7 The Protagoras

In 421, the comic playwright Eupolis produced the Parasites, a depic­tion of an encounter of sophists, including Protagoras, which took place in Callias’s house, the same setting as Plato’s dialogue. As I have argued in these pages that the Gorgias is a Platonic Antiope, it would seem to me reasonable to take the Protagoras as Plato’s Parasites.^[1]That Aristophanes in the Clouds also mocked sophists is but an indication that such works were in fashion. Plato’s work is an intellec­tual farce in the same tradition, and it abounds in parody, caricature, and various sorts of fallacious argumentation.^[2]

Plato worked carefully on the opening scenes of his Protagoras: they are sprightly, witty, gay, and more than a little impish.^[3] An anonymous friend meets Socrates, who is all aglow, the friend guesses, from pursuing the lovely youth Alcibiades. Alcibiades is now a man, Socrates adjures, for he is growing a beard. Quoting Homer as an authority, Socrates adds that the age when one sprouts a beard is his most charming age. He has in fact come from Alcibiades, who assisted him today, but he was so extraordinarily busy with the even more handsome Protagoras that he paid hardly any attention to Alcibiades.

As I have frequently suggested in these pages, the mention of Alcibiades cannot but cause Plato’s audience to think of Socrates’ great failure with him.^[4] Alcibiades is, after all, the man who betrayed Athens. Surely Plato wants us to remember that in the case of Alcibi­ades Socrates was no teacher of virtue, at least not a successful one. He must also expect the reader to be very curious about how Alcibia­des helped Socrates. But Alcibiades is by no means the only strange character in this play.

The anonymous friend is eager to hear about Protagoras’s arrival and is thrilled that Socrates has actually spoken to him. Protagoras was, of course, one of the most famous, if not the most famous, sophist of his day. His name has forever been linked with the phrase—”man the measure of all things”—the quintessential statement of relativism. Plato builds the excitement by delaying the great moment when Socrates will confront Protagoras. The rest of the Protagoras is a continuous narrative by Socrates. This fact should affect our under­ standing of the dialogue, for everything that we hear will be filtered through Socrates’ particular mentality. It means, too, that Socrates is in his usual mischievous mood, for already in his conversation with the anonymous friend he has praised Protagoras as the wisest man alive. Since he is coming from an encounter where he has experienced Protagoras’s intellectual weaknesses, the praise must be a joke. As the audience, we must therefore be alert to playfulness.

Hippocrates, a devoted friend of Socrates, went to his house and woke him up even before daybreak, so excited was he to tell Socrates about Protagoras’s arrival. Indeed, Hippocrates would have learned of it sooner, except that he was busy chasing his slave Satyrus, who had run away. (Is the slave’s name intended to warn us that we shall be seeing something of a satyr play in this dialogue?) After a few jests on the sophistic practice of taking money to make their pupils wise, Hippocrates begs Socrates to help him enroll as a student of Protagoras (3lOE).

It is too early to go to Callias’s house, Socrates protests; we won’t miss him if we walk in Callias’s courtyard, for Protagoras stays indoors. As they walk, Socrates decides to test Hippocrates and questions the young man about what he expects to become as a result of lessons with Protagoras (3 l 1B-312B). Hippocrates is too ashamed to admit that he will become a sophist. Socrates then points out the danger of entrusting one’s soul to a teacher without knowing whether the effect will be good or bad (312C). Again, Socrates questions him on the subject matter he expects to learn, but besides cleverness in speaking, Hippocrates is unable to respond. Socrates points out the potential danger to one’s soul of submitting oneself to the care of a sophist when one doesn’t know what a sophist is. As it is knowledge that nourishes the soul, one must be careful in its purchase, just as one must be careful buying food, nourishment for the body. But, says Socrates, we can ask these questions of Protagoras himself and of Hippias of Elis and of Prodicus of Ceos, other famous sophists also visiting at Callias’s house.^[5]

The first scene of the Protagoras shows the excitement the sophists generated when they came to town. It shows too the unreflective enthusiasm of a young man to learn from someone solely on the basis of reputation. How did Hippocrates pass Socrates’ testing of his mettle? Very poorly indeed, since he turned out to have no knowledge of what he would be getting out of his instruction from Protagoras.

