Protagoras

The Protagoras is a short philosophical dialogue written by Plato during the 4th century BCE. Its central characters are Socrates and Protagoras, who engage in heated exchanges on the nature of virtue. The dialogue is one of many in which Plato explores related themes in metaphysics and ethics.

Protagoras is about sophistry, an intellectual school in ancient Greece in which so-called wise teachers traveled the Greek-speaking world in search of acolytes. Plato disdained sophistry; he considered it a fad and found it to be antithetical to the path of the true philosopher. In the dialogue, Plato presents Protagoras as the most well-known and admired of sophists but still portrays him unfavorably.

This guide references the Protagoras as translated by Joe Sachs for the 2011 volume Socrates and the Sophist. This volume includes a number of other Platonic dialogues with similar themes. It is published through Focus, an imprint of Hackett Publishing.

Summary

Early one morning, young Hippocrates—excited because Protagoras, a famous sophist, is in town—awakens his older friend Socrates. Socrates warns him to be cautious because he believes sophists’ ideas are corrupting, but they visit Protagoras, as Hippocrates desires.