Abstract
The dialogue Protagoras revolves around the great sophist after whom it is named, and his first exchange of words with Socrates. As it will turn out, this debate marks the beginning of a continual discussion that is to pervade the philosophical life of Socrates. The Protagoras centres on the art of sophistry. In it Socrates and Protagoras meet and engage in discussion, and for a large part their conversation focuses on their inability to agree even on the way in which to speak to each other. Socrates wants to have a dialogue through short questions and answers, whereas Protagoras argues the importance of being able to make longer speeches. Through these disagreements some differences between the rhetoric of sophistry and the dialectic of philosophy emerge. However, the dialogue also shows the difficulties involved in making the distinction between the two. As Marina McCoy points out (2008, 59) “the contrast here [in the Protagoras] between Socratic questioning and sophistic rhetoric is not so straightforward.” This becomes apparent both in the discussion between Socrates and the great sophist and within the story about their meeting. Sometimes Protagoras sounds quite Socratic, and sets forth arguments that resemble what have been termed Socratic doctrines. At other times Socrates sounds like a combative, rhetorically deft sophist, discoursing in an argumentative way often associated with the rhetorical art the sophists offered to teach. It may be no accident that Plato in the Protagoras has Socrates recount how he is mistaken for a sophist by the door-man when he arrives at the house of Callias. This article looks at the manner in which the relation between the sophist and the philosopher is reflected also in the dramaturgy of the Protagoras. To this end it will examine some of the transitions that are set in motion from visible to audible movement. It will also attempt to indicate some distinctions that are made within the realm of the audible, and argue that in these distinctions some clues to the difference between sophistry and philosophy may be found. The article claims that these transitions and distinctions are relevant to shedding light upon the difficulties involved in distinguishing easily and clearly between the rhetoric of sophistry and the dialectic of philosophy.
I owe a debt of gratitude to Hayden Ausland and Jens Kristian Larsen for useful and instructive comments to an early version of this article.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
According to McCoy (2008, 59), “Protagoras and Socrates never have a conversation that is satisfying to them both.”
- 3.
See e.g. Long (2011, 361), where he points out how “the discussion between Protagoras and Socrates threatens to break down.”
- 4.
Or, as Bartlett claims (2003, 623): “One might say that the Protagoras both diminishes the differences between philosopher and sophist (314d3) and sharpens those that remain.” In contrast to McCoy (2008), Benitez (1992) claims, e.g. (1992, 222, 245), that the contrasts between sophistry and philosophy are very clearly exposed in the Protagoras. On the other end of the spectrum from Benitez, we find Gagarin (1969) who argues for the fundamental similarities between Socrates and Protagoras. He claims that “their views as stated here are fundamentally the same.” Gagarin’s thesis (1969, 134) is that “in the Protagoras Plato is attempting to establish the basic continuity between Protagorean and Socratic thought, and to show that they agree on the most important matters, aretê and paideia.” My view is neither that of Benitez nor that of Gagarin, but rather closer to that of McCoy, who recognizes both the similarities and the differences between Socrates and Protagoras. As she concludes (1999, 364): “The Protagoras […] exhibits the value of dialectic as a philosophical method appropriate to the human state”.
- 5.
Coby (1987, 14 ff.) argues that Protagoras “to a remarkable degree […] is a proponent of this [Socratic] doctrine,” and claims that there is a side of Protagoras that is “noticeably akin to Socrates.” He describes the similarities point by point over several pages in his book.
- 6.
As Lampert writes (2010, 34), “Socrates seems indistinguishable from a sophist.” He argues, nonetheless, for the superior greatness of Socrates. Still he poses the question: “But in what does Socrates’ superior greatness consist?” Coby as well (1987, 18) points out the resemblance between Socrates and the sophist Protagoras: “The competitive, even sophistic nature of Socrates’ conversation with Protagoras is one of the dialogue’s unmistakable features.”
- 7.
For an overview of the increasing tendency over the past few decades of a “growing sensitivity to the unity of Protagoras and its integration of literature and theory” see Lavery (2007, 191).
- 8.
See Liddell and Scott (1996) for references to this and all the following references to the senses of the Greek words.
- 9.
Plato, Protagoras, translated by Lamb in The Loeb Classical Library (Plato 1990). When not otherwise stated, this is the translation used.
- 10.
Plato, Protagoras, translated by Bartlett (Plato 2004).
- 11.
A number of interpreters have made a point of the first word of the dialogue, and interpreted this in various ways. Lampert puts emphasis on the very first word of the Protagoras, but makes a different point, in that he reads pothen as leading back to “the Socrates who has already become himself before the Platonic dialogues begin”, as he writes (Lampert 2010, 22). Coby, as well, indicates the importance of these first words of the dialogue, and stresses the fact that phainê is used five times in the brief exchange at the beginning of the dialogue (Coby 1987, 20–21). He also points to Miller (1974) for more on the importance of the pothen phainê at the beginning of the dialogue (p. 19, with note 5). Long also draws attention to the first word – pothen – but again has an interpretation that differs from the one proposed here. According to him (Long 2011, 362), the first word of the dialogue “announces a central theme of the dialogue: the proper course of a life […].”
- 12.
This point is not affected by whether or not this opinion expressed by the friend holds true. The fact remains that Plato as the author has written this sentence into his dialogue, where the choice of words creates a certain effect.
- 13.
For example Tore Frost in his introduction to the Norwegian translation states this explicitly: Protagoras is described, as he writes, “som en vandrende korfører med et haleheng av disipler som kormedlemmer og som med trippende dansetrinn holder de to rekkene intakt.” (Frost 1999, 78).
- 14.
Griswold (1999) focuses on the significance of the voice in the Protagoras, but in a different way. Where he examines the voice as an expression of something inner, some meaning or self, we may instead focus on the mere sonority of the voice in the depictions of Protagoras and Prodicus at this point.
- 15.
Once again there is an allusion to the Symposium here, where the flute-player is at first sent away (Symposium 176e), and then another arrives together with Alcibiades at the end of the dialogue (Symposium 212d).
- 16.
- 17.
Music (mousikê), even in its wide meaning, does not, as I argue, include the visible (plastic) arts, such as painting.
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Sampson, K. (2017). Visible and Audible Movement in the Protagoras . In: Pettersson, O., Songe-Møller, V. (eds) Plato’s Protagoras. Philosophical Studies Series, vol 125. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-45585-3_12
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