Socrates calls to our attention the fact that Callias’ s porter is a eunuch, a fact of no particular consequence except insofar as it helps to characterize Callias, this famous patron and host of sophists. (In the Apology we learn that Callias has spent more than any other Athenian on sophists.) That he would own eunuchs, an expensive type of slave, testifies to his lavish expenditure of money. This eunuch is quite cranky, probably, surmises Socrates, because of the numerous soph­ists at the house, and slams the door in their faces.^[6] Assured by Socrates that he and Hippocrates are not sophists, the slave finally admits them.

What a marvelous scene Socrates now describes! The guests at Callias’s house are a veritable Who’s Who.^[7] In addition to several prominent Athenians, there are a large number of foreigners, following Protagoras to and fro as though he were Orpheus—certainly no com­pliment in view of the myth that it was beasts who followed the singer; no compliment for Protagoras either, in view of Orpheus’s demise at the hands of crazed women. Socrates can’t help laughing too at the way in which the crowd kept to Protagoras’s heels as he walked this way and back and moved out of his way with great solicitude. Hippias is also present, on a seat of honor, answering questions on astronomy and science. Finally, Socrates sees Prodicus, whom he refers to as Tantalus, quoting from the Odyssey, when Odysseus sees him tortured in the underworld—again, no compliment. Prodicus was still in bed, wrapped in rugs and blankets—he must have looked ridiculous—and in this position he was declaiming to some of his devotees.

Aren’t we to see in this mocking description of the sophists and their flock Plato’s contempt for them?^[8] Each sophist commands awestruck respect for his supposed brilliance. But does he deserve it? It is not only the sophists who are being mocked here by Plato—though they come in for their fair share—but also their flock, the disciples of these sophists, who hang on their every word like hungry gaping-mouthed dogs. As Plato’s audience, won’t we smilingly shake our heads at the folly of this unthinking enthusiasm? The mockery is not unlike that of the silly bevy of admirers of Reginald Bunthorne, the “fleshly poet” in Gilbert and Sullivan’s Patience.

Socrates approaches Protagoras and introduces Hippocrates. Prota­goras politely describes his profession. Earlier sophists, like Homer and Hesiod, he says, hid the fact that they were sophists, but Protago­ras boldly admits it (316C-317B), even though he knows that he might stir up resentment towards himself by publishing his claim to improve others. Protagoras will talk to Socrates, but wishes to do so in front of the whole company. Socrates, assuming that Protagoras wants glory, suggests that Prodicus and Hippias come over and listen, though it means, of course, that they will have to give up, at least for the time being, their own displays (317C-D). They agree and everyone sits in a circle. Even Prodicus is fetched from bed. Protagoras invites Socrates to tell him his purpose in coming. And the contest begins.^[9]

How, asks Socrates in a deceptively simple question, will Hippoc­rates benefit by studying with Protagoras (318A)? Like so many of Socrates’ interlocutors, Protagoras replies in lame generalities, declar­ing simply that Hippocrates will be improved. Pressed for specifics, Protagoras says that he can make his students better at politics and better citizens (318E). Here Socrates replies that he has hitherto held the position that virtue cannot be taught, for politically famous fathers like Pericles (whose sons are present) take no care to see them particularly instructed in virtue and politics (319A-320B). Moreover, he could name a lot of other excellent men who were unable to improve their relatives or anyone else.

Already, in the preliminary conversation with Protagoras, Socrates has called into question the whole business of the sophist. He adds modestly that he might be mistaken (320B), for the respect he has for Protagoras causes him to doubt his view. So he asks Protagoras for an explanation.

