SUNY, 1983), 132-4.
14. See O’Brien on ambulatory and sedentary sophists. In contrast to natu-
ral philosophers the sophists are but a reaction to them, they are sedentary since
they wandered only among cities, not in order to investigate but to spread the
results of science, in a formalistic mood, as I tried to show. Michael O’Brien,
The Socratic Paradoxes and the Greek Mind (Chapel Hill: University of North
Carolina, 1967), 127. See Gomperz on the sedentary character of the new sci-
ence contrasting with the former natural philosophy. Heinrich Gomperz, GT I,
297.
15. About the sedentary character of Hippias, see Patrick Coby, Socrates
and the Sophistic Enlightenment, 44.
16. Socrates, in his analysis of Simonides’ poem, actually supports the the-
sis of Protagoras, though taking it to extremes, showing indeed that the poem is
merely a façade for hidden purposes . . . just the purpose to demonstrate some
Socratic theses!
17. I agree with O’Brien, in that Socrates understands “teaching” as in-
struction in opposite to education. See O’Brien, The Socratic Paradoxes, 141.
An opposite view is that of Adkins, who asserts that “the areté of the agathos
polites of the fifth century is a skill, a Techné,” Arthur W. H. Adkins, Merit and
Responsibility: A Study in Greek Values (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960), 244.
See also Schiappa, Protagoras and Logos, 169.
Introduction to the Dialogue 149
18. Woodruf takes seriously the distinction made by Socrates between edu-
cation and technical training in Prt. 312b, concluding that he holds similar views
to Protagoras in 317c. Socrates distinction is made only for the sake of the dis-
cussion, not as his final point of view. Paul Woodruf, “Plato’s Early Theory of
Knowledge,” in Essays on the Philosophy of Socrates, Hugh H. Benson, ed.,
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 94. However, he asserts in the same
page (and note 14) that “Protagorean teaching includes the nurture (eutrophia)
of the soul, and Socrates takes the narrower view that teaching is imparting a
techné, and leads to professional confidence.”
19. In Plato’s philosophy, the very turn to facts as a device for demonstra-
tions is a proof of his irony.
20. Socrates’ irony in this passage is a clear proof that he thinks that virtue
is teachable. See Kraut, who sustains the same opinion. Richard Kraut, “Reply
to Clifford Orwin,” in Platonic Writings, Platonic Readings, Charles Griswold
Jr., ed., (London: Routledge, 1988), 178. Accordingly, he also contends, rightly,
that “when Socrates disclaims knowledge, he is merely being ironic” (“Reply to
Clifford Orwin,” 179).
21. Taylor, Plato: Protagoras, 73.
22. Taylor, Plato: Protagoras, 73.
23. Christopher C. W. Taylor is right in asserting that Socrates “assumes
that the only subjects which ‘can be learned and taught’ are technical subjects.”
Plato: Protagoras, 74.
24. See Meno 93a-94d; Alc. I, 118c-119b; Lach. 179a-d.
25. George Grote, Plato and the Other Companions of Sokrates, volume II
(London: John Murray, 1865, rep. Bristol, England: Thoemmes Press, 1992), 47.
Schleiermacher, Introductions to the Dialogues, 87.
26. John A. Stewart, Myths of Plato (London: Macmillan, 1905), 220.
27. O’Brien, The Socratic Paradoxes, 18.
28. See Cropsey, who resumes the positions of Plato and Protagoras at the
end of the dialogue in a similar way: “Socrates notes the confusion of their posi-
tions, he denying that virtue is teachable but proving that it is knowledge, Pro-
tagoras insisting that it is teachable but denying that it is knowledge.” Joseph
Cropsey, Plato’s World: Man’s Place in the Cosmos (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1995), 26. Note however, that Cropsey agrees with the stand
taken by Plato when resuming the discussion and valuates it as a confusion. I
agree with Cropsey’s description, but take a stand neither for Plato nor for Pro-
tagoras.
29. See also when Protagoras says to Socrates that he is going “to dispense
with myths” and “give you a discourse” (Prt. 324d).
30. Heinrich Gomperz, GT, II, 310.
31. Vlastos, Protagoras, xxxviii, n. 46. Vlastos, however, does not go into
the main issue under discussion: the relationships between virtue, pleasure, and
efficiency.
Chapter 7
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
I would like to defend the thesis that the tale and the speech express the
authentic views of Protagoras. In this matter, I concur with Guthrie, Ker-
ferd, and Romilly.1 My main reason for this contention is that the tale is
strange enough to Plato’s thought. Moreover, all the dialogue, so I will
try to show, is a discussion of Plato against the ideas exposed by means
of the tale.
Let me begin by summarizing the tale, so that I can give some em-
phasis to the points that we will need to refer to when we undertake the
interpretation proper.
The tale tells us of a time when the gods existed, but the species had
not yet been created. When the time determined by Destiny for their birth
came, the gods modeled the species with a mixture of earth, fire, and all
the rest of the substances made from earth and fire. The gods then
charged the Titans Epimetheus and Prometheus with distributing quali-
ties among the mortal creatures who were soon going to be born. Epi-
metheus implored Prometheus to let him do the work of distributing the
qualities, telling Prometheus that he needed do nothing but judge the re-
sult of Epimetheus’ work when it was done. Prometheus agreed.
So Epimetheus distributed powers and qualities among mortal crea-
tures. He furnished some with strength and others with speed. He sup-
plied the species with natural weapons and other qualities designed to
ensure their survival. In his distribution, he balanced each species against
the other, and provided all of them with such qualities that would prevent
their mutual destruction.
After the distribution of the qualities of defense, he bestowed them
with protection against inclement weather. To some, he gave thick hair
151
152 Chapfer 7
and thick skin that might shield them from the heat and the cold, so that
they could sleep without coats. He gave hard hooves to some and tough
bloodless sk in to others.
Once Epimetheus had assured their defense against other species and
the inclemency of the weather, he gave each species a different kind of
food. He provided some with herbs, others with fruits, still others with
roots, and some with flesh. He made predators scant in number and gave
their victims the gift of fertility as a way to maintain their species.
Epimetheus, notw ithstanding his name (afterthinker), was not very
wise (sophos). In fact, he was a squanderer of resources. He did not keep
his eye on the well-being of all the species. When it finally became time
to give some quality to human beings, he had nothing left to give them.
He had not set out to do them harm; he was unable to plan.
When Ep imetheus realized his mistake, it was too late to rectify it.
Then Prometheus (forethinker) returned to inspect Epimetheus' work. I
use the tenn "work," but it was not really work; it was an act of distribu-
tion of qualities according to the command of the gods. He undertook the
activity with pleasure and enthusiasm.
Prometheus saw that all the species were harmoniously equipped to
cope with life, except human beings. They had no claws, nor clothes, nor
weapons, nor food. Human beings were naked and helpless on all
fronts-against the other species, against the weather's harshness, and
against the threat of starvation.
But the day of destiny was at hand, the day that all the mortal crea-
tures must go forth into daylight. This grave and critical situation re-
qui red quickness of decision, practical thinking, and successful action
under pressure. Prometheus was able 10 rise to the occasion; he accom-
plished what Epimetheus could not. Since no other qualities were avail-
able, he stole technica l skill (~VHXVOV (TO~~a.I.I) from Athena and the
fire from Hephaestus, since technical skill, as a means, has no value
without fire. He gave these gifts to humankind, and incurred the wrath of
Zeus, whose punishment of Prometheus is well known.
Thus, human beings were now in possession of practical skill or
practical wisdom U~~ QI.I q"O ~: a 1.1) as a means for their life. However, po-
litical wisdom, which al lows people to live together, is not a technical
skill. According to the tale, it does not come from Prometheus. Political
wisdom has a thoroughly different character; it is in the hands of Zeus in
his citadel, a stronghold that even Prometheus could not enter. Bes ides,
there was not enough lime to plan a way into Zeus ' stately home. How-
ever, il was relatively easy to sneak into the dwelling shared by
Hephaestus and Athena and steal their arts.
The Tale of Pro/agoras 153
The Interpretation of th e Ta le
This absence, the form, is not thoroughly absent. The form is absent
only in the sense that it does not take part in the content. Namely, it is not
in the focal point of attention, of the intentio recta. It is visible only to
oblique attention. What is it that does not take part in the content? What
is absent from the original intentional consciousness but present for the
reflective intentional consciousness? It is the opposite of the ideatum. It
is what Descartes called formal reality or actual reality. It is not the text,
but the context. Indeed, there is no text without a context. This context
does not appear in the original consciousness, but only in reflective con-
sciousness.
Context is the subject matter of reflection. The context is not the
content for the mind that relates the tale. The context is the mind itself,
the telling consciousness. It is not the object but the subject. Now, in re-
flection, the subject matter is not the myth of Protagoras, but Protagoras
the myth-teller. From this perspective, the myth is an expression of the
thought of the person who tells it.
The subject, which is the issue under reflection, is real, close to us,
here and now; the subject is distant from the mythic content. It is the
myth’s real and not ideal aspect. Reflection attends to the real grounds of
the tale. It does not refer to the characters personified by the myth, but to
those who tell it and those who hear it. In reflection, the state of mind of
the hearer and of the teller is directly oriented to the subject and indi-
rectly oriented to the characters.
Interpretation is therefore a reflection upon the subjects of mythical
thought, not about the myth itself. Interpretation does not concern itself
with the object of thought but with the actual qualities of the subject as
an object of analysis. It is noteworthy that by actual subject I mean those
who are interested in the myth, who find it meaningful and who are
ready, consequently, to pay attention to it.
Thus, it is not our concern whether the characters of the myth, Zeus,
Prometheus and Epimetheus, have an existence beyond the mythic con-
sciousness. They concern us insofar as they are objectivations of mythi-
cal consciousness, namely the mind of Protagoras and his listeners. Inso-
far as they are objectivations, we direct our interest to those who objec-
tify rather than on what is being objectified. For this reason, the myth can
be called, as Eric Havelock calls it, “the story of man,” even if Epime-
theus is reported, apparently, as unrelated to human capacities.8
Now we can ask whether Protagoras himself has a mythic conscious-
ness, or whether he himself, like us—though at another level—is beyond
the mythic mind. If this is the case, as I believe it is, then for Protagoras,
the myth has only an allegoric meaning. I mean, that for Protagoras the
myth is already not a myth. Allegory implies keeping a distance from the
156 Chapter 7
them where to dig for ore, iron, silver, and gold. In short, he introduced
them to all the arts and comforts of living.
Now, this last description of Prometheus’ technical gifts is not very
far away from Protagoras’ tale, but there is one important difference.
Protagoras’ version does not contain such vivid images. It is not just a
matter of brevity, but a shift of interest. Protagoras does not go into de-
tails because he is interested in the principle of Prometheus’ activity, just
as he is interested in the principles underlying the activity of the rest of
the gods. The traditional myth, in its many versions, emphasizes concrete
results and attempts to explain the origin of many different and specific
human activities. Protagoras looks at Prometheus only as one who
brought only basic principles: fire and technical wisdom. The rest is hu-
man labor, not the labor of a god.
Protagoras accepts the tradition that Zeus punished Prometheus by
causing eagles to devour his perpetually regenerating liver. However, he
does not say that Zeus also punished humans. Also, in Protagoras’ re-
telling of the myth, Zeus punished Prometheus because he stole fire from
Hephaestus and technical skill from Athena, not because he gave fire to
human beings. The difference is subtle but important.15
Now let us turn to Epimetheus. According to legend, Epimetheus was
the brother of Prometheus. They are a pair that forms an exact antithesis.
In this point, Protagoras follows tradition. However, Protagoras’ version
departs from tradition on one essential point: tradition holds that Epime-
theus was Zeus’ stratagem for deceiving the industrious and crafty Pro-
metheus. According to Protagoras, Epimetheus could never be used as a
tool of deception. Epimetheus simply cannot be manipulated or recruited
for any cause, as we will see presently. Furthermore—according to Pro-
tagoras—Zeus does not have a deceitful or manipulative character.
According to tradition, Pandora was offered to Epimetheus by Zeus.
Because Epimetheus could not resist her, he became responsible for the
misfortunes of humanity. There is hardly any trace of this in Protagoras’
version, except that Epimetheus remains open to temptation. However, as
we will see in the interpretation of the tale, the Epimethean principle of
pleasure is not a misfortune for humanity.16
Finally, regarding Zeus, his importance in Greek mythology is so
great that innumerable versions of his character can be found. The per-
sonality of Zeus was created in the Homeric poems (or rather, in the oral
tradition that Homer eventually committed to writing). Zeus was the sov-
ereign of humans and gods and reigned in the luminescent heights of the
sky. He resided, often, at the summit of Mount Olympus, but he also
traveled. Gradually, Zeus’ home was detached from any specific moun-
The Tale of Protagoras 159
tain and the word “Olympus” designated only an ethereal region defined
as the dwelling of the gods. The place became a function of the gods.
Zeus not only presided over celestial manifestations, but also pro-
voked rainfalls and hurled lightning bolts—a power symbolized by his
aegis. Later, in a more advanced mythical period, he became a more ab-
stract god, the embodiment of order and the justice in the world. In the
Hellenic thought, the gods passed through an evolutionary process that
began with the attribution to them of a cosmic value; then they became
the heroes of legends and finally mere allegories. Protagoras stands at the
end of this process, as does Plato himself.
Even the Zeus of cosmic justice and order is not the Zeus thematized
by Protagoras. Some time later the Stoics returned to precisely this cos-
mic, non-anthropocentric tradition of the Olympian gods. Crisipus, who
dedicated a poem to Zeus, regards him as the symbol of the unique God
who incarnates the cosmos. The laws governing the world are but Zeus’
thoughts. This is the extreme border of the evolution of god, and it brings
us out of the bounds of mythology and into the field of theology and the
history of philosophy.
Closer to Protagoras is the Zeus who was responsible for the purifica-
tion of the murderers, the one who cleansed their stain of blood; this is
the same Zeus who watched over the making of oaths and the perform-
ance of duties toward guests. This Zeus is the guarantor of political rule
and, in general, for the social hierarchy.
Zeus exercises these prerogatives not only concerning human beings
but also within the society of gods. He himself is subject to the Hades
whom he interprets and whom he defends against the fancies of the rest
of the gods. For instance, when he weighs the destinies of Achilles and
Hector and the saucer of the balance that contains them descends to the
Hades, he forbids Apollo to intervene; he abandons the hero to the hands
of his enemy. It is very important to stress that Zeus is the only provi-
dential god. Being conscious of his responsibility, Zeus is the only one
who is not ruled by his capricious loves. His whims are not exempt from
certain limits.
Zeus is the dispenser of good and evil. By the door of his palace,
there were two vessels, one containing goodness, and the other evil. Zeus
takes out a little bit of each for each mortal. However, sometimes he
takes out the content of only one jar; this destiny will be completely good
or completely evil.
Protagoras’ Zeus is not a god of evil, though he is a god of morality,
of responsibility, and of repression of instincts. Finally Protagoras’ Zeus
is not a god but a principle; specifically, the principle of morality.
160 Chapter 7
value to estimate the result. The requested goal is the measure of the re-
sult.
Prometheus, as the god of foresight and planning, sacrifices the pre-
sent on behalf of the future. Every quality becomes in his eyes something
measurable and quantitatively comparable to every other thing; quality is
reduced by him to quantitative units. So as Epimetheus was the symbol
of creative thinking, Prometheus is the symbol of productive thinking.
For this kind of thinking, products and merchandise have value only in-
sofar as they can be translated into numerical units. This translation con-
stitutes the principle of money. A typical Promethean question is, “How
much of this must I give up to obtain so much of that?”
The term “useful” in this regard is very ambiguous.26 It may suggest
an Epimethean as well as a Promethean meaning. Epimetheus is the god
of consumption. In this sense utility or usefulness means consumption of
a source of enjoyment or, if you prefer to put this in Promethean terms,
destruction and waste. For Prometheus, the god of production, usefulness
or utility are values attributable to the means of consumption, to produc-
tive means.27 A breakfast, for example, may be regarded as either Epi-
methean or Promethean. But then, we are talking about two very differ-
ent kinds of breakfast. An Epimethean spends the morning relaxing
around the table with his family, enjoying the food and the company. A
Promethean swallows a cup of coffee and a piece of toast while keeping
one eye on the clock.
Now some would argue that one’s breakfast need not go to either ex-
treme. Instead of lounging around in Epimethean style or gobbling hast-
ily like Prometheus, one could have one’s breakfast at a reasonable pace
and still get to work on time. We can obviously reconcile these opposing
tendencies. But reconciliation is nothing but the expression of a conflict
between opposite tendencies. The conflict may be solved, but it is not
abolished. It is held in abeyance.
Let me offer another example of the difference between Epimethean
and Promethean values. A piece of merchandise has a different value for
the seller and the buyer; it is useful in two very different and even oppo-
site meanings. For the seller it has a Promethean value, and for the buyer
an Epimethean value (unless of course he buys for selling). For the seller,
quality is a means for achieving quantitative value. For the buyer, the
translation into quantitative units is a means for establishing the quality
of the object, or its capacity to bring about pleasure, in the sense of being
in itself pleasant. For the seller, a commodity has an economic value,
namely, an exchange-value. He is concerned with its transfer for achiev-
ing some plus-value. For the buyer a commodity has a use-value rather
than an economic value. Spending and transferring commodities is not an
The Tale of Protagoras 167
According to the tale, people who are furnished merely with technical
skill and Epimethean impulses cannot survive. In other words, the human
condition cannot be explained as originating solely in man’s instincts and
technology or technical knowledge, phusis and techné. We cannot ex-
plain human beings on the sole basis of pleasure and efficiency (techni-
cal knowledge). These qualities alone cannot account for the social con-
nections that bind human beings to one another.
Epimethean impulses are incapable of creating an ordered, political
society, since they do not provide the basis for respecting the needs of
one’s neighbor. Desires recognize no limits. We may say the same of
Promethean reasoning. From a Promethean standpoint, other people are
always a means to be exploited for the sake of an end. Thomas Hobbes
bases his view that force and mutual fear are the grounds of political ex-
istence on the Promethean principle. According to the myth, however,
politics is not—indeed cannot be—an issue for Promethean specialists,
as Plato would like; a society grounded solely on fear, coercion, and mu-
tual exploitation—is almost inconceivable. Humans require, therefore,
some qualities that Epimetheus and Prometheus cannot provide.35 Thus
Zeus, through Hermes, gave humankind shame and justice.36 Zeus’s
choice of these particular powers was not fortuitous: shame and justice
are limits, restraints. Shame is anti-Epimethean in the sense that it func-
tions to restrain Epimethean urges; and justice is anti-Promethean. Jus-
tice modifies and controls the Promethean avidity for the end, as ex-
pressed in the idea that the end justifies the means.
Political virtue, then, consists of the ability to repress both Prome-
thean avidity and Epimethean instincts. Virtue is a kind of (let me put it
170 Chapter 7
lation with one of the three aspects of human activity and an indirect re-
lation with the rest. Namely, each character valuates the rest starting
with, or out of, his own value-standpoint.
Now, Protagoras’ task in relating the tale is to determine different
kinds of human activity by assigning to each kind its peculiar value.
Human activity as a whole, in all three aspects, is the philosopher’s cen-
tral interest.
