Note 153 — Chapter XXIII · PROTAGORAS. (continued 2)

When Stallbaum asserts that the thesis is taken up by Sokrates as one which was maintained by Protagoras and the other Sophists (Proleg. p. 33), he says what is distinctly at variance with the dialogue, p. 351.

Schleiermacher maintains that this same thesis (the fundamental identity of good with pleasure, evil with pain) is altogether “unsokratic and unplatonic”; that it is handled here by Sokrates in a manner visibly ironical (sichtbar ironisch); that the purpose of the argument is to show the stupidity of Protagoras, who is puzzled and imposed upon by such obvious fallacies (Einleitung zum Protag. 230, bottom of p. 232), and who is made to exhibit (so Schleiermacher says, Einl. zum Gorgias, p. 14) a string of ludicrous absurdities.

Upon this I have to remark first, that if the stupidity of Protagoras is intended to be shown up, that of all the other persons present must be equally manifested; for all of them assent emphatically, at the close, to the thesis as having been proved (Prot. p. 358 A): next, that I am unable to see either the absurdities of Protagoras or the irony of Sokrates, which Schleiermacher asserts to be so visible. The argument of Sokrates is as serious and elaborate as any thing which we read in Plato. Schleiermacher seems to me to misconceive altogether (not only here but also in his Einleitung zum Gorgias, p. 10) the concluding argument of Sokrates in the Protagoras. To describe the identity between ἡδὺ and ἀγαθὸν as a “scheinbare Voraussetzung” is to depart from the plain meaning of words.

Again, Steinhart contends that Sokrates assumes this doctrine (identity of pleasure with good, pain with evil), “not as his own opinion, but only hypothetically, with a sarcastic side-glance at the absurd consequences which many deduced from it — only as the received world-morality, as the opinion of the majority” (Einleit. zum Protag. p. 419). How Steinhart can find proof of this in the dialogue, I am at a loss to understand. The dialogue presents to us Sokrates introducing the opinion as his own, against that of Protagoras and against that of the multitude (p. 351 C). On hearing this opposition from Protagoras, Sokrates invites him to an investigation, whether the opinion be just; Sokrates then conducts the investigation himself, along with Protagoras, at considerable length, and ultimately brings out the doctrine as proved, with the assent of all present.

These forced interpretations are resorted to, because the critics cannot bear to see the Platonic Sokrates maintaining a thesis substantially the same as that of Eudoxus and Epikurus. Upon this point, K. F. Hermann is more moderate than the others; he admits the thesis to be seriously maintained in the dialogue — states that it was really the opinion of the historical Sokrates — and adds that it was also the opinion of Plato himself during his early Sokratic stadium, when the Protagoras (as he thinks) was composed (Gesch. und Syst. der Plat. Phil. pp. 462-463).

Most of the critics agree in considering the Protagoras to be one of Plato’s earlier dialogues, about 403 B.C. Ast even refers it to 407 B.C. when Plato was about twenty-one years of age. I have already given my reasons for believing that none of the Platonic dialogues were composed before 399 B.C. The Protagoras belongs, in my opinion, to Plato’s most perfect and mature period.