Parodying sophistic flexibility, Plato has his character Protagoras ask the audience how it wants him to respond, by argument or by story. It gives him leave to answer as he pleases. Protagoras chooses to tell a myth about Epimetheus and Prometheus’s creation of man and their allotment to him of various technical abilities. Political abilities, he says, were acquired gradually from the practical necessity of living together (322B-C). He adds that men rebuke others not for handicaps that arise from nature, but for vices that can be avoided by good upbringing. This fact and the whole idea of rehabilitative punish­ment, he says, show that virtue can be taught (323C-324C). In addition, virtue, as a single whole (324E), shared in by all citizens, is what enables a state to exist; it is taught from early childhood on (325C- 326E); if sons at times are not so virtuous as their fathers, it is because of natural variations in temperament and ability (327B-C); even the most beastly people in society are not so bad when compared to the world at large (327E). Finally, Protagoras says that he is better than anyone else at forming character; the proof of this claim is that if a student does not wish to pay the set fee, he may go to a temple, swear what he thinks Protagoras’s lessons are worth, and pay that amount.

This, Protagoras’s big scene, must be a pretty accurate imitation of the way sophists went about their business: some mythmaking, some arguments-all sounding plausible enough and probably even true in part. The final comments about payment are a way of reminding us about the sophists’ controversial practice of charging for their teaching: the self-praised justice in his method of billing guarantees that his students get a fair return from him. Protagoras’s speech has been clever and wide-ranging, and Plato’s audience must be wondering how Socrates will combat it. The element of surprise is powerfully effective. Indeed, I would venture to say that were a hundred first-time readers of the dialogue required to guess just what point Socrates would take up, not one would choose the very matter Socrates actually does bring up. Inasmuch as the original readers of the Protagoras could not have had the entire corpus on which to base their judgment, their guess would have been even less likely to hit the mark than ours.

Socrates says that he was spellbound by the long speech. He also jokes (328D) about the effort it took to believe that the speech was really finished. There is just one little question that plagues him, however, and he would be grateful if Protagoras could give a brief answer to it. The question is whether virtue is one single thing, as Protagoras has said, or whether it is composed of parts (329C-D). Socrates then engages in two fallacious arguments.^[10] First, he identifies the various virtues by the fallacy of self-predication: if justice is just and piety is pious, then justice and holiness must be the same or else justice will not be pious (329E-332A). Protagoras knows that Socrates’ argument is not quite right (331B-C), but he has not been trained in logic and can’t put his finger on the fallacy. But he will agree with Socrates that piety and justice are alike if such agreement will please Socrates. This last comment irks Socrates, who insists that Protagoras say what he really thinks; Protagoras maintains that everything can be looked at in a way that makes it resemble something else. Here, when he seems just on the verge of a breakthrough on the matter of predication (for surely one could say that a portrait of an actress and a turnip are alike in that they both exist, both are composed of hydrocar­ bons, both require nurture, and many other reasons), Socrates abruptly changes the subject: “Let us drop it and look at something else you said” (332C). As Plato’s’ audience, we might very well ask, “Who’s retreating now?” Isn’t Socrates withdrawing at just the mo­ment when it seems as though his logic tricks have been parried?

Socrates’ next fallacious argument depends on the confusion of “contrary” and “contradictory.” Socrates gets Protagoras to agree that each thing has but one contrary. Since folly is the contrary of both wisdom and temperance, wisdom and temperance must be the same thing (332C-333B). Here Protagoras says that he would be ashamed to admit that an unjust act could be temperate, though the many would agree to the proposition. When Socrates asks whether he should argue with the many or with Protagoras, the sophist replies that he should argue with the proposition of the many, which Protagoras himself will defend. This time it does not seem to matter to Socrates whether Protagoras argues his own view or someone else’s, and Socrates continues the debate. Protagoras turns out not to like this method, however, and after a few questions turns recalcitrant (333E).