The sophistic period in the history of philosophy is correctly called
“the anthropological period.” Even sophists who deal with non-human
things like Hippias, whose specialty was astronomy, sustained humanist
philosophies. Hippias was not interested in astronomy itself, but in the
way that human beings understand the order of the universe. Nor was
Protagoras interested in the way human beings understand things in gen-
eral, but rather in how human beings understand themselves, their own
activity, their own attitude toward things. Since Protagoras did not be-
lieve in myths, these conclusions may be the best way for us to under-
stand his philosophy. His concern was not with Epimetheus, Prometheus,
and Zeus, but with human values.
The tale of Protagoras does not present the structure of the human
soul as a harmonic totality with a well-defined hierarchy of values. He
describes humans as beings in conflict with both themselves and each
other.40 Personifying each aspect or value-standpoint, we can say that it
acts according to its own point of view and in disagreement with the
point of view of the two others. Values are in struggle each with the
other. Human beings have a conflictive soul.
According to the tale, there are at least three kinds of reasoning based
on three kinds of values: pleasure, efficiency, and morality.41 The theo-
retical singularity of this model is that, although an activity undertaken
on the basis of one type of reasoning can be in harmony with the values
associated with the other two types of reasoning, it can also be in contra-
diction with them, so that the different principles may be clearly distin-
guished. Thus an act may give pleasure but be both wasteful and im-
moral; or it may be useful in regard to the end but immoral and painful;
or, finally, it may be moral but inefficient and unpleasant. What this
means is that there is no harmony between goodness, pleasure, and
profit. None of these values is reducible to any of the others.
Hence, if men are considered to be means, they cannot be considered,
at the same time and from the same standpoint, as ends. Prometheus acts
adequately according to his own point of view, namely, efficiency, but he
must pay the price of his values: his acts are neither moral nor are they
pleasurable in themselves. Morality may be, from this standpoint, an ef-
ficient or inefficient means for a different thing, for an end.
172 Chapter 7
Notes
1. William K. C. Guthrie, The Sophists (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, 1972), 63-8. George B. Kerferd, The Sophistic Movement (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 125-6. Jacqueline de Romilly, The
Great Sophists in Periclean Athens (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), 196-203.
On the other hand, Havelock contends that Plato was not a reporter. Plato “could
have had only one purpose—to replace the original by his own version and to
destroy so far as possible the effect of the original by dramatizing his own as
though it were the original.” Eric A. Havelock, The Liberal Temper in Greek
Politics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1957), 88. When, however, he fails
to relate some passages to Plato, changes his mind and asserts that Plato allows
“some grudging exposition of a theory he disliked” (170). Stalley has recently
wrote a paper where he doubts the authenticity of the myth and attributes it to
Plato, though influenced perhaps by Protagoras. See R. F. Stalley, “Punishment
in Plato’s Protagoras,” Phronesis 40 (1995): 1-6. In my opinion, he shows per-
haps the influence of Protagoras on the non-Socratic Plato. Kahn asserts that it is
a fruit of Plato’s literary imagination. See Charles H. Kahn, “Greek Religion and
Philosophy in the Sisyphus Fragment,” Phronesis 42/3 (1997): 256.
2. Interesting to stress, that according to the myth, the art of war is not a
technical skill but a moral issue, which means that efficiency is not a kernel
point in ancient military affairs.
3. The word aiådwƒv, sense of shame, is also sense of honor, regard for
others, respect, and so forth. English translations, excepting Grote, Stanley and
Bell, and Hubbard and Karnofsky’s translations, avoid translating “sense of
shame.” As will be seen later, that amounts to a misconception of the myth, or
the introduction of the translator’s own values into the text.
4. Here it is hinted that technical skills have nothing in common with jus-
tice matters, and that justice matters are concerned with distribution of re-
sources.
5. I am in debt in my interpretation to Michael Strauss, my teacher, from
whom I heard for the first time of such an interpretation of the myth, as part of
his lectures on the nature of human values and human behavior. I have at-
tempted a first draft of the interpretation of the myth of Protagoras as an answer
to Plato’s Theory of Measurement in my “The Myth of Protagoras and Plato’s
Theory of Measurement.”
6. William K. C. Guthrie, HGP, vol. III, 64.
7. See Umberto Eco, La struttura assente (Milano: T. Bompiani, 1989),
especially his critical analysis of the concept of structure in “Section D” on the
foundations of the semiotic investigation.
174 Chapter 7
1976), I, 2, 2ss, 7, 1s.; II. 5, 11. Valerius Flaccus, Argonauts (Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press, 1934), VII, 355s. Stobaeus, Florilegium (Leipzig:
Meinecke, 1855), 11, 27. Pausanias, Description of Greece (New York: Biblo
and Tannen, 1965), IX, 25, 6; X, 4, 4. Diodoros of Sicily, Bibliotheque histori-
que (Paris: Belles Lettres, 1993), V, 67. Ovid, Metamorphosen (Heidelberg: C.
Winter Universitaetverlag, 1982), 1, 82s. Seneca, Medea, 709. Juvenal, The
Satires, XIV, 35. Salomon Reinach, Cultes, Mythes et Religions (Paris: E.
Leroux, 1905), III, 68-91. Karl Kerényi, Prometheus, Zurich: Rhein-Verlag,
1946). Louis Sechan, Le Mythe de Promethée (Paris: Presses Universitaires de
France, 1951). Jacqueline Duchemin, Promethee: histoire du mythe, de ses
origines orientales a ses incarnations modernes (Paris: Belles-Lettres, 1974).
Gustav Schwab, Gods & Heroes (New York: Pantheon Books, 1946), 31-5.
Menachem Luz, “Antisthenes’ Prometheus Myth,” in Jacob Bernays: Un phi-
lologue juif, John Glucker, John, and André Laks, eds. (Villeneuve d’Ascq:
Presses Universitaires du Septentrion, 1996). Karl Kerényi, The Gods of the
Greeks, 207-39. Michael Grant, Myths of the Greeks and Romans (London:
Wiedenfeld and Nicolson, 1962), 200-14.
16. About Epimetheus, see: Hesiod, Theogony, 511s, and Works and Days,
83s. Apollodorus, Biblioteca, I. 2, 3; 7, 2. Hyginus, Fabularum Liber, 142. See
also last note on Prometheus.
17. The texts referring to Zeus are too numerous to be quoted here. This is
a much reduced list: Homer, Iliad, 1, 396s., VIII, 13s.; XXIV, 527s., 229,
XXIV, 615. Hesiod, Theogony. Pausanias, Description of Greece, VIII. 38, 2,
IV, 33, I. Lydus, Liber de mensibus (Stutgart, B. G. Teubneri, 1967), IV, 48.
Apollodorus, Biblioteca, I, 1, 6; 2, 1s. Diodoros of Sicily, Bibliotheque histori-
que (Paris: Belles Lettres, 1993), v. 70s. Ovid, Metamorphosen, Vl, 103s. Virgil,
Georgics, IV, 153. Hyginus, Fabularum Liber (New York: Garland, 1976),
pref., 19s., 23s., 31s. A. B. Cook, Zeus (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1925).
18. There are interpreters who believe that it is a Platonic myth (see Grote,
Einleitung zum Protagoras, 422-3.) John A. Stewart agrees with him (The Myths
of Plato, 220-2). Stewart’s textual evidence is that Plato expresses his deep ad-
miration for the speech and due to Plato’s conclusion, namely, that virtue is
teachable, namely, because it is his own opinion. Let me say against his inter-
pretation that: (1) Plato’s admiration is only ironical. Indeed, immediately he
discusses against the distinctions arising from the myth between the different
values. (2) The very discussion is not whether virtue is teachable, but about the
meaning of its being teachable. Indeed, that virtue is teachable is not under dis-
cussion, though it seems, at first glance, that this is the subject matter of the
discussion in the Protagoras.
19. Karl Abraham offers an interpretation of Prometheus very different
from mine. Prometheus is the life-giving god, and connects him with sexual im-
pulses. Though he does not refer to the Protagoras version at all, the distinction
between Epimetheus and Prometheus, in his versions, remains without an ex-
planation. See Karl Abraham, “The Analysis of the Prometheus Myth,” Clinical
Papers and Essays on Psycho-Analysis (London: The Hogarth Press and the
176 Chapter 7
the test. In situations of this kind, a decision must be made between one’s inter-
est in the subject for its own sake and one’s need to study it in order to pass an
examination.
43. Stewart takes, as a model for the analysis of the myth, the Kantian dis-
tinction between the mechanical and teleological explanation of the world.
Stewart, The Myths of Plato, 222-5. The Epimethean qualities, though they serve
for the survival of the species, were bestowed without a plan. There is not in this
any forethought. I agree with Stewart in that there is no pretension for teleology
in Epimetheus’ activity. However, I think, contrary to Stewart, that the myth is
not about natural reality. It is about the value-meaning of human values and ac-
tivity. Even in this point there is a difference between the Protagorean version
and the original myth. The emphasis in the original myth is upon the nature of
the species. Protagoras thematizes the way Epimetheus behaves, not the results
of his activity. Epimetheus, indeed, is guided, to put it in Freudian terms, by the
principle of pleasure and by pleasure as the motive for his activity.
44. According to Stewart, Epimetheus bestows the phusis, Prometheus
brings techné, which comes, following Aristotle (Phys. II, 8, 199a15) as a com-
plement to phusis, and Hermes offers areté, as distinct from both phusis and
techné. Stewart, The Myths of Plato, 226. Virtue, he adds, is teachable in the
same sense as language is learned, without special instruction (226). However,
the myth of Protagoras does not explain, in his opinion, that virtue is teachable
though not a matter of instruction, but the myth explains only the difference
between values. It is the discourse about education that tells us how virtue is
taught, namely, explains how humans educate. Nill thinks that Prometheus be-
stows the demiourgike techné, whereas Zeus brings the politike techné. Michael
Nill, Morality and Self-Interest in Protagoras Antiphon and Democritus (Lei-
den: E. J. Brill, 1985), 6. The passage leading to this interpretation is Prt. 322a-
b. According to my interpretation, though Zeus brings the political value of
common life, this value is not technical. Actually, this runs against the explicit
expression in the text. But since Plato himself did not, in his philosophy, make
such a difference, it may be that it is a purposeful misinterpretation of Pro-
tagoras. I prefer to leave the point undecided.
45. For another view, see Nill, Morality and Self-Interest, 14. He asserts
that Protagoras’ thesis is that there is no conflict between virtues.
Chapter 8
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
After showing, by means of his tale, that there is no unity among virtues,
in his speech (logos) Protagoras will lay the ground for his position in the
discussion of whether virtue is teachable or not.
The division of Protagoras speech into two parts, muthos and logos, is
the exposition of his credo in the discussion along the whole dialogue.
The dialogue itself is divided into two main sections according to the
parts of Protagoras’ speech. One section is the discussion around the tale,
specifically, how the values in the tale relate to one another. Is the rela-
tionship among different values analogous to the relationship of the parts
of the face to each other (as Protagoras maintains), or is it analogous to
the relationship among different parts of gold to each other (as Plato
claims)?
The second section is the discussion around the discourse, that is,
whether virtue can be taught. If it is knowledge, it is teachable, according
to Plato. Plato tries to support his point by his theory of measurement.
Protagoras, for his part, asserts that there is a place for education (though
not instruction) precisely because virtue is not knowledge. This last point
is the subject matter of his reasoned discourse.
Protagoras’ discourse is a direct continuation of his tale, though it
does not answer the same question. There is something in the text that
prevents us from easily grasping the course of his argumentation. Pro-
tagoras asks his audience if they would like to hear his argumentation by
means of a tale or by means of a logos (Prt. 320b). This question creates
the impression that the only difference between the two approaches lies
in the presentation. The content remains the same either way.
179
180 Chapler 8
how to deceive are mad, whereas in arts and crafts (techmi), those who
do decei ve are mad.
In craft, skill, or art, o nl y a knowledgeable few have the right to give
adv ice. In matters of justice, by contrast, everybody may speak. This
does not mean that agreement will necessarily follow; it only means that
everybody has the right to co ntribute his opinion. Protagoras therefore
defends democracy from Socrates ' elitism. Protagoras 323a is a re-
spo nse against the Promethean detractors of democf"3cy who speak in the
name of tech/7(!.3
After this introduction, Protagoras proceeds to explain why virtue is
teachable. What Zeus has to offer is not of the same character as what
Epimetheus has to offer. Epimetheus provides innate and natural qua li-
ties. Justice and virtue howeve r are not given automatica lly to human
beings. They are the fruit of education,
It is noteworthy that these two demonstrations (the principle of mad-
ness and the argument that virtue is teachable) are not logical demon-
strations that try to impose, as it were, certain thought to facts. At any
moment in his analysis, Protagoras does not attempt to impose his own
criterion. He does not have one. In stead, Protagoras tries to distill the
inner logic of the democratic spirit. He pulls his conclusions out of the
facts thai he perceives. The facts that he perceives in his discourse are the
opinions of the people- the way they valuate eac h other's behavior and
values. Protagoras takes, at least partially, an epistemic approach to val-
ues . This approach tries to account for what people really think and
believe. It is not about what Protago ras thinks that they ought 10 think.
He does not judge them but analyzes their judgments. And, since, in his
opinion, the dialogue with Socrates is mostly taking place at an epistemic
leve l-he regards the facts as proofs for his theory.
With this attitude in mind, Protagoras goes into an analysis of what
education can correct and what it cannot. Defects and Epimethean natu-
ral qualities in general, are not amenable to improvement, advice, in-
st ruction, or puni shment. They can only be objects of our compassion,
since nothing can be done with them . But we can indeed do something
when it comes to those qualities that are acquired though application,
exercise, and education. Though it is not natural to be virtuous and just, it
is natura l to have the capacity for virt'ue and justice, that is to say, the
capacity for learning these qualities. We attempt to reform and educate
the unjust and the impious, because they could be just and pious.
In this context, the notion of punishment becomes corrective and pre-
ventive, not retributive. Punishment is a means, a Pro methean tool for the
sake of achieving Zeusian ends . Retributive punishment is more com-
patib le with the Epimethean idea of revenge prevalerlt in ancien t times; it
182 Chapter 8
in fact the answer to the problem could be any one of the three and
be always right according to the standpoint and so according to the
person to whom the problem has been submitted. If it is put to a
doctor, that is, from the standpoint of the medico-legal report on
the cause of death, the answer will be “the javelin.” If it is put to
the judge, that is, from the point of view of criminal responsibility,
the answer will be “the man who threw it.” If it is put to the ad-
ministrative head, that is, from the standpoint of the duty of vigi-
lance incumbent on his subordinate official, the right answer will
be “the supervisor.”6
maker does not do what he does for its own sake, but for the sake of a
goal or a product. By contrast, the teac hing of virtue has an intrinsic
value. [t is valuable in itself, not as a means for something else. Thus
education takes place throughout a life time- it is a way of life. The
schoo l does not teach chi ldren to play the flute in order to make musical
prodigies out of them. Nor does the schoo l teach poetry to children in
order to turn them all into poets or literary spec iali sts. No, the important
thing is that " rh ythm and harmony are essential to every aspect of a
man's life" (Prr. 326b). Whereas inst ruction is ori ented toward the ob-
ject, o r the content o f study, education is oriented toward the subject.
Education concerns the fonn; it is an attempt to change the subject, and
not just to enlarge knowledge.
Education consists in provoking a change in the subject, in bringing a
subject's Epimethean and Promethean impulses into harmony with
Zeusian moral motivations. This is the ideal of education, which is nei-
ther a task nor a goal but a means both in schoo l, where language and
music are taught, and in the State, where those who do not respect the
law are condemned and puni shed.
If Socrates does not understand this, says Protagoras, it is because he
ignores his own perspective. He does not grasp that even the most unjust
people in the civilized State are still more virtuous than any barbarian,
since they are at least aware of being unjust. The problem is not the ab-
sence of leachers of vi rtu e. Quite the contrary. It is precisely because
everybody is engaged in teaching virtue that it seems to Socrates that no-
body is do ing so . It is like looking for the teacher of Greek. Since all
speak this language, all teach il. If Socrates were to live in an evil soci-
ety, he would pray to be returned to Greece to live among those whom he
now considers un virtuous, or at least as unable to teach virtue.
Protagoras, in summary, presents his credentials as educator, not as an
instructor. To educate implies, according to thi s standpo int, to repress, to
restrain certain values, and to encourage others. The aim of education is
the actualization of Zeusian values. Zeus, the god of justice and shame,
restrains both Epimethean impulsiveness and Promethean ambition,
which, left alone, wou ld be both ruth less and limitless. Protagoras thus
anticipates, by some 2,400 years, Freud 's theory that repression is the
price of civilization.
Protagoras' discourse concerns the repressive methods of education
(didakloll). Justi ce, though human in kind, is neither innate nor fortui-
tous, but rather must be deliberately cu ltivated by education. Human be-
ings are born with a capacity, with a fonn to which the socia l ideal ful-
fills with a content and education develops it. Education means the
EducaTion or Ins/rllcliOIl? 185
Notes
I. Protagoras ' discourse is today almost the only source to have a vivid
picture of education and its methods at the times of Socrates and Protagoras. See
Kevin Robb, Literacy and Paideia in Ancient Greece (Ox ford: Oxford Univer-
sity Press, 1994), 128ss and 184ss.
2. It may be asserted, as Gompcrz does (GT. 11 ,31 0), that Protagoras con-
tradicts himself when asserts, in the myth, that anyone has part on justice, and in
the discourse implies that there are those who are unjust though they need to
declare that they are just. I think, on the contrary, not only that there is no con-
tradiction. Moreover, the very need to hide being unjust, implies the acknowl -
edgment of justice. Zeus brought to human beings, therefore, the knowledge of
justice as a quality, namely, he brought the capacity of being just, and not its
implementation.
3. See Michae l O'Brien, The Socratic Paradoxes and rhe Greek Mind
(Chapel Hill: University ofNonh Carolina, 1967), 75.
4. I follow in this Gregory Vlastos' Socrates: lroniSl and Moral Philoso-
pher (Cambridge [England]: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 187; Trevor J.
Saunders' Plato's Penal Code (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), 133-62; Trevor
J. Saunders "The Sophists and Th eir Legacy," in The Sophistic Movement.
George B. Kerferd, ed., (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 129-
141 ; and Eric A. Havelock, The Liberal Tempel' in Greek Politics (New Haven :
Yale University Press, !957), 173-5. For the opi nion that the idea of punishment
advanced by Protagoras is actually Platonic, see R. F. StaIley, "Puni shm ent in
Plato's Proragoras. ,. Phronesis 40 (1995): 1- 19.
5. Plutarch, Pericles, 36 (OK, 80 A 10).
6. Quoted by Untersteiner, from Giuseppe Rensi , Introdllzione alia scepsi
efica, 181; Mario Untersteiner, The Sophists (Oxford: Blackwell , 1954), 31.
Chapter 9
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
tagoras’ belief that every Athenian should be allowed to express his po-
litical opinions is a notion that assumes that virtue is teachable. This very
allowance for plurality of opinions is in itself already a value. Protagoras
intends to say that political virtue is teachable only to human beings, be-
cause they are capable of learning it. Teaching cannot take place unless
there is a subject that learns, someone who has the capacity to be edu-
cated. The meaning of Protagoras’ position is that the boundaries of edu-
cation and of the capacity to educate already exists in human nature.
