Protagoras' Head: Interpreting Philosophic Fragments in Theaetetus

Protagoras' Head: Interpreting Philosophic Fragments in TheaetetusAuthor(s): Andrew FordSource: The American Journal of Philology, Vol. 115, No. 2 (Summer, 1994), pp. 199-218Published by: The Johns Hopkins University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/295299 .

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PROTAGORAS' HEAD: INTERPRETING PHILOSOPHIC FRAGMENTS IN THEAETETUS

Among the many interpretative challenges presented by Plato's Theaetetus is the meaning of a brief but striking image in 171d where the interlocutors are interrupted by Protagoras' popping his head up from the underworld to reproach them. The interpretation proposed below claims not only to offer a better account of the details of this passage than previous suggestions but also brings to light a neglected theme of the first half of this dialogue, its persistent and explicit concern with problems of interpreting philosophic texts. To appreciate this theme helps impose coherence on the sequence of arguments up to 171, and makes clear in addition that Theaetetus contributes to a recurrent concern in Plato's work that extends beyond the well-known end of Phae- drus: How are we to use texts to do philosophy when the author is not present to back up his quotations?

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After Socrates has attacked Protagoras' "Man the Measure" dictum (B 1 DK) from a number of points of view, Theodorus objects that they are running down his friend too much. Socrates wants to make sure that he has given the sophist his due, and conjures him up to defend himself in a very peculiar epiphany:

Eix6g yE Q&ga EXELVOV jTQo3OP'SuTEov O6vca (Jo()'rTEYQOv YC0bv ELvCaL xca Ei c'diTLXa EVTEOEV &avacxVELE tEXQL ITOV aC(XEvog, rToka& v E;kE TE E4Eycag XkQoirvTa ogS T6 Eix6, xac os 6,okXoyovTCa, xacanbS; av o'1XolLo &ato- TQEXcOV. &aX' ?ilv &avEyxT, OitcaL, XQgfoeatL 'Viv CtUCTOi, OJTlOL TlVEg; Eo-

[LEV, xal T 6oxo0vTUa &Ei TcvtlTa EyELV. (171c10-d5)

Commentators have offered various suggestions as to why Protagoras should appear in this way, popping up only as far as his neck and then sinking down to run off. Because Protagoras had been dead at least ten years by the dramatic date of this conversation (142c), some have suggested that Plato portrays him here as a kind of stage ghost, rising up on



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American Journal of Philology 115 (1994) 199-218 ? 1994 by The Johns Hopkins University Press American Journal of Philology 115 (1994) 199-218 ? 1994 by The Johns Hopkins University Press American Journal of Philology 115 (1994) 199-218 ? 1994 by The Johns Hopkins University Press American Journal of Philology 115 (1994) 199-218 ? 1994 by The Johns Hopkins University Press American Journal of Philology 115 (1994) 199-218 ? 1994 by The Johns Hopkins University Press American Journal of Philology 115 (1994) 199-218 ? 1994 by The Johns Hopkins University Press



ANDREW FORD ANDREW FORD ANDREW FORD ANDREW FORD ANDREW FORD ANDREW FORD

"Charon's steps."' Certainly, Socrates' EVTEEOuEV &avaxljUte and xa- Tac6g &v o'iLoto suggest that Protagoras somehow rises from and returns to the underworld.2 Yet Charon's steps are first attested only in Pollux (iv.132), and it is not certain that they were ever used in Athens (Taplin, Stagecraft 447-48). Moreover, a reference to the theatre has no particular significance in context. Others would have Plato referring to the traditional story (first in Philochorus apud Diogenes Laertius 9.55) that Protagoras died by drowning; the point would be that the sophist returns to chide Socrates by sticking his head up out of the waves. Again, the joke seems gratuitous, and neither interpretation can make any sense of Protagoras' running away.

More recent commentators have sought to connect this passage with Socrates' arguments against Protagorean relativism, and in particular with his immediately preceding "very subtle" (171a6) but slippery attempt to make Protagoras' thesis refute itself. It has often been re- marked (e.g., Vlastos, "Introduction" xiv n. 27) that Socrates only succeeds here by tacitly converting the thesis from a qualified form- "whatever anyone believes is true and is for that person"-to a more vulnerable version in which the qualifying phrase is omitted. From very different analyses of the philosophical argument, Edward N. Lee and Myles Burnyeat have argued that the image in 171d in a sense explains or justifies that move by symbolizing a pragmatic flaw with asserting Protagorean relativism. For Lee ("Ironic and Comic Elements"), Pla- to's omission of the crucial qualifier is deliberate but ironically appro- priate, since Protagoras' relativism gives him no grounds to object to others' twisting his words in any way that "seems best" to them. Pro- tagoras could meet objections to his thesis by insisting that it remains truefor him, but if he does so he is condemned never to share fully in the human exchange of logos and forfeits any claim on others to treat him fairly. Lee interprets the imagery in 171d as suggesting that Protagoras is a plant: this is to be taken as Plato's subtle critique of one who would insist on remaining "rooted" or fixed in such a position; all he might add to a discussion of his views is information on how the world seems to

I E.g., Campbell, Theaetetus 109. For discussion of nineteenth-century interpretations see Burnyeat, "Protagoras and Self-Refutation" 192 n. 23. I am obliged to David Sedley for this reference and to the anonymous reviewer of AJP for suggestions on the argument.

2KataCbtjo is common for descending to Hades (e.g., Od. 10.174).





















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PHILOSOPHIC FRAGMENTS IN THEAETETUS PHILOSOPHIC FRAGMENTS IN THEAETETUS PHILOSOPHIC FRAGMENTS IN THEAETETUS PHILOSOPHIC FRAGMENTS IN THEAETETUS PHILOSOPHIC FRAGMENTS IN THEAETETUS PHILOSOPHIC FRAGMENTS IN THEAETETUS

him; but he cannot "leap out" of his world and join the exchange of other views.

