Abstract

In the Protagoras, Plato subjects virtue to examination starting from two main questions: Can it be taught? and Is it one thing or many? In the course of their discussion, Protagoras, Socrates, and the others who speak in the dialogue regard virtue from a variety of intriguing perspectives. A provisional conclusion is that the meaning assigned virtue in this dialogue remains elusive, but must certainly be more complex in character than is normally allowed in modernizing philosophical interpretations of it. If it cannot be taught, we nevertheless find ourselves learning about it; and if it is not clearly a unity about which we read, we find ourselves prompted to look for an understanding of it that can in due course emerge as such.