From the Beginning to Plato

232 THE SOPHISTS
not innate, nor is it in fact acquired automatically; it is the product of a process
of education, which starts in infancy. The fact that the individual’s share in these
two essential qualities is acquired and then developed by teaching provides a
justification for the profession of the sophist, who is able to regard himself as an
exceptionally able teacher. The whole approach provides a theory of justification
—the first known to history —for participatory democracy. All citizens have a
claim to participation in the political processes of the city since all share in the
qualities needed for the city to function. But they do not share equally in these
qualities, and it is accordingly appropriate that within a democracy leadership
should be exercised by those who are exceptionally able. Many other aspects of
normal political activity at Athens and elsewhere in Greece were probably
discussed in Protagoras’ political writings—we have brief notes to the effect that
he discussed a theory of punishment as something to be accepted both as a
deterrent and also as a form of education leading to reform of the errant
individual. Finally mention may be made of the intriguing and puzzling statement,
found in Diogenes Laertius (III.57, DK 80 B 5), that the whole of the content of
Plato’s Republic was to be found in the work by Protagoras entitled
Contradictory Arguments (Antilogikoi Logoi). While this in itself is clearly not
credible, that it could even be said to be the case is perhaps evidence of the
extremely wide-ranging nature of Protagoras’ writings on politics. More
precisely, it may have been possible for an enthusiastic supporter of what
Protagoras had written to discern structural similarities with the Republic, in
which Plato is concerned with the development of rational societies from earlier
organizations that had not yet grasped the need for a rational understanding of
and a just respect for the functions of other citizens.
It is possible that the unifying basis of Protagoras’ numerous theories was
always his distinctive method of arguing. The tradition preserved by Diogenes
Laertius (IX.51) tells us that Protagoras was the first to declare that in the case of
every question there are two arguments opposed to each other, and that he used
this supposed fact as a method of debate. We can expand this statement from
other sources somewhat as follows: of the two arguments one will be positive,
stating that something is the case, and the other will be negative, stating that
something is not the case. In the light of the man-measure doctrine both of the
opposing arguments will be true in virtue of their position in the world of
appearances. But one view will, at least on certain occasions, be better than the
other in that it promotes more desirable results. When one of the two contrary
arguments is proposed, one that does not promote desirable effects, such an
argument may seem to the ill-informed person to be the stronger of the two
arguments. It is then the task of the wise man to make the weaker argument
stronger so that it will prevail in competition with what then becomes the
weaker argument. To do this is the function of the orator in a developed political
society. It is also the function of the sophist as teacher to make the weaker argument
stronger and to show others how to do this. An interesting application of this
approach may perhaps be seen in Protagoras’ detailed consideration of the nature