When Protagoras gives a perfectly reasonable reply to a question and says that some things are good for some people, harmful for others (334A-C), the audience applauds vigorously. The audience of sophists and illustrious Athenians clearly views the conversation as a contest and is rooting for the sophists; but we, Plato’s audience, are surely rooting for Socrates. Yet it seems that Protagoras is winning. Socrates’ response to Protagoras’s comment and the audience’s applause cer­tainly increase Protagoras’s popularity. Protagoras’s response has not been particularly long; it has in fact included various examples to make the point clear—and surely Socrates, the expert in homely examples, cannot object to them. Yet Socrates objects to the length with which Protagoras has answered. “I have a bad memory,” he says, so Prota­goras will have to answer more briefly if he expects Socrates to follow him.

It must seem to the reader that Socrates is fooling around with the debate. We have already seen him drop an argument when it appeared as though Protagoras had caught on to his logical tricks; then, when Protagoras naturally objected to speaking outside of his own person, Socrates became willing to carry on if Protagoras answered in the person of the non-present many; and now, when Protagoras has made a reasonable distinction, one approved by the audience, Socrates attempts to change the topic again, fussing about the length of Prota­goras’s answers.

Protagoras objects and asks indignantly at what length he is expected to answer, a length that suits his own or Socrates’ notion of appropriate. He says also that if he had adopted the methods his opponents chose, he would never have become the world famous sophist that he is.

At this point a crisis occurs (335A-D). Protagoras is unwilling to change his methods; Socrates is unwilling to listen to long speeches and wants to leave. Callias the host begs Socrates to stay, but Socrates declares that unless Protagoras answer briefly, he will leave. Callias, though, sides with Protagoras: isn’t he entitled to talk in any way he pleases (336B)?

We, the audience of the Protagoras, cannot but see the justice in Callias’s remarks. After all, why shouldn’t Protagoras be allowed to speak as he pleases? Is it right for Socrates to impose his terms on Protagoras? It certainly does seem as though Socrates is requiring rules of the game that favor his skills.

There follows a succession of appeals to the two men to continue talking. First Alcibiades speaks, and at long last we see how he came to Socrates’ aid. Socrates, he says, is willing to grant the laurel of long speeches to the sophist, but inasmuch as the sophist has claimed to be the best in every type of discourse, either let him yield to Socrates the laurel for argumentation at once or let him argue with Socrates (336B­ D). As for Socrates’ jest about his poor memory, Alcibiades adds, forget it. He concludes by agreeing with Socrates’ position on short speeches. Critias, the future tyrant, turns to Prodicus and Hippias to implore the two men to stay to continue the discussion. Prodicus, in a speech that embodies his particular sophistic specialty of drawing distinctions, urges them to continue. In so doing, he manages to distinguish “equality” and “impartiality,” “discussion” and “dis­pute,” “esteem” and “praise,” and “enjoyment” and “pleasure.” Hippias, too, drawing a distinction between nature and convention­ surely his sophistic specialty-begs them to continue. His remarks constitute an outrageous farce on the nature-convention debate, and in them we see what may be Plato’s point about how this sophistry business can twist any argument into any contorted shape. Though from Elis (in the western part of the Peloponnesus), Hippias says that those present at the discussion are his family, by nature and not by convention, for by nature like is kin to like (337C-D). Now if anything is by nature, it is surely the members of one’s own family; that Hippias makes these strangers and nonrelations members of his family by nature is obviously a wild and crazy joke on the absurdities that can be made out of defining words willy-nilly! In any case, Hippias coun­sels compromise. Let neither man be too insistent; if necessary, let there be a referee appointed—again a hint that the conversation is a contest.