The subject matter of Protagoras’ philosophy is the subject. The sub-
ject matter of Socrates’ thought is the object. Now let me add that Pro-
tagoras understands the Socrates’ question in a sui generis way. When
Socrates asks whether one can find such a thing as an instructor of virtue,
Protagoras turns the question around and asks whether people are educa-
ble, whether one can find students capable of being virtuous.
To offer an accurate description of the nature of the student, of the
subject, of human nature, Protagoras tells his version of the tale about
human nature. This tale raises all the value issues that will figure in the
course of the dialogue: pleasure, efficiency, and moral good or virtue. In
the tale, they appear already as thoroughly opposed to each other. In this
regard, Protagoras will remain consistent throughout the dialogue.
Let us look a little more deeply at Protagoras’ theory of values and
knowledge, the homo mensura theory, which holds that things are in
themselves what they are for me and are in themselves what they are for
you (in other words, that they are different for me and for you). “homo
mensura” is not a theory about nature or about things. It is a theory about
knowledge. Rather, it is an attempt to build an epistemic analysis of val-
ues and knowledge. It is knowledge of values that are not knowledge in
themselves, and it is knowledge of the form of knowledge.
For Protagoras, things have no intrinsic value. Or, to state the matter
more gently, we cannot know anything about such presumed value. But
on the other hand, our experience with valuable things is valuable in it-
self. Something is good, pleasant, or efficient for someone. In this sense,
the valuable or valued things can be relatively valuable, though the very
valuation of them is not itself relatively valuable. An action is not good
in itself, but in relation to the intention of the subject. A pleasant act is
not pleasant in itself but it is so because a subject experiences it this way.
An object is not useful but for someone that takes it as a means for an
end. There is, therefore, something non-relative—the subject, and there
is something relative—the object. If this is the case, his theory of value is
not relative but relational. Protagoras arrives at this attitude because his
main concern is with the human subject, and not with what is the object
of human subjects, that is, the object of knowledge or the object of
The Protagoras-Socrates Disagreement 191
valuation. Values have a firm terrain: the human subject as the object of
philosophical, reflective knowledge. For this very reason, formalism ig-
nores the main feature of the subject—its subjectivity. If somebody
wants to call this theory “subjectivist,” the term must be understood in
this way, since the subject is not related to an object. The object is mere
illusion. The form is not the form of a content, but the last is reduced to
the first. Subjectivism is a kind of inverted realism that asserts the reality
of the subject.
An attitude that reduces the ideal content of thought to the real think-
ing-subject, diametrically contradicts Plato’s attitude. Plato is an anti-
formalist. Protagoras rejects the anti-formalism based on the objectifying
character of the intentionality of mind without being aware, in his reflec-
tion, of this process. Plato bases his philosophy in this objectifying char-
acter of consciousness without self-consciousness. If the term “objectiv-
ist” is to be understood as the definition of the attitude that denies the
objective character of the object, namely, if the term is understood as re-
ferring to the counter-side of a subject, then the content of the term be-
comes an absolute reality, since it lacks a transcendent reality to the con-
cept, and recognizes only the content of the concept as such, as the con-
tent of a concept alone. The common ground for the Plato-Protagoras
dialogue is, therefore, a lack of awareness of the objectifying phenome-
non. For this reason, the one is placed before experience (Protagoras) and
the other beyond it (Plato).
Both have also in common that they criticize common sense’s experi-
ence. In his anti-formalism, Plato takes to extremes the popular moderate
anti-formalism. Protagoras, in his formalism, annuls it. Both, then, adopt
a perspective that distorts what it analyzes. Both support reflective atti-
tudes about the original intentional act. Plato’s attitude consists of
thinking about the intentional content; he thinks about the content of the
original act. Protagoras thinks about the form of the intention; he reflects
on the subject.3
Notes
1. See Prt. 334c-339c and 349b-350c.
2. Interpreters of Plato’s unity of virtues usually try to inquire whether the
relationship between virtues is one of identity, or of similarity or of bicondition-
ality (Identity Thesis: Virtues are identical. The names of the virtues are proper
names for a single thing. The virtues are not parts of virtue. Similarity Thesis:
Virtues are similar, but not identical. The virtues are parts of virtue in the way
that parts of a piece of gold are parts, namely, with no qualitative difference
between part and whole or between one part and another. Biconditionality The-
192 Chapter 9
sis: The instance-classes of virtues are necessarily coextensive (in the sense that
moral agents will have any one virtue iff they have all the five). Though legiti-
mate, this kind of inquiry is irrelevant to the Protagoras-Plato discussion.
Indeed, if we enter into such discussion, we fail totally on the field of Socrates.
This was indeed Socrates intention, namely, to fill the scene with these kind of
questions, without questioning what identity, similarity, and biconditionality
have in common—that virtue is knowledge. See, in this regard, two authors who
are victims of Socrates: Gregory Vlastos, “The Unity of the Virtues in the Pro-
tagoras,” in Platonic Studies (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973), 221-
65; and Terry Penner, “The Unity of Virtue,” Philosophical Review LXXXII
(1973): 35-68.
3. About Plato’s disavowal of the intentional form of consciousness, see
John D. G. Evans, “Platonic Arguments: I,” Aristotelian Society, Supplement 70
(1996): 177-93.
Chapter 10
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
1. According to Grote the assertion that justice is just and piety pious
is “either tautological, or unmeaning” and “cannot serve as a real proof
of any thing,” so that “if it were found in the mouth of Protagoras and not
in that of Socrates, commentators would probably have cited it as an il-
lustration of the futilities of the sophists.”3 As a matter of principle, I
cannot accept this kind of interpretation. It is a poor sort of methodology
that hides behind such dismissive labels as “ununderstandable,” “mean-
ingless,” and so forth.4 This interpretative tactic rejects out of hand the
very parts of the text that stand in greatest need of being interpreted. In
this spirit, Grote blames Socrates for using “an exaggerated form of
unity, unity as strict identity, and, to make matters worse, his proof em-
ploys egregious fallacies.”5
2. Another interpretation is to assert that Plato cheats intentionally
and willingly, using a logic that is not his own. George Klosko asserts
that Plato indulges, in the Protagoras in general and in this case in par-
ticular, intentional fallacies.6 This interpretation tries to avoid the diffi-
culties involved in the first case. It may be a legitimate interpretation,
and is certainly far better than asserting that Plato errs. At least it does
not suggest that we should cease all attempts to analyze the text.
Paul Friedländer asserts that this Platonic logic is an “artificially con-
structed piece of nonsense.”7 See also Vlastos in his Platonic Studies,
who critically quotes J. Moreau’s belief that there is no error here. Ac-
cording to Vlastos, Plato’s fallacy occurs when he passes from saying “is
not F” to saying “is the opposite of F.”8 In my opinion, Vlastos is not ex-
plaining Platonic logic, but rather avoiding explanation. Interpreters are
right in asserting that Plato does not distinguish between contrary and
contradictory, but they are not right in assuming that this is an error on
his behalf. In general, some interpreters seem quicker to disagree or
agree than to understand.
We need instead to decide whether the interpreter who asserts that
Plato’s argument is invalid really understands Plato, or is simply pro-
jecting his own assumptions on Plato’s thought. Now, if we believe that
Plato intends to bring us to the truth, as he sees it, then it is not plausible
to claim that he is lying, for such an approach runs counter to his whole
way of thinking. Moreover, for Plato, nobody errs deliberately. There-
fore we need not seek any fallacy or error in Plato’s thinking; however, if
the Platonic method of argumentation does not seem to lead us to any
kind of truth, perhaps the problem lies in our understanding rather than in
the argument itself. My conclusion is, therefore, that it is pointless to as-
sert that Plato “errs” intentionally. We must make an effort to understand
the inner logic of the argument alone. When Klosko asserts that Plato’s
thinking “must be interpreted as intentional fallacies used in an eristic
The Unity of Virtues 197
fined as the opposite of its opposite. Justice is the opposite of its oppo-
site-injust ice. Not all qualities have this binary character. But for the
sake of our discussion , it is enough that justice and piety have it. Plato ' s
play consists of, therefore, in passing from the treatment of values as
substances to their treatment as qualities and then returning to treat them
as substances.
Plato exploits the idea that each va lue opposes its opposite. Now then,
if through ou r analysis we could reveal that two values that we consider
different from each other have the same opposite value (like ugly for nice
and pretty), we will have no choice but to conclude that they are identical
and not different. Socrates will show just this later o n. lfwe are still not
conv inced and continue capriciously to assert that these two values are
different and at the same time that they are mutually exclusive (since we
asserted that they are substances), and since, in principle, the opposite is
the opposite of its opposite, then, from these two assumptions, we cannot
but realize and assert, in Plato's opi nion, that they themselves are oppo-
sites.
Look at the underlying logic here. The playing here, the passing from
substance over quality and from quality over substance, in accord with
the convenience of the argumentat ion , assumes that there is only opposi-
tion and identity and that each val ue is defined by- and only by-means
of the negation of its opposite.
Let me return to our specific case. What is under analysis is Pro-
tagoras' thesis that the virtues differ from one MOTher_ AI;, a first step, it
remains assured that justice is something, and that it is just rather than
unjust, and that piety is something, and that it is pious rather than impi-
ous. At this point Socrates proposes a hypothetical interlocutor who sug-
gests that, even at this stage, there is somethin~ not well stated . The hy-
pothetical interlocutor says: " So pie ty (~O'tOT1"),» is not like a just
(S~lCatol.l ) kind of thing, nor justice (St lCa toO'~I.I'l) like piety (~r:nol.l), but
rather like somethin~ not pious (Iol'l' ;; 0"~01.l); whi le piety (~O"~~ T'lS' ) is
not like justice (1-'1") S~IC':HOI.I ) but, in co nsequence, unjust(~StlCol.I).
name 1y · ·
ImpiOUS "
(QI.IOO'~OI.l ).'-."
If piety is not identical wit h justice, and justice is not identical with
piety~so Pl ato understands Prot agoras- it amounts to say ing that piety
is not justice ("'l")' S~ICQcol.l -notjust) and therefore unjust (';:SC ICOI.I ), and
that justice is not pious (1-''l' ~O'COI.I) and therefore impious (;'v;O'cov) .
And since Plato presupposes (without demonstrating, as somethi ng self-
understandable) that impious is the same as unjust, then neither justice is
just nor piety pious.
As I tried to show, Plato defines each value by the mediation of its
opposite. Therefore, he could also prove , if he wou ld take the opposite
200 Chapter 10
Protagoras’ Responses
does it matter?” Protagoras said. “If you like, we can take it that
justice is pious and piety just.”
“Excuse me,” I said. “It isn’t this “if you like” and “if that’s what
you think” that I want to examine, but you and me ourselves” (Prt.
331c-d).
Let me go into the analysis of the second pair of virtues. Here Socra-
tes tries to show what he did not say explicitly in his former argumenta-
tion. The subject matter are the presuppositions of the former discussion,
namely, the common opposition as a proof that the opposites of the op-
posites are identical. Now he says this explicitly. It is indeed his answer
to the thesis of Protagoras, namely, that the opposites are, to a certain ex-
tent, similar things and that similar things are, to a certain extent, differ-
ent.
In a first step, Socrates determines, with the same style as in the case
of justice and piety, that there is something called folly (aphrosune), and
the opposite to folly is wisdom (sophia). After he adds that people when
doing something correctly (orthos) and efficiently (ophelimos), do it with
self-control (sophronein), meaning that they control their acts under the
influence of self-control. On the other hand, when they act with folly
they act in opposition to self-control.32 From this, it is deduced that folly
is opposed to both sophrosune and to sophia. That means, sophia and
sophrosune have the same opposing term (aphrosune—folly). This is
what he tried, for the moment, to demonstrate.
The Unity of Virtues 211
that the man who doesn’t put up some show of being just is out of his
mind” (Prt. 323b-c).
When Socrates presses him to state clearly whether they should dis-
cuss the opinion of the masses or Protagoras’ opinion in particular, Pro-
tagoras decides that he would rather discuss the opinion of the masses.
This way, Protagoras will be better able to argue that it is possible to be
wise and unjust, without seeming to recommend any particular set of
moral values, because the discussion will take, so he hopes, a descriptive
turn.33
Faithful to his notion that values are distinct from one another, Pro-
tagoras believes that it is possible to be wise and perpetrate injustice.
When he thinks in this way, Protagoras is describing in effect the instru-
mental rationality of Prometheus. His discourse here is a Promethean
discourse. He explains the idea of usefulness or benefit as something that
is not and cannot be related to the Zeusian values that Socrates wants to
connect it to.
Protagoras argues, in effect, that something useful is something un-
dertaken as a means for an end, not for its own sake. It is something
serviceable. Things or actions are said to be beneficial when they serve
as means for achieving of an end, whereas the end itself cannot be re-
ferred to as beneficial, since it is the very thing requested—not as a
means for something else but for its own sake. Thus, we cannot say that
things are beneficial (or prejudicial) in and of themselves. Even dung
may be beneficial, for instance, when it is applied to the roots of plants.
However, it is destructive when applied to young branches. When some-
one takes medicines or food for the sake of his health, his ultimate value
is health and not benefit. The concepts of taking advantage, success,
earning, producing, benefit, profit, or usefulness can be ascribed, when
taken in their rigorous and strict meaning, only to the means adopted to
achieve ends.
Moreover, usefulness may be in plain opposition to other values, such
as Epimethean pleasure or Zeusian moral duty. Thus, doing something
out of pleasure is not necessarily beneficial, nor is fulfilling a moral duty
said to be useful. To think in this way is to undermine the very means-
ends distinction.
In general, according to this line of argumentation, an object may be
valued in diverse ways: in an Epimethean, Zeusian, or Promethean way.
Certain food may be regarded as the source of pleasure or as a means for
achieving health, and these are very different attitudes. The very need for
choice between pleasure, benefit, and moral duty is the proof that it is
impossible to reduce all values to one. If this were the case, the very idea
of choice and decisions implying sacrifice would remain meaningless. As
216 Chapter 10
\
we wilt sec later, what is meaningless from this standpoint is mean ingful
for Socrates, and fonns the basis for hi s theory of measurement.
No tes
I. Taylor tells, about this, that Plato is confused. It seems that this is an
expression of Taylor's disagreement with Plato. The parts of gold have the same
magnitude. However, what is relevant for Plato is their quantity, which is the
main point in gold in its capacity as a coin. What is relevant for Taylor, there-
fore, is not relevant for Plato. See Christopher C. W. Taylor,Plato: Proragoras
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976), \08.
2. Lei me nO l e that by answering in the positive, Protagoras rejects the so-
phistic idea o f justice maintained, for in stance, by Trasymachus. Protagoras is
not a value-relativist.
3. George Grote, PJato and the Other Companions ofSokrates, volume 11
(Bristol, England: Thoemmes Press, 1992), 51.
4. See also Paul Friedlander, PlolO f1: The Dialogues, First Period (New
York: Pantheon Books, 1964). 19.
5. Ballard has the same attitude, though more moderate. For him, Plato is
not consistent as a result, not of his own misunderstanding, but out of Plato's
indecision to regard ideas as causes or standards of instances. See Edward G.
Ballard, Socratic Ignorance: An Essay on Platonic Self-Knowledge (The Hague,
Netherlands: MaJ1inus Nijhoff, 1965), 43.
6. George Klosko, "Toward a Consis tent Interpretation of the Pro-
tagoras," in Socrates, Critical Assessments, vol. II, William J. Prior, ed ., " Issues
Arising from the Trial of Socrates" (London: Routledge, 1996),245 ff.
7. 11 is Aristotle and not Plato who distinguishes between contrary and
contradictory. See Aristotle, De Interp. 19a23-19a39, 22a38-22b9; An. Prio.
24a 16-24b 16, 36bJ5-37a8; Topics IOSa34-1 OSb 18; Phys. 224b 11-224b3S,
22Sa 1-225all, 227a7-226b33 , 237a28-237b9, 241 a26-24I b II; Mel. 10 II b 13-
1011b22, 1018a20-1O[8a24, I067bl-I067bI4, 1067bIS-1068a7, 1068b26-
1069a17.
8. Gregory Vlastos, PJafonic Studies (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1973),349.
9. Klosko, "Toward a Consistent Interpretation." 241.
10. Malcolm also believes that there is here a relationship between a uni-
versal and an instance of it, but tries to explain it not by turning to other, more
easily interpretable dialogues, but asserting that "justice is just" is a case of
"sel f-exemplification, a situation where the universal nature is to be regarded as
an instance of itself," John Malcolm, Plaro on the Self-Predicalion of Forms
(New York: Clarendon/Oxford Press, 1991), 10. See also Richard D. McKirahan
Jr., "Socrates and Protagoras on Holiness and Justice," Phoenix 39 (1985): 342·
54.
I I. I agree with Gomperz, that Plato has this kind of arguing in mind.
Gomperz indeed asserts: "Protagoras does not say No, lest he should be obliged
The UllilY of Virllles 217
.,
.
HGP. IV, 225) ." . , , '
\3, OVI( o.po., €crT~V ..
... , . ~
Ocr~O T T')') 0~01l 8~1(0.~ov HVo.~ 1'Tpo.y .... o..,
" .... ," ."1'
?v8~ 8~1(c:t...~ocrvV,T') ,o~ov ocr~'il-v"O')..).. o,;ov .... !:'l ~r~~v' T') s
Ocr~OTT')') o~ov f-l'l S~I(c:t~ov, 0.)..).. aS ~I(OV c:tpo., TO 8[ avocnolJ.
\4. About this issue, see David Gallop, " Justice and Holiness in Proragoras
330-331," Phronesis 6 (1961): 86-93, David Savan, "Self Predication in Pro-
/agoras 330-331," Phronesis 9 (1964): 130-35, See also John P. Sullivan, "The
Hedonism in Plato's Pro/agoras," Phronesis 6 (1961): 15.
IS. See Michael O'Brien, The Socralic Paradoxes and the Greek Mind
(Chapel Hill: University ofNonh Carolina, 1967), 132.
16, See Christopher C. W. Taylor, who assens that Plato confounds be-
tween contrary and contradictory when he asserts that justice and injustice are
contradictory, while they are merely contraries (see Plalo: Pro/agoras, Iliff).
See also Gallop, " Justice and Holiness in Pro/agoras 330-331," 91 -2; Gomperz,
GT 11.313-4; Paul Friedlll.nder, Pla/o II. 19.
17. Lloyd is an exception: see Geoffrey Emest Richard Lloyd, Polarity and
Analogy: Two Types of Argumentation ill £arly Greek Thought (Bristol: Bristol
Classical Press, 1992), 128-30.
18. Guthrie, HGP, IV, 224.
19. Guthrie, HGP, IV, 224.
20. Guthrie, HGP, IV, 225.
21. Guthrie, HGP, IV, 226.
22. Guthrie, HGP, IV, 226.
23. I cannot, at the same time, interpret Plato's logic and engage in a dis-
cussion with him. To debate Plato and to try to understand him are, to use the
tems under discussion among interpreters, contradictory attitudes. Arguing or
discussing matters Willi the object of analysis is a confusion between reflective
levels. Of course, two theories or argumentS can debate each other over a com-
mon object of analysis. However, when a theory becomes itself the object of
analysis, it cannot be debated, only understood. To argue against it means to
reject it. Such a rejection does not imply understanding because our rejection is
based on presuppositions that are not, ex-hipothesi, the presuppositions of what
is being rejected. For this reason, Taylor's rejection of Socrates' logic (which he
calls erroneous) is a case of giving the cold shou lder to the very object that one
purports to analyze. This attitude, probably, comes out ofa widespread habit in
philosophy of disregarding the difference between understanding and debating.
