From the Beginning to Plato

SOCRATES AND THE BEGINNINGS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 319
Brickhouse and Smith [9.16] and [9.17], 3–29. For the difference between the
Socratic elenchos and the method of the sophists see Benson [9.4] and Nehamas [9.
64].
31 This depends on whether we accept Protagoras’ account of folk morality. If we do,
then according to Protagoras, the Athenians do not maintain that everyone
possesses virtue, but only those abiding within a political community.
32 In maintaining that virtue is fairly easy to come by they need not maintain that the
process is automatic or simple. The point is simply that it does not require any
special training—but just the sort of training the typical Athenian ‘gentleman’
provides his ‘sons’. See Anytus in the Meno at 92e–93a.
33 Although Socrates need not think that it can be taught in the way that the average
Athenian thinks that ship-building is taught. Indeed, Socrates may not believe that
it is an expertise that can be taught at all.
34 See, for example, Hippias’ boast concerning the riches he has made in this way at
Hippias Major 282d6–e8.
35 See the previous chapter.
36 Protagoras 319a3–5.
37 Protagoras 320b4–c1.
38 Indeed, this would seem to be Protagoras’ greatest challenge: to make coherent his
profession to teach virtue and his acceptance of folk morality. See the conclusion
of the Protagoras as well as Theaetetus 177e–179b.
39 Hippias Major 281d5. Note the interchangeability of expertise and wisdom
throughout this passage.
40 Gorgias 455a8–d5.
41 Euthydemus 273d8–9; see also 274e5, 285a2–b5, and 287a9–b1.
42 Socrstes’ distinction between knacks (empeiriai) and expertises (technai) at
Gorgias 463a–465d indicates that Socrates would also reject that what the sophists
practice is an expertise. But even if it were an expertise, like the expertises of
medicine and physical training, it would still not be virtue. Not because virtue fails
to be an expertise, but because virtue fails to be that particular expertise.
43 Note the interchangeability of wisdom and virtue here and at Euthydemus 278d2–3.
See also the Apology 2.9d2–30b2 quoted above.
44 See Irwin [9.36], Chance [9.18] and Brickhouse and Smith [9.17] for the
interchangeability of happiness (eudaimonia) and to fare well (eu prattein) at
Eutbydemus 278e–282d.
45 See Brickhouse and Smith [9.17], 103–12 for an excellent discussion of the various
subtleties surrounding this passage. See also Meno 87d–89a for a similar argument.
46 Actually the military expertise does not make anything either. Rather it captures or
discovers things. But Socrates does not reject it on these grounds, but on the
grounds that it fails to know how to use what it captures or discovers.
47 In indicating that this is the suggestion of this passage I do not mean to be claiming
that Socrates takes the elenchos in which these points are made to constitute a
proof that Laches’ definition is false. I have argued elsewhere that Socrates
understands his individual elenctic arguments as establishing no more than the
inconsistency of the interlocutor’s beliefs. See Benson [9.3] and [9.8]. My point
here is simply that Socrates’ views can be gleaned from this passage —in part
because they are repeated in other early dialogues—not that Socrates takes (nor