Performative Precis: A Dialogue Between Socrates and Protagoras

Ahmad Al-Zughoul

Rhetoric 103A

Kuan Hwa

October 8, 2016

In the initial scenes in Plato’s Protagoras, Plato creates a performative exchange between two head political figures, Socrates and Protagoras, in an attempt to delegitimize the school of Sophistical tradition. By examining the performative dynamics of the exchange, we can interpret Plato as arguing that the Sophistical tradition seeks only to persuade its participants to believe the side of the truth that is politically advantageous to the Sophists themselves. We can see this in his juxtaposition of the different mannerisms and argumentative styles of his two interlocutors. Ultimately, he makes this argument in order to establish his own school’s legitimacy and recruit members into his academy.

            A primary distinction exhibited in the dialogue is the way the mannerisms, or behavior towards one another, are polarized between the two figures. This is an important distinction because it highlights Protagoras’ emphasis on self-image and advertisement of his school versus Socrates’ emphasis on the proper extraction of truth. For example, Protagoras is consistently making sure he adequately participates in a host of rituals of courtesy to Socrates, seen when he acknowledges Socrates’ reputation, and is also willing to accommodate Socrates by asking questions such as “[d]o you wish… to speak with me alone, or in the presence of company”, proposing to his audience that he can and is willing to argue in any manner. By contrast, we see that in order to effectively prove his own side of the discussion, Socrates must violate and refute this established tradition of Sophistical customs and norms around dialogue in order to proceed in the way of argument that is useful to him. This emphasis on substance as opposed to tradition is exemplified when Socrates immediately butts in after Protagoras’ answer and asks him to “please to answer in a different way”, and provides him with an “example” that he should use to formulate his own answer. As such, we are provided with a scene in which Protagoras seems to be more concerned with showing off his discursive skill than getting to the heart of whether “virtue may be taught”.

Furthermore, a clear juxtaposition between the argumentative styles of the two figures is evident in this performative segment. The argumentative styles of each figure can be seen to reflect the priorities of each interlocutor, with Protagoras being unduly concerned with form over content, which Socrates is concerned with.  Although Socrates has similar moments later on in the dialogue, Protagoras’ main parts of dialogue are characterized by long, drawn out and elaborate speeches. For example, he chooses to argue his claim by putting forth a myth tale, which can be seen to be representative of his own style of speech, full of abstractions and indirect claims, mainly because it would “be more interesting”. Contrastingly, Socrates chooses to employ his relatively consistent and classical method of questioning himself and his interlocutor until an answer is reached and seemingly agreed upon. While Protagoras chooses the method that makes him seem to exhibit a wealth of knowledge and wisdom, any discerning reader will see that Socrates’ method is more valid. This is evident towards the end of the dialogue, where Socrates says “Protagoras, on the other hand, who started by saying that [virtue] might be taught, is now eager to prove it to be anything rather than knowledge; and if this true, it must be quite incapable of being taught”. This occurrence of events, namely the flipping of the original juxtaposed arguments to their complement juxtaposed arguments, can be viewed as commentary on Plato’s part about the Sophistical tendency to not truly believe or not be able to prove that which they propose as truth, but rather to simply propose that which is advantageous to them socially and politically, which, in this case, is that virtue can be taught, the very essence of their schools legitimacy and practice.