Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Protagoras
    Protagoras
    Protagoras
    Ebook121 pages1 hour

    Protagoras

    By Benjamin Jowett and Plato

    4.5/5

    ()

    Switch to audiobook
    Read preview
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateJan 1, 1920

    Read more from Benjamin Jowett

    Related authors

    Related to Protagoras

    Related ebooks

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Pedal Dis-order

      Nov 12, 2021

      Pedal Dis-order
      3 min read

    • Article

      The Lost Art of Not Knowing Something

      Feb 10, 2022

      I'd posit that there is a bit of Larry David in Socrates. They both puncture hypocrisy, force us to question our own moral platitudes, and deign that we must defend our presuppositions, even if doing so seems rude. The post The Lost Art of Not Knowin

      13 min read

    • Article

      Down To The Piraeus

      Aug 22, 2022

      Down To The Piraeus
      6 min read

    • Article

      Is Nothing Sacred? Aristophanes’s The Clouds and Moral Taboos

      Nov 1, 2020

      On my way to an evening class, my eye caught an interesting poster on the hall bulletin board. In its most recent efforts to rehabilitate my retrograde moral sensibility, Fordham University advertised that it would now provide full vegan menus to the

      26 min read

    • Article

      Making Athens Great Again

      Mar 11, 2017

      Making Athens Great Again
      13 min read

    • Article

      Rebel Greek Philosophers

      Mar 23, 2023

      Rebel Greek Philosophers
      6 min read

    • Article

      Plato

      Nov 3, 2022

      Plato
      6 min read

    • Article

      Life Versus Learning: A Battle Of The Titans

      Nov 30, 2023

      TWO VOLUMES SIT ON MY DESK: ONE, thick and weighty, features a marble bust of Plato on the cover. The other, slimmer, volume bears the image of Diogenes in his amphora surrounded by dogs. The contrast between the two contemporaries and rivals shines

      4 min read

    • Article

      Gulliver’s Travels

      Oct 30, 2018

      Gulliver’s Travels
      5 min read

    • Article

      Editor’s Note

      Aug 17, 2018

      Editor’s Note
      2 min read

    • Article

      Think Yourself Better: 10 Rules Of Philosophy To Live By

      Feb 4, 2023

      The thing that separates human beings from other animals is our extraordinary capacity for complex, abstract thought. This is what has given rise to our diverse cultures, our scientific achievements, our ability to envisage the future and, hopefully,

      9 min read

    • Article

      The END of LITERATURE

      Sep 4, 2018

      LITERATURE’S MAINSTREAM is not a river that flows between fixed banks, but one that must be cut, and it is the experimental writer who, avoiding the backwaters of the often more lucrative and momentarily celebrated conventional writing, can be found

      7 min read

    • Article

      Dogmatism Be Damned!

      Nov 5, 2020

      Dogmatism Be Damned!
      7 min read

    • Article

      The Talos Principle

      Mar 21, 2024

      The Talos Principle
      6 min read

    • Article

      Notes on the Art of Rhetoric

      Oct 23, 2017

      Rhetoric is persuasion, and persuasion is seduction. And seduction, in human language, is syntactical. The post Notes on the Art of Rhetoric appeared first on The Millions.

      8 min read

    • Article

      Loving THE ALIEN

      Aug 4, 2022

      Loving THE ALIEN
      6 min read

    • Article

      Hate the Sin, Not the Book

      Sep 6, 2020

      Hate the Sin, Not the Book
      4 min read

    • Article

      The Talos Principle 2

      Nov 30, 2023

      What is society? Is it a form of stewardship, to protect ourselves and the planet on which we were born? Is it a vehicle for us to expand our consciousness as far as possible? Or is human progress inherently doomed? Such questions are part and parcel

      3 min read

    • Article

      PUNK & disorderly

      Dec 1, 2022

      If you’re a fan of science-fiction, you might well already have heard of cyberpunk and steampunk. Both have fascinating and distinct aesthetics, and over time have developed strong identities as unique threads of the genre. The grimy, dystopian ‘high