Lee allowed that his suggestion of a plant was "bizarre" on its face, and Burnyeat was happy to confirm this judgment, adding that the interpretation is hard to square with Protagoras' running off at the end ("Protagoras and Self-Refutation" 193 n. 23). Indeed, nothing in Plato's language particularly evokes plants.3 Burnyeat's own interpretation is part of a complex analysis of the argument designed to be charitable to Plato and to "mend Socrates' logic." But despite his different recon- struction of the argument, the merits of which do not concern us here (cf. Waterfield. Theaetetus 175-76, and Bostock, Plato's Theaetetus 90- 91), Burnyeat ends up with an interpretation of the passage like Lee's. On his view, Protagoras might have been argued either into dropping the qualifier from his thesis or into taking refuge in the yet more qualified thesis that "It is true for Protagoras that every judgment is true for the person who holds it" ("Self-Refutation" 190). It is to forestall this latter way of escape that the image is used in 171d: Burnyeat interprets the fact that Protagoras offers no explicit arguments in this appearance as indicating that none is possible; he runs away to signal that he "is not prepared to stay and defend it in discussion," for on Burnyeat's analysis his "only reply left amounts to a refusal to submit to dialectical discussion" (191). The image suggests that if Protagoras were to take this extreme defense, he "does not really leave the underworld .... His 'refutation' or defense, in other words, just is a refusal to enter fully into a common world with his opponents for discussion" (193 n. 23).

These philosophical interpretations rescue Plato's image from ap- pearing extravagant or irrelevant, but they are open to two general objections. The first is that both views assume that engaging in the exchange of speech is part of being fully human.4 But this sounds like a humanist rather than Platonic idea; for Plato, an incapacity or distaste

3In support of the reference to plants, Lee ("Ironic and Comic Elements" 250) is forced to resort to Anaxagoras A 116 DK (ctov eyyELov), the Timaeus 90a (4mT6v OVix ?yyelov Xakk o@a&vlov), and Aristotle, Met. 1006a13-15. Further comments on Lee's

interpretation appear in Burnyeat, "Protagoras and Self-Refutation" 176 n. 6, 180 n. 10. 4As Burnyeat puts it: "If Protagoras does not speak to the human condition, does

not put forward his claim that each of us lives in our own relativistic world as something we can all discuss, and, possibly, come to accept, but simply asserts solipsistically that he, for his part, lives in a world in which this is so, then indeed there is no discussing with him. His world and his theory go to the grave with him, and Socrates is fully entitled to leave them there and get on with his inquiry" ("Protagoras and Self-Refutation" 191-92).































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for dialectical argument would disqualify one from being a true philosopher, but hardly from being human. It is not to be assumed that refusing to enter into a philosophical discussion is "naturally" described as being half-dead, and a simpler explanation of this aspect of the image is available in that Protagoras was indeed dead at the time. The second general objection is that one searches in vain for parallels for Plato's defeating a person's argument only through insinuation. Of course a strong subjectivist position may be unassailable by straightforward arguments, and Plato was at times a rich and subtle caricaturist who could use a telling detail about a person to great effect. But to burden such brushstrokes with the weight of having to fill in the philosophical argument seems to abandon faith in the sufficiency of dialectical argument.

A more particular objection is that these interpretations leave un- explained certain details of the passage, especially its central and most emphatic point that Protagoras pops only up as far as his neck. Indeed, none of the interpretations previously proposed gives a convincing ex-

planation of this detail on which Plato insists with the pleonastic ava-

xVpElE [teXQL TOV actCXvog;.5 This does not bring plants to mind; and even if we concede to Burnyeat that sticking one's head out of the

ground is a "fair characterization" of the move to Protagoras' most

qualified thesis, it is hardly a very apt one. Why, one may ask, does Protagoras not rise up to his waist, or to his ankles? Perhaps a reply might be that a head is all that is needed to allow the sophist to cast his

reproaches; and yet a head is sufficient for real conversation too, so it is not clear how this image epitomizes a reluctance to enter fully into debate.

This detail prompts me to add yet another surprising candidate to a list that includes other such suggestions as frogs (Hussey, "Theaetetus 171 D") and Orpheus' head (Waterfield, Theaetetus 65 n. 1). For the

image of Protagoras' head sticking out of the ground will become intel-

ligible if we call to mind an old and widespread set of Greek words for

"top" or "head" that were used metaphorically to name the "summary statement" or "head line" of a speech or text. Already in Hesiod we find the expression ?xxovQ()6Co for "bringing a tale to a peak" in the sense of putting it in summary form (Erga 106-7; cf. West, Works and

Days 178). Empedocles speaks of joining together the "tops," xoevqaxi, or main points of his argument (B 24 DK). In prose, xe(XaCkC6co meant





























































5Popping up the head is a very frequent connotation of &vc1xi6wTro: cf. LSJ s.v. I. 5Popping up the head is a very frequent connotation of &vc1xi6wTro: cf. LSJ s.v. I. 5Popping up the head is a very frequent connotation of &vc1xi6wTro: cf. LSJ s.v. I. 5Popping up the head is a very frequent connotation of &vc1xi6wTro: cf. LSJ s.v. I. 5Popping up the head is a very frequent connotation of &vc1xi6wTro: cf. LSJ s.v. I. 5Popping up the head is a very frequent connotation of &vc1xi6wTro: cf. LSJ s.v. I.

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"putting a head on" a story by summing it up, and the main thesis or thrust of a speech was called its xeF)Xckaov or "little head." Plato uses xe(caXkaLov frequently in the sense it was to have as a technical term of rhetoric for the "chief or main point, . . . esp. in speaking or writing, sum, gist of the matter . . . esp. in an argument, summing up."6 Perhaps for some Greeks these metaphors were no more alive than our own "chapter" or "heading," but Plato's keen sense of the figuration in- volved appears when he speaks of such summary statements as literal "heads": TEkevT'IV f6r xe>Xakrfv T T? TO 60p ... EjtLOELvaiL (Tim. 69bl); &aotreQ XEcqakhv a&ro6boival roLg E@lQtftEvoLg (Phil. 66dl; cf. Gorg. 505dl). At times he evidently delights in playing with the image and its implicit personification: a faulty speech is like a headless body, oi3xouv 6iJtov Xkycov ye av tOu0ov &axEc>aov Exbov xatcatkijtotl- JctavdE[tvog yat av aJxravtn TzoIoVTOS Wv atoQ(p>og (C4volTo (Lgg. 752a2); there is a similar, if more grotesque, image in Phaedrus' injunction that a well- written speech should be constructed like an animal, 6crTe E[tYTE aXEc(ca- Xov EIva [TlTe arcowv (Phaedr. 264c3; Euthyd. 297c3).7 A more complex, but equally sly example may be found in the Symposium when Socrates is about to begin his speech: he pretends to have been "scared stiff" by Agathon's preceding eloquence and says the end of that speech made him afraid that "in concluding Agathon would send up a head of Gor- gias, awesome at speaking" (TEXeUCtv 6 'Ay&(cov FoQgyov xeFt)aXv 6eLvoV Xkyetv . . . jritag, Symp. 198c3-4). This "head" suggests both the petrifying Gorgon's head and the stunning Gorgianic kephalaion with which Agathon had concluded his discourse.8

If we bring to bear on Theaetetus 171d Plato's vivid and playful sense of a speech's summary statement as its head, we may conclude that he specifies that Protagoras pops up only as far as his neck to suggest that what returns to the interlocutors is Protagoras' kephalaion,

6LSJ s.v. xE(akXcov 11.2. For Plato's use of the term, cf., in addition to Theaetetus itself (190b4), e.g., Symp. 223d2, Phdr. 228d2. At Rhet. 3.14.1415b5-9 Aristotle says the ideal exordium sets out its matter xE4cakaLc(o6g, 'Ltva EXn 6Obo@E oCucR x4E(axrXv. Cf. Rhet. ad Alex. 1436a35-b4.

7Plato's use of xe>t(akX in this sense is not noticed by Ast (who puts all relevant passages under the general caput) nor in LSJ, where such passages are cited s.v. V.2: "crown, completion."

8 For an analysis of Gorgianic features of Agathon's peroration see Dover, Sympo- sium 123-24. For a similar joke cf. Aristophanes, Frogs 854-55: Dionysus warns Euripi- des not to press Aeschylus, 'va ., xcXctkadicp T6v x@6otCr)6v ooVu 0RIaTL / 0Ovwv 6X' 6QYfg Exx6n T6v TVXre(ov. See Stanford, Frogs ad loc.


























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the lead statement of his book encapsulating his thesis.9 At this point of the argument, the sophist might be defended by reconsidering the pur- port of the very words that were quoted when the argument began: jWaVTcOV X(Qrlt&oT()V [ETQoV e vOeojov ELVCt, TO)V [EV OVTcOV bg ToTL, TCWv & [t 6vTcOv 0g; o0Vx ( EOTLV (152a2-4). If Socrates is to be shown to have been abusing Protagoras, it will be through the interpreters' re- turning to this disembodied phrase and seeing if it can be pressed to say something different from the inadequate theses already extracted from it. It is the meaning of this phrase, after all, that is the main bone of contention throughout the first half of Theaetetus, and the long discussion from 152c to 183d is little more than one protracted twisting of these words to generate a meaning for them that will stand up to dialectical examination. From its first full quotation at 152a, the "Man the Measure" dictum is paraphrased or quoted well over a dozen times as the interlocutors repeatedly come back to it and its terms to ask what they mean. " And just a few lines before the appearance of Protagoras' head Socrates had reminded his fellows that they are trying to discover Protagoras' position "from what he has written" ( (it d)v yyQaC)Ev, 171b7).

To take Protagoras' appearance at 171d in this way accounts for all the details in the passage: his "head" arises from Hades because, although the sophist himself is deceased, his quotable formula can still come up among those who inquire into the nature of knowledge. It runs off, in part, because these words are about to quit the argument: from this point Socrates will give up trying to decide what Protagoras actually meant by what he said; his next step will be to examine a moderate form of Protagoreanism, one that is not intended to be fully consonant with whatever the sophist may have meant by his provocative line (172b6-7). Protagoras' head also runs off because it will still survive as

9Despite differing as to its actual title, Sextus agrees with Plato (161c3-7) that

Protagoras' book began with this notorious proclamation: 'vao@X6tvog yovv TCOv Ka-

Tcapa3k6vT(ov (adv. math. 7.60 = B 1 DK). As attention-getting devices, kephalaia were

naturally most at home at the beginning or end of a text or speech. 'o152a8, &v0ocimoc; 160c9, TOOV T? 6OVTCV E'ot o; ?(OTIt xa T(OV Pik OVT(OV; 160d9,

T&avTov X@Q?aTov &v0coQwov [tITQOV Eval; 161c4-5, nF6VTv XQlYtTcov [tTeOV ?OTLV Vi;

161e2, ?[tfQ(p; 162c5, TO nHgoTayccyoov EiT@ov; 166d2-3, ?QT@OV y(Q axCtroTOv itX-oJv Etval T()V TE OVTOV xaoi t ; 168d3, TO ja(&vT(ov btaTQOV; 170a6, ve0cbjrov; 170d2, Trvc&v XVQ- [aTcoTV [tCTQOV &av0Qowov; 170e8, t1?TQOV ELvac av0QJoTov; 171c2, AvQoJrov [?TQOV ivatl; 179b2, ITO6y tv TOLOVTOV [?TQOV; 183b8-cl, JavTd' v6bQa nTavT(ov XQ?OaTO(V [tfETQOV EivaL. The list might be extended.









































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a kind of pheme. Dismissed but not obliterated, the dead thinker's saying is so well known, even notorious, that it is likely to pop up elsewhere among others interested in philosophy and vex them with the same difficult words. l

This unexpected meaning of the image finds support, and is prepared for, in a preceding passage that encourages readers to view "Man the Measure" as a philosophic fragment. When a number of avowedly eristic attacks on Protagoras' thesis have confuted it, Socrates says the eristic approach works because "the father of the story" (zaTqri To6 ... t0u9ov) is not alive to "ward off attacks" (iitvVe) against it, and the guardians of this "orphan"-the avowed Protagoreans-will not defend it (t3or0eiv) and stop its unjust abuse (164e2-7). Here the metaphors clearly associate the helpless state of this tag line from Protago- ras' book with that of the written text as characterized in Phaedrus. There the written word is called the "bastard offspring of thought" and is condemned to be bandied about among those who do not understand it as well as those who do; as a result, "when unjustly reproached, it always needs its father to defend it, since it is unable to ward off attacks or defend itself" (jrFTt[tiEXoiojtRvog 6E xct ovx Ev 6bXq XoiLoQ90teig Tov JtarTQg tael eiTxaCL 0orov6 aCoTg yQ0 oiT' avovaoaiL oiTe P(3ofocaC 6vvcaTog actUU, 275e3-5).

In its immediate context the image is, in effect, a brief allegory, and makes a point about Protagoras' saying not very different from what Hesiod says when he allegorizes pheme: it is "hard to get rid of" and "never dies so long as many people talk about it." 12 But the rele- vance of the joke is not only local, for this scene caps a series of evoca- tions of Protagoras by which the interlocutors attempt to correct their reconstructions of what he meant in the head of his book. Retracing these explicit and extensive comments on how this philosophic fragment is to be interpreted will support the reading of 171d given here by illustrating how consistently the first half of Theaetetus is concerned with problems in interpreting the isolated ipsissima verba of a philosopher (that is, what an "older and wiser" man has said). But, taken together, these passages also extend the significance of my interpreta-

1 We might contrast Homer's description of Achilles' "striding off" after his underworld colloquy with Odysseus, Od. 11.538-40.

'2Erga 761-64. Perhaps a distant inspiration for Plato may be found in Homer's brief allegory of eris in II. 4.440-43: "at first she has a small top, but then touches heaven with her head and walks upon the earth."


























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tion and account for the remarkable opening frame of the dialogue with its emphasis on how philosophical texts are composed. For they help us see Theaetetus as contributing to the many passages in Plato that reflect on the effects of writing on philosophy. 13 In this text, the problem is specifically: How are we to read a single isolated sentence that survives from a famous philosopher?

II

Protagoras' "Man the Measure" statement is adduced for the first time when Theaetetus volunteers that knowledge is perception, which Socrates claims is the same idea or "thesis" (o6yos) as Protagoras held, though he expressed it "in a slightly different way" (TQO6tov 6 TLvac akoov, 152al). He then quotes the famous sentence from memory and asks Theaetetus if he has read it ((yroi y&O rov . .. &avyvcoxac yaQ Trov, 152a2-4). When Theaetetus answers that he has read it "often," we are at least assured that Plato is not misquoting the sophist. One might wish to draw the further implication that the lad is very well versed in Protagorean thought and so counts as an authority on his corpus, but this role belongs rather to Theodorus, Protagoras' "friend" (162a). What Theaetetus and Socrates have to hand, and will repeatedly come back to, is this agreed-upon quotation and not Protagoras' book.

After identifying the theses of Theaetetus and Protagoras, Soc- rates begins to interpret the latter. His first inference is that "man" must apply to individuals, like Theaetetus and himself, and so Protagoras "seems to be saying" or "seems to mean" (oIxoov oiUTo JTwo; .^yel, 152a6) that things are for each of them as they seem to each of them. 14

He then assumes-because Protagoras is reputed wise-that this thesis is not pure nonsense, and proposes to "follow him up" (7raxokovu0oo- [EV a'UTr), 152bl-2). Following up Protagoras leads Socrates to interpret him as saying that in such matters as deciding whether a wind is cool or

13For a recent survey of passages and discussion see Vegetti, "Dynamiques de 1'ecriture."

'4Because Plato uses similar wording for this new thesis at Cratylus 386al-3, it is often claimed that k.ylt here implies a further quotation of Protagoras; e.g., McDowell, Theaetetus 119. Yet the repetition of "man" at 152a8 indicates that Plato is drawing an inference from the quotation itself. Cf. 170a6 for another appeal to this same word to support a different inference.


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warm the truth resides in what each individual perceives and not in the wind.

To make sense of this state of affairs, Socrates will assimilate Protagoras to an army of poets and philosophers preaching flux (152c- 160e). To do so he must assume that Protagoras uttered this saying as a riddle for the unwashed mob while reserving the truth for secret (or perhaps "unpublished") remarks confined to his students: TO,To TiOtLV

Iev ,IvaClTO TO 3tokXCo oUQ)(ETCO, TonL 6e Fia9tT0 aI egv &aog@rcp, T/TV a&kX0rElav iXeyeY (152c9-10). Reading Protagoras' words as containing a secret message, as an ainos, allows Socrates to link them to a new thesis that nothing is one in and of itself (152d-153d). He thus moves well beyond the literal import of the "Man the Measure" statement and follows up this newly formulated thesis (etnd)[eOac TO aQTL 6oyop, 153e4), testing and refining it in a number of ways. Socrates will end up quoting again the first five words of Protagoras (160d9), and pronouncing his view to be the same as that of Homer, Heraclitus, all their followers, and Theaetetus.

This search for the author's true dianoia beneath the surface meaning of words resembles allegorical interpretation,15 and this attempt to tie a philosopher's pronouncement to a mystical view of the universe resembles to the point of parody the way a contemporary text like the Derveni papyrus reads "Orpheus." Indeed, at one point Soc- rates describes himself as "initiating" Theaetetus into the "mysteries" that lie behind this muthos (156a-c). Allegorical interpretation is a practice Plato does not generally commend as leading to certainty (e.g., Phaedrus 229e-230a). Hence, throughout this exposition Socrates is tentative about ascribing beliefs to the sophist, attributing arguments in this section to "Protagoras and anyone who argues for same things" (154b8).16 Drawing implications "from what we claim ((()actv) Pro- tagoras is saying" (155d6), and weighing objections against what "I think" they would respond (158e7), Socrates remains aware that he is no longer confining himself to explaining Protagoras' quoted saying; rather, he and Theaetetus are "examining closely together the hidden

'5Plato often uses dianoia for what sophistical practitioners of allegory (as represented in Xenophon) called huponoia: Diller, "Probleme der Ion" 176. Cf. Ion 530b-d, and Prot. 275a.

'6Cf. "Protagoras or someone else," 154c7 and 152e8-9; note too the pregnantly phrased assent of Theaetetus throughout: (aLvExal (152c7); "E[toLyE (sc. boxei, 152e10); ERiLolye bOXE (153d6-7).