That is, the habit of debating the object of analysis. But here, it is noteworthy
that the rejection is based on the presuppositions of the critic, and not the pre-
suppositions of the object of criticism. In other words, the subject is illuminated,
rather than the object. I leam something abo ut the interpreter, but that's it. To
assert that Plato gets things w rong does not help me understand Plato at all. This
style of interpretation also tends to lead to dogmatism. Indeed. let me assume I
have a theory about Plato and. when going to the text 10 lind evidences for my
218 Chapter 10
theory, I discover, to my astonishment, that the text fits my theory. In this case,
it will be said that my theory is right. But now, let me imagine another case, the
case in which I have a theory about Plato and, when going to the text, it does not
fit with my theory. I do not find what I expect to find. Faced with this uneasy
situation, I decide to turn to the tactic of asserting that Plato, not me, is wrong
about the issue in question. What does this mean? Whether the textual evidence
support my theory or not, I will always be right. One can scarcely find a better
definition for dogmatism than this. Thus the category of error, that is, the tactic,
ascribing error to the object, is a perfect cover for dogmatic thinking. This does
not imply that we must do the opposite and attempt to justify what we are ana-
lyzing. I am not suggesting that theory must adopt for itself the same presuppo-
sitions of its object. In interpretation, the question is the attempt to reveal the
presuppositions of the object of analysis. In our case, the question is to examine
the presuppositions of Plato’s implicit logic. We must ask what prevents him
from grasping what we, as interpreters, have no trouble grasping, namely, the
difference between contrary and contradictory statements.
24. At this point, we can ask yet another question about Plato’s logic: do
negative values exist? Or are there only values and their respective absences?
The question is whether the opposite of justice is injustice, in the sense that we
can speak about positively unjust actions. As I will try to show, the answer is,
there is no such thing as positive injustice. There is, for Plato, only justice and
its absence, what people usually call “injustice.” In fact, there is only ignorance
of justice. When people use the term “injustice,” they are mistakenly reifying the
absence of the knowledge of justice.
25. On Plato’s intellectualism, see Patrick Coby, Socrates and the Sophistic
Enlightenment: A Commentary on Plato’s Protagoras (London and Toronto:
Associated University Presses, 1987), 141; Norman Gulley, Plato’s Theory of
Knowledge (Bristol, England: Methuen, 1962), 3; Norman Gulley, The Philoso-
phy of Socrates (New York: Macmillan, 1968), 161.
26. Scholasticism has developed this logic on the basis of the Aristotelian
logic, as follows:
Square of Opposition:
27. See also Schiappa, who asserts that “Both Plato and Aristotle argue
from an either/or logic, whereas Protagoras used a both/and logic,” Edward
Schiappa, Protagoras and Logos: A Study in Greek Philosophy and Rhetoric
(Columbia:: University of South Carolina Press, 1991), 192ff.
28. See Euth. 286b-c. See Cratylus 429c-d. Protagoras acceptance of con-
tradiction has evidence also in the fragment of Didymus the Blind in Die
Sophistik, Carl Joachim Classen, ed., (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchge-
sellschaft [Wege der Forschung vol. 187], 1976), 452-62.
29. See Aristotle Met. 1062.
30. Kerferd accepts Plato’s assumptions uncritically, though in a very lucid
analysis takes it to its extreme consequences. See Kerferd, The Sophistic Move-
ment, 88-92.
31. Against Protagoras see Aristotle Met. 1007b18, 1009a6, 1024b32; Top.
104b21.
32. We can here appreciate again, by the way, the substantiative process
typical of Plato, namely, the transformation of a property into a substance and
the predication of a property of it so that it becomes again a property though
remaining a substance.
33. Rutherford asserts that it remains ambiguous if Protagoras accepts or
rejects the popular opinion. I think that this is because his own view is, in any
case, closer than Plato’s view to the popular opinion. See Richard B. Rutherford,
The Art of Plato: Ten Essays in Platonic Interpretation (Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press, 1996), 137.
Chapter 11
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
At this point in the dialogue, Socrates believes that Protagoras has lost
his patience. This may be true, but the opposite is also true; Socrates has
lost his patience with Protagoras. In any case, the mutual exasperation
should not surprise us; it is perhaps inevitable, given the wide disparity
between the guiding assumptions of the two philosophers. For this rea-
son, they fall back upon a discussion about the method of discussion, one
in which the audience becomes actively involved. Without this analysis,
the dialogue could not continue. The possibility of compromise seems
more elusive than ever. Socrates’ thought advances dialogically, whereas
Protagoras’ thought advances discursively.
Because of the incompatibility of their presuppositions, Socrates and
Protagoras find themselves driven into a cul-de-sac. Socrates grasps this
first. In a reflective turn, he orients the discussion toward its very form,
so that the issue under discussion is the discussion itself—its rules and its
presuppositions. He expresses his disapproval of Protagoras’ discursive
method with characteristically acerbic irony: “now that you are faced by
a man with a poor memory, please cut your answers down and make
them short enough for me to follow” (Prt. 334d).1
Protagoras’ reply to his demand turns to his famous epistemic rela-
tivism analyzed in extenso in the Theaetetus: “What do you mean, ‘make
my answers short’? Am I to make them shorter than is necessary? . . .
Am I . . . to make my answers as short as I think necessary, or as short as
you think necessary?” (Prt. 334d-e).
We have two issues to analyze here: the question of the method of
discussion, and the question of the criteria.
221
222 Chapter 11
The Method
The Criteria
ment. He suggests in the name of justice, that each one must be allowed
to speak according to his own criterion.
Alcibiades on the contrary, contradicts himself as befits a real lover.
He is in favor of Socrates, his beloved. If freedom of speech is respected,
there is no place for a dialogue. Someone must concede and it is just to
demand this concession from Protagoras. Alcibiades believes that it all
depends of prestige and status. He believes it is enough for Socrates if
Protagoras recognizes Socrates’ superiority in dialogue, as long as Soc-
rates recognizes Protagoras’ superiority in discourses. Note that his con-
clusion, that Socrates’ stand is fairer than Protagoras’, is not a logical
deduction from his argument.
Moreover, Alcibiades’ argument implies an unavoidable contradic-
tion. Indeed, he asserts that the trouble with long discourses is that they
are hard to follow. But this declaration implies the recognition of Socra-
tes’ inferiority, namely, his defective memory. So to be loyal to his lover,
he says that Socrates was only joking “about having a poor memory”
(Prt. 336d). In other words, Socrates is actually speaking for those who
are genuinely unable to follow the arguments in a long discourse. Thus,
to avoid contradiction, Alcibiades attributes the weakness of memory
alleged by Socrates himself to others. Immediately afterward, he needs to
avoid another contradiction. His love for Socrates moves him to assert
that Socrates’ stance is really the fair one; however, since such a decla-
ration deprives, as happens with love in general, the other party of his
right to participate in the discussion, Alcibiades is obliged to concede,
though formally and not really, and assert, without consistency, that
“everyone must express his own point of view” (Prt. 336d), adding an-
other contradiction to the first. No wonder, therefore, about the contra-
dictions in the discourse of a lover, since it is of the essence of love to
contradict itself.
Critias speaks immediately after. He obliges his audience to become
aware of Callias’ prejudice in favor of Protagoras and Alcibiades’ parti-
ality in favor of Socrates. He makes a general call for impartiality. How-
ever, this is not a way to solve the problem, since impartiality runs now
against the very possibility of an argument. With Callias’ proposal, it is
only Socrates who cannot continue, and with Alcibiades proposal, Pro-
tagoras must surrender. In the interest of impartiality, however, neither
one nor the other can continue!
Then, as an answer to Critias’ call for impartiality comes Prodicus’
proposal. As we have seen, if impartiality blocks further discussion, then
there is a need to attenuate it. Until now, if you are for Protagoras, you
are against Socrates, if you are for Socrates you are against Protagoras,
and if you are impartial, namely, against any criterion, you are against
226 Chapter 11
Notes
1. See Lach. 189c: “I am old, and my memory is bad.” Meno 71c: “I have
not a good memory, Meno and therefore I cannot now tell what I thought of him
at the time.”
2. See Tht. 167e, where Protagoras distinguishes between dialectics and
controversy, or between discourse and dialogue.
3. Interesting enough, that this is Plato’s reply, and not the reflective ques-
tion whether the homo mensura criterion is applicable also to itself, that would
make the argument fail. But this would be a reflective question that assumes the
place for a form of thought, whereas Plato thinks only on the content.
Chapter 12
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Protagoras returns to the main issue of the dialogue, whether or not vir-
tue is a question of education (paidéias) though under the guise of a dis-
cussion about the ability to discuss and interpret poetry. We must re-
member, then, that the following verses of Simonides are not, at a deep-
est level, the subject matter under discussion, but rather, what these
verses can do to the soul of those who read them. Protagoras will try to
demonstrate, again, that virtue is a matter of education, and not of in-
struction.
Socrates, however, will misunderstand him and insist that Protagoras
refers to instruction. We have already seen that Socrates believes that all
education is actually but instruction. Therefore, what is for Protagoras a
mere heuristic device (the poem) is for Socrates the very issue under
analysis. In the discussion, therefore, Socrates will refer always to the
content of the verses, while Protagoras refers to their form.1
The distinction between Socrates the anti-formalist and Protagoras the
formalist may be defined as a distinction, in general, between philosophy
and interpretation. For Plato philosophy is not interpretation. For Plato,
interpretation is a kind of second hand thinking. Because Plato only
looks at the content, and not at the form, he regards interpretation as
thinking about what someone else has already thought.
For Protagoras, philosophy means thinking about thinking, namely,
interpretation. It is typical of formalism to put interpretation before phi-
losophy. Plato the anti-formalist seeks for the truth, which is really a very
different thing.
However, the kind of interpretation proposed by Socrates, as we will
see later, expresses both his profound understanding of Protagoras’ atti-
tude toward poems and his profound disagreement at once. He indeed re-
members Protagoras’ words about the purpose of poets, Simonides in-
229
230 Chapter 12
eluded: they tried to hide their being sophists. Now ironically, Socrates
wil l try to show that they tried \0 hide their being philosophers like him ,
the interpreter himself. From this point of view, the thesis o f Protagoras,
that Simonides contradicts himself, is less consistent with Protagoras '
own approach than the interpretative thesis exposed by Socrates.
Let me turn to the poem, of which only this fragment has come down
to us. Once Protagoras has read the verses of Simonides, Soc rates says
th at he has already learned them (in the sense of knowl-
edge-(episrhemai. Prr. 339b). From the very beginning, then, Soc rates
is oriented to the question of knowledge, and not to the questi on of dis-
cussi ng poetry.
Protagoras, from his standpoint, attempts to show that there is a con-
, tradiction between rwo verses in the poem, so that for him, to interpret a
poem means, d irectly, to take a stand fo r or against it. The first quoted
verse of Simoni des, directed to Scopas son ofC reo of ThessaJy. says:
0" lhe olher hand, fO become (y €1J ~ G' e (1 c) a good man in IrUIh,
is difficull (X (1 >.. ( ". o"v}-a man ill mind and frame
ajlffii1less minfingjollrsquare slruck (Prt. 339b).
Protagoras tries to show that the verses contradict each othe r and that,
therefore, the poem contai ns an error; such an anitude is the result, or the
expression, of Protagoras ' taking a stand . While Protagoras tries, thus, to
criticize Si monides, Socrates w ill try to understand it without criticizing
Simonides' intention or the content of the poem.
Here is the con tradiction: at one point Simonides says that it is hard to
be virtuous but later be censures Pit1acus for saying exactly th e same
thing, so that, adds Protagoras, when Simonides "critic izes the man who
says the same as he does, he evidently cri ti cizes himself, so that ei ther
his first or his second statement is not sound."
Here we encounter, apparently, another contradi ction, one th at con -
cerns his own philosophy. Indeed , if he believes that every opinion has,
so to speak, the right to be truthful , hi s critic ism of another's point of
view contradicts this very belief. A consistent relativism would reject
contradiction as a criterion for wrong-thinking. What is clear then, in
Protagoras' claim against Simonides, is that Protagoras in fact does not
The Crilique ojSimonidl!s' POI!/I! 231
textual analysis that Protagoras uses as a substitute (or so Plato feels) for
direct analysis of truth itself.
Paradoxically, in the frame of his discussion about discussion, Pro-
tagoras wants to reveal the contradiction in Simonides, and Socrates, in
the frame of his discussion of the poem itself, wants to reveal the contra-
diction implied in Protagoras’ discussion of Simonides’ contradiction,
while showing, at the same time, how much more competent and skilled
he is in this type of intellectual competition.
If the interpretative method of Protagoras is based in what appears in
the text, namely, in appearances, Socrates bases his method in what his
logos dictates as true. Socrates’ logic runs as follows: Since the error as-
cribed to the object of thought is mere ignorance,2 Socrates cannot accept
that the object of our analysis is wrong. When two debaters discuss an
issue, one of them may err, but the object under discussion cannot err; it
is what is. For this reason, Socrates will attempt to defend the author of
the poem against the accusation of contradiction. This is not the result of
an application of the principle of charity, but rather an attempt to bring
things to extremes in order to show, ultimately, that texts are incapable of
providing knowledge to their readers.3
In order to accomplish this task, Socrates will resort to sophist trick-
ery (for that is how he understands sophist rhetoric: as trickery). He pro-
ceeds with what Eco would call an “overinterpretation” of the poem.4 He
turns, as we will immediately see, to the help of Prodicus. In this specific
case, Socrates needs, for the sake of his argument, to interpret similarities
as differences. Knowing Prodicus’ philosophical prejudices, he knows
that Prodicus will help him make distinctions and overlook similarities,
even if such interpretations appear to be forced in extreme. The line of
defense of the poem adopted by Socrates will rest on the purported dif-
ference between genesthai (to come to be, to have become, or to become)
and emmenai (be, or to be), two terms roughly translatable as “to be.”
Prodicus, faithful to his own philosophy, will never assert that similar
things are similar but will be obliged to concede that they are different,
even opposed. Prodicus will therefore be of great help.5 Socrates does not
say this, however. He remarks that he merely turned to Prodicus in order
to gain time to think. If that is true, then it was a terrific piece of luck for
Socrates to turn to the very person most likely, among all those present,
to advance his argument.
Socrates asks Prodicus if “to become” (genesthai) and “to be” (einai)
are the same (Prt. 340b). Obviously, Prodicus will say that they are dif-
ferent. These distinctions granted, Socrates can then claim that Pittacus’
apothegm asserts that it is hard to be virtuous, not to become virtuous.
Simonides, on the other hand, asserts that it is hard to become virtuous,
The Critique of Simonides’ Poem 233
not to be virtuous. These are two different matters (like the difference
between climbing a mountain and resting at its summit). Thus, Simon-
ides is not contradicting himself when he criticizes Pittacus.
Socrates, following his typical logic, namely, that there is only one
opposite to each opposite, deduces that Pittacus says that it is hard to be
virtuous and easy to become virtuous, whereas Simonides asserts that it
is easy to be virtuous and hard to become virtuous (so as it is hard to
climb a mountain but easy to stay at its height).
Protagoras replies that Socrates himself errs when he ascribes to Si-
monides the opinion that it is easy to be virtuous, for anyone knows that
it is the hardest thing. That is to say, according to Protagoras, either Si-
monides thinks that to be and to become are one and the same, and there-
fore he contradicts himself, or he thinks that they are different, in which
case he asserts something unacceptable, namely, that it is easy to be vir-
tuous.
Socrates, to justify his attempt to save Simonides from contradiction,
says, jokingly and with the help of Prodicus, that for Simonides the word
“hard” means “bad,” so that Pittacus is saying that it is bad to be virtu-
ous, this being the idea that Simonides uses to censor Pittacus.
However, if Simonides uses the same word for “hard” in the first
verse, Protagoras would say, he is contending that it is bad to become
virtuous. This argument does not appear in the dialogue. Before Pro-
tagoras can take it up, Socrates says that Prodicus “is joking and wants to
see if you are capable of rescuing your own argument.”
We see, then, that what Socrates explained until now with the help of
Prodicus is not his own interpretation. Indeed, what is under discussion is
Protagoras’ thesis, namely, whether Simonides contradicts himself. Soc-
rates does not really care about this issue at all. He only wants to prove
the opposite of whatever Protagoras asserts. He wants to prove that any-
thing can be demonstrated in the interpretation of poetry, which is the
same as proving that there is no epistemic value in interpreting poems.
the moral-Zeusian point of view they are better. Since Plato reduces all
values to one value, he cannot accept this non-intellectualist stance.
Plato defends his thesis that it is better to do evil willingly than out of
ignorance:
a noble man (kalos k’agathos) frequently finds himself in the posi-
tion of having to force himself to love and praise someone—say,
an estranged mother or father, or country, or whatever it may be. . .
[They] are forced to cover up and praise them, and should they be
indignant at some wrong inflicted by their parents or their state,
they calm and soothe their own anger and compel themselves to
love and praise their own kin. Now Simonides too, I think, fre-
quently felt that he was eulogizing a tyrant or someone of that
kind, not willingly but under compulsion (Prt. 345a-346a).
also believe, then we can learn that this idea can be applied not only in
this case but even to the very essence of a dialogue, namely, that dia-
logue is only a prelude to asserting the impossibility of dialoguing at all.
There cannot be two (or three, or five) logoi but only misunderstanding.
Faced with two logoi, we must conclude that there is some misunder-
standing. If we understood the same thing, there would be no need for a
dialogue. If we appear to need a dialogue, that can only mean that one of
us is ignorant, or perhaps both of us are. It is not Socrates, the master of
dialogue, but Protagoras who asserts “that there are two logoi about eve-
rything, opposite to one another.”9
Notes
1. I confess that I do not understand the distinction of Brickhouse and
Smith in this regard between what Simonides means with his poem and what
Simonides’ words mean. Socrates' commitment with the meaning of the words is
his attempt to grasp the meaning of Simonides’ poem, which is what Simonides
mean. See Thomas C. Brickhouse, and Nicholas D. Smith, Plato’s Socrates (Ox-
ford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 83-4.
The Critique of Simonides’ Poem 241
2. See, at the end of the Protagoras, where Socrates attributes error not to
Prometheus, his model for knowledge, but to Epimetheus: “I am afraid that old
Epimetheus [Afterthought] may lead us into many errors in our inquiry, just as
he was negligent toward us in your story, when he allotted the various capaci-
ties. I must say I preferred Prometheus [Forethought] to Epimetheus in the story.
For I am making use of him, and taking forethought for my entire life when I
concern myself with all these questions” (Prt. 361c-d).
3. See Ruth Scodel, “Literary Interpretation in Plato’s Protagoras,” An-
cient Philosophy 6 (1986): 25-37.
4. See Umberto Eco, “Overinterpreting Texts,” in Interpretation and
Overinterpretation, Stefan Collini, ed., (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1992), 44-65.
5. Frede detects in the distinction between being and becoming a serious
point in Plato’s argument, and relates the distinction with the idea of Eros in the
Symposium: Dorothea Frede, “The Impossibility of Perfection: Socrates’ Criti-
cism of Simonides’ Poem in the Protagoras,” Review of Metaphysics 39 (1986):
729-53.
