Notes on Plato's Protagoras "Knowledge is the food of the soul."

     Plato's Progatoras teaches us about:

• The nature of a genuine seeker of knowledge and wisdom

• The nature of a genuine teacher

• The nature of dialectic as the primary procedure in the search for wisdom (philosophy)

• What dialectic discovers in this dialogue

1. A genuine seeker/student/learner:

   • Is not a foolish glutton for information--as Hippocrates is

   • Knows what his needs are: Does not mistake his need for information or knowledge for his need for wisdom (a much higher need which occurs after basic information and knowledge have been mastered)

   • Does not feel that a teacher "keeps wisdom from him"

   • Knows something of what he truly needs:

     • How to learn how to learn

     • Information instead of wisdom (or knowledge)

     • Who can effectively and beneficially instruct him

     • What will a teacher make of him

     • How to find a specific teacher: seeking counsel from wise persons as to which teacher might be appropriate for him

     • How to examine what a specific teacher is:

       • For example, what a specific teacher helps a seeker understand and what capabilities he helps him develop

       • Knows what kinds of questions to ask in the examination process: "In what shall I become better, and in what shall I grow?" (Socrates' question which he supplies for Hippocrates)

   • Knows that he, the seeker, is questing for knowledge--"food" for his soul:
     
     • Knows there is far greater peril in buying knowledge (food of the soul) than in buying meat and drink

     • Realizes that "food for the soul" (knowledge) cannot be taken home and examined by himself and others to determine if it will be beneficial to him

     • Realizes that knowledge is consumed immediately and enters the soul on the spot, with either benefit or harm

     • Does not hazard his soul in a game of chance--clammering after whatever teacher seems most popular or dynamic

     • Examines what a teacher says and writes, to see what "food" he is offering, before consuming any (accepting his ideas or entering into a learning process)

     
     

2. A genuine teacher:

   • Acts, as does Socrates in this dialogue, to fulfill the needs of the seeker--even when the seeker has no clear idea what his needs are

   • Is not approached as a hoarder of knowledge whom you must placate in order to receive his knowledge

     "But surely, I said, if you give him money, and make friends with him, he will make you as wise as he is himself."
     Socrates speaking to Hippocrates about Protagoras

   • Can only make you as wise as he himself is

   • Imparts knowledge without directing him into the same profession he (the teacher) is engaged in

   • Understands that a seeker commits his soul to the care of the teacher

   • Only agrees to teach specific seekers who demonstrate the necessary prerequisites

     

   • Is a "physician of the soul" (one who knows what is good and what is evil):

     • Knows what specific "food" (knowledge) the individual student needs to consume

     • Does not, like a grocer, praise all his "food" (knowledge) as good for everybody

   • Does not try to deceive prospective students with dishonest or unrealistic claims

     Protagoras: "Young man, if you associate with me, on the very first day you will return home a beter man than you came, and better on the second day than on the first, and better every day than you were on the day before."

   • Does not try to attract students with extraneous aspects of his personality: for example, his voice, in the case of Protagoras, or his dynamism, as in the case of some "Oriental or Occidental gurus"

   • Does not seek the attention and adulation of his admirers, his peers, or people in general

   • Shows by his own participation how others ought to participate (short answers to show Protagoras how to answer with brevity)

   
   

3. The nature of dialectic:
   • Dialectic cannot allow mere concessions on ideas for the sake of moving the investigation ahead: "agreement for argument sake."

     • One cannot legitimately say as Protagoras states: "If you like, let us assume that justice is holy and holiness just."

     • Mere conjectures without convition are counter-productive, since the investigation is into what the participants actually consider to be true.

       Socrates: "It isn't 'if you like' and 'if that's what you think' that I want us to examine, but you and me ourselves."

   • Dialectic, at times, is best carried out through a kind of spontaneous free association, without too much reflection." (333c)

   • It is sometimes beneficial to speak gently if a participatnt becomes dissatisfied (333e)

   • Dialectic is not:

     • Making long speeches for the applause of the spectators (as with Protagoras)

     • Mere "talk" or chatting

     • Debate where spectators root for one side or the other

     • A show to enhance the participants' and spectators' fame

       Hippias: "We are the intellectual leaders of Greece and it would be a disgrace if we produced nothing worthy of our fame but fell to bickering like the lowest of mankind."

   • Dialectic involves companionable conversation, not dispute; a discussion between friends, not a debate between rivals and enemies

   • Dialectic results in enjoyment--learning and partaking in intellectual activity--whereas pleasure arises from sensual indulgence

   • Certain topics (those involving mere sharing of points of view) are not productive as themes for dialectic

     Socrates: "Conversation about poetry reminds me too much of the wine parties of secnd-rate and commonplace people."

     

   • Dialectic can involve asking of and answering questions for suppositional people--e.g. people with an opposite point of view

   • A participant should be able to recognize that he has changed his point of view within a dialectical episode

   • A participant should have no other goal in dialectic than to learn the truth about Ideas in themselves

   
   

4. What the dialogue Protagoras discovered:

   • Virtue is teachable

   • To everything that admits of a contrary, there is one contrary and no more

   • If two qualities (such as temperance and wisdom) are both contraries of one characteristic (such as folly), then they are the same

   • What is good is beneficial to men

   • When people make a wrong choice of pleasures and pains--that is, of good and evil--the cause of their mistake is lack of knowledge

   • Being mastered by pleasure is ignorance

   • To be your own master is wisdom

   • Wisdom has the mastery over pleasure and everything else

   • To make for what one believes to be evil, instead of making for the good, is not in human nature; no one willingly meets, accepts, or does evil

   • Confidence can be based on ignorance, madness, or wisdom

   • Cowards exhibit discreditable fear or confidence out of ignorance

   • Knowledge of what is and is not to be feared is courage

   • Everything is knowledge: justice, temperance, and courage alike