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truth in the thought (6lavoLa) of the famous man, or I should say men" (155d9-el). The result of this extended interpretation, "what the logos we have gone through means" (160cl-2), turns out to be a radical theory of flux. Positing such a cosmology can justify one in claiming "I am the judge, according to the logos of Protagoras, both of what is for me, that they are, and of what is not, that they are not" (160c8-9). At last, Protagoras' "Man is the Measure of all things" (160d9) has yielded its hidden meaning.

This deeper interpretation of Protagoras' words also represents the "birth" of pregnant Theaetetus' first answer (160e), the emergence of all its entailments into the light. Socrates then proceeds to test this offspring by going back once again to Protagoras' exact words. But now he will approach the saying on the contrary assumption that "the truth of Protagoras is true and not a joke pronounced from the inner sanctum of a book" (162a2-3). Now the dictum is to be analyzed literally, as an assertion of a state of affairs rather than as an oracular or mystical text dependent on some hidden myth. Socrates begins with "the beginning of Protagoras' logos":

Ta tiv &ata [Olt rdZvv 6ECOg; Fi;Qxv, cog TO 60oxov 1ExorTcp TOOTO xOal EonTLV- T/V 6' &QX)/V TOO k6you C0ctEatcUaxa, otn OiV ELAEV &QX6e[tvog Tri 'AkrL0eagx 6 "i&vTcoV XQgr[atTcov [tTlOV EolV v" g "xvvoxEcatXo;k" / TL

Cak o OaTonJTOTEov TCOV X6OVToV aLo(rOl'tv, iva c e ayaXoJETQejro xoa Jt&vv

xacTa(otovrlQlxcS; g`QaTO '[lIv XEyELV, ?V6CeLXv[t?vo g i'VO OItl [tg [iV aoTOV

o(OJTuEQ OE6v tOav[6d 'o[tEv erli ooiJ( (161c)

Zeroing in on the first clause of Protagoras' head, Socrates questions why "Man" should have been said to be the measure of all things, for

pigs and baboons are also the best authorities on their own perceptions. Granting the second clause, that things are to each as they appear, Socrates asks why Protagoras did not say that humans are no wiser than pigs, Protagoras no wiser than the rest of humanity, and indeed the

gods no wiser than mortals. Such a view, though ridiculous, is flattering to the mob since it overthrows any criteria for intellectual superiority, and so Socrates can only assume that Protagoras was "playing to the

gallery" when he said these words (161e4). If at first Protagoras' saying was taken as having a very private

meaning, now it appears to have been a very public utterance, indeed nothing more than insincere flattery of a large audience. The effect of this reversal (162d2) on Theaetetus is so striking that Socrates worries that the boy is merely being swayed by demagoguery (162d3). Accord-
























































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ingly, he invites Theodorus to present the other side in defense of his friend and, when he declines, undertakes to supply himself what "Pro- tagoras or anyone speaking in his behalf" (162d4-5) might reply. This defense will be from the point of view of the Protagorean, as opposed to the earlier attempt to assimilate his thought to that of others.

Speaking in the name of Protagoras, this Protagorean first objects that it is unfair to bring up the gods at all, "whom I exclude from my speaking and writing, not discussing whether they are or are not" (162el). The Protagorean is presumed to be closely acquainted with the philosopher's writings and so can command the entire corpus in a debate. To read the "Man the Measure" statement from this perspective would be to draw inferences in keeping with his thought as reconstructed from the totality of his writings. Surprisingly to the philologist, this method of exegesis is not taken up by the interlocutors, none of whom has a text to hand or seems to miss one, and only one of whom (Theodorus) can claim to be even a half-hearted Protagorean. The single proof-text adduced does not widen the inquiry into other Pro- tagorean texts or indeed even make a relevant point (Protagoras' ag- nosticism has no bearing on the subsequent argument). In fact, it is just another Protagorean kephalaion encapsulating his views "On the Gods"17 and is inserted simply to show how a committed student of Protagoras' writings might proceed. What is more effective in this Pro- tagorean rebuttal is the stigmatizing of Socrates' recent points as "plau- sibilities" designed to please a mass audience and the subsequent demand for a geometrician's rigor in expounding his argument (162e). This charge persuades the select audience of geometer and pupil that it is not fair to deduce the meaning of the text through probabilities, and Soc- rates determines to look at things "in a different way" (163a4-5).

The search for a new way begins with a number of arguments based on the meanings of terms such as seeing, learning, and remem- bering (163a-164d). They lead Socrates to the conclusion that knowing and perceiving cannot be the same, and so "the Protagorean story ([t90og) was not saved."18 Here he pulls himself up short yet again and

'7Eusebius calls it the "introduction" (B 4 DK), and Diogenes (D.L. 9.51 = A 2) says, "he began in this way." Diogenes adds (9.52) that when the "beginning" of his treatise on the gods (B 4 DK) had been spread abroad (EEPrkrq) among the Athenians his books were burned.

18Kac OiT(O 6/i [iU0og JTKdXETo noTay6oELtog, 164d8-9. The reference to the end of the Republic is unmistakable: xal oUxcOg, ( rFXkaxov, 6(3O0; Eoao08 xca ovix asjrdkETo, xati FaSitt v oCai0EEV (621d8-9). The allusion may be intended to contrast the hazards of


























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worries that his argument has descended into antilogic, manipulating the meanings of words to confound inexperienced Theaetetus (164c4- d3). Indeed it has.19 Yet the way out of this impasse is not easy, for the significant reason noted earlier: Socrates says that it was only possible to pick on Protagoras' thesis in this way because his text is a defense- less orphan; without its author present, and with Theodorus declining to answer for his friend,20 Socrates can only try to shore up the thesis on the basis of "what Protagoras would say" (165e5). Accordingly, this new defense is no longer phrased as what might be said by "Protagoras or anyone speaking in his behalf" (162d4-5) but is a direct impersona- tion of Protagoras himself (166a2-168c2).