By now Plato’s audience must be hitting its sides with laughter. What a foolish lot are all these participants-Socrates included. “Do they really expect to arrive at truth by these games?” Plato’s play seems to ask. Each sophist clearly has his own hobby-horse which he won’t get off. Protagoras needs to prove that he is the best in Greece at clever speaking; Prodicus needs to show off his ability at making distinctions; Hippias needs to show how he can twist the nature­ convention arguments in order to prove anything at all; and Socrates­ Socrates too!-seems willing to engage in all sorts of argumentative tricks, irregularities in logic, sudden changes of subject matter, com­ plaints about the length of speeches in order to prove either that he is up to the challenge of the sophists or that the sophists don’t really know much. We, of course, are saying to ourselves, this is no way to discuss serious issues. Surely there must be a better way to investigate this world than by such tomfoolery!

Socrates replies to Hippias that no referee will be needed. He suggests as a compromise that he and Protagoras ask and answer questions in turn. Protagoras, at first most unwilling to accept this arrangement, finally agrees.

Protagoras prefaces his questions with the centrality to a man’s education of poetry and the poetic tradition. In this way he will transfer the discussion to the realm of poetry and deal with a poem of Simoni­des. He asks Socrates whether he is familiar with the poem. Now begins the most concentrated farcical scene of the play, as Protagoras hardly gets a chance to make his point and as Socrates takes over and mischievously twists the poem’s meaning, showing that he is indeed a master of the art of sophistry and can make the poem-indeed any poem-mean anything at all. He shows that man is the measure of what he reads-no matter what the author intended.^[11]

Protagoras claims that in the poem under discussion Simonides sings that “it is hard to become a good man” and later in the same poem disagrees with Pittacus, who said “To be noble is hard.” When Protagoras points out the inconsistency, that the same Simonides said it was hard to become good but not hard to be noble, the audience applauds, and Socrates (says Socrates in his report) reels from the blow like a man hit by a boxer-still another indication that Socrates takes the encounter as a sporting event. But Socrates does not reel for long: he pulls out a secret weapon. He calls on the sophist Prodicus, famous for distinctions, to point out the distinction between the verbs “become” and “be.” There is no contradiction, says Socrates, since the poet is not using identical terms. He then asks Prodicus to distin­guish further on the meanings of “hard” as “difficult” and as “bad,” a distinction which when applied to the poem yields the absurdity that it is “hard,” “bad,” to be noble (341A-C). This is too much even for Socrates, and he avers that Prodicus was joking. Socrates then launches into a comic explanation of the poem, claiming that Spartans and Cretans are the real sophists and the cleverest at speaking, though they hide the fact. The proofs for the Spartans’ philosophical and sophistic brilliance is their occasional interjection of an intelligent remark in the midst of inanities (342D-E) and the universal admiration of them by the seven sages. Simonides’ statement, “hard is it to be noble,” is such an expression of Laconic philosophical brilliance (343B).

Isn’t Socrates doing exactly what Hippias did earlier, when he turned nature upside down by claiming that the people gathered in Callias’s house were his family by nature? Here Socrates takes the Spartans, who are notorious for their lack of interest in philosophy and sophistry and attributes to them just the opposite qualities. And not only are Spartan men philosophers, but Spartan women (342D) too!^[12]

Continuing his burlesque of the sophistic treatment of poetry, Soc­ rates emends Simonides’ text, changing the position of a word, and by piling one crazy interpretation on another (344-346) gets the poem to mean that a good man becomes ill by deprivation of knowledge and that a wise man does no wrong willingly.^[13] If these Socratic notions were really in the poets, one wonders whether the Socrates of the Republic would have felt the need to banish them. But, of course, Socrates is mocking the sophists here.^[14]

Despite the foolishness, Hippias approves of Socrates’ interpretation (347A-B). He has, though, a different interpretation about which he would like to expostulate. Alcibiades intercedes in the nick of time to postpone Hippias’s remarks so that Protagoras and Socrates may continue their discussion.

