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.
Plato c. 390 BCE