By Translated and edited by James A. Arieti, Roger M. Barrus
Protagoras is one in every of Plato's such a lot delightfully comedian and playful dialogues, and is usually certainly one of his most crucial. This new version of Plato's Protagoras offers a conscientiously transparent and actual translation that communicates Plato's puns, metaphors, figures of speech, and different verbal suggestions evidently; permitting students to consider the total scