Note 134 — Chapter XXIII · PROTAGORAS.

See the last preceding chapter of this volume, p. 242.

Upon this order, necessarily required, of the two questions, Schleiermacher has a pertinent remark in his general Einleitung to the works of Plato, p. 26. Eberhard (he says) affirms that the end proposed by Plato in his dialogues was to form the minds of the noble Athenian youth, so as to make them virtuous citizens. Schleiermacher controverts the position of Eberhard; maintaining “that this is far too subordinate a standing-point for philosophy, — besides that it is reasoning in a circle, since philosophy has first to determine what the virtue of a citizen is”.