1. Introduction to Humanities
November 8th

2. 11/8 Agenda
Continue Plato’s Protagoras

3. Plato’s Protagoras
1. Hippocrates and Socrates converse before seeing Protagoras.
2. Protagoras introduces himself.
3. Protagoras and Socrates begin to converse.

4. Hippocrates Is young, maybe 18-21 years old.
Doesn’t know what a sophist is
But can’t wait to rush over to Protagoras and pay ~$50,000 to be his student.

5. Hippocrates, 2.
“But that is just what I came to see you about—to get you to talk to him for me. I am rather young, and I have never seen Protagoras before, or ever heard anything he has said. I was still a child when he was last in town. But after all, Socrates, everyone is praising him and saying he is very clever at speaking” (310e3-311a).

8. Hippocrates, 3.
According to Hippocrates, a sophist is someone who “has knowledge of wise things” (312c8).

9. Sophists teach… Not a skill (techne), but rather…
“…the kind of liberal education suitable for a free man of independent means” (312b).

10. The sophist is…
“a sort of merchant or dealer in wares by which the mind is fed” (313c).
The mind is fed by “learning” (mathemata).

11. The Danger
“You are about to place your own mind in the care of a man who is, as you say, a sophist; although I should be amazed if you knew just what a sophist might be. And yet if you don’t know that, you don’t know whether the thing to which you have entrusted your mind is good or bad” (312c).

12. Dangers of Sophistry
“In fact, where the purchase of instruction is concerned, the danger is much greater” (314a).
“…we cannot take [a course of instruction] away in a container” (314b).

13. Protagoras teaches…
“…how best to run one’s household, sound deliberation in one’s own affairs, but also in he affairs of the city, and how one is best able to act and speak concerning them” (318e4 ff). (xii fr. White book)

14. Protagoras introduces himself
The sophist is a counter- cultural educator, such as a
Poet
Religious leader or prophet
Sculptor
Musician
All use arts “as window- dressing” (317a).

16. Crafts and Life What wisdom do all of the crafts have in common?
Could the sophist be viewed as a practitioner of an art or craft of life?