Protagoras :: Philosophy Papers

Protagoras The passage in question begins with a breakdown in the discussion between Socrates and Protagoras because of disagreement about what its ground rules will be and concludes with the discussion’s restoration. Though formally a mere hiatus from the main line of argument, this passage in fact contains a parable about politics, addressing the question, "How can people of differing abilities and preferences come together to form a community?" Since the passage appears in the middle of a dialogue explicitly concerned with education, the parable extends to education as well. The passage thus provides a springboard for insight into some essential interconnections between and among philosophy, education, and politics. On the one hand, a genuine practitioner of any of the three is ipso facto a engaged in the other two at the same time. And on the other hand, the three share an internal structure which is reflexive and transitive at the same time. In the passage in question, the discussion between Socrates and Protagoras has broken down in disagreement about what its ground rules will be. After some angry saber-rattling from the principals, and some well-meaning intervention from the onlookers, order is restored and the dialogue continues. For all its vivid, memorable banter, the passage is thus apparently no more than a hiatus from the dialogue’s main line of argument.(1) A commentary may skip over it lightly;(2) an anthology may omit it entirely.(3) However, I claim that the passage is more than mere literary entertainment, and has significance beyond the methodology of Socratic dialogue. In this essay I would like to give a reading of the passage which shows it to be not only a dispute about philosophical methodology but also a parable for politics. I will then go on to show that this political parable, placed as it is at the center of a philosophical work in which education is explicitly at issue, suggests some esse ntial interconnections between philosophy, politics, and education. The discussion between Socrates, the dialectician, and Protagoras, the speech-maker, began in a friendly fashion (317e), but by 334d it has broken down entirely. Socrates’s elenchus has exposed some problems in Protagoras’s position, and Protagoras seems to realize that things go better for him when he makes a speech (as at 320d-328d). When he extricates himself from a tight spot into which Socrates has backed him by giving a short speech (334a-c) which brings him applause, Socrates realizes that Protagoras does not wish to engage in dialectic.