In this appearance the sophist gives lengthy and admirable in- struction on how to interrogate "what I say," or "mean" (166c3): "When you examine something of mine by putting questions, I will stand refuted (EXeYOyXoca, 166bl) only if the respondent is tripped up when giving the sort of answer I would give; if he answers differently, it is he that is refuted, not I." This is to say that if our inferences about a philosophic text are not consistent with that text and come to grief, it may be our interpretation and not the text that is wrong. Hence Pro- tagoras can charge that Socrates' bringing in pigs was treating his text (iSg TX ovyyQacaTT [iovi, 166c8) like a pig, and set a bad example for others. Affirming that "the truth is as I have written it" (166dl-2), Pro- tagoras rephrases his kephalaion and adds, in what will be a costly concession, that it is not incompatible with the idea that some of our perceptions are better than others, and that the wise are those able to change perceptions for the better (167c-d).21 He goes on to demand that they not "hunt down the saying word by word," and explains how they might understand what he means (TOr 6e Xo6yov aCv [1P TO) QTitOTL [tov

written transmission to which Protagoras' texts were subject (cf. the legend, first in Cicero, of his books' having been burned) with the magical way in which Er's true story managed to come back from death and escape oblivion, finally being incorporated in the

Republic itself. 19Of 163a-165e Burnyeat observes: "It is a model demonstration of how not to go

about criticizing the thesis that knowledge is perception" (Theaetetus of Plato 21-22). 21Theodorus declines to help the orphan because "it is not I but Callias the son of

Hipponicus who is the guardian of Protagoras' children" (164e-165a); in line with Phae- drus' imagery of written thoughts as a deficient kind of offspring (276a), this may suggest that Callias, a wealthy patron of sophists, had full texts of Protagoras.

2' On Protagoras' concession see Cole, "Apology of Protagoras"; Burnyeat, "Pro-

tagoras and Self-Refutation" 222-24; McDowell, Theaetetus 172-73.









































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b6ioxe, akk' db6 ETL ocacEOTxeQov Ria0e Ti kXY)y, 166d8-el). The proper procedure is either to construct a counterargument from principle22 or, if using the method of question and answer, always to remember what has been said as the discussion proceeds (167e) and to seek what the text really means rather than contentiously creating perplexities by per- verting the ordinary meanings of words (168b-c).

This sounds like a reasonable set of rules, and indeed resembles many of the "rules" for profitable Socratic dialectic. Yet, perhaps still agreeing with Phaedrus on the ultimate triviality of writing, Socrates finds all this respect for the text a bit solemn (&rJooetvUcov 6e -6 JTorVTov

[ETQOV, oztovb6atocttal ig 6exeXeiorcto 7tQiL TOy auTo k6oyov, 168d); nevertheless, he and the mature mathematician Theodorus resolve to treat the text seriously, or at least to bear in mind that "someone" may come back to reproach them if they inadvertently abuse it (169c9-dl). Accordingly, they must review the concession they had wrung from Protagoras that some people are wiser than others since it had not been derived from the text (169dl-8): "If Protagoras were present in person (auTo;g rctQaov) to agree to that, instead of our conceding it in our efforts on his behalf, there would be no need to take it up again and make sure of our ground" (169d10-e2). They will ratify the concession from the text itself: "let us therefore come to an agreement as quickly as possible, not through others, but through that man's logos" (?x TOV ExcELvov

koyou, 169e7-170al). And so they turn again to Protagoras' head and discuss the meaning of its second part, "that which seems to each also is to the person it seems."

In the event, this discussion too issues in the conclusion that the truth of Protagoras is not true, and the head of Protagoras rises to reproach his interpreters once more. As Burnyeat notes, in his final appearance Protagoras offers no new arguments; it is only supposed that he would have much to say in refutation (jroXk k av . . . eyct;ag) of the foolish way Socrates and Theaetetus have been interpreting him. Yet even without being articulated, these reproaches perform an important role: they are a concession by Socrates that when one is trying to settle on the interpretation of a philosophical text without its author

22Translating E &apQfg at 167d4 with Cornford. This makes sharper sense as an antithesis to the question-and-answer method than McDowell's "If you go back to the beginning and dispute it." For arkhe as "principle," cf. 156a3: "the arkhe-from which all of what we were just now discussing is fastened-for them is this, that everything is motion and there is nothing besides this"; see also 179el, 181cl.































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present, it is very often possible that recurring to the text will generate a new and different reading to upset the latest achieved interpretation. These possible reconsiderations are said to be "many" but not infinite: this means that the process of looking at the text anew for different meanings might go on, if not forever, at least long enough that it becomes more profitable to turn away from the hope of getting Protagoras right and to try to get the problem he raised right. Plato abandons the hope of getting an infallible interpretation not in order to declare an infallible hermeneutics impossible (though without showing how it is possible), but in order to turn toward the applied question of how to do philosophy.

When Protagoras' head runs off, Socrates proposes that the interlocutors carry on by themselves, "such as we are." In this state they flesh out the strongest thesis possible from what they had "sketched" as if in dictation from Protagoras,23 even though it is a view of those "who do not altogether affirm the doctrine of Protagoras" (172b6-7). The result of these sallies in interpretation, then, is to abandon the search for what Protagoras exactly meant to say by these words and to use them as a springboard for examining the interlocutors' own ideas. This retreat from explicating an authority to pronouncing what one believes oneself has a number of parallels in other occasions when Socrates took up some text or other as part of a philosophical exploration. A similar non liquet follows the discussion of Simonides' idea of excellence in Protagoras. There, after a long and fruitless attempt to reach a certifi- able interpretation of his poem (quoted from memory, and only in part), Socrates says symposia ought to dispense with discussing poetry, "since it is not possible to ask [the poets] what they mean, though when most people cite them one says they intend one thing and another another, and they talk about a matter one cannot properly examine"

(?EXEy?ctL, 347e). He then suggests to Protagoras that they "put aside" the poets and investigate the topic "by ourselves, with ourselves."24 Similarly, in Meno, when Meno invokes Gorgias as an authority on virtue, the old sophist's pronouncements meet the same fate. Socrates says he cannot well remember Gorgias just at present, and suggests that

23171el, jreyqphcatFev. For this sense of the word cf. Prot. 326d. 24So too at Hippias Minor 365c-d when Socrates wants to turn the discussion

away from explicating Homer: "let's dismiss Homer since it is impossible to ask him what he meant when he composed these verses." Thereupon he asks Hippias-"since you seem to be willing to take up the cause"-to answer for Homer and himself.


























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Meno remind him if he knows "what Gorgias said"; but he prefers that Meno speak for himself if he has the same views: "let us dismiss Gor- gias, since he is not present" (71d).

The problem in all these abortive investigations of the reported doctrines of wise men is that the authority invoked or quoted is not "present in person" to answer attacks on his statements. Whether this be because he is living but not at hand (as in Meno) or dead (as in Theaetetus), the point is that it is impossible to practice true dialectic on a text or quotation since it is inflexible by nature. This problem had already been partly discussed in Phaedrus: without its author present, writing always repeats the same thing when questioned (F& 'iv TL EQ TOv ^EYOEvtVov 3ovX6[tevog [atOev, EV TI orTl[tiVEL itO6ov a,T6v &ct, 275e8-9), and Protagoras had contrasted its title character, a master of brachyology, with some sophistic orators who "like books, are unable to either ask or answer questions and when asked a simple question just keep on ringing like sounding bronze."25 Theaetetus, however, presents a variation on the theme: Protagoras' fragment may say the same words repeatedly, but going over it again and again, taking it up with different assumptions about its author's intent, can make the single, unchanging text yield different meanings. In this case, the "father of the speech" is allowed to come back from the dead and offer a defense; Socrates' interpretative scruples give Protagoras' remembered phrase a chance to engage in the elenchus (171d2), albeit vainly. Despite this conjuration of the author, 171d seems to say those interested in this question are better off consulting their own views than in trying to lay this ghost to rest.

When Protagoras' head runs off, Plato's self-consciousness about how he draws inferences from theses attributed to notable philosophers gradually recedes. The final dismissal of the philosopher comes in 183b-c, after Socrates has touched on relevant arguments of Heracli- teans and of Parmenides on the other side. In these latter discussions there is no such careful quotation and interpretation of representative texts, but the reason is explained in each case. The discussion of flux theorists begins with Theodorus' observing that there is no point in discussing these doctrines even with the Ephesians themselves, since "they are just like their books: they go here and there, they do not keep fixed on a question" (179e-180a). Heracliteans thus present a different problem with reconstructing belief from stated doctrine: their only re-
















25Prot. 329a. At Theaet. 179d Socrates turns to Protagoras' saying to "strike this doctrine and see how it sounds."






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sponse to questions about what they mean is to pluck from their quivers "enigmatic little sayings" (rltactoxL cL aivLtycxTd)br, 180a4) that are so

confusing that one cannot make any progress with them. Accordingly, Socrates and the others feel justified in skipping an examination of their texts and moving immediately to the final stage they had reached with Protagoras: to treat the question among themselves as a problem of mathematics (180c). In a parallel move, Socrates declines to discuss in

depth the thesis of Parmenides that all is one, despite the fact that he would seem to be well qualified since he actually met the "deep and noble" philosopher when he was very young. Yet after more or less quoting Parmenides (fr. 8.38 DK), he says he will not go into that, chiefly because the press of opposing arguments would prevent him from giving such an explication its due. Apparently, a full discussion of the import of Parmenidean thought would take up some space. But Socrates also adds that "I am afraid lest we may not even understand the thing he said (T X?yo6tEva), still less what he meant (6Lavoo3l?,vog) when he said them" (184a). So he will confine himself to delivering Theaetetus of his thoughts on knowledge (184b). The final dismissal of the equation of knowledge with perception comes in 187, and Socrates is then able to bid Theaetetus to "erase" from his mind everything from the beginning (EacXeii;cg, 187bl).

Theaetetus, then, incorporates into its first half an extensive illus- tration of how the thoughts of philosophers may survive them in texts and may continue in conversations. The well-known saying of Pro-

tagoras is extended every possible interpretative courtesy, and yet it is

finally less useful than examining one's inner convictions on the question. The texts of the Heracliteans are not even worth discussing, and Parmenides merits an entire exposition to himself. Within this theme, the appearance of Protagoras' head marks the end of Plato's demonstration that many meanings may be given to an isolated philosophic thesis, depending on the presuppositions of the interpreters.

III

It may be asked why Plato brought up this matter at all, when the business of defining knowledge is certainly the main goal of the dia-

logue. In concluding I suggest three purposes that may have some bear-

ing on how we read the work. The first purpose is pragmatic: it is likely that the young men Plato wanted to attract to his Academy knew about







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Protagoras chiefly as a wise man who died before they were born but whose striking views and words were occasionally invoked by contem- poraries. As for his texts, they are likely to have often heard the kephalaia on the gods and on measure; perhaps they had read these often, like Theaetetus, whether in complete copies of the treatises or in anthologies like the "wise sayings of poets and sophists" that Hippias of Elis prepared.26 Yet it is quite possible that Plato and his generation only rarely had complete texts from which to reconstruct the thought of their philosophical predecessors. Although the sophists are credited with increasing the use of books in Athens, they lived in a society still accustomed to hearing philosophy in live presentations, and Protago- ras' book is said to have been read out loud in Athens.27 Certainly, not very much of Protagoras survived after Plato, or the (probably ficti- tious) story of his book being burned in Athens could not have taken hold.28

In addition, the examination of earlier philosophical texts was never a central concern for Plato: when he wanted to take up the views of this very successful teacher from a generation ago (Meno 91d), he did not practice commentary in Peripatetic fashion; instead, he chose in Protagoras to generate a long, sympathetic speech for him and to under- mine it, and in Theaetetus to work carefully over one sentence which it is agreed he actually said. A distaste for assiduous cultivation of the letter is harmonious with the excursus in Theaetetus on the philosophical life: one of the ways that philosophical conversation is said to be superior to legal proceedings is that in the latter one's adversary stands there dictating a charge from which one is not allowed to deviate (zto- Yect)4v JtacLQavaC LYVcOxo[tEVrV, (ov EXTog O QTTEOV, 172e). This suggests that the question of how far Theaetetus goes beyond what Pro- tagoras actually meant is, if vital for the history of philosophy, not important for reading Theaetetus: it puts such matters aside, pointing

26Hippias 86 B 6 DK. Cf. Xen. Mem. 4.2.1. In Laws 711a Plato speaks of (poetic) anthologies as containing kephalaia and whole speeches for memorization.