Socrates now suggests that they leave poetry aside, for nobody understands it at all, he says, and everyone may interpret it as he pleases. Everyone argues about the meaning of poems, and the poets themselves are not around to answer questions about them. Let us test the truth in our own minds, he says. Again we see Socrates making mincemeat of the sophists and their methods. We shall never know why Protagoras undertook the discussion of Simonides’ poem, for his argument has been forestalled by Socrates’ maneuver of the exotic interpretation. Socrates simply will not allow Protagoras to compete with his own weapons. Long speeches have been tossed aside; now poetic interpretation has been tossed aside too.

Perhaps it is true that literature admits of varying interpretations and is an inadequate means of determining the truth. If so, won’t Plato be making the very same point about his dialogue? Can we really tell for sure, without being able to ask him, when he is making a joke, when he is introducing a bit of seriousness? Where, in a dialogue like the Protagoras, does the joking end and the seriousness begin? Here we are, about four-fifths of the way through the dialogue, and we have yet to see a wholly serious moment. Plato is making his point by means of farce. Through the farce he tells us that the failure of these people to engage in serious reflection for the sake of knowledge and for no other sake is the cause of their nonsense. When argument becomes a sport and the arguers play for victory, there is no hope of reaching truth.

Protagoras agrees to answer, out of shame, says the narrator Socra­tes, and because of the insistent behests of Callias and Alcibiades. Socrates begins his questions by quoting Homer. This must be quite a comic surprise to Plato’s audience. What kind of chutzpah would induce a man who has just vehemently rejected discussion of the poets to introduce his next argument by a quotation from, of all things, a poet? And he doesn’t just quote Homer, but calls attention to the fact that he is expanding on the quotation (348D)! The quotation is from the Iliad, from the scene when Diomedes speaks about the virtues of two going together on a mission (10.224). In explaining to Protagoras why he particularly wishes to discuss the question of virtue with him, Socrates gives as the reason Protagoras’s open declaration that he is a sophist and can improve others. Are we intended to recall Socrates’ discussion of the Spartans, who, unlike Protagoras, hide their sophis­try?

Sophistic tricks out of the way, Socrates returns to the question of whether the virtues are separate or one, the very same question he had started with so long before (349A-C). This time Protagoras says that four of the virtues resemble one another; courage is different. Socrates again tries his tricks on the sophist as the question turns to what courage is. After having shown that excessive and foolish confi­dence is bad, Socrates asks whether all confidence is courage. Ah, but this time Protagoras is more alert: the proposition is not convertible, he says. Yes, the courageous are confident, but it doesn’t therefore follow that all confident people are courageous (350C-351B).^[15] Socrates-—parried—does not pursue this splendid display of logic and starts a different tack.

He asks the sophist about goodness and pleasure with questions that would seem to lead to identifying the two (351C). Again Protagoras parries wisely, arguing that there is a distinction to be made since not all pleasures are good pleasures. We in the audience ask ourselves: why is Socrates trying to get Protagoras to identify pleasure and the good? The distinction between them surely seems a good one. Why obscure it? What is Socrates’ point? What trap is he setting for us?^[16]

Socrates says that he is simply asking whether the pleasant insofar as it is pleasant is not also good. But no matter, says he, let’s proceed. He then asks Protagoras his views about knowledge, whether knowl­edge itself rules or, as most people believe, pleasure or passion often rules. Protagoras believes that knowledge is powerful.

Now Socrates takes over the whole argument, arguing both sides, the argument of the many (but not Protagoras) and the opposing argument. Protagoras initially asks why it is necessary to consider the opinions of the many, but, as Socrates reminds him, he agreed that Socrates could lead the discussion in whatever direction he wanted.

Some present pleasures cause later pain, the argument begins. Now present pains may be good because they cause a future good. Similarly, a man may choose a present good, pleasure, which brings a later pain. If evil and pain are equated, and the good and pleasure are equated, we end up with the proposition that a man does evil because he is overcome by good: that is, he chooses a later pain (which by this argument is evil) because he was overcome by pleasure (which by the argument is equal to good). What all this must really mean, says Socrates, is that being overcome means choosing a greater evil over a lesser good. Since what is near always appears greater to us, the present good seems greater than a later evil. What we need to judge rightly, therefore, is the science of measurement. Knowledge will let us choose rightly.^[17] Being mastered by pleasure results from ignorance, the affliction that sophists profess to cure (357D-E). Socrates’ imagi­nary conversation with the many concludes that withholding money from the sophists and not letting them teach children would be bad for the community as well as for the individuals themselves.