6. It is worth noting in passing, that the strategy of winning fame by at-
tacking the already famous, has persisted down to this day. In fact, the practice
has become so widespread that most attempts to win fame sink without a trace
into a vast ocean of academic journals that nobody has the time or energy to
keep up with. Still, seekers of fame will travel not just across Greece but across
the world in order to deliver a laconic phrase of fifteen or perhaps twenty min-
utes at some philosophical conference.
7. See chapters 3 and 4 in this book.
8. Brickhouse and Smith, Plato’s Socrates, 83.
9. Diogenes Laertius, LEP, IX, 51.
Chapter 13
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Immediately after the interlude, the discussion returns to the initial ques-
tion about the relationships between the virtues, which, as we have seen,
has been expressed in two incompatible analogies: the “gold” analogy
(the relationship of parts of gold to the mass of gold) and the “face” anal-
ogy (the relationship of the parts to the face). Plato asks whether Pro-
tagoras still endorses the “face” analogy—whether, in fact, he still re-
gards the virtues as different from one another.
Protagoras appears to retreat at this point. He acknowledges some
similarity among virtues, except for courage (andreia). However, from
his point of view this is no concession at all. Justice, wisdom, temper-
ance, and piety are all Zeusian values, so in that sense at least they are
similar, but courage is an Epimethean value and therefore “absolutely
different from all of them” (Prt. 349d). Thus he maintains that one can
be courageous but utterly unjust (adikos), impious (anhosios), unruly and
ignorant (amathes) (see Prt. 349d). On the other side, courage is similar
to daring (tharraleoi) and recklessness. So Protagoras still adheres to the
concepts he introduced in his tale.
Socrates’ reply consists of demonstrating that one can find people
who specialize in being courageous; therefore, courage, like all the other
virtues, boils down to a question of knowledge.1 Divers and infantrymen
are courageous “because of their knowledge (episteme)” (Prt. 350a); that
is, the knowledge they acquire in pursuit of their professions makes them
more courageous than they were before.2 Furthermore, whoever is cou-
243
244 Chapter 13
Protagoras only asserts that the strong are physically powerful, but
not that the physically powerful are the strong. Thus, based on the dis-
tinctions set forth in his tale, Protagoras returns to the issue of courage
and daring and asserts that the “courageous are daring but the daring are
not always courageous.”4 Daring can be a Promethean skill (techné),5 but
it can also be an Epimethean quality, for example if one becomes daring
out of anger or madness, as in the case of physical power. There are,
similarly, two kinds of courage: one Epimethean, that comes from na-
ture, the other Promethean, that comes form the “proper training of the
mind (eutrophia tes psuches)” (Prt. 351b).
Returning to the Unity of Virtues 245
Notes
1. See Michael O’Brien, The Socratic Paradoxes and the Greek Mind
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 1967), 141; Edward G. Ballard, So-
cratic Ignorance: An Essay on Platonic Self-Knowledge (The Hague, Nether-
lands: Martinus Nijhoff, 1965), 62; Patrick Coby, Socrates and the Sophistic
Enlightenment: A Commentary on Plato’s Protagoras (London and Toronto:
Associated University Presses, 1987), 141; Norman Gulley, The Philosophy of
Socrates (New York: Macmillan, 1968), 160-1, interprets Plato as if he were
distinguishing between courage and intrepidity or mere confidence or boldness.
However, this is just the position of Protagoras in his answer to Socrates.
Moreover, Gulley believes that Aristotle’s debt to Socrates, who is in my opin-
ion nearer to Protagoras than to Socrates, “is clear” (160). He recognizes, how-
ever, that Socrates has an intellectualistic interpretation of courage (160) and
that Aristotle arrives at “the opposite of Socrates’ conclusion in the Protagoras”
(161). Guthrie also recognizes the difference between Aristotle and Plato.
Guthrie, HGP III, 452. See also Gerasimos X. Santas “Socrates at Work on
Virtue and Knowledge in Plato’s Laches,” in The Philosophy of Socrates, Greg-
ory Vlastos, ed., (New York: Anchor Books, 1971), 195ff.
O’Brien says that the argument in 349d-350c is ad hominem. “The brave are
identical with the daring” is a false premise that allows the conclusion “wisdom
is courage.” This is typically elenchus, says O’Brien, The Socratic Paradoxes,
139. Vlastos contends that at 351c-d Protagoras identifies good with pleasant.
Vlastos says, “Socrates most likely meant to assert is . . . (a) that pleasure is a
good (not the only one), (b) that whatever is best will in fact be the most pleas-
ant.” Gregory Vlastos, ed., Plato’s Protagoras (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill,
1965), XLI; and from here is not deduced that pleasure is a definitive of good.
O’Brien asserts, against Vlastos, as follows: “At 354b several conventional
goods are reduced, qua goods, to pleasure and prevention of pain. Between 354b
and 355a it is stressed repeatedly that the many have no other telos but pleasure
and pain, and at 355b the good is taken to be synonymous with the pleasant, the
bad with the painful.” See John P. Sullivan, “The Hedonism in Plato’s Pro-
tagoras,” Phronesis 6 (1961): 18-9. It is hardly possible to interpret all this as
implying anything other than pure hedonism. O’Brian, The Socratic Paradoxes,
139. Gallop analyzes the Platonic demonstration of hedonism in detail in David
Gallop, “The Socratic paradox in the Protagoras,” Phronesis 9 (1964): 117-29.
2. For a defense of Plato’s argument, see Roslyn Weiss, “Courage, Confi-
dence, and Wisdom in the Protagoras,” Ancient Philosophy 5 (1985): 11-24.
3. Socrates: “men who are daring in this way are not courageous but
crazy” (Prt. 350c).
4. O’Brien contends that Protagoras’ critique here is based on the fallacy
Returning to the Unity of Virtues 247
of undistributed middle: the courage are daring; the wise are daring; therefore,
the wise are courageous. O’Brien, The Socratic Paradoxes, 134. See also “The
‘Fallacy’ in Protagoras 349d-350c,” TAPA 92 (1962): 408-17. Though in logi-
cal terms this is right, I do not believe that Protagoras’ critique is based on logic,
but on the distinction between kinds of daring, that is, the one Promethean and
the other Epimethean.
5. In Christopher C. W. Taylor’s translation of Prt. 351a-b, the difference
between the Promethean and Epimethean aspects of daring is not made clear.
Taylor translates the passage as: “For daring results both from skill and from
animal boldness and madness, like capability.” Rather, the passage should read:
“For daring results from art or from animal boldness or madness.”
6. Therefore, Plato does not need to demonstrate, as Klosko expects, that
courage is wisdom, whereas he only demonstrated that wisdom is courage. See
George Klosko, “Toward a Consistent Interpretation of the Protagoras,” in Soc-
rates, Critical Assessments, vol. II, “Issues Arising from the Trial of Socrates,”
William J. Prior, ed., (London: Routledge, 1996), 251. Plainly because there is
not place for courage at all.
7. Vlastos, Protagoras, xxxv.
Chapter 14
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
249
250 Chapter 14
that what is pleasant is necessarily good. And the reverse is also true:
insofar as things are painful, they are bad.
Protagoras rejects this kind of reasoning. According to him, one lives
well only when one enjoys (hedesthai) things that are worthy of respect
(kale). He makes distinctions that Socrates is ready to eliminate. For
Protagoras, to assert that what is desirable (hedu) is always good and
what is painful always bad, is to give a response that does not include the
necessary distinctions to understand the whole problem. Indeed, for him,
certain desirable things (that are relevant for Epimethean values) are not
good (are irrelevant for Zeusian values), and some painful (Epimethean
negative values) things are not bad (irrelevant to Zeusian values), while
others are good, and there is even a third category, consisting of things
that are neither good nor bad.
Socrates reply that “desirable” is something that evolves or produces
pleasure (hedone), and therefore what is pleasant is good, good insofar as
it is pleasant. Indeed, many times the term “good” is used to express
pleasure.
Protagoras agrees in that what is desirable involves or produces
pleasure, but we cannot deduce the Zeusian good from this Epimethean
value.
In what follows, Socrates attempts to refute the Protagorean distinc-
tion between Epimethean and Zeusian values by means of a search for a
common measure for the two. If we can find a measure for these values,
we will have a tool for making practical decisions. Socrates proposes
knowledge (episteme) as this common measure. Now, knowledge as a
topic appears for the first time in the dialogue. Until now, knowledge
was an attribute of values, or was a predicate. Now it becomes the sub-
ject of analysis. It is just at this point that practically, though not for-
mally, Protagoras abandons the dialogue, asking Socrates to press to his
conclusions. Protagoras expressed his disagreement in a “passive aggres-
sive” way. He remains only to say “yes” or “no” whenever Socrates asks
for a response, and so gives Socrates’ theorizing the appearance of a
dialogue. Formally, from now on, there will not be, in the dialogue, two
logoi. Indeed for Protagoras, the reduction of all values to knowledge is
much too extravagant, and so he retreats into silence. Perhaps he wants to
show that Socrates is really, despite everything, a monologist, or perhaps
he feels that he has nothing to do with such an extreme position except
accord with the democratic right of being heard. The deepest meaning of
Protagoras’ silence lies in its implicit protest against Socrates’ attempt to
reduce the good (a Zeusian value), the beautiful (an Epimethean value),
and the useful (a Promethean value) to knowledge.
The Theory of Measurement 251
Not because these things give only immediate pleasure (hedone) or are
pleasant (hedu) only in the short term, but because in the future, they will
lead to illness, poverty, and suffering. If they would not provoke damage
in the future, they would not be regarded as evil. They are evil in the pre-
sent, therefore, because of their future results. A present pleasure is bad
insofar as it deprives us from a greater pleasure or will bring about suf-
fering and deprivation in the future. For example, physical training,
military service, and medical treatments which involve cautery, surgery,
drugs, and starvation diets are regarded as good, not because of the im-
mediate pleasure they provide (they provide no such thing), but because
the results, namely, cures and physical health, the safety of the city,
power over others, or wealth.
For these reasons, Socrates concludes, we seek pleasure since it is
good, and we avoid pain because it is bad. So, though bad means “pain-
ful” and good means “pleasure”—painful does not mean “bad” and
pleasure does not mean “good.” What is good cannot be painful but only
pleasant, and what is bad cannot be pleasant but only painful. Even en-
joyment is bad when it deprives people from greater pleasures, and pain
is good when it deprives people from greater pain, or when it causes
more pleasure than pain in the long run.
Socrates does not resort to total indistinction in order to demonstrate
his thesis. Rather, he reduces, in an ordered and logical way, all the val-
ues to knowledge. To assert that the good is good since it is pleasant, as
Socrates is interpreted by those who sustain that he is a hedonist, is not
the same as to assert that the pleasant is pleasant because it is good. Only
this last assertion is Socratic and he is therefore not a hedonist.4 To assert
that what is bad is bad since it is painful, is not the same as to assert that
what is painful is painful because it is bad. Only this last assertion is So-
cratic.5
There is no symmetry between good and pleasure. Pleasure is reduced
to good and not the other way around. The logic of this asymmetry be-
comes clear from the way Socrates asks about the distinction, on the one
hand, between good and pleasure, and on the other hand, between pain
and evil. Indeed, Socrates asserts that the alternative to the assertion that
good is different from pleasure, and bad different from pain, is that “you
seek pleasure as being good, while you avoid pain as being bad” (Prt.
354c). He does not assert that you seek the good because it is pleasur-
able, while you avoid bad because it is painful—unless you are “satisfied
to live out your life pleasantly and free from pain” (Prt. 355a) which is,
in Socrates’ opinion, absurd. A life of pleasure is absurd: once someone
accepts that what is bad, though being bad, he does this because he is
overcome by pleasure; and since by pleasure he understands something
The Theory of Measurement 253
good, the result is a greater absurdity: that a person commits evil since he
is, as it were, overcome by the good.
Having raised the question of what is meant by the expression “to be
overcome by pleasure” (Prt. 353c), Socrates introduces instances of
Epimethean activities involving the gratification of needs. Drinking,
eating, and sex were considered in ancient Greece to be kinds of praxis,
or activities whose telos is in the activity itself rather than in its results.6
Whenever such activities are judged to be “bad,” it is not the activities
but their pernicious consequences that are being considered. That is to
say, these activities are condemned not because they are pleasant, but
because they make us ill when we indulge in them to excess. Now if
Plato had given Protagoras a fair opportunity to reply in the dialogue, the
sophist would surely have argued that there was a difference between an
action and its results, in the way that there is a difference between Epi-
methean and Promethean varieties of activity. He would then have de-
fined eating, drinking, and sex as typical Epimethean activities in which
the subject must eventually suffer the consequences of his deeds. There-
fore, if such activities may have unpleasant results, this does not mean
that Socrates is right in claiming that they are undertaken for the sake of
their consequences.
Similarly, the unpleasant activities that yield good things in the Pro-
methean sense (gymnastics, medicine, and military service) (Prt. 354a),
are regarded as good not because of the pain they incur, but because of
their effects. Such activities are typically Promethean and require us to
sacrifice a present advantage for a future one. Thus, the fact that the con-
sequences of an action are pleasant does not mean, as Plato would have
us believe, that the action itself must be pleasant as well.
Plato reduces pleasure to good and pain to bad, and this is the case of
those who, hypothetically, are “satisfied to live out [their] life pleasantly
and free from pain” (Prt. 355a). This is the absurd stand of the hedonist
who believes that pleasure is the supreme good. Far from being hedonist,
therefore, Socrates asserts that the summum bonum is the good and not
pleasure. Or, what is the same, asserts that pleasure is pleasure since it is
good, and not that the good is good since it is pleasant.7
Thus, whoever is overcome by pleasure behaves virtuously, since he
is overcome by the good. Socrates attempts to reduce pleasure to good
and pain to evil or bad. With this reduction accomplished, he can go on
to develop an art for the measurement of values, a technique that will
make it possible to compare values, because it will be possible to create a
common standard of measurement. Now, with this reduction of qualita-
tive differences between values, there remains only a difference in quan-
tity and in magnitude, which allows for comparisons. Now, indeed, what
254 Chapter 14
Protagoras would call being “overcome by pleasure” means that one has
chosen a greater evil over a lesser good. This is absurd. Therefore, no-
body can say that he was overcome by pleasure when he does not choose
the good.
Evil is now called “painful,” as the good is called “pleasant.” In prin-
ciple, we can even refer to units of pleasure and units of pain, namely,
we can refer to values by means of a quantitative evaluation, as if it were
grain or oil. We can speak of quantities of pleasures and pains. We can
also refer to actual greater and lesser pleasures. For this reason, we do
not need any other criterion than pleasure itself. We would need another
criterion when the task is to compare present pleasures to future ones. In
these cases, the present ones appear to be greater than future ones, so that
a present pain seems to be greater than a future one.
However, the difference between present and future is only apparent
and is to be annulled by reducing the future to the present. So, instead of
two different kinds of units acting here, pleasure and pain units on one
hand, and on the other hand, the distance between the immediate and the
deferred (between present and future)—we remain only with pleasure
and pain units.8 Bearing this in mind, we can state that if we must choose
between a greater quantity of pleasure units and a lesser quantity of
pleasure units, it is obvious that we should choose the former. If we
choose between greater quantity of pain units and lesser quantity of pain
units, we choose the latter. On the other hand, if pleasure and pain are
compared, the choice will be made for pleasure if pleasure is in greater
quantity than pain. The art of measurement is needed in order to decide
how many present units of pain and sacrifice we must invest in now to
buy pleasure units in the future.
The art of measurement is the alternative to appearances. It is the
remedy against the deceptive character of short-term pleasures and pains.
It is a method to avoid errors in decision-making. It reveals the truth and,
as such, the condition for our salvation.9 Namely, it is an epistemic in-
strument no less than a valuative one. Without the theory of measure-
ment, appearances drag us into error, they “confuse us and make us
change our minds back and forth about the same things” (Prt. 356d). In
other words, the theory of measurement will relieve our ignorance.
The theory of measurement reduces values to knowledge, or valuation
to estimation. It is an attempt for the mensuration of values, since the
science of measurement is the science of excess and defect reduced to the
knowledge of the more and the less. Thus, in weighing pleasures against
pleasures, we would select the greater one, whether it takes place in the
present or in the future. In weighing pains against pains, we would
choose the lesser one, whether it takes place in the present or in the fu-
The Theory of Measurement 255
His first step is then, to reduce pleasure to good. So, what is actually be-
ing considered, instead of pleasure, is the idea of benefit. Benefit, profit,
and usefulness replace pleasure. In this way, human activity becomes,
basically, a teleological activity alone.
A teleological activity regards human acts only as means. We can
recognize a teleological-oriented mind in that it seizes an act as good or
evil only insofar as it is advantageous or damaging for certain given end.
And, since the goal-oriented activity intends to the goal and not to the act
itself, or since it is not taken for its own sake, then the means is not
judged in the light of good or evil but only according to the goal. A good
action is undertaken for the sake of its end, the good itself, which is a
matter of knowledge.
All the philosophy of Plato is embedded in a teleological interpreta-
tion of human activity. He imposes the goal-oriented criterion typical of
the relationship of man with nature in the domain of labor, to the domain
of the relationships of people with themselves and with others, namely,
to the social dominion, assuming that any activity is measured according
to efficiency. In efficient systems, man is himself the means to an end.
Even in the Republic, the guardians are not determined according to the
point of view of happiness, but according to the efficient fulfillment of
their function in the social system as a whole. When he is asked if the
guardians are happy, Plato responds:
Suppose that we were painting a statue, and someone came up to
us and said: Why do you not put the most beautiful colors on the
most beautiful parts of the body—the eyes ought to be purple, but
you have made them black—to him we might fairly answer: Sir,
you would not surely have us beautify the eyes to such a degree
that they are no longer eyes; consider rather whether, by giving this
and the other features their due proportion, we make the whole
beautiful. And so I say to you, do not compel us to assign to the
guardians a sort of happiness which will make them anything but
guardians (Rep. 420c-d).
Just as the color of the eyes is not determined only by their beauty, so
the life style of the guardians is not determined according to their happi-
ness alone, but according to their function. This is true of the rest of the
classes. Thus, what counts is the happiness of the whole, of all the mem-
bers of the society, but not the specific life of each individual member.
So as individual happiness is sacrificed for the sake of the whole—so
human activity in general is, or becomes, a means for this whole, a
means for an end.
258 Chapter 14
stance, is oriented to the act itself, to the present, not to the future. From
the Promethean point of view, pleasure is indeed something bad if it pro-
duces undesirable results. In Promethean fashion, Plato reduces pleasure
to utility. Then, we need somehow to correct the terminology, and not to
call the results bad, but harmful or damaging. Judgments of good, bad,
and evil must be related to the third tendency, the Zeusian.
Therefore, in fact, people do not seek, contrary to Socrates’ opinion,
pleasure for being good and do not avoid pain for being bad. Between
pleasure and good, there is no common measure-standard, just as none
exists between pain and evil. Pain may agree with good or with evil.
Similarly, the same pleasure may imply a good and may imply some-
thing bad. And the same good may imply pleasure or pain. If this is right,
good and pleasure are different from each other. Neither one interferes in
the field of the other.
What is absurd, for Protagoras, is to assume that nobody would ever
choose pleasure over morality. People do so all the time. That raises the
question of how much we should repress pleasure for the sake of our
own moral good and the well-being of the community. This is just the
task of education.
