1 Harvard University Political Theory Colloquium For 11 March 2010 ...

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  10  scrutiny in the ‘denial of akrasia’ passage: Socrates introduces the views of the many only insofar as he can enlist Protagoras in a joint refutation of them, and so bring Protagoras himself to admit further implications of the priority of knowledge (such as, eventually, the connection between courage and knowledge, closing the second frame). What completes the inner frame is clearly marked in the text, but is both surprising in itself and surprisingly seldom noted in the literature. This is Socrates’ conclusion of the putative joint refutation of the many by inferring that since ‘being overcome by pleasure’ is actually ignorance, it is therefore curable by teaching: hence, he concludes, the many would do well to pay for themselves and their children to be instructed by the sophists. He goes so far as to propose that he and Protagoras say to the many: ‘By worrying about your money and not giving it to them [the sophists], you all do badly in both private and public life’ (Prt. 357e, trans. Lombardo & Bell). This last sentence – and the warm approbation it elicits from Hippias and Prodicus as well as Protagoras – should be a red flag for those interpreters, such as George Rudebusch, who embrace the measure doctrine as a full account of Socratic knowledge, and so embrace a fully hedonistic Socrates. 11 (Another more minor red flag may be the enjoinder to Protagoras to join in ‘persuading’ and ‘teaching’ people at 353a: Protagoras and his fellow sophists are comfortable with the language of ‘teaching’, but it fits uneasily with Socrates). Socrates here presents himself and Protagoras as jointly persuading the many to give their money to the sophists and so to do better by learning the art of measurement and so not being overcome by pleasure. In effect, he concludes the measure doctrine by framing the art of measurement as the newest line in the sophistic bag of tricks. 12 My analysis of the text takes this red flag seriously. By looking at each frame in turn, and then at the core discussion and refutation of the views of the many, I shall argue that by submerging what I will call the executive dimension or intrinsic executive role of knowledge, the measure doctrine gives only a partial and misleading account of what Socrates means by knowledge, so deteriorating into sophistry and aporia. However, there are clues in the text which signal what is going wrong and provide the lineaments of an alternative view, on which the crucial issue is the success or failure of knowledge in
  11  ruling. On this basis, we can resolve tensions between the Protagoras, Gorgias, and Republic, when each of these dialogues is not reduced to a collection of propositions but is interpreted as a dramatic whole. It may help to note a parallel with my approach in the way that Myles Burnyeat has argued that ‘knowledge’ in the Theaetetus can be read out of the dialogue to be better construed as ‘understanding’ than as the more limited cognitive state of justified true belief assumed in much modern epistemology. Similarly, I argue here that ‘knowledge’ in the Protagoras can be read out of the dialogue to be better construed as ‘executive’ than as the more limited cognitive state assumed in the usual interpretation of Socratic intellectualism. 13 The outer frame: Socrates on Simonides The topic of the ‘denial of akrasia’ is not confined to the measure doctrine. It is anticipated earlier in the Protagoras when Socrates is expounding the poet Simonides. Socrates says that Simonides was not so uneducated as to praise those who do no evil voluntarily (ekôn) ‘as if there were some people who do evil voluntarily (ekontes)’. He continues: For I am pretty much of this opinion, that no intelligent man believes that anyone does wrong voluntarily (ekonta examartanein) or voluntarily acts shamefully or badly (oude aischra te kai kaka ekonta ergazesthai), but they well know that all who do shameful and bad things do so involuntarily (akontes poiousin). And Simonides, for his part, doesn’t say that he praises those who do no evil voluntarily (ekôn), but he applies this term ‘the voluntary doer’ (to ekôn) to himself. For he thought that an upright man (andra kalon kagathon) often forces him[self] (epanagkazein) to be a friend and praise someone… good men (tous d’ agathous) conceal it all and force (anagkazesthai) themselves [note: supplied: the Greek verb is not reflexive] to praise them, and if they get angry at their unjust treatment by their parents or their country 14 they calm themselves down [this is reflexive: autous heautous] and make friends again, forcing themselves (prosanagkazontas heautous] to love and praise them.
Page 1 and 2:   1  Harvard University Politic
Page 3 and 4:   3  (Pettit 2004: 68). Plato
Page 5 and 6:   5  self-knowledge understood
Page 7 and 8:   7  achieved through self-inte
Page 9:   9  means of the art of measur
Page 13 and 14:   13  exercises his virtue by -
Page 15 and 16:   15  ‘inner frame’ for the
Page 17 and 18:   17  failure to exert integrat
Page 19 and 20:   19  resolution to the aporia,
Page 21 and 22:   21  but to reject altogether
Page 23 and 24:   23  who is believed to be jus
Page 25 and 26:   25  that reason’s rule is i
Page 27 and 28:   27  agreement at 480e: ‘I t
Page 29 and 30:   29  Moran, Richard (2001). Au
Page 31 and 32:   31          
Page 33 and 34:   33          
Page 35 and 36:   35

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