All the sophists approve of Socrates’ display (358A), affirming that the conclusions are true: the pleasant is good, the painful bad. The argument returns to the question of courage. In the process, fear­ made a synonym of terror over the objections of Prodicus—is defined as the expectation of evil. Socrates reminds Protagoras of his statement that while the other virtues are similar, courage is different. But by the end of this brief argument, Socrates has gotten Protagoras to agree that courage is the knowledge of what to fear and that the difference between coward and brave man is what they fear. Thus knowledge is the standard that determines our choice of what to fear, and the brave man has it; cowardice is ignorance of what to fear (360D). The defeat of his argument causes the great speaker to be silent; still, Socrates is not done with him. He has one last point to make, and he compels Protagoras to agree that the utterly ignorant man cannot be very brave. Socrates’ defeat of the sophist is represented by the sophist’s reduction to silence.

Socrates vividly calls attention to the peripety, that he who had argued that virtue could not be taught now claims that it is knowledge, which is the only thing that can be taught; Protagoras, on the other hand, who had begun by saying that virtue could be taught, in the last argument wished to claim that it was not knowledge (361A-C). Socrates says that he is confused by the turnabout and would like to pursue the matter further.

Protagoras, however, has had quite enough, and like a gentleman at the end of a tennis match, congratulates Socrates for his excellent play. He also says he would not be surprised if Socrates became one of the leading philosophers. As he has often said, he admires no one so much as Socrates. Thus ends the conversation, and Hippocrates and Socrates leave.

The great encounter between Socrates and the sophist is over. Have we learned whether or not virtue can be taught? I don’t think so. Have we learned, as those claim who assume that Socrates is the glorified, idealized hero, that the only true education is Socratic education? First, I think, we have to see that the portrait of Socrates in the dialogue is not at all complimentary, at least not by a strict standard of intellectual probity. He is portrayed as trickier than his adversary sophists. When an argument seems to be leading nowhere or in an undesired direction, he immediately varies his strategy and tries an­ other. He is wonderfully adept at poetical interpretation, or better, misinterpretation. He is nimble at remembering arguments and bring­ ing them up at apropos moments. And he is certainly scrupulous at pointing out inconsistencies or difficulties in the positions of his opponent. He does not seem above using various tricks to help the conversation go his way. Still, no one present seems to care much.^[18]

Protagoras is shown to be vain but not altogether unattractive. Surely his vanity makes him ridiculous; on the other hand, he is clever, wary enough to see some Socratic traps coming, and certainly astute enough to avoid falling into them a second time. At the same time, once he gets past his set remarks, he is not able to defend his positions or argue anything positively. When in the end he congratulates Socra­tes, his words have the ring of sincerity about them, but it seems the sincerity of an athlete congratulating his opponent for winning a game-a game, the definition of which is an activity the consequences of which do not matter much.

As we look at the dialogue from a distance, it seems to be a farce mocking the whole enterprise of the sophists. We see Socrates as the consummate gadfly. He stings the various sophists and causes them irritating pain. In the end, he flies away. Here and there we get a glimmer of a promising argument, but in the end we have forgotten the glimmer, and all is confusion and chaos.^[19] For sure, we know that the sophists can’t teach us much, and so we’re not likely to spend our money on them. Perhaps Plato wanted to show us in the dialogue that all this attention to eccentricity, ego, desire for praise and applause has nothing to do with true education. If this be his teaching, it seems a useful lesson. And once again, perhaps, Plato offers us hope, not perhaps in the dialogue itself, but in what must have accompanied its readings: an invitation to enroll in the Academy.