Protagoras does not agree with Socrates’ reduction of all values to
knowledge. He reduces instead knowledge to values. However, this does
not imply that all values have the same status. Protagoras recognizes an
asymmetry between values. He is not ready to assert, for example, that
the physically powerful are the strong, but only that the strong are pow-
erful. He does not agree with the assertion that all those who are daring
are also courageous, but is ready to concede that the courageous are dar-
ing. Sometimes, the motives for an action may coincide; sometimes that
is good is also pleasurable; but sometimes not. Plato does not accept this
self-understandable assertion. Protagoras’ asymmetry is the result of
both, the inquiry into the factual conflict between values, and the valua-
tive preference for moral, Zeusian values, over the rest.
The Platonic asymmetry, on the other hand, is the result of a logical
calculation that is not based on observation of human affairs, nor does it
grant priority to moral values. Rather, it tries to construct an epistemic
standard of measure for values. The standard is, for Plato, an “ought”
pretending to be an “is.” He reduces, apparently or at its face value,
“ought” to “is,” and at a deeper level—“is” to “ought.” Protagoras re-
duces “is” to “ought,” knowledge to values (though he makes morality
his first priority). I believe that this is the source of the so-called Protago-
rean relativism and the Socratic anti-relativism.
Protagoras’ answer to Plato’s theory of measurement is that a present
pleasure is, indeed, greater than a future one, and a present evil is greater
The Theory of Measurement 261
than a future one. For this reason, Epimetheus, who ignores program-
ming, enjoys distributing qualities. The more he enjoys himself in the
moment, the more he forgets a hypothetical future pleasure. The present,
if it is pleasant, always outweighs the future, which is finally only a
promise at best. The theory of measurement, by contrast, is Promethean.
It is not, therefore, a hedonistic theory at all.
Moreover, insofar as the theory of measurement is Promethean—it
cannot be stated as a universal theory for the measurement of values. The
degree of “Epimetheism” is different in different individuals. The readi-
ness to sacrifice is different, and so is the capacity for choosing the moral
good against other values. Epimethean individuals will be ready to sacri-
fice a little of the present for achieving a future pleasure, while the Pro-
methean personalities will be ready to sacrifice a lot of the present for the
sake of future pleasures. Moralists will renounce pleasure more easily
than others, and renounce efficiency as well, if necessary. To be moral,
efficient, and hedonistic, does not mean to “score” a “high” measure-
ment. None of this is in itself a question of measurement and
comparison. It is only the basis for understanding how people differ or
agree from each other. It is not the basis for making decisions.
Since there is no place for an extrinsic criterion for the reduction of
values to a single value, and of the individuals to a single, rational, indi-
vidual—the truth is different for each individual. Moreover, the theory
that Protagoras offered in his encounter with Socrates in Callias’ house
contends that even a single individual has no other choice but to remain
splintered among opposing values. However, he will never be able to
avoid regret about his acts and valuations, since he is able to possess a
criterion for valuation of values. Though values are not quantifiable, they
are the object of valuation with the moral standard of measure. In this
sense, there are teachers of virtue—educators.
Whoever is overcome by pleasure is not necessarily overcome by ig-
norance. Though Protagoras valuates knowledge as a positive value, he
does not believe that human beings act only according to knowledge.
Their motives for action are multiple. Even if virtue is a value and
knowledge is a value, virtue is not by necessity knowledge.
Finale
The dialogue comes to an end when Socrates says that the roles have
been changed. Socrates seems to defend what he had intended to refute,
and Protagoras seems to attack what he had intended to defend.13 This is
262 Chapter 14
not at all the case. Moreover, it is clear that for Socrates virtue is teach-
able because it is a science. His former argument, that it is not teachable
since there are no teachers of virtue, is ironic, and it is said to avoid stat-
ing what is implicit in this empirical turn, namely, that everybody is
ignorant about virtue, Protagoras included. His final position, therefore,
is also his first and initial one. Regarding Protagoras, he does not say that
virtue is not teachable, but that it is not knowledge, a point that Socrates
believes is contradictory. From the point of view of Protagoras, it is not a
contradiction, since he distinguishes between teaching in the sense of
instruction and teaching in the sense of education. He is an educator, not
an instructor.14
Once they reach this point, they decide to end the discussion. Both
prevaricate about the reason for this decision. Protagoras politely praises
Socrates’ wisdom, hinting, by means of this well-known rhetorical de-
vice, that he disagrees with him. Socrates asserts that he is busy, but we
readers know, and have known from the very beginning, that he has
nothing better to do than rush off and repeat the whole dialogue to an
unnamed auditor, and thus things end where they began.15
Notes
1. For the analysis of Plato’s Theory of Measurement and its place in a
broad theory of values, see Michael Strauss, Volition and Valuation: A Phe-
nomenology of Sensational, Emotional and Conceptual Values (Lanham, Md.:
University Press of America, 1999), 183ss.
2. I take this idea from Thomas Buchheim, “Mass Haben und Mass Sein,”
Zeitschrift für Philosophische Forschung 38 (1984): 629-37.
3. For a position that asserts that the theory of measurement is not pla-
tonic, see Roslyn Weiss, “Hedonism in the Protagoras and the Sophist’s Guar-
antee,” Ancient Philosophy 10 (1990): 17-40.
4. For the same conclusion, see Donald J. Zeyl, “Socrates and Hedonism:
Protagoras 351b-358d,” Phronesis 25 (1980): 250-69. This opinion is sustained
also, though each one with a different argumentation, by John P. Sullivan, “He-
donism in Plato’s Protagoras,” Phronesis 6 (1961): 24-8; Alfred E. Taylor,
Plato (London: Methuen, 1963), 260; Gregory Vlastos, “Socrates on Acrasia,”
Phoenix 23 (1969): 75-8; Gerasimos X. Santas: Socrates: Philosophy in Plato’s
Early Dialogues (London and Boston: Routledge Kegan Paul, 1979), 198-9;
Richard Kraut, Socrates and the State (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1984), 265-6. For a hedonist Socrates see Christopher C. W. Taylor, Plato: Pro-
tagoras, 164-167; Terence Irwin, Plato’s Moral Theory: The Early and Middle
Dialogues (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977), 103-8; George Grote, Plato and the
Other Companions of Sokrates, volume II (Bristol, England: Thoemmes Press,
1992), 87-9; Reginald Hackforth, “Hedonism in Plato’s Protagoras,” CQ 22
(1928): 39-42; and I. M. Crombie, An Examination of Plato’s Doctrines, vol. 1
The Theory of Measurement 263
knowledge. Moreover, though he did not quite equate ignorance with madness,
for him it lay quite near madness. Xenophon, Memorabilia, IX.
12. The general opinion is that all the early dialogues are aporetic. At least,
the Charmides, Euthyphro, Hippias Major, Hippias Minor, Laches, Lysis, Pro-
tagoras, and Republic 1. See Hugh H. Benson, “Meno, the Slave-Boy, and the
Elenchus,” Phronesis 35 (1990: 141-4.
13. See Søren Kierkegaard, The Concept of Irony (London: Collins, 1966),
93.
14. I totally agree in this point with O’Brien, The Socratic Paradoxes, 141.
Koyré comes close to my interpretation when he asserts: “Socrates, who affirms
that virtue is science, denies that it can be taught; and Protagoras, who claims to
teach it, does not admit that virtue is science. But the reader-auditor well realizes
that contradiction and paradox are only apparent: for if virtue is what Protagoras
thinks it is, virtue is certainly not science and Socrates is right in asserting that it
can not possibly be ‘taught.’ On the other hand, if virtue is what Socrates thinks
it is, that is, an intellectual and hence intuitive science of values and the good,
then virtue can be ‘taught.’ Obviously, Protagoras is not the man to do it. Who
is? The answer is clear—Socrates. In other words, the philosopher; for the sci-
ence that Socrates promised to reveal to us at a later date, the science of measure
of values, is none other than, as we already know, philosophy.” Alexandre
Koyré, Discovering Plato (New York: Columbia University Press, 1945), 32-3.
Unless he fails to distinguish between education and instruction.
15. See Joseph Cropsey, Plato’s World: Man’s Place in the Cosmos (Chi-
cago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), 3.
Part IV
Extrapolations
Chapter 15
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The grounds for the discussion are much more sophisticated. Indeed,
since both attitudes are reflective, they are both concerned with the form
of human thought, and not with what human thought grasps in its non-
reflective attitude. This distinction between form and content or between
what the mind grasps and the way it grasps it—is a basic distinction of
consciousness. Consciousness, indeed, is consciousness of (or about)
something. This “something” is the “content” of consciousness. How-
ever, in reflective intentional acts, this “something,” this form itself, be-
comes the content of consciousness. This consciousness of consciousness
itself, we call reflection.
Plato seeks for the truth, and Protagoras asks for whom the truth is
truth. Plato thinks about the truth because it is true. For Protagoras the
truth is true because someone thinks so. For Plato, the logical question
comes before the anthropological one, and for Protagoras anthropology
determines logic. We can view their entire discussion as an attempt to
determine whether anthropology precedes logic or logic precedes anthro-
pology. If we reduce anthropology to logic, we get Platonism. The indi-
vidual lacks any role in the constitution of truth. On the other hand, if we
reduce logic to anthropology, we get Protagorean sophism. The truth de-
pends on who thinks it, on how he thinks it, and insofar as he thinks it.
Plato raises the object of knowledge to the status of absolute truth.
For Plato, the subject is a product of what he knows and does not know,
so that he may be taught only in the sense of being instructed or in-
formed.
For Plato, knowledge is a mirror of the object, while for Protagoras
the object is a mirror of knowledge. This is an essential difference be-
tween them. This difference is not a difference of cognition, but of re-
flection about cognition. What is under discussion is the meaning of
knowledge—knowledge of knowledge. For Protagoras, what knowledge
knows is the subject—which means human values. Knowledge means
people’s opinions, and opinions are determined by perception, circum-
stances, and other matters that bear on subjective human experience. For
Plato, knowledge knows the object and only the object. Thus, knowledge
becomes a question of truth and falsehood, determined by the character
of the content of knowledge.
Plato and Protagoras, each one in a peculiar way, attempt to systema-
tize the contents of this original level of consciousness—common sense.
However, each one tries to systematize common sense in a different way.
Either commonsensical thinking is based on values (Protagoras) or on
knowledge (Plato). Common consciousness lacks, generally, any system-
atic idea about knowledge and valuation. It valuates without asking what
values are, it holds opinions without wondering what opinions are made
of, and it knows what it knows without theorizing about knowledge. On
the one hand, an act is said to be just, a person moderate, a result useful,
a reality beautiful or tasteful, and so on. On the other hand, something is
said to be true or false.
272 Chapter 15
Plato and Protagoras are not aware that their philosophies are actually
the product of a reflection about the form of consciousness. They tend to
project—without being aware of it, I insist—their content of analysis in
different ways toward different things. Protagoras “retro-projects” the
content of the non-reflective mind to its form, namely, reduces the con-
tent of thought to its form and, in so doing, becomes a relativist. He im-
poses the form upon the content of thought.
Plato, when becoming aware of the form of thought, an awareness
that defines his whole philosophy, projects this form into the content. He
believes, as it were, that there is no place for the form of knowledge, but
only for its content. This is why he views knowledge as a question of
truth or falsehood, namely ignorance or knowledge. In objectifying the
form, he imitates the original consciousness that objectifies values (as
when we say that a deed is good, for instance). This is not identification
with the original consciousness—it is merely an imitation. Plato’s objec-
tivation is different from the original, commonsense objectivation. It is
an extreme and systematic objectivation. What he does, thus, is to exag-
gerate, in his reflection, the original objectivation, depriving it even of its
valuative character and transforming it into knowledge. He does so be-
cause he does not recognize form as form, but as content and, in this
way, ascribes to values the character of knowledge.
For Plato what is known in knowledge is the content. In his reflection,
this content is not the external reality to which knowledge refers. This
reality does not determine knowledge. The last word lies in the standard
by which this reality is known—the Idea. It is this standard that will de-
termine whether knowledge is true or false. It is true if it reflects the Idea
like a mirror, and it is false if it does not. What cannot be taken as a re-
flection of the Idea is not considered true knowledge. Socrates considers
the interference of subjective motives, drives, and interests as false or
distorted knowledge. It is false knowledge because subjective motives,
drives, and interests, in one word, values, tend to contaminate the purity
of the content. In other words, content becomes subjective. From the So-
cratic standpoint this line of reasoning is valid and applicable to every
particular virtue—to courage, pleasure, utility, good, piety, and so on. All
of these are varieties of knowledge; that is to say, they reflect the content
of virtue but virtue as such cannot be regarded as a skill or capacity of
the erroneously called “virtuous” man. For Plato, knowledge knows
about the object, if the knower as knower is not himself the object of
Protagoras and Plato Compared 275
He cannot stop even when his reflection contradicts the original non-
reflective externalization. His philosophy carries him into paradoxes.
Plato obliterates the distinction between original and reflective
thought. He regards what he discovers in reflection as if it were the direct
knowledge of reality, which will become later the reality of the Ideas.
And since he also ignores the distinction between knowledge and valua-
tion, what applies to knowledge applies also to values, and bestows upon
both functions a trans-subjective character, he becomes objectivist. What
is objective in his objectivism are the values, insofar as they are the
product of knowledge. Such values, reduced to knowledge, like predi-
cates in isolated sentences, are not relative but absolute. They do not
change when the objects change. Like predicates in isolated sentences,
these values remain fixed and unchangeable.
point is not to impose them from outside, but as it were from inside. This
means to adopt a valuative approach of values. Indeed, this is what edu-
cation entails—changing the subject from one situation to another ac-
cording to certain values that are not deduced out of what people actually
think and valuate. We are not talking only about a change of circum-
stances, but a change in the very subject. Education means that you ought
to be what you are actually not. Such an attitude contradicts the meta-
valuative approach, in which there is no place for an “ought to be,”
namely, for the knowledge of not-being. Quite the contrary. Education
means taking a stand for what-is-not against what-is. Thus, though Pro-
tagoras rejects the rationalistic Platonic idea that we can deduce values
from knowledge, he does not succeed in deducing his empiricist educa-
tional values from any factual, given values or given facts.
Protagoras’ defense of education turns around the subject, and Plato’s
defense of instruction turns around the object. Since the subject, for
Plato, has no function, but is itself a function of the object (as the phe-
nomenon is a function of the Idea), all what would be, as it were, part of
the subject, is plainly nothing. The subject’s subjective and individual
character remains reduced to his understanding—valuation is reduced to
knowledge. The subject has no will. That is, he has no consciousness of a
will that differs, as it were, from understanding, as it does for instance in
the philosophy of Descartes. The good is good not because we want to
reach it, but because we know it. The individual is a tabula rasa. For
Protagoras, however, the individual has a character of his own, just as the
gods in his tale have different characters.
Protagoras believes that our system of values is conflictive in essence.
He binds himself to two, also conflicting, tasks: on the one side, to rec-
ognize the conflict and to explain its origins, and on the other side to
educate, which means to intervene in the conflict in favor of certain val-
ues against others. He puts his theoretical knowledge of values at the
service of his social practice—education.
Protagoras has a standard, though it lies neither in things nor in
knowledge, but in the subjects’ moral capacity. If this were not the case,
Protagoras would not be able to declare that he is a teacher of virtue,
since nothing would be teachable. Indeed, education means helping peo-
ple develop their moral capacity. It implies favoring certain values over
others. More specifically, in Protagoras case, it means the priority of
Zeusian, democratic, values.
For Protagoras the subject is an ultimate datum that determines what
is known and what is unknown; therefore the subject’s essential nature
can be altered, not by means of instruction, by means of knowledge, but
by means of education, which means a change in values.
278 Chapter 15
Notes
1. Thus, the Platonic Idea can be regarded as a precursor of the notion of
Substance.
2. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason (New York: Macmillan,
1993), B350.
3. Diogenes Laertius, LEP, IX, “Protagoras.”
4. Perception is, in my opinion, only a model for Protagoras’ theory,
which means that it is not restricted to sense perception. See Laszlo Versényi,
“Protagoras’ Man-Measure Fragment.” AJP 83 (1962): 178-84.
5. About the conflict between Protagoras the relativist and Protagoras the
educator, see Heinrich Gomperz, Sophistik und Rhetorik (Aalen: Scientia Ver-
lag, 1985), 261-5.
6. See a similar attitude in Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus logico-phi-
losophicus (Mountain View, Calif.: Mayfield, 1999), 5.531.
7. See Diogenes Laertius, VPP, IX, 51.
8. About education as upbringing in ancient Greece, see the introduction
of Werner Jaeger, Paideia: Die Formung des griechischen Menschen (Berlin:
W. de Gruyter, 1959).
9. It should be remarked that on this point there is a difference between
the Socratic Plato and the Plato of The Republic, in which the philosopher’s at-
titude is closer to that of Protagoras (see Rep. 401d and 411e).
Chapter 16
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their existence in the minds of the people who hold them. His knowledge
was not a subjective knowledge of certain objective values, but an objec-
tive knowledge of certain subjective values. What is relative in his phi-
losophy is the relative character of those values. As a philosopher, he
described values without either sharing them or opposing them. As an
educator, on the contrary, he was not neutral; he upheld definite values.
The result of this contradiction, for us as interpreters, was his ardent sup-
port of democracy and pluralism. A democracy is a society that allows
the free expression of all values, even if they disagree with one another.
Thus, Protagoras tried to inculcate respect for social and civil values. His
whole philosophy is deeply rooted in a democratic and tolerant spirit. He
actually failed then to synthesize theory with practice. In fact, the very
same failure occurs repeatedly throughout the history of philosophy,
though each time at a different level and in a different context.
Protagoras as an educator, was not merely a specialist on means, a
specialist in the way it is possible to change a subjective condition in or-
der to want to become virtuous. He assumed that all of us sustain the
same values, as it is clear from his comparison of his specialization with
that of the doctors (Tht. 166e-167a).3 A doctor changes the state of the
body with drugs, since health is the common value that he and his patient
both assume. A doctor is not merely a technician; he is not ready to make
people better or worse, healthier or sicker, as would be the case if he
were merely a specialist in means. Analogously, an educator is not ready
to teach people how to lie and cheat.
However, this position contradicts his other notion, namely, that what
a person considers right and good is indeed right and good for him. For
Protagoras the relativist, if something is “just and admirable to any state,
then it actually is just and admirable for it, as long as that state accepts it”
(Tht. 167b).
In order to conciliate between his theoretical relativism and his cher-
ished values, Protagoras makes a further distinction, between what
something is and what something appears to be. Justice as it appears to
be is not justice as it is. The wise person, says Protagoras the teacher, is
just one that makes justice, or beneficial things, “be and seem just and
admirable to them, instead of any harmful things which used to be so for
them” (Tht. 167c). The sophist may succeed in unifying appearance and
reality. Whatever exists for someone, is appearance. Whatever exists in
itself—is real.
A consistent relativism would have to assert, however, that we could
not distinguish between what is and what appears to be. This indeed is
what Protagoras himself asserted before: “there’s an immense difference
between one man and another in just this respect: the things which are
Protagoras’ Relativism 281
and appear to one man are different from those which are and appear to
another” (Tht. 166d).