      6 min read

    • Article

      How Posture Makes Us Human

      May 10, 2018

      The very notion of what in the ancient world defines the human being in contrast to all other living things is simple: upright posture. Best known of the ancient commentators is Plato, who, according to legend, is claimed to have seen the human as bi

      12 min read

    • Article

      The Myth Of Sisyphus

      Aug 10, 2020

      The Myth Of Sisyphus
      10 min read

    • Article

      Wonder And Doubt

      Aug 10, 2020

      Wonder And Doubt
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Clone Zone

      Jul 6, 2023

      The Clone Zone
      6 min read

    Reviews for Protagoras

    4.5/5

    4 ratings4 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      I twice tried to read the Lombardo Bell translation and failed, so obtained this one. It's clear and naturalistic, just like Plato should be, with perhaps a little of that zing and pzazz of the best translations. It also has excellent notes. Don't be put off by the rather dense introduction - it's designed to guide further thought once you've read the dialogue.
    • 4/5
      This I feel is one of Plato's later dialogues, though it is still very Socratic in form. It is believed that the main part of the dialogue (it is not really a dialogue in that it seems to be more like a retelling of an earlier event, an event which most likely occurred before Plato was born, than a first hand account of a discussion). However, I also note that there is no reference to the theory of Forms, so it appears that this particular work is probably more Socratic than Platonic.As I have mentioned, the discussion (for want of a better word) is set about fifty years (or more) before the dialogue (for want of a better word) was published. At the time, Athens was at the height of her power, and the thirty year long Peloponesian War had yet to begin. A famous philosopher, named Protagoras, who was aged around 65 at the time (according to the translator of the version that I read) was visiting Athens, and one of Socrates' friends (Socrates was aged around 35 at the time, so had yet to become the Socrates that we all know and love) wanted to go and give money to this guy to become a student. Hearing this, and obviously a little disturbed about the whole thing, Socrates decides to go with his friend to meet Protagoras (Protagoras was actually quite famous at the time, so it wasn't as if some unknown had appeared in Athens and started sprouting a lot of rubbish).One thing I found interesting was when we first meet Protagoras. The discussion between Socrates and his friend at first sounded as if his friend may have been seduced into joining some sort of cult. Basically give this guy money and he will teach you how to be a good and moral person. Remember, Socrates actually did this for free because he did not believe that one should have to pay to be taught how to be a good and moral person. This was not like learning how to argue (rhetoric), as the text suggests, but morality. Anyway, when we first meet Protagoras, we see him with a group of Athenians clustered around him listening to him intently, and a larger group of followers eagerly taging along behind (I guess they had already paid their money). To me, Protagoras really does sound like some sort of Jim Jones.Anyway, I should actually talk about the discussion between Socrates and Protagoras, and it is the question of whether one can be taught morality. Protagoras says that yes it can, but of course he is going to take that line because he is making money out of teaching people morality. Socrates does not necessarily take the opposite view (he never does) but rather tries to poke holes in Protagoras' argument. In a sense Socrates takes the line that experience cannot be taught, and morality is something that is learnt through experience. As we interact with people we learn what upsets them and what does not upset them, and we tend to drift towards not wanting to upset them. In a way, it goes back to the basic Socratic principle of nobody does wrong willingly (which I sort of don't agree with, but if we accept that people's sense of morality is subjective as opposed to objective, then that is the case).Now, there are some interesting things that do come out of this dialogue. Protagoras tells a story of two demi-gods, Thinxahead and Thinxtolate, who are given the takes of designing and creating life on Earth. Thinxtolate decides to take it all on himself, and hands out all of these gifts to the animals to allow them to survive, but when he gets to humanity, all of the gifts have run out, so there is nothing left for them. However, Thinxahead decides to give humanity the gift of wisdom and intelligence, and to do that, he steals it from the gods. In a way it is similar (but no where near identical to) the Genesis account where humanity is given the breath of life from God, which sets them apart from the animal kingdom.Then there is the idea of cowardice and bravery. Socrates seems to take the position that people are cowards due to ignorance: cowardice is the fear of the unknown. People are cowards because they are ignorant of the action (and I must agree with that, because I have known cowards that are cowards because they simply accept that they can't do something because they do not believe they can do it, which is ignorance), however bravery is being able to respect what is known. I don't think Socrates meant that bravery is taking on a fully armed Spartan soldier with a straw hat, that's not brave, that's stupid. As a side note, he suggests that Spartans are wiser than the Athenians because of their ability to make piffy one liners (much like many of Arnold Swartzenegger's characters, which I would hardly call wise).The conclusion is that there is no real conclusion (as happens with many of Plato's dialogues, because he wants us to work it out for ourselves rather than spoon feeding us). Protagoras simply says that he is sick of talking to Socrates and will continue the discussion later (but also praises Socrates on his ability to argue and says he will one day become a great philosopher, no doubt something added by Plato), and Socrates simply says that it is getting late, he has things that he has to do, and pretty much goes home.
    • 3/5
      The famed Greek mathematician, Plato, and Socrates.
    • 5/5
      A great Plato dialogue, both from literary and philosophic point of views. Vivid characters in a true duel of ideas, from one side Socrate and from the other side, Protagoras, the great sophist master. The dispute is thrilling, punctuated by irony and with a somewhat surprising end. Interesting is that the sophist is not presented as a plain deceiver and it doesn't seem to be the purpose of the dialogue to show that. Instead, it seems the whole idea is to present the power of the dialectical method as way to find knowlegue, independent on individual opinions. As such it makes philsophy a superior approach as the traditional sophist one.

