The two
latter personages have been already damaged by the mock heroic description
of them in the introduction. It may be remarked that Protagoras is
consistently presented to us throughout as the teacher of moral and
political virtue; there is no allusion to the theories of sensation which
are attributed to him in the Theaetetus and elsewhere, or to his denial of
the existence of the gods in a well-known fragment ascribed to him; he is
the religious rather than the irreligious teacher in this Dialogue. Also
it may be observed that Socrates shows him as much respect as is consistent
with his own ironical character; he admits that the dialectic which has
overthrown Protagoras has carried himself round to a conclusion opposed to
his first thesis. The force of argument, therefore, and not Socrates or
Protagoras, has won the day.
But is Socrates serious in maintaining (1) that virtue cannot be taught;
(2) that the virtues are one; (3) that virtue is the knowledge of pleasures
and pains present and future? These propositions to us have an appearance
of paradox--they are really moments or aspects of the truth by the help of
which we pass from the old conventional morality to a higher conception of
virtue and knowledge.
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