Abstract

The Protagoras, one of Plato’s most entertaining and beloved works, is also among his most perplexing. Along with one or two other Platonic dialogues, the Protagoras has defied a unified reading—a reading that makes sense of the dialogue’s various parts as belonging to one whole. It is my aim with this article to suggest a new reading that allows us to see the unifying theme of the Protagoras. In doing this, I will identify a crucial asset of philosophical methodology when this is contrasted with what Plato seems to have taken to be among its main competitors, the persuasive speech-making of the sophists.