Socrates appears in his life-long search after the ideal knowledge of the best. The two men are naturally at cross purposes. Protagoras contends that virtue is taught by himselfProtagoras. and others more or less successfully, and is not one but many. Socrates disputes the possibility of teaching virtue (since all men equally profess it, and even statesmen fail to give it to their sons), but affirms that, if it can be taught, virtue is not many, but one. The discussion, as in the former dialogues, ends inconclusively. But in the course of it Plato vividly sets forth the natural opposition between the empiric and scientific points of view, between a conventional and an intellectual standard. He does full justice to the thesis of Protagoras, and it is not to be supposed that he was contented to remain in the attitude which he has here attributed to Socrates. In his ideal state, where the earlier training of the best citizens is a refinement on the actual Hellenic education, he has to some extent reconciled the conceptions which are here dramatically opposed.
The preparations for the encounter and the description of it include many life-like touches—such as the eagerness of the young Athenian gentleman to hear the sophist, though he would be ashamed to be thought a sophist himself; the confusion into which the house of Callias has been thrown by the crowd of strangers and by the self-importance of rival professors; the graceful dignity of the man who has been forty years a teacher, the graphic description of the whole scene, the characteristic speeches of Prodicus and Hippias (from which some critics have elicited a theory of their doctrines), and the continued irony with which Socrates bears them all in hand and soothes the great man after disconcerting him.
In the argument there are two points which chiefly deserve notice. (1) Protagoras, in accordance with his relative view of things (which Plato afterwards criticized in the Theaetetus), claims not to teach men principles but to improve them in those virtues which Providence has given in some measure to all civilized men. (2) Socrates in postulating a scientific principle, which he expressly reserves for future consideration, would have it tested by the power of calculating the amount of pleasure. Grote dwells with some complacency on the “utilitarianism” of Socrates in the Protagoras. And it is true that a principle of utility is here opposed to conventional sentiment. But this opposition is intended to prepare the way for the wider and deeper contrast between an arbitrary and a scientific standard, or between impressions and conceptions or ideas. And when Plato (in the Gorgias and Philebus) endeavours to define the art of measurement, which is here anticipated, it is not wonderful that differences here unthought of should come into view, or that the pleasant should be again contradistinguished from the good. In all three dialogues he is equally asserting the supremacy of reason.
On the first vision of that transcendental knowledge[1] which is to be the key at once to truth and good, philosophy is apt to lose her balance, and to look with scorn upon “the trivial round, the common task,” and the respectable commonplaces of “ordinary thinking.” Yet, as Socrates is reminded by Protagoras, this unconscious wisdom also has a value. And Plato, who, when most ideal, ever strives to keep touch with experience, is fully convinced of the reality of this lower truth, of this unphilosophic virtue. But he is long puzzled how to conceive of it. For, if knowledge is all in all, what are we to make of wisdom and goodness in those who do not know? Protagoras had boldly spoken of honour and right as a direct gift from Zeus, and Socrates, in the Io and Meno, is represented as adopting an hypothesis of inspiration in order to account for these unaccredited graces of the soul.
Socrates has observed that rhapsodists and even poets have no definite knowledge of the things which they so powerfully represent (cf. Apol. 22; Phaed., 245 A.; Rep. iii. 398 A).Io. He brings the rhapsode Io to admit this, and to conclude that he is the inspired medium of a magnetic influence. The Muse is the chief magnet, and the poet is the first of a series of magnetic rings. Then follow the rhapsode and the actor, who are rings of inferior power, and the last ring is the hearer or spectator.
The Meno raises again the more serious question, Can virtue be taught? Socrates here states explicitly the paradox with which the Protagoras ended.Meno. “Virtue is knowledge; therefore virtue can be taught. But virtue is not taught. Therefore (in the highest sense) there can be no virtue.” And he repeats several of his former reasons—that Athenian statesmen failed to teach their sons, and that the education given by sophists is unsatisfying. (The sophists are here denounced by Anytus, who is angered by Socrates's ironical praise of them.) But the paradox is softened in two ways: (1) the absence of knowledge does not preclude inquiry, and (2) though virtue cannot be taught, yet there is a sense in which virtue exists.
1. Meno begins in gaiety of heart to define virtue, but is soon “benumbed” by the “torpedo” shock of Socrates, and asks “How can one inquire about that which he does not know?” Socrates meets this “eristic” difficulty with the doctrine of reminiscence (ἀναμνησις). All knowledge is latent in the mind from birth and through kindred (or association of) ideas much may be recovered, if only a beginning is made. Pindar and other poets have said that the soul is immortal and that she has passed through many previous states.[2] And Socrates now gives a practical illustration of the truth that knowledge is evolved from ignorance. He elicits, from a Greek slave of Meno's, the demonstration of a geometrical theorem.[3] About the middle of the process he turns to Meno and observes that the slave (who has made a false start) is now becoming conscious of ignorance. He then gradually draws from the man, by leading questions, the positive proof.
2. Though virtue is not yet defined, it may be affirmed “hypothetically” that, if virtue is knowledge, virtue can be taught. And experience leads us to admit two phases of virtue—the one a mode of life based on scientific principle, which hitherto is an ideal only; the other sporadic, springing of itself, yet of divine origin, relying upon true opinion, which it is, however, unable to make fast through demonstration of the cause or reason. But if there were a virtuous man who could teach virtue he would stand amongst his fellows like Teiresias amongst the shades.[4] This mystical account of ordinary morality is in keeping with the semi-mythical defence of the process of inquiry—that all knowledge is implicit in the mind from birth.
III. Euthyphro, Apologia, Crito, Phaedo.—There is no ground for supposing that these four dialogues were written consecutively, or that they belong strictly to the same period of Plato's industry. But they are linked together for the reader by their common reference to the trial and death of Socrates; no one of them has been proved to be in the author's earliest or latest manner; and they may therefore fitly end the series of dialogues in which the personal traits of the historic Socrates are most apparent, and Plato's own peculiar doctrines are as yet but partially disclosed.
The little dialogue known by the name of Euthyphro might have been classed with the Laches, Charmides and Lysis, as dealing inconclusively with a single notion.Euthyphro. But, although slight and tentative in form, it has an under tone of deeper significance, in keeping with the gravity of the occasion. Plato implies that Socrates had thought more deeply on the nature of piety than his accusers had, and also that his piety was of a higher mood than that of ordinary religious men.
Euthyphro is a soothsayer, well-disposed to Socrates, but not one of his particular friends. They meet at the door of the king Archon, whither Socrates has been summoned for the “precognition” (ἀνάκρισις) preliminary to his trial. Both men are interested in cases of alleged impiety. For Euthyphro's business is to impeach his father, who has inadvertently caused the death of a criminal labourer. The prophet feels the duty of purging the stain of blood to be more imperative the nearer home. Socrates is struck by the strong opinion thus evinced respecting the nature of piety and detains Euthyphro at the entrance of the court, that he may learn from so clear an authority “what piety is,” and so be fortified against Meletus. He leads his respondent from point to point, until the doubt is raised whether God loves holiness because it is holy, or it is holy because loved by God. Does God will what is righteous, or is that righteous which is willed by God? Here they find themselves wandering round and round. Socrates proves himself an involuntary Daedalus who makes opinions move, while he seeks for one which he can “bind fast with reason.”
“The holy is a portion of the just.” But what portion? “Due service of the gods by prayer and sacrifice.” But how does this affect the gods? “It pleases them.” Again we are found to be reasoning in a circle.
“Thus far has Socrates proceeded in placing religion on a moral foundation. He is seeking to realize the harmony of religion and
- ↑ Phaed. 82 B; Rep. x. 619 C.
- ↑ The origin of this traditional belief is very obscure. The Greeks themselves were apt to associate it with Pythagoras and with the “Orphic” mysteries.
- ↑ Eucl. i. 47 (the case where the triangle is isosceles).
- ↑ Hom. Odyss. x. 495, Οἴῳ πεπνῦσθαι, ταὶ δὲ σκιαὶ ἀἷσσουσιν.