    Book preview

    Protagoras - Benjamin Jowett

    x1^book_preview_excerpt.htmluYێd%c4Hv/VG2Ig$&w<~G %9ʀa͒꺜:Uf̏1|r`^6.̫!ܚBie6Gcc`}K}2Nďmf19.1t.``<"6-uti|9퐂sqn 0!??90? 5&*6|?u\UX=$t@a+"beиʋq؇x~ώvڼ 7 G8 ^߇;b7|W6ROy sXRwmM/{sw^ܘ?ݼz7W?|6\Xљ*JBγ/7=O!b#t\s}fTv\|:8kH[}˟^ܼ~=cJ:)&F'%J8 p~C6ʜ0Xxj}v2<ƺh(4~bALRt'/dMAn(a&ZMc~YRƻIȈf}Dc@Zﰟ(ۏW|PPi($Z4]84.n4:l$ѧcغCG[la6( 9hXq3ldžaFhV`J g2tCd 987>Fݩ,cP0 Ev!:S ;z>v&`{+P`ؕ'0XDH"Bk;+7 //̣O`mѐ8 p/oAU>w>#g׃& Drʧ9s;rv8U~i,$TZB.2izK/9!؉Kp ;k|.y7앦G`>sy#e0o qC!W/PJBՖR~oV63ߋ>Y=fYD0+:,9Zr{$L9dHzxTԁ8ݒ'(K)X v (6Wt,( p9P9]xSN`h ,gxgYK^IbfP'~pУG2pM4EhD lž:ܝoAVf(; RUcrD-б:C(;x{ >NO*24 " w0(6(e47:,<( "@,K8ُ#<֕MjS: ު w-:I*U;vx)iȬ~*Etƪ %C+Hqrt(pIY$@Gd9I]c9kr+C>=%ԏΩD>GKZbUzZnZ$Lvz8ɐ@i%sU6@Y{6%go!V +)1*2f<>̩[9-0T7ۭRBSp3*4J!)qb,VXRNm.՜W)j1ds0 OnvIh14 $ Z_S+#[rDpHn@ D j_cibX{Z߰^)D \P|0ʪ]ؘK8dV\9a (NNWJ%WyyDko:,մ9!~lkaFaOD 2yc*~8pfXXWbQXSV%Oy8 <^QzO I7-f!V3^gs AFRnѷV7_LI]xZ>B)c W+ wb~n{ݘHg$B-%s=kjo"lbMHmtA\fF` Ob,wh&Bn7nkl:396^Q4edAuȕ4<eҜuu*نgh3#< \A h։܎:8P t5iz!&
    Enjoying the preview?
    Page 1 of 1