Abstract
In the Protagoras the readers witness philosophy’s dramatic entrance onto a stage. By assuming that the dramatic date of the dialogue is 432, this is arguably philosophy’s first appearance in the distinctive form of the Socratic activity or Socratic questioning, and Plato saw it fit to be placed on a stage already crowded with the champions of sophistry. The argument of the paper is that in the Protagoras the readers witness Socrates’ own “turning into philosophy”, and in addition Socrates demonstrates how Hippocrates is “turned towards philosophy”.
Titled “Reading a Platonic Dialogue: The Protagoras and Hippocrates’ Dream of Education”, this paper was presented at the International Symposium: Poetry and Philosophy in the Light of Plato’s Protagoras. Department of Philosophy, University of Bergen (June, 2014). I want to thank Vigdis Songe-Møller for substantial feedback and valuable comments which I am very grateful for. I will also thank Hallvard Fossheim and Knut Ågotnes for comments to this paper.
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Notes
- 1.
O’Sullivan (1995, 31); his commentary to Protagoras’ fragment B9.
- 2.
Protagoras, fragment B1. Quoted in O’Sullivan (1995, 18).
- 3.
Theaetetus 162a; cf. O’Sullivan (1995, 18).
- 4.
The preludes in most of the dialogues are equipped with information concerning the dramatic setting (place and dramatic date); the amount of information varies – but the general “rule” is that we are given just enough to decide the place. For example: the Parmenides gives an overloading amount of information regarding the place, whilst the Charmides gives much less – but sufficient.
- 5.
Regarding the Platonic corpus, I establish the dramatic dates of the dialogues as a reading-strategy, and read them chronological accordingly. When setting the dramatic dates, I am indebted to Nails (2002).
- 6.
The distinction between the “teachable” and the “learnable” is of importance here because the main questions in the dialogue is: “Is virtue teachable?” I take it that if virtue is teachable, then the student can get knowledge of virtue through instructions (only) from a teacher; the teacher is then an inculcator and the knowledge is inculcated in the student; thus, the student being capable of being instructed. If not teachable, virtue can still be learnable. In this case the student takes on the burden as a learner and is gaining knowledge and skill by studying, practicing and experiencing. In this instance the teacher is not an inculcator and the knowledge is not inculcated; instead knowledge is gained by experience through proper guidance. See Kastely (1996) for more profound discussion and outlining on this thematic.
- 7.
Both quotes are from Republic 521c.
- 8.
This is an interrog. adv. whence? (1) of place: who, from what, from where? (2) of origin: from what source? (3) of the cause, whence? From where? The Greek text used in this paper is from Platon. Werke in acht Bänden (1990).
- 9.
The last utterance of the dialogue says: “we went away…”; who Socrates left with has been a theme of long lasting speculations and will not be touched upon here. It is for certain that Socrates did not leave alone, and thus, it also for certain that he left.
- 10.
“Socrates was hunting Alcibiades for sexual pursuit”, is due to the hunting metaphor κυνηγεσίoυ (309a2). Cf. Denyer (2008, 65).
- 11.
Eide (1996, 60) defines “topos” (pl. topoi) “as being the mathematical concept of ‘geometrical locus’”. As a rhetorical concept “topos” denotes the place where the orator finds specific types of arguments or patterns of argumentation (i.e. “commonplace”); “topos” can also denote the arguments themselves, cf. Eide (1990, 115).
- 12.
Eide (1996, 59–60) argues that “ἀτoπία is the quality of being ἄτoπoς, a favourite adjective in Plato, around 230 instances (including the adverb ἀτόπως) being found in his work” and further that atopos “had its origin in Greek science ‘contrary to τόπoς’ (τόπoς being the mathematical concept of ‘geometrical topos’), thus “illogical”, “inconsistent”, “contradictory”, and that this sense should be given to the word”. On the “atopon-theme”, see also Vigdis Songe-Møller’s article “Socrates’ Irony: a Voice From Nowhere” in this volume.
- 13.
