Let's read Protagoras, by Plato (full audiobook)
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- čas přidán 19. 04. 2019
- 0:00:43 Socrates' companion makes some spicy comments about Alcibiades, their clever and attractive young friend, and then learns of Protagoras' visit to Athens.
0:04:00 Socrates is awoken by Hippocrates, who is desperate to visit the famous sophist, Protagoras. Socrates warns about the risks involved in learning new ideas, and suggests a cautious plan of action.
0:20:47 They proceed to the house of Callias, the rich Athenian, where Protagoras and several other famous sophists are staying. The doorkeeper does not like sophists, but eventually lets them in.
0:26:06 "Protagoras! My friend Hippocrates and I have come to see you!" They ask if Protagoras can teach Hippocrates to have a successful political career.
0:30:05 Socrates suggests that Protagoras gives a display of his philosophical knowledge to the company (apparently, none of them seem to have had this idea for themselves, despite the room being brim full of sophists). "What will happen to Hippocrates if he associates with you, Protagoras?"
0:34:27 Socrates airs his view that art of politics (or political virtue) cannot be taught.
0:38:08 Protagoras is invited to say why virtue can be taught. He introduces his answer with a story about Prometheus and his brother Epimetheus, and the provision of the arts and justice to mankind by the gods. (Skill in the arts is distributed unevenly, but justice to all.)
0:46:50 Protagoras shows the Athenians believe virtue can be taught; and outlines how it is. Protagoras's argument is so good it convinces Socrates!
0:59:50 Protagoras describes his system of payment for teaching (the student declares the value).
1:03:34 Socrates advances the discussion onto the unity of virtue: is virtue (or excellence) a single unified whole? Protagoras says it has distinct parts; Socrates argues this is incoherent, e.g. holiness and justice are identical.
1:12:09 Soc. argues that, given things have only one opposite, wisdom and temperance must be identical.
1:16:49 Can an unjust man be temperate in his injustice? Soc. says not; Protagoras says he hopes not, but that many people might say so.
1:19:02 The discussion takes a detour, in which Protagoras uses a long-form narrative method (of a type Socrates dislikes) to argue that some things are both good and bad (harmful).
1:21:28 Socrates replies, blaming his 'poor memory' and saying that Protagoras' argument would not hold water if it was made in short-form and more closely analysed. Protagoras grumbles.
1:27:02 Alcibiades argues that Protagoras should give short answers.
1:28:55 Prodicus is asked to entreat both speakers to continue. He does so by waffling for a bit.
1:31:03 Hippias suggests medium-length answers would be satisfactory to all. He also suggests having a judge of what 'medium-length' means, which Socrates rejects.
1:34:42 Protagoras reluctantly agrees to ask questions. He starts with a question that turns into a very technical analysis of a poem by Simonides. (Socrates and Protagoras both turn out to be experts on poetry.) They go into annoying detail about whether saying 'hardly [i.e. with difficulty(?)] can a man become good' and rejecting the statement of Pittacus 'hard it is to be good' can be consistent. Socrates thinks these are consistent. [This is skippable if you want to get back to the main discussion about virtue, which resumes at 2:08:05.]
1:38:33 Socrates invites Prodicus to discuss the poem pedantically while he thinks up a proper answer.
1:45:48 Socrates explains why he thinks Simonides' poem is consistent. He praises the concise (but basic) philosophy of the Lacedaemonians (Sparta), and argues that Simonides was legitimately criticising Pittacus by pointing out Pittacus failed to distinguish 'becoming good' from 'being [permanently] good' - the former is hard, and the latter is not hard (and also not easy, but in fact it is impossible - for mere mortals). Around 1:57:00 there is a similar close textual distinction of Simonides use of the word 'voluntarily' - this part allows an allusion to Plato's theory that no-one deliberately does evil [Cf. Meno]. 2:02:05 Hippias tries to give his own interpretation of the poem; fortunately Alcibiades stops him.
2:02:53 Socrates finally puts a stop to the poetry discussion, comparing poetry to the music of over-priced flute girls who he says are not a suitable entertainment for gentlemen, and returns to the unity of virtue.
[Continued in comments section.]
Notes:
The "Hellenes" are the Greeks
"Lacedaemon" is the city-state of Sparta
This is an original audiobook of the Socratic dialogue Protagoras, by Plato. Translated by Benjamin Jowett.
Jowett's translation is in the public domain, and the text is available: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1591
Link to the podcast version (smaller mp3 file):
anchor.fm/faran-whyde/episode...
This is a lovely, spirited reading of protagoras.
Can you read the Parmenides, Sophist, timaeus, menexenus, statesman, and charmides, and lysis? Your ability to dramatise this is fantastic and brings to life the dialogues. There are too many extremely dry “monologue” like readings and it’s too painful to bear. Cheers!
Thanks! I want to do Parmenides, and could do Lysis and Charmides, though I think Symposium might be funnier. Timaeus and Sophist are, I think, more advanced than I can dramatise anytime soon. Want to do Republic after Parmenides.
I love the voices, this is great.
Thanks Faran very useful! Good effort reading it all in one sitting!