27Diog. Laert. 9.54. On the limited use of books in the late fifth century see Harris, Ancient Literacy 86-87 and Thomas, Oral and Written 19-20. Sandbach (Aristotle and the Stoics 3) suggests that even in the Hellenistic period philosophical books may not have been very common.

28For doubts about this tradition see Dover, "Freedom of the Intellectual" and Finley, "Censura" 613. I note that DK preserve only four sentences from Protagoras, and the two most widely attested are his notorious kephalaia.


























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out just before Protagoras' final return that the essential thing in philosophy is not to miss the truth. Another vital question that is relevant to reading Theaetetus is how far Plato's arguments are meant to be fair: some of them are avowedly not so and seem to have been included as dead ends to illustrate defective modes of analysis. I suspect that the whole is offered to us not as an attack on the scrupulously reconstructed position of the historical Protagoras but as the best possible response to the best case that could be made out for relativism (cf. Cole, "Relativism"). In a Protagorean perspective, we may say it is a fair responsefor Plato's students, especially those who, like Theaetetus, would have had some acquaintance with and interest in philosophy, who enjoyed "tasting" various theories (157dl), but who were not yet so far along as to be able to wrestle such provocative pronouncements to the ground.

A second reason for highlighting the process of interpreting the text is that it bears on the main argument against Protagoras along the lines previously suggested. For Protagoras to complain repeatedly that Socrates and his interlocutors have got his thesis wrong is, if not a refutation of the claim that it is true for anyone who holds it, still a vivid dramatization of the limits his view commits him to. But beyond this, the failure to get sense from this legible but authorless sentence is another example of perception not being the same as knowledge. As Lee points out ("Ironic and Comic Elements" 242-54), 170a begins the discussion of "second order" judgments, and this includes people mak- ing judgments on the truth of Protagoras' own saying. If Socrates and his interlocutors repeatedly fail to discover for certain what Protagoras thought, despite having his exact words plainly in view, the interpretation of a text becomes another example showing that perception of a thing cannot be the same as knowing that thing.29

Finally, there are implications for how another philosophic text, Theaetetus itself, might be read. Such implications are brought out in one of Plato's more elaborate openings in which the textual nature of the dialogue and its transmission are stressed. Sometime after the death of Socrates, Terpsion asks Euclides30 to recite a conversation that the

29The question of the relation of knowing syllables and letters to knowing what their combinations mean is taken up in 202e-206b.

30Euclides of course is historical, but the combination of names is suggestive beyond the fact that both were present at Socrates' death (Phaedo 59c). When the son of


























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master had recounted to him. Euclides cannot recite it from memory (aJr oTo6 tcxTog), but produces a finished book which he elaborately certifies: it is the result of notes (6zo'LvltcraT) he jotted down at the time and later wrote up in consultation with Socrates; he even explains how he has handled such matters as the use of "he said" in converting Socrates' report into the present document (143a-c). This text, whose status as a reconstructed conversation is so insistently thrust before the reader's eyes, is then simply read out from start to finish, the only time in the Platonic corpus such a thing happens. Of the many ironies evoked by this text within a text (cf. Loraux, "Lart platonicien"), one relevant implication may be that for the readers of Theaetetus, in fourth-century Megara or elsewhere, Socrates will no more be present in person than Protagoras was to Theaetetus; his thought, like that of the sophist, can now be recovered only through reports, including written reports such as Theaetetus. Although Theaetetus is quite the opposite of a philosophic kephalaion, containing as it does explication of its conclusions and commentary on how they are reached, the father of this discourse is not available for cross-examination. There is no way around this, as the reader is warned early on in imagery again harking back to the Phae- drus: the Socrates in this text confesses that he has no wisdom "born to me as the offspring of my mind" (150d; cf. 210b); hence even this writing is no better than any other of thought's bastard offspring and is not itself the fruitful seed of dialectic (Phaedrus 276). Warned by such ironies, the reader will take neither the written Socrates nor the text that portrays him as some "bag full of thoughts" (6oyov Trva ... . . OH xov, 161a8) as a complete and comprehensive container of his philosophy. Neverthe- less, this written Socrates may act as midwife to those who spend time with him and do not abandon him too soon: if he seems to resemble a text in always questioning others but bringing nothing to light himself, he may bring the readers' own ideas to light or at least refer them to more congenial philosophers (150c-151b). It is well, then, that this text contains within itself instructions on how to read philosophy.

ANDREW FORD PRINCETON UNIVERSITY

"Good Fame" presents a text to "Pleasure," we may suspect a deliberate revision of traditional oral transmission as represented by Homer where the xXea av6pCov are sung by the likes of iIoflog TegiQrt6g; (Od. 22.330).
















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Campbell, Lewis. The TheaetetiLs of Plato. 2d ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1883.

Cole, A. T. "The Apology of Protagoras." YCS 19 (1966) 103-18. . "The Relativism of Protagoras." YCS 22 (1972) 19-45.

Cornford, E M. Plato's Theorty of Knowledge. London: Kegan Paul, 1935. Detienne, Marcel, ed. Les sIavoirs de l'ecriture en Grace ancienne. Cahiers de

Philologie 14. Lille: Presses Universitaires de Lille, 1988. Diller, Hans. "Probleme der Platonischer Ion." Hermes 83 (1955) 171-87. Dover, K. J. "The Freedom of the Intellectual in Greek Society." Talanta 7

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Finley, M. I. "Censura nell'antichita classica." Belfagor 32 (1977) 605-32. Harris, W. V. Ancient Literacy. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989. Hussey, G. B. "Note on Plato's Tlheaetetus 171 D." CR 10 (1896) 156. Lee, E. N. "Hoist with His Own Petard: Ironic and Comic Elements in Plato's

Critique of Protagoras (Tht. 161-171)." In Exegesis and Argument: Studies in Greek Philosophy Presented to Gregory Vlastos, edited by E. N. Lee and R. M. Rorty, 225-61. Assen: Van Gorcum, 1973.

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Protagoras' Head: Interpreting Philosophic Fragments in Theaetetus

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