Abstract

In the Protagoras, Plato presents us with a Puzzle regarding the value of interpretation. On the one hand, Socrates claims to find several familiar Socratic theses about morality and the human condition in his interpretation of a poem by Simonides (339e−347a). On the other hand, immediately after the interpretation, Socrates castigates the whole task of interpretation as “childish nonsense” appropriate for second-rate drinking parties (347d5−6).1 The core problem is this: taking Socrates’s interpretation of Simonides seriously requires undermining the significance of the claims about interpretation, but taking the criticism of interpretation seriously requires undermining the significance of Socrates’s ..