Motives for Philosophy in Plato’s Protagoras

 

     Though philosophy today is most often regarded as an abstruse special interest which, indeed, struggles to survive even within academia, this isolation is distinctly modern.  If one sees the end of philosophy as the search for a formula for leading the best possible life, it is clearly a matter for everyone’s consideration.  If philosophical speculation is aimed at a determination of ethics, it is likewise a subject that engages all people.  The goal of understanding one’s place in  the cosmos or getting some sense of ultimate reality has been ceded to religion.  Yet we understand that in ancient Athens Socrates plied his trade in public places, the gymnasia and the agora, always a devoted amateur, and in such places made a name and attracted followers and challengers.  General interest in philosophy and skill with words became sufficient to support a class of teachers, the sophists, who, unlike Socrates, were professionals whose tutelage came at a price.  In one Platonic dialogue, Protagoras, traditionally regarded as the first sophist, engages wits with Socrates before an audience of over twenty onlookers who probably would have considered such an encounter as a world-class contest of ideas, as worthy of watching as the Olympics.  From their disputation two motives for philosophic training emerge that suggest that intellectual training has value for everyone. 

     The course of their dialogue suggests several purposes for philosophic thought, though the putative topic under discussion is a somewhat different theme: whether virtue is teachable.  These days few would think of justifying the work of philosophers by its value in furthering social ends, since their expertise seems irrelevant to the lives of most citizens.  Yet Protagoras claims that that he can “promise to make men good citizens” [1], only for Socrates to object, saying that social decisions are made by everyone together, regardless of profession, and neither any individual nor any particular profession has particular expertise in statecraft.          

      Of course, in Classical antiquity, skill in logic and rhetoric was closely associated with deliberative and forensic arenas, either the assembly and other governmental forums or the courts.  Not only did every free Athenian male have a voice in deciding issues of the common good, but, for those engaged in litigation or legal defense, the jury system made persuasiveness of cardinal importance.  Today a mere vote is thought to be all an individual owes the state, though some will go so far as to write an occasional letter to the editor or to put out an election yard sign.  Yet in the view of the ancient Greeks (and the founders of the United States), a healthy democracy requires fuller participation by all, apart from slaves, foreigners, and women.  The disastrous recent American election of a would-be dictator, propelled to power by uneducated voters, reveals the hazards of an ignorant population. 

     For the Greeks a man’s identity was largely constituted by his political role, and the necessity of sound reasoning by the populace is required for a healthy, well-functioning democracy.  Moreover, the training that qualified one to formulate one’s views in a coherent and convincing way and present persuasive arguments when discussing legislation or pleading a legal case, is applicable in many  arenas of life.  The ability to manipulate symbols is the distinguishing characteristic of our species.  The general intellectual skills of taking in information, analyzing it, and producing astute responses are, of course, critical in all endeavors requiring thought and judgement.  Often in our era, with the decay of debating as a common practice in American secondary schools and philosophy classes on that level virtually non-existent and ignored by mot collegians, the development of even fundamental proficiency in thinking and self-expression is left to the belated attention of those who teach freshman English classes in universities.  Whether one engaged with a professional teacher like Protagoras or simply a talkative figure familiar about town like Socrates, the Greeks’ system may have been more effective at encouraging a generally educated populace, more capable in their civic role and in private life as well.  The assumption that every person should possess logical and verbal skills is so strong that people are suspicious of sophists who claim a special expertise and work for hire, and Protagoras concedes that some think ill of professionals like himself, though he is willing to proudly affirm his profession in spite of the “malice and ill-will” and “intrigues” of their critics [2].

     In Plato’s Protagoras Socrates is pleased to be able to meet with Protagoras, ostensibly to gain wisdom from him, but  the reader suspects, even more to enhance his own reputation by showing up a rival in philosophical argumentation.   The traditional subtitle of “On the Sophists” suggests a focus on evaluating those who teach logic and speaking professionally, so, though the general topic is whether virtue may be taught, the rivalry of Socrates and Protagoras provides the drama.

     In the end, as in other Platonic dialogues, especially early ones, most of the logical argumentation has been negative, indicating that received ideas are flawed yet providing no definitive alternative answer to settle the question.  The reader, along with Protagoras and Socrates’ friends, is left wondering.  In  the Meno this process, at the heart of much Platonic ἔλεγχος, is described as a beneficial in itself [3], though in that dialogue aporia is simply a way-station preceding truth.  In the Protagoras there is no further resolution.  The discussion can dislodge error, but it makes little attempt to formulate a correct answer.  What, then, is the point? 

     Greek philosophy offers several options to avoid the cul-de-sac of finding a desired answer unknowable.  In Stoicism suspended judgement, or ἐποχή, is appropriate for some sense experiences (φαντασίαι), while others are sufficiently convincing as to be kataleptic  or “graspable.” [4]  For Skeptics, however, particularly the Pyrrhonist variety, all impressions are doubtful, but in withholding assent and denial alike, the individual might find a serene mental state or ἀταραξία, following the recognition that nothing can be certainly known.  Here, in a mysterious reversal, not-knowing is transformed into enlightenment. 

     Both Plato’s Protagoras, though, and his Socrates seem clearly to be in pursuit of answers.  They are also competitors as providers of wisdom, and each is characterized as polite yet jealous of his reputation.  So the reader might imagine Socrates here as elsewhere playing devil’s advocate for the more vigorous play of ideas and the chance to display his ratiocination to greater advantage.  He may care more about out-talking Protagoras than in finding Truth.  The discussion is civil and good-humored, more in the nature of a friendly game of cards than an angry argument.  The audience listens to both and the conversation, enjoying the spectacle, making the event resemble an athletic contest or a dramatic production, both of which encode tensions and antagonisms in  a generally harmonious form. 

     In the last analysis, the Greeks at Callias’ [5] house were passing the time of day, amusing themselves with intellectual calisthenics that they found pleasurable for their own sake, without necessarily coming to a conclusion or uncovering new knowledge, a form of play very like attending the theater, a foot-race, or any other diversion.  What makes philosophy superlatively entertaining is that human cognitive skill, the ability to deal in subtle symbols and recombine words in ever new combinations , is the distinguishing characteristic of our species.  The speakers and the audience in the Protagoras are doing neither more nor less than having fun with their brains.  So philosophy here is a sort of highest level divertissement with no further end in view than the kitten has when tossing a stuffed mouse, the dog in retrieving a stick, people idly chatting over a backyard fence, or while sitting on barstools. 

     Though neither good citizenship nor amusement is likely to occur to people today as motives for philosophy, their endurance in antiquity is suggested by the fact that both are cited by Cicero three hundred years after Plato.  In his Tusculan Disputations he argues that civilization itself is the result of philosophy, allowing people to live together in large numbers.  He then notes that some come to the Olympic Games to compete, while others come to sell their goods to the crowds, and yet a third group come simply to look on, for the sake of the spectacle.  This last, he says, resembles philosophers, who observe life itself, purely out of curiosity, because they wish to “look with interest into the nature of things.” [6] 

     Philosophy as an enabler of democracy and as an entertainment may seem to have little in common, even to be opposed: one seems serious, even lofty, aiming toward the betterment of society, while the other might appear frivolous and trivial, simple amusement.  Yet casual conversations such as that depicted in the Protagoras form the basis for close ties among fellow-citizens while providing practice in ratiocination and communication that can equally serve the larger community in legislative and legal deliberation.  Philosophy here represents a shared belief that people do have common problems and a common language for inquiring after solutions, and that the quest for knowledge is a primary human pleasure, whether or not anyone ever can arrive at the Truth. 

     Practice in thinking, analyzing, understanding, writing, and speaking had been the basis for all education for millennia.  We moderns can deplore, though we cannot change, the contemporary destruction of the ideal of a liberal education and the transformation of post-secondary schooling into vocational training.  Perhaps a rebirth of philosophic studies justified by social utility or the pure fun of it might rejuvenate our stricken American political culture and reawaken people to the joys and benefits of juggling concepts.  

 

1.  ὑπισχνεῖσθαι ποιεῖν ἄνδρας ἀγαθοὺς πολίτας 319a.

2.  In Greek the terms are φθόνοι and δυσμένειαί (316d).

3.  See Meno (84c)  “Isn’t this numbing then a good thing?” (ὤνητο ἄρα ναρκήσας;).

4.  Epictetus, Discourses 1.18.1 maintains that all human decisions originate in “feeling,” including the suspension of judgment associated with uncertainty.  Thus the ignorant are not to be blamed for their errors.

5.  According to numerous authorities (Andocides, 130, Aristophanes, The Frogs, v. 432, Athenaeus, iv. 67; and Aelian, Varia Historia, iv. 16 as well as Plato Apology 20a), Callias is said to have spent his patrimony in support of sophists and ended his life in penury. 

6.  Book V, section 5 for the growth of civilization and V, 9  for the disinterested inquirer into truth, acting out of curiosity.  In this latter passage the relevant Latin phrases are “sed visendi causa venirent studioseque perspicerent, quid ageretur et quo modo” (“but come to visit to see what was going on and how”).  It is these who “rerum naturam studiose intuerentur” (“look with interest into the nature of things”).