Plato’s Protagoras: Part 1: Can Virtue be Taught? Thru 328d
Details
The Protagoras features a conversation between Socrates and the famous sophist Protagoras. As a professional philosopher and powerful rhetorician, Protagoras claims the ability to teach virtue.
Can virtue be taught?
Protagoras begins by asserting, and Socrates by denying, the teachability of virtue. Later, Socrates ends by affirming that virtue is knowledge while Protagoras strives to show that virtue is not knowledge. Doesn't this seem to be a reversal?
Socrates concludes by professing his disinterested love of the truth, and remarks on the singular manner in which he and his adversary had changed sides. Socrates is not satisfied with the result, however, and would like to renew the enquiry with the help of Protagoras in the future with the question: what is virtue? And so the end of the dialogue returns paradoxically to the beginning now propelled to new thoughtfulness about the important questions involved.
Join us as Socrates takes on one of the most mighty interlocutors in all the Greek world.
REQUIRED READING:
TEXT: HERE (http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1591) (or Audio (https://librivox.org/protagoras-by-plato/))
OPTIONAL MEDIA:
Leo Strauss lectures: Here (http://leostrausscenter.uchicago.edu/course/plato-protagoras-spring-quarter-1965) (You can start at Session 6)
## Session 1: Protagoras, Part I — “Can Virtue Be Taught?”
Reading: Plato’s Protagoras (309a–328d)
Focus: The Great Speech of Protagoras
Description:
We begin Protagoras by joining Socrates and his friend Hippocrates as they seek out the famous sophist Protagoras. The dialogue opens with questions about education, wisdom, and the teachability of virtue. Protagoras responds with his celebrated “Great Speech,” including the myth of Prometheus and the origins of civilization.
This first session explores:
- The cultural context of sophists in Athens
- Protagoras’s view of virtue and civic education
- The contrast between rhetoric and philosophy
Bring your reflections on whether virtue really can be taught — and what that even means in a democratic society.