Thanks. Actually I recorded it in several 15 minute chunks with Audacity.
This is an excellent voice actor, way better than the other Audiobooks on youtube. Thank you!
28:20 is the best part period! 🤣
Beautifully brilliant, thank you.
This is really cool; I read the book this morning and it took me 4 hours straight. It was very funny to me to see Socrates make a fool out of the wisest man in Athens. It showed me that the Pythian was correct; there is none other wiser than Socrates ... not Protagoras.
Thank you so much for this excellent work.
These voices are great
LOL I love the performance
Continued from video caption:
2:05:15 Alcibiades gets Protagoras to agree to continue the questions.
2:06:11 Socrates claims he's just asking questions to help himself to get at the truth, and flatters Protagoras. "When two go together, one sees before the other."
2:08:05 Socrates 'refreshes his memory' about where the discussion on the unity of virtue had reached.
2:10:45 Socrates responds to Protagoras' suggestion that courage differs from the other virtues. Protagoras suggests courage is confidence; Socrates shows that those who are confident without knowledge are mad, and on this view, knowledge is courage. Protagoras replies, astutely, that this relation has only been proved one way (2:16:12 courage does require some knowledge, but knowledge is not a sufficient condition for courage).
2:16:29 Socrates alters his strategy and raises the question of what is the highest good. Is good equivalent to pleasure; and is the highest virtue wisdom; and is it impossible (as Socrates thinks) for a person to act contrary to knowledge? [This section is the beginning of some top-quality Socrates, in his preferred short-question / short-answer format.]
Protagoras agrees with Socrates that it is impossible to act contrary to knowledge; however he notes that most people (erroneously) believe that a person may be 'overcome by pleasure' and act contrary to their knowledge.
2:23:27 Socrates suggests that analysing this common view (that a person may be 'overcome by pleasure') might help to reveal how courage is related to the other virtues.
Firstly, Socrates argues that pleasure is equivalent to good, and pain an evil, once all of the long-term pleasures / pains are taken into account to find the overall pleasure / good.
Second, the first point implies that being 'overcome by pleasure' happens simply because the person lacked the knowledge to correctly account for the overall amount of long-term pain that would be caused.
Third, Socrates argues that pleasure and pain can be compared, and their magnitudes assessed.
2:35:06 "Do not the same magnitudes appear larger to your sight when near, and smaller when at a difference?" An allusion to the concept of time-preference. Socrates argues that happiness consists in choosing the (real / genuinely) greater pleasure or lesser pain, and hence that the essential principle that produces happiness is the 'art of measurement'... and this thing, which is clearly virtue, is a kind of knowledge. Protagoras agrees that the right choices in life depend on correctly measuring the resulting pleasures and pains - and this method of choice is an art and science.
2:38:22 The nature of this art or science (of ethical calculus) is yet to be determined, but its existence (which is now demonstrated) furnishes an answer to the question that 'the common people' asked earlier - Protagoras asked whether pleasure could get the advantage over knowledge, and lead to evil choices; but in fact it is now shown that this can only happen through ignorance, or a failure of the knowledge of measuring.
Hence this shows that knowledge is a necessary part of virtue; and that it is impossible to act contraty to knowledge; and that erring occurs (only) through a defect in the knowledge of measuring (ethical calculus).
2:41:06 Socrates sums up the conclusions, which have been agreed to by the company.
The pleasant is the good, and the painful evil.
All actions are honorable of which the tendency to make life pleasant and painless.
The honorable is also good.
If the pleasant is the good, no one does anything when he knows that a better is attainable.
The inferiority (choosing the worse) is merely ignorance, and the better is wisdom.
Ignorance is having a false opinion and being deceived about important matters.
Then no man voluntarily pursues evil; and no-one will choose the greater evil when he may have the less.
2:43:45 ... Now, returning to the discussion of courage. Fear or terror is the expectation of evil.
Socrates is now, on reflection, very surprised by Protagoras' claim that, while four of the virtues they discussed were very similar, the virtue of courage was very different from them because there were some people who lacked the first four virtues but were courageous (and he claimed knowledge was a necessary but not sufficient basis for courage).
But 'No-one voluntarily chooses a greater evil' and 'no-one rushes in to meet dangers that they know to be greater evils, and this recklessness has been shown to be ignorance.'
Socrates shows that ignorance of what is dangerous is cowardice, and its opposite, courage, is the therefore the knowledge of what is and is not really dangerous. Hence knowledge (of what is and is not dangerous) is a sufficient condition for courage.
2:52:22 "Finish the argument by yourself!" Socrates want to ask one final question...
2:53:35 Socrates describes the results of their discussion - that Protagoras and Socrates seemingly switched views on whether virtue can be taught during the discussion... And he'd like to continue the inquiry into what virtue is, but he is already late for an engagement.
This is excellent…
Donald trump supporters should listen to this, although I doubt any of them are learned men or men that would commit themselves to any degree of wisdom.
That’s almost half of the US you’re stereotyping. Get over yourself.
That seems unrelated to the spirit of the dialogue.
It's one of the great works of literature. Everybody should read it
It's one of the great works of literature. Everybody should read it
It's one of the great works of literature. Everybody should read it