Here Protagoras does not make a distinction between appearance and
reality. At any rate, he seems to have no available criterion to do that.
For cognitivist purposes, he does not distinguish between reality and
appearance, nor does he distinguish between “to know” and “to be wise.”
For valuative purposes, he does indeed make these distinctions. A wise
person is “anyone who can effect a change in one of us, to whom bad
things appear and are, and make good things both appear and be for him”
(Tht. 166d). The wise man is then a specialist in means of common val-
ues. The wise man has practical wisdom, and not theoretical knowledge.4
For this reason, practical wisdom cannot be reconciled with theoreti-
cal knowledge, which is what Protagoras attempts to do.
From the perspective of theoretical knowledge, Protagoras asserts that
“each of us is the measure of the things which are and the things which
are not” (Tht. 166d). And for this reason, “It’s not that anyone ever
makes someone whose judgments are false come, later on, to judge
what’s true: after all, it isn’t possible to have in one’s judgments the
things which are not, or anything other than what one’s experiencing,
which is always true” (Tht. 167b).
The things that you judge as not-A, you cannot judge also as A; and
what you judge as A—you cannot judge as if it were not-A. All this as-
sumed that to be and to appear are indistinguishable, as it is for what
theoretical knowledge is able to report about the state of human knowl-
edge and valuation.
True or false are the criteria for theoretical knowledge, better and
worse are the criteria for practical wisdom. In practical wisdom,
[w]hat does happen, I think, is this: when, because of a harmful
condition in his mind, someone has in his judgments things which
are akin to that condition, then by means of a beneficial condition
one makes him have in his judgments things of that same sort—
appearances which some people, because of ignorance, call true;
but I call them better than the first sort, but not at all truer . . . And
as for the wise . . . it’s doctors who are the wise, and where plants
are concerned, gardeners—because I claim that they, too,
whenever any of their plants are sick, instill perceptions that are
beneficial and healthy, and true too, into them, instead of harmful
ones . . . wise man makes beneficial things be and seem just and
admirable to them, instead of any harmful things which used to be
so for them. And according to the same principle the sophist is
wise, too, in that he can educate his pupils in that way: and he de-
serves a lot of money from those he has educated. Thus it’s true,
282 Chapter 16
both that some people are wiser than others, and that no one judges
what’s false: and you have to put up with being a measure whether
you like it or not, because that doctrine of mine is saved on these
grounds (Tht. 167b-d).5
In principle, truth is not the same as better, and false is not the same
as worse. Only in principle. Actually, Protagoras cannot be faithful to his
own distinction, because he needs both to save his theory and to recon-
cile it with practice.
For the point of view of the meta-level of theoretical knowledge,
without taking a stand for or against our ability to know the nature of
things in themselves, Protagoras can be construed as contending that
people perceive and know according to their own disposition. We all
possess knowledge according to our own subjective capacity. Each one
of us is the measure of the content of his knowledge, which implies that
there are no false opinions. A false opinion implies the being of a not-
being, which is something that is neither perceivable nor conceivable.
We cannot perceive the imperceptible and think the unthinkable. The
human situation is such, per contra, that things are as they appear to be to
each individual: “[T]he things which are and appear to one man are dif-
ferent from those which are and appear to another” (Tht. 166d). Thus,
nobody is closer to the truth than anyone else. A sick person who thinks
that lemons taste sweet has no less knowledge than a healthy person who
experiences the opposite. Values, like matters of taste, are not deduced
out of knowledge.
In such a context, it becomes obvious that, contrary to what Plato
claims, wisdom is not a matter of greater knowledge. Wisdom means,
rather, the ability to change someone’s moral values, to make them better
people in this sense. We cannot say that good things are more “real” or
more “true” than bad things. Good things are neither more nor less real
than bad things, though they are preferable at the other level, the valua-
tive level. At the practical level, it is not a question of knowledge of
facts, but of a change in attitude. Knowledge is irrelevant here. In moral
issues there are better and worse people. It is a matter of fact, indeed, that
people may be prone to do evil. Protagoras uses this fact as an argument
for education—for the need to exert a salutary influence on people’s
characters.
Each person has a given system of values, according to which he
judges and takes stands toward the world, including the political world.
People hold values, anyone has a different system of values, and anyone
has a different order of priorities between conflicting values, an order
defined by each individual disposition.
Protagoras’ Relativism 283
values and assumptions. Besides, Protagoras did not assert that things are
different in themselves, but only different from each perspective.
Namely, the very qualities of things are relational qualities and not inde-
pendent and unconditional ones.
Clearly, Protagoras has a standard that is extrinsic to the standard im-
plied by the homo mensura statement. The homo mensura statement de-
termines a non-valuative, a non-justificatory, standard, whereas his own
standard, the standard that allows him to be an educator, is totally extrin-
sic to the state of affairs described by means of the homo mensura rule.
If Protagoras remained faithful to his meta-level of analysis, he would
be unable to teach virtue, unable to advance certain values in favor of
others. In the name of what, indeed, would he espouse any kind of mo-
rality? Neither facts nor knowledge can constitute a ground for justifica-
tion. The only support he can derive from his meta-theory is the conclu-
sion that people are not ready to change their values until they undergo a
change in themselves. They must be different than they are.
Let me insist, however, that Protagoras does not succeed in reconcil-
ing these two tendencies or levels. His relativistic meta-theory is cogni-
tive and value neutral whereas his practical approach, in which he tries to
impose certain values over others—is valuative. Protagoras has, on the
one side, a meta-theory of knowledge and valuation and, on the other
side, a valuative moral theory. This “on the one side” and “on the other”
signals, in itself, his failure. In the first level, he did not take a stand,
whereas in the second he did. He supported a theory of knowledge and a
theory of values that renounced all knowledge of what things are in
themselves, and even whether they have an intrinsic value. His ethical
approach defended a morality that was congenial to the pluralism of de-
mocratic tolerance. In the first case he is relativist, though a cognitivist
(descriptive) relativist. In the second case, he is not relativist but plural-
ist, since he approves of certain values and rejects others while making
room for the social co-existence of different values.
The Protagorean contradiction is an expression of the inner contra-
diction of democracy. Democratic values at the relativist level are those
of a society that permits a plurality of opinions. On the second level, de-
mocratic values are those that he supports in his teachings. On this level,
not any value is legitimized, but only those values that foster coopera-
tion, encourage tolerance, and make democracy viable. Protagoras then
was not relativist in the sense of someone that supports any value what-
soever. His epistemic analysis is relativistic in the sense that he assumed
that people indeed have values, not that they do not have them and not
that they all have the same ones. He assumed that people know some-
thing and not that they do not have any knowledge and not that they have
Protagoras’ Relativism 285
the same knowledge. Asserting that something is just or true means, for
his reflection, that it is true and just for someone and not true and just in
itself. If Plato sought for a standard in the object or the Idea, Protagoras
sought for a standard in the subject. Just as Socrates, taking a stand for
the object, denied the subject, so Protagoras, taking a stand for the sub-
ject, denied the object, or at least entertained grave doubts about its ex-
istence.
In order to remain coherent, Protagoras would have had to distinguish
between the epistemic and the valuative levels. At the epistemic level, a
false opinion cannot be changed, as Plato would like, by means of pro-
posing a counter, true opinion, since an opinion, true or false, is the result
of a condition of the mind, of the mind’s form, rather than the actual
content of the true or false idea itself. At the valuative level, on the con-
trary, there are opinions that are, neither true nor false, but more or less
beneficial, harmful, just, and so forth.
I would like to put Protagoras’ notions into sharper focus, even if it
means pushing him a little further toward a paradoxical position. At the
epistemic level, true and false opinions are neither true nor false. On the
other hand, opinions from the valuative point of view, though are neither
true nor false, can be better or worse. And, since Protagoras assumes that
the source of our opinions is not knowledge but values, the only way to
change an opinion, to change some content of thought, is to change the
form or the disposition of mind, to change our values, not our knowl-
edge. Education seeks to effect a change in the subject.
I shall insist that his epistemic level is already reflective: he regards
the form of the idea, just the form, as content, even as the only content to
be known. This is clearly a reflective point of view, a view that inverts
all: what is in non-reflective thought a form, Protagoras refers to it as a
content, and what non-reflective thought grasps as content, Protagoras
refers to as form. In this regard, the example of the doctor becomes
clearer. A doctor takes a stand for health and against sickness and, in this
sense, he is as good as anyone is. Doctors and educators do not know
what constitutes health or justice any better than you or I do; health and
justice are values, and values in general are not a matter of expertise. We
all possess the same share of the sense of justice that Zeus doled out to
humankind. However, this sense of justice is not totally actualized in
each citizen and in each State. There is a need, therefore, for education
and moral leadership.
The problem with Protagoras’ theory—at least in the form that I have
tried to reconstruct—is that it requires the denial of the content of knowl-
286 Chapler 16
Notes
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flection. The resulting binary logic does not distinguish between contrary
and contradictory. The model is the form of the isolated sentence. The
logic of an isolated sentence includes only affirmation and negation of a
predicate from a subject. There are no middle terms; there are no third
parts; there is no place for mediation. Mediation assumes the account of
more than one single sentence. In one single sentence, the predicate ei-
ther is or is not the subject. If we say that the horse has wings, we are
denying their absence even before the determination of the modal status.
If it is said that the horse has no wings, the wings are being negated from
the horse. In a single sentence, it cannot be said, meaningfully, that a
horse both has and does not have wings. Such an utterance needs a fur-
ther elucidation, further sentences. The notion simply cannot be properly
conveyed in one single uncontextual sentence. In fact, any kind of sen-
tence functions in this way; that is, any elementary unit of thought means
both negation and affirmation. Plato, it seems, was the first to discover
this phenomenon. In any case, Plato based his entire philosophy on ex-
trapolations of the character of sentences taken in isolation. We can call
it “a philosophy of the isolated sentence” and, in this sense, it is a reflec-
tive approach, since such isolation is made only by reflection.
Now the question is why he takes sentences, in his sui generis reflec-
tion, beyond their actual or common “use-value.” I think that this is be-
cause he does not grasp that his thought is actually reflection. He regards,
instead, the form, which is its object of reflection, as if it were part of the
original content, transforming the logic of the sentence into the model of
logic in general. Plato pushed the logic of the sentence beyond its own
limits, believing that the sentence is the model of thought in general. This
is the ground for his dialogic philosophy and, later on, of his Theory of
Ideas. The Platonic dialogue is an expression of the affirmative-negative
character of the sentence, and the Idea is an expression of the relatively
universal and stable character of the predicate in relation to the subject.
Since Plato’s assumption is, out of his model of the isolated sentence,
an ideal, even universal, standard, he is unable to understand Protagoras
when, in the Theaetetus he asks why a person is the better standard of
measure of all things than “a pig, or a baboon, or some other creature that
has perception” (Tht. 161c). Very satiric, very ingenious indeed, but this
is not yet a refutation. It is not, because if pigs would have self-
consciousness, they would be, indeed, the standard of measure of all
things, as would be the case, obviously, in a “piggean” world. Against
this opinion, Plato has an extra-worldly standard, in the name of which
he wants to refute Protagoras’ intrinsic standard.
Plato’s dialogic philosophy asks only a yes or no from other logos.
Thus the dialogue, determined under the guidance of the model of an
Plato’s Intellectualism 291
isolated sentence, turns into a monologue. One of the two logoi is the
subject, the other the predicate, which are the constitutive parts of the
same logos.
Now the Idea accumulates in accordance with the model of the predi-
cate. The predicate cannot change insofar as it functions as predicate in a
sentence. Since this is a formal trait of the sentence, Plato’s philosophy is
a reflection that rejects itself. I am not trying to say that it is not a reflec-
tion. It is, but rejects what it is. It is a reflection because it becomes the
authority, the standard of measure for the validation of all further knowl-
edge.
The Platonic Idea is the result of the predicative process, though taken
in isolation from this process. As such, it becomes the content of thought,
and since in his reflection Plato denies room for the form of thought, the
content becomes the only criteria of knowledge. Thus, Plato believes that
anybody who holds conflicting or erroneous values must necessarily be
ignorant. Behavior must be based on knowledge and not on faulty values.
We may express Plato’s intellectualism in this way: if someone knows
what he “ought” to be, then that’s what he must be. A coward’s only
problem is that he lacks knowledge. Such a person can be instructed (not
educated) in the nature of danger. Once he has learnt this lesson, he will
behave according to what he knows, which is to say, he will behave cou-
rageously. It is impossible for someone to know the good and to do evil
willingly and consciously. According to Plato, there is “nothing stronger
than knowledge (episteme), and . . . wherever knowledge is present, it is
always stronger than pleasure or anything else” (Prt. 357d). Socrates
even sustained that what people call “madness” is not but lack of wisdom
(sophia):
Madness . . . according to him [to Socrates] was the opposite of
Wisdom. Nevertheless he did not identify Ignorance with Madness;
but not to know yourself, and to assume and think that you know
what you do not, he put next to Madness. “Most men, however,”
[declared Socrates] “do not call those mad who err in matters that
lie outside the knowledge of ordinary people: madness is the name
they give to errors in matters of common knowledge. For instance,
if a man imagines himself to be so tall as to stoop when he goes
through the gateways in the Wall, or so strong as to try to lift
houses or to perform any other feat that everybody knows to be
impossible, they say he’s mad. They don’t think a slight error im-
plies madness, but just as they call strong desire love, so they name
a great delusion madness.”3
292 Chapter 17
port my view that the discussion about the unity of the virtues represents
Plato’s reaction to Protagoras’ theory of the heterogeneity of values.
The establishment of the unity of virtues is only an introduction to the
reduction of virtue to knowledge. Knowledge of the true measure of
things is the only virtue, and all else that is conventionally thought to be
virtue is mere ignorance. There can only be knowledge or ignorance,
being or nothingness, truth or error (see Prt. 357d). By asserting that vir-
tue is knowledge virtue becomes annulled and, a fortiori, the unity of
virtues.
The question that has to be asked here is why Plato should assume
that there is only knowledge and not virtue. In other words, why should
he regard virtue as knowledge? I have already suggested the answer in
proposing the idea that, in Plato’s view, the subject, and his capacity for
being virtuous, cannot be different from the object of his knowledge.
This extreme rationalist and cognitivist position leads Plato to assume
that passions and interests are subordinated to the rational part of the
soul. He does not even regard fear and courage, for example, as states of
mind. They have no ontic existence, and are not defined as attitudes and
powers in their own right—as Protagoras believes. Rather, Plato defines
them entirely by their objects. They are merely knowledge of fearful and
unfearful things. Plato defines courage as “the knowledge [wisdom,
sophia] of fearful and non-fearful things” (Prt. 360d).
We need still to analyze the relationship between Plato’s reduction of
virtue to knowledge and his preference for the Promethean principle (see
Prt. 361d). What, then, is the connection between his claim that virtue is
knowledge and his preference for Promethean teleological activity?
In the Socratic Plato, the subject is merely the product of what he
knows and what he is ignorant about. This circumstance characterizes
technical expertise and productive knowledge. Persons specializing in
particular fields of endeavor differ from one another by their particular
variety of knowledge. Indeed the basis of specialization is knowledge of
those things that pertain to a specific field, and such knowledge is about
means; in other words, it is technical knowledge. The theory of meas-
urement, too, is knowledge not about ends but about means. Therefore if,
as the Greeks believed, virtue is not techné, then it is not teachable, and
there would be no reason for anyone to try to teach it. However, by the
end of the dialogue, Plato asserts that political virtue is teachable. This
takes place only after the theory of measurement is applied so as to turn
political virtue into a Promethean virtue—that is, into a State-craft.
For Plato, politics is Promethean in nature. Thus the subject, for
whom such productive activity is a means to an end, is submerged in the
deed; he postpones his own vital needs, and sacrifices himself on behalf
294 Chapter 17
Notes
1. See “Plato’s Theory of Recollection and the Subject-Predicate Rela-
tionship” in chapter 4.
2. Gerasimos X. Santas asserts that in Plato, “no significant distinction
seems to be made between knowledge of values and knowledge in the sciences.”
Gerasimos X. Santas: Socrates: Philosophy in Plato’s Early Dialogues (London
and Boston: Routledge Kegan Paul, 1979), 138. It seems however, that Santas
himself does not make a distinction between the knowledge of values out of
which “what to do” is deducible, and knowledge of values out of which “what to
do” is not deducible. Plato himself does not make this distinction since for him,
beforehand, values (rather, virtues) are deducible out of knowledge and become
themselves knowledge.
3. Xenophon, Memorabilia (New York: Arno Press, 1979), IV, III, ix 6-8.
4. I do not discuss here another confusion, that between good and advan-
tageous, and that between bad and disadvantageous. Plato clearly reduces the
Good, a Zeusian value in the eyes of Protagoras, to Advantageous, a Promethean
value. I have already discussed this point extensively in chapter 7.
5. For attempts to build up other theories of measurement of pleasures,
Plato’s Intellectualism 295
Commentators usually discuss and take a stand for one of the altema-
tive ways of understanding Protagoras ' anthr6pos. The altematives are as
follows:
1. Anrhropos means the singular person, whose sensations are differ-
ent from those of anyone e lsc . This is the interpretation of Plato and Ar-
istot le. Plato says: "Protagoras means something on these lines: every-
thing is, for me, the way it appears to me, and is, for you, the way it ap-
pears to you; and you and [ are, each of us, a man" (Tht. 156e).'
2. Anthropos as a generic idea, namely. that the human species is dif-
fere nt from other species. Gomperz endorses this interpretation. He as-
serts:
The phrase about man as the measure of things- the homo men-
sura tenet, as it has been suitably abbreviated-was a contribution
to the theory of cognition. Moreover "man," as opposed to the to-
tality of objects, was obviously not the individual, but mankind as
a whole. No unprejudiced reader will require to be convinced that
this is at least the more natural and the more obvious meaning. 1
299
300 Appendix A
something, because nothing exists beyond the gestaltic qualities that con-
stitute the singular entity. Moreover, in stereotypic thought, not only do
the qualities constitute the singular entity, but they also determine the
way in which singular entities are ordered and the kind of relations each
has with the others. They are thus more tightly linked with one another
and with the whole than are the qualities of the substance, and the
boundaries between them and the whole are less sharp. Therefore, if the
parts (or gestaltic qualities) constitute the singular entity, then these parts
also explain it. In other words, the singular entity is identified by one of
its aspects—the aspect that is relevant to the situation. The gestaltic
quality, by which the singular entity is identified, is the “universal” that
explains everything and makes everything explicit. Hence, gestaltic
qualities are the universals of stereotypic thought.
For the waking generic-stereotypic mind the same things may differ
as to time and space and in some or all of their qualities, without disap-
pearing or changing. Singular entities exist beyond their qualities as es-
sences. For the pure stereotypic mind, by contrast, singular entities can-
not have an essence beyond their gestaltic, sense-perceived qualities.
They are constant only within the limits of what is sense-perceived. Be-
cause of the absence of essence, or of an unalterable substratum, the
same quality or aspect by which the singular is identified constitutes their
identity. Unlike substances, singular entities in non-substantiating
thought are not what is not perceived. They are not what they were, not
what they will be, not what they would be. In a word, they are not their
essence.7
In substantiative thought a substance cannot be another substance,
since its substratum is its principle of individuation, which is the princi-
ple of self-identity.
An archetype is a universal explanans, in the way that genera are ex-
planans in substantiative thought. The singular entity in archetypal
thought is a stereotype, just as the singular entity is a substance for sub-
stantiative thought.
Archetypes are abstractions arranged as ideal prominent singular en-
tities made of a permanent unity of certain qualities. An archetype is
more than just a quality and less than a genus. It is already a single per-
spective of the singular entity, as in oneiric thought; but not a fixed and
indestructible substratum that ensures permanency beyond change, as in
substantiative thought.
Insofar as the singular entity is not the archetype, it is not recogniz-
able. In archetypal thought, the singular entity is nothing but the arche-
type. Thus, an archetype subordinates a singular entity by way of adap-
tation. Archetypes subordinate the singular entity by adjusting some of
What Does “Man” Mean? 303
its qualities to them, and by the annulment of those qualities that are not
adjustable. The result is a “made-to-measure” entity, namely a stereo-
type. For example, to be a mother it is enough to be adapted to the ar-
chetype of mother. The adapted mother is now an ideal mother, who has
all the qualities belonging to this archetype, and is “freed” from qualities
that are not adjustable.
The peculiarity of the archetypal way of thinking can thus be summa-
rized, by contrasting it with qualities and the substantiative forms of
thought:
1. The universality of the archetype, unlike that of the genera, is not
achieved by eliminating all peculiar qualities, but by emphasizing some
of the qualities of the singular entity and eliminating the others.
2. Archetypes, unlike qualities as universals (as in mythical thought),
are not aspects of the singular entity. They are rather some aspects that,
when brought together, constitute an individual-like structure.
3. The permanence of individual stereotypes, unlike that of sub-
stances, is not based on a principle of permanency (abstract substrata),
but on a fixed combination of qualities.
4. The stereotype, unlike an arranged whole, as in myths, is identical
with its universal, the archetype.8
For Protagoras, if this is his pattern of thought, “man” may be an indi-
vidual, or a city, and even human beings in general. Thus, it is not by
chance that the interpreters cannot decide between the two (or three) al-
ternatives, since for Protagoras does not make any essential distinction.
Notes
1. See Aristotle, Met. XI, 6, 1062b13. Plato, at a later stage of the argu-
ment, in Tht. 172a, has Protagoras talk about cities being measures of justice and
injustice. It may be, therefore, that the individual interpretation cannot be based
on Plato’s approach. However, there is yet the possibility that Plato understands
Protagoras words otherwise. At least, there is here an explicit reduction of men
to “individual man,” something in want of explanation.
2. Gomperz, GT, vol. I, 451.
3. See Eugene Dupréel, Les Sophistes: Protagoras, Gorgias, Hippias,
Prodicus (Paris: Editions du Griffon, 1948), 19.
4. Ferdinand C. S. Schiller, Studies in Humanism (Westport, Conn.:
Greenwood Press, 1970), 33. Lewis Campbell, The Theaetetus of Plato (New
York: Arno Press, 1973), 254. Brian R. Donovan, “The Project of Protagoras,”
Rhetoric Society Quarterly 23 (Winter 1993): 41.
5. About the distinction between form and content, and the historical de-
velopment of forms of thought, see Oded Balaban, Subject and Consciousness
(Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1990), 3-20, 129-57.
304 Appendix A
305
306 Appendix B
It very well may be that knowledge that has knowledge as its object is
more manageable and easier to articulate than the quest for the self.
However, if this is the reason that Plato moves from the analysis of the
self to the analysis of knowledge, then such a move must lead to some
kind of positive result. However, the dialogue ends denying, or at least
doubting, the very existence of any knowledge that knows itself. If we
accept Annas’ interpretation, then we must conclude that Plato is really
denying the very existence of the self or soul. We cannot draw such a
conclusion, because it runs directly against the very core of his
philosophy.
What Plato means, in my opinion, is that self-knowledge is not the
knowledge of the soul, or of the self or anything else; it is knowledge
only insofar as the self is defined as an epistemic relation and not as a
thing. In principle, at least, it is easy to know a thing. Plato has no trou-
ble knowing (for example) the eye, but knowing the sight does indeed
pose a special problem, since it is the visual relation. Moreover, Plato has
a marked tendency to transform relations to things. In fact, this is the
only way he can recognize relations, namely, not as such, as relations.
This is Plato’s reason for rejecting the possibility of knowledge of
knowledge.
After asserting, without any explanation, that “most of . . . [the So-
cratic] arguments in the Charmides are not very good,”5 Annas asserts
that “Socrates brings, in many different guises, the objection that knowl-
edge must have a subject matter distinct from itself.”6 Annas adds, that
“there is no way of interpreting [knowledge of knowledge] as knowledge
of something in the way Socrates requires.”7 Here I might agree with
Annas, but I am agreeing with Annas’ words, not their spirit. It seems
Critical Remarks 307
The question for Plato, however, clearly is not the existence of a third
thing, the relation, between the knower and the known object, precisely
because knowledge is immediate knowledge of the object. But he distin-
guishes, more deeply indeed, between self-knowledge and knowledge of
the self. Let me quote him:
[Socrates]: I do not doubt, I said, that a man will know himself,
when he possesses that which has self-knowledge: but what neces-
sity is there that, having this, he should know what he knows and
what he does not know?
Because, Socrates, they are the same.
Very likely, I said; but I remain as stupid as ever; for still I fail to
comprehend how this knowing what you know and do not know is
the same as the knowledge of self (Chr. 169a-170a).
Plato defends this distinction throughout the dialogue not only stead-
fastly but quite clearly as well. Moreover, Plato denies just the mediation
of such a relation as a third party. In the following passage he clearly de-
nies knowledge of knowledge but accepts knowledge insofar as it is
knowledge of the known itself:
Then how will this knowledge or science teach him to know what
he knows? Say that he knows health;—not wisdom or temperance,
but the art of medicine has taught it to him; and he has learned
harmony from the art of music, and building from the art of build-
ing, neither, from wisdom or temperance: and the same of other
things.
That is evident.
308 Appendix B
thing that flatly contradicts all the early Socratic dialogues, specially the
Charmides.
not exist, can only be implied from certain logical considerations about
what it would mean to be a liar under the presupposition that virtue is
knowledge (it would mean that a liar is a good person, even the best kind
of person, because one must be knowledgeable in order to lie).
If we do not share Socrates’ assumptions, well then, the notion that
nobody errs willingly does not imply that nobody lies. In light of less
anti-formalist reflective assumptions, the lie must be explained as moti-
vated by drives, tendencies, thoughts, and not necessarily by knowledge
alone. However, for Plato, knowledge is the only motivative force; this
assumption is the key for understanding his odd conclusions.
It is not sufficient that the task of Socrates is to get people to see
things by themselves.16 Moreover, this is very un-Socratic in spirit. I can
imagine Socrates arguing as follows: If I ask a flutist what I will become
if I study with him, he may answer: “You will become a person that un-
derstands things concerned with the playing of the flute.” Similarly, If I
go to Hippocrates, I will learn to become a person who understands
things concerned with the health of the body. For Socrates, knowledge
means only knowledge of specific matters. It follows then, that Socrates
would never espouse such a vague, unspecified goal as teaching people
to improve themselves in general, or to see things for themselves in
general, without reference to a particular branch of knowledge. Such
notions have no place in Socrates’ philosophy. Not because they are
general assertions, but because such assertions becoming nothing when
they are detached from the content in question; they become an empty
form, a way to no-place, a “how” without a “what.”
Socrates does have notions about the inexistence of liars. This is a
strange conclusion, but it prepares us to review our understanding of the
early dialogues, the Protagoras included.
and claims that Socrates erred “on some fundamental points.”18 In other
words, Vlastos takes a stand against Socrates instead of trying to exam-
ine his assumptions.
Thus, Vlastos maintains that knowledge is neither necessary nor suf-
ficient for moral goodness. Common sense furnishes the evidence he
brings forward to challenge Socrates. According to Vlastos, one can fear
even when one knows that there is nothing to be afraid of. Socrates
would have said that this state of mind is absurd. Vlastos, however, an-
swers that absurdity is no argument against facts. “But,” Vlastos adds
“Socrates . . . has all too little interest in facts. . . . Socrates’ model for
knowledge was what we would call deductive knowledge now-a-days.”19
Now it seems to me that Vlastos is considering the issue on a different
level than the Socratic Plato does. To speak of inductive or deductive
knowledge is to address oneself to the level of the knowledge of objects.
Socrates is not interested in this sort of thing at all. Socrates and Plato are
concerned with reflection; their question is not about knowledge of ob-
jects, but about the knowledge of such knowledge. The Platonic issue is
what it means to know something, and not what are the characteristics of
an object.
What does it mean to know something? Socrates concludes that
knowing means knowing the object. He uses this conclusion to deny that
there is a form or mode of knowing (that is, that knowledge includes in
itself more than the object of knowledge). Thus, the philosophy of the
Socratic Plato does not concern itself with inductive or deductive knowl-
edge of objects; rather, these processes are irrelevant to his interests.
It is neither relevant nor meaningful to point out that certain facts do
not square with Plato’s theory. In Plato’s approach, one deduces facts
from theory, rather than deducing theory from facts. A strange attitude,
to be sure. We may be tempted to condemn it out of hand, but we will
gain even more if we try to understand it.
Hence, Vlastos’ assertion that, for Socrates, knowledge is the neces-
sary and sufficient condition for moral goodness does not fit in with the
philosopher’s purpose. Rather, the Socratic Plato’s reduction of moral
goodness to knowledge means the rejection of moral goodness as a state
of mind. In other words, he does not admit that morality even exists in-
dependently of knowledge.
Contrary to Vlastos, I maintain that the Socratic Plato is not a deduc-
tivist philosopher, but a philosopher of consciousness.
Critical Remarks 313
Robinson evidently has not gone the full distance with Plato. What
Robinson calls “intellectual conception of virtue” is really the Socratic
Plato’s denial of virtue, not its affirmation. When the Socratic Plato as-
serts that virtue is knowledge he is saying that virtue cannot be the cause
or condition of knowledge but that, on the contrary, knowledge is the
cause or condition of virtue. In this way virtue is reduced to knowledge
or—what amounts to the same thing—virtue is actually denied. The So-
cratic Plato is therefore not a moral preacher or reformer. His attempt to
understand virtue in and for itself leads to the conclusion that virtue does
not exist. We cannot say that for the Socratic Plato the practice of virtue
is identical with the theory of it, since for the philosopher there is no
such theory. Although he does consider the possibility of a science or
theory of virtue, he rejects it from the very outset. According to Plato, it
is a fallacy to regard virtue as something independent of knowledge or as
something that determines knowledge. To remove false opinion at the
epistemic level immediately means to disavow virtue, since virtue is
knowledge.
Thus, we cannot treat the elenchus—the Socratic method—as an “ap-
propriate instrument for moral education,” since he denies the very pos-
sibility of moral education. All there can be is instruction, or the trans-
mission of information. Human character cannot be morally educated.
One is moral to the extent that one has knowledge. The early, extremist
Plato cannot accept that anything that is not in itself knowledge can de-
termine knowledge.
Fear, for example, cannot be the cause of a particular kind of knowl-
edge, as common sense might incline us to believe. Lack of knowledge is
the only reason for fear. The extreme “cognitivism” of the Socratic Plato
effectively denies all aspects of the soul outside of knowledge and igno-
rance.27
J 16 Appendix B
not how it is done. To assert otherwise would imply that there is a dis-
tinction between a cognitive relation to the act and the act itself. But ac-
cording to Plato, this cannot be the case . Plato does not accept the rela-
tion; he acknowledges only th e existence of the object.
Especia lly illuminating regard ing my last thesis is the discussion be-
tween Jaakko Hintikka and Gerasimos Santas about the question of
whether or not Plato clear~ d istinguishes betwee n the functio n of
Knowledge and Its Objects: Hintikka and Santas' discussion cente rs
mainly on the argument in the fifth book of The Republic (475-480), in
which Plato distinguishes between knowledge and opinion by means of
their objects (the object of know ledge is being, th at of ignorance is
nothingness, and that of op inion something that is haln'lay between be-
ing and nothingness).
Hintikka asserts that in modem thought, knowledgl~ and opinion are
faculties or powers; they are epistemic states, or what I have called epis·
temic relations.)' Modem thought thus differentiates between the kn own
object and the epistemic state, be it opin ion or knowledge. For Plato,
however, ep istemic states "sometimes tended to comprise also those ob-
jects which one's knowledge or opinion is about. In e,ther word s, Plato
does not always clearly distinguish the objects of knowledge from the
'fu nctions' or 'products' of the power to know."n
Gerasimos Santas, on the other hand, maintains the contrary, asserting
that Plato di stinguishes between the object and the function of knowl-
edge. Santas' position is we ll substantiated by what Plato says about the
faculty of sight in the Charmides (168d), where he distinguishes between
the object and function of sight: color is the object of sight, and seeing is
the function ofsighL )) Moreover, Santas' in terpretation is " that the dif-
ference in objects between the faculties of knowledge and belief is re-
quired by a certain difference in function .,,34 The function of infallibility,
by its nature, "can be perfonned only with respect to objects that do nOI
change, whereas the objects of belief need not be confined to these ob-
jecls.".lS He also asserts in the same place that "the func:tion of lhe power
of belief, the func tion of fallibility, can only be perfonned on objects that
do change, the change in these objects accounting/o r the fallibility 0/ the
faculty ofbelie/[my italics]. "
318 Appendix B
Schaerer asserts, on the other hand,46 that each dialogue is sui generis
and has its own structure.
Grote’s quarrel with Plato’s philosophy falls into an extrinsic criti-
cism that has nothing to do with real analysis.
O’Brien, demanding coherence as a working hypothesis, aims to un-
derstand the argument only within the context of the philosophy that
frames it. This method is not free of difficulties. Indeed, such an ap-
proach justifies, but does not interpret. Grote’s task is criticism and
O’Brien’s task is justification. O’Brien’s attitude is, however, the more
acceptable of the two. It avoids the dogmatic implications of Grote’s as-
sumption—that Plato is incoherent. Grote’s unspoken assumption is that
he himself is coherent. He has outmatched Plato from the beginning.
However, if we adopt O’Brien’s approach to interpreting Plato’s
ideas, Plato himself would be his best commentator. O’Brien has really
set himself the task of restating, in his own words, what Plato has already
said. Such an interpretation hardly seems like an interpretation at all, but
more of a summary.
An interpretation must neither argue with its subject, nor mimic it. It
is needed if it poses new questions and attempts to answer them. In this
case, we might ask what leads Plato to his intellectualism. Plato himself
did not discuss or analyze this question. In fact, he could not have done
so, because the question transcends the explicit content of his philoso-
phy. It deals with matters that must have been self-evident to Plato, and
what is evident to the self is also beyond the self’s own perception, just
as one can never directly see one’s own eyes.
Notes
1. See Guthrie, HGP, V. IV, 168 ff.
2. See Annas, “Plato believes that it is one and the same item to which
these words [‘self-knowledge’ and ‘sophrosune’] correctly refer.” Julia Annas,
“Self-knowledge in Early Plato,” in Platonic Investigations, Dominic J.
O’Meara, ed., (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press,
1985), 120. See also Edward G. Ballard, Socratic Ignorance: An Essay on Pla-
tonic Self-Knowledge (The Hague, Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff, 1965), 30.
3. For a similar approach, see Henry Teloh, The Development of Plato’s
Metaphysics (Pennsylvania State University Press, 1981), 36.
4. Annas, “Self-knowledge in Early Plato,” 135.
5. Annas, “Self-knowledge in Early Plato,” 135.
6. Annas, “Self-knowledge in Early Plato,” 135.
7. Annas, “Self-knowledge in Early Plato,” 135.
8. Annas, “Self-knowledge in Early Plato,” 135.
9. Annas, “Self-knowledge in Early Plato,” 135.
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336 Bibliography
Kerferd, George, 32n28, 91, 119nn74- Phusis, 70-2, 91, 96-97, 157, 161, 169,
82, 151, 174n9, 219n30 172, 176n22, 178n44, 226. See also
knowing-how, 316-317 nomos, Epimetheus
Koestlin, Karl, 101-102 Phyrrho, 273
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Kraut, Richard, 116n40 274, 314
Pittacus, 230-5
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112, 146, 156, 160, 174n9, 179, Charmides, 54-55, 57, 307-309;
189, 208, 231-232, 240, 250-251, Cratylus, 28, 54-55, 57, 61-62, 67,
291, 294. See also muthos 105, 110, 119, 208, 219, 307-308;
Euthydemus, 27-28, 46, 118, 208,
Malcolm, John, 41, 216n10 219; Euthyphro, 197; Gorgias, 41,
Miller, Clydee Lee, 177n40 61, 92, 135, 318; Hippias Minor,
morality, 45, 51, 63, 67n18, 97, 159, 44, 50, 309-310; Laches, 149, 228,
162, 165, 170-72, 189, 223, 258-61, 313; Lysis, 61; Meno, 80-8,
263n25, 284, 310, 312. See also 115nn22-24, 228n1, 313; Par-
nomos, praxis, Zeus menides, 67n16, 116; Phaedrus, 80,
Moravcsik, Julius, 105 115n27, 116n37, Phaedo, 80; Soph-
Morrison, John, 131 ist, 43; Symposium, 46; Theaetetus,
Muthos, 77, 156, 160, 179 24-25, 46, 52, 102, 106, 110-111,
Myth of Protagoras, 77, 94, 116, 144- 119, 208, 228, 269, 272, 280-82,
46, 154-62, 169-78, 185, 279, 292; 290, 299, 303; The Republic, 65n4,
Hesiodic version, 157-158. See also 92, 257, 278n9, 314, 322n39
logos, Epimetheus, Prometheus, pleasure, xx, 29, 97, 131, 147, 158,
Zeus 161-64, 166-72, 177n40, 178nn43-
44, 187-188, 190, 194-96, 209, 215,
Nestle, Wilhelm, 174n9 224, 226, 246n1, 250-61, 274, 291-
Nill, Michael, 27, 178n44 292. See also Epimetheus
nomos, 71, 72, 91, 96, 97, 114n2, pluralism, 112, 280, 283-284. See also
117n45, 161, 172, 176n22, 226. See democracy
also phusis, techné, Zeus poesis, 45, 167. See also goal-oriented
Nozick, Robert, 313-314 activity, Prometheus, praxis
Polansky, Ronald, 64, 68n27, 109
objectivism, 9, 14, 107, 191, 267-76. praxis, 45, 253. See also poesis, moral-
See also subjectivism, formalism, ity
anti-formalism Prodicus of Ceos, 25, 42, 93, 95, 134-
ontology, 56, 60, 76, 87, 94, 102-103, 38, 225-27, 232-233, 251, 255
105-106, 113, 119n74, 121, 124-25, Prometheus, 45, 147, 151-53, 155-69,
154, 208, 269, 276. See also theory 171, 174n9, 175n19, 176n25,
of Ideas, anti-formalism 177nn40-41, 178n44, 182-183, 214-
16, 241n2, 263n10, 292-3. See also
efficiency, Epimetheus, poesis,
Palas, Reino, 65n5 techné, Zeus
Parmenides, 69-70, 93, 100, 103, 114n4
Pausanias, 136 recollection. See reminiscence
Penner, Terry, 309-311 reflection, 5-6, 30, 155, 270, 274-76.
Pericles, 135, 141, 144, 182 See also anti-formalism, formalism
342 Index
345