Protagoras
Plato c. 390 BCE
A dialogue follows Socrates and the teacher Protagoras as they debate whether goodness can be taught. Protagoras tells a myth in which humans receive fire but still need justice to live together.
97 pages 1h 52m reading time
- One of Plato's most lively early dialogues, and our fullest picture of the paid teachers of ancient Athens known as the Sophists.
- Argues that all the virtues, such as courage, wisdom, and justice, are really one thing: knowing what is good.
- Argues that no one does wrong on purpose, so people who choose badly do so because they mistake a lesser good for a greater one.
- Gave later thinkers a classic way to frame the puzzle of "weakness of will" (knowing what is best and still not doing it), a question philosophers still debate.
- Its myth of Prometheus and the gift of justice to all people is often cited as an early argument that ordinary citizens can share in running a democracy.
Saves a lost poem
The speakers quote and argue over a poem by Simonides, and much of that poem survives only here.
Set in a real home
The debate takes place at the house of Callias, a rich Athenian famous for spending a fortune on paid teachers.
Written decades later
Plato set the meeting years before he wrote it, when both Socrates and Protagoras were already dead.
Told as a retold story
Socrates tells the whole meeting to a friend he meets on the street, just after it has happened.
Translated from Greek by Benjamin Jowett