I’ve just finished reading Plato’s Protagoras for my History of Rhetoric class and wanted to take a few moments to reflect on the dialogue.

Protagoras presents two dialogues to the reader that expound upon Plato’s educational philosophies. The first dialogue occurs between Socrates and Hippocrates and the second takes place between Socrates and Protagoras in front of an audience. Through these dialogues, Plato has the opportunity to express his views on two three specific topics: education, virtue and knowledge.

Education, introduced in Socrates’ response to Hippocrates’ desire to pay Protagoras for an education, exemplifies Plato’s two problems with the Sophists. Early in this dialogue, Socrates reveals his disdain for the Sophists and their choice to teach students a portion of each subject instead of making them masters in one specific area (312). Socrates then expresses his hesitancy to the Sophists’ teachings, telling Hippocrates that “knowledge cannot be taken away in a parcel. When you have paid for it, you must receive it straight into the soul. You go away having learned it and are benefited or harmed accordingly” (314b). For this reason, the ambiguity of what Protagoras can teach his students worries Socrates because there is no way of gauging the amount of benefit or harm that will come from the teachings. While the emphasis Plato places on education is apparent here, its full impact on his thesis in Protagoras does not become apparent until his dialogue is complete and the reader has comprehended the impact education has upon virtue.
Throughout Protagoras, Plato seeks to answer the question of whether or not virtue is teachable and if so, how to teach this concept to a student. Protagoras argues that virtue is comprised of justice holiness, wisdom, temperance and courage (349b) and that courage alone is different from the other aspects of virtue (349d). Socrates, however, proves that only knowledge can provide a person with the skills needed to become virtuous. Through a series of questions, Socrates asserts that no matter how courageous a man is, this courage stems from his knowledge of his specific field. Protagoras continues to hold to the idea that courage lies in a person’s soul and that only when the soul is nurtured properly can he master the pleasures that lead him away from virtue. It is this point that Socrates uses to connect the importance of education with the potential a person has to become virtuous.

Through the dialogue Protagoras and Socrates have in regards to virtue and knowledge, Plato’s underlying meaning becomes evident. This belief, simply stated, is that virtue parallels knowledge; therefore, the entire dialogue has been attempts to not only examine education and virtue, but to exemplify Plato’s idea that education is essential to virtue. For Plato, a person must have a specific training in his education since this specificity leads to confidence and courage. In the eyes of Plato, it is essential that the scholar focus on a specific area of training since knowledge is the only way that a man can overcome the pleasures that lead him to stray from the virtuous life.

Though the reading is dense, I think Plato’s message is easily reached with completion of the dialogue. For Plato, the key to aiding a man in maintaining a virtuous life lies in the education and guidance he receives from his teacher. If a man is to overcome the pleasures of life, he must have the proper education to aid him in recognizing the pleasures so that he may consciously overcome them. Ultimately, only a scholar has the tools to create a virtuous man and this task only occurs when a student receives enough training in a specific area of study.

Finally, I would like to close with two questions that I have in regards to reading Protagoras. I’ll post on the responses these questions received (hopefully) Tuesday.

1. Early in Protagoras, Socrates expresses a view that the Sophists cannot be trusted becuase they have no specialty in their studies (313b-c). Is this view of the Sophists the common view held by the Greek?

2. There was one point in the dialogue that confused me and I’d like some clarification on this area. When Socrates provides the history of the Spartans and the secret battle that ensued in Sparta between physical strength and intellectual strength, he implies that the knowledge of this is essential to comprehending what Simonides says. Did Socrates hold to the belief that in order to understand a person’s writing, one must be knowledgeable to the history and culture in which the writer lived?