With quite a different outcome, this point is also touched upon by Kastely (1996, 32). Further, in the Republic we are told that a man experiencing the shift is from light to darkness or from darkness to light, can appear most ridiculous (517d–518a).
- 14.
Cf. Treantafelles (2013, 149–50, especially note 1).
- 15.
Treantafelles (2013, 158). See for example Zuckert (2009, 218) and Beversluis (2000, 246) who both places Socrates at home as well as asleep, and they put forth the assumption that “at home” mean communal living, cf. also Coby (1988, 26). However, there is not textual evidence to support such living arrangements for Socrates; cf. Treantafelles (2013, 158, note 26).
- 16.
This bed is a (σκίμπoδoς) which denotes a cheap and low bed, light enough to be used as a stretcher for invalids. Cf. Denyer (2008, 69).
- 17.
See the opening-section of Book VII (cave-parable) in the Republic.
- 18.
Republic 515c7, 516a4 and 516e5; cf. Wyller (1984, 49).
- 19.
Cf. Republic, 521c, and note 8 above.
- 20.
Cf. Denyer (2008, 71).
- 21.
I am indebted to Professor Hayden Ausland for making me aware of the debt of meaning in these two verbs.
- 22.
This “little twist” alludes to the Republic 595a–601a, where Socrates also assigned sophistry to the imitative arts, arguably far away from the truth. The connection between the imitative arts and sophistry is also repeatedly established by the Eleatic Stranger in the Sophist.
- 23.
On the term “διελεγόμεθα”, see also Benitez (1992) and his discussion on dialectical versus dialogical conversation.
- 24.
Regarding the “eye of the soul” Socrates says: “It’s no easy task – indeed it’s very difficult – to realize that in every soul there is an instrument (the eye) that is purified and rekindled by such subjects; it is more important to preserve this than ten thousand eyes, since only with it can the truth be seen” (Republic 527d–e).
- 25.
See Treantafelles (2013, 154) and in addition: note 14 same page.
- 26.
Generally, the philosophers divided the life of all things into three distinct parts: growth, maturity, and decay, which imply that between the twilight of dawn and the twilight of evening is the high noon of resplendent magnificence, and according to Wyller (1984, 51) Plato often displays a “threefold” (trehetlig) development regarding learning. One example is the Seventh letter 342a where it is said that “every object has three things which are the necessary means by which knowledge of that object is acquired; and the knowledge itself is a fourth thing; and as a fifth one must postulate the object itself which is cognizable and true.; first of these come the name; secondly the definition; thirdly the image” which in turn leads to the fourth – knowledge. Cf. also the Laws 895c, where essence, definition and name are enumerated; cf. also the Parmenides 142a.
- 27.
Cf. Republic 521c, quoted above; cf. note 8; and the Seventh Letter 342a.
- 28.
When reading the dialogues chronologically according to their dramatic dates, it follows that the Protagoras is the first Socratic dialogue, and consequently – within Plato’s dramatic universe – this is the first incident of the Socratic activity. So no-one could have overheard such a conversation earlier. It should also be noted that the Parmenides is the first dialogue; dramatic date 450. Both the dialectic and the conversations exposed here are different from that of the Protagoras because in the Parmenides Socrates is a youth (18–20 years old) questioned and guided by Parmenides, the mature philosopher; in the Protagoras it is Socrates who questions and guides the young Hippocrates. Thus, the two first dialogues expose two different entrances into philosophy.
- 29.
I am indebted to Paul Woodruff for making this point concerning the “unworldly situation” in his comment to the paper I presented at the Plato-symposium in Bergen, June 2014. On the entrance to the house of Callias, many have commented on this. See also Vigdis Songe-Møller in this volume, especially note 12.
- 30.
Cf. Republic, 521c (cf. note 8 quoted above).
- 31.
Cf. Kastely (1996) quoted above, cf. note 14 and 15.
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Rørstadbotten, G. (2017). Turning Towards Philosophy: A Reading of Protagoras 309a1–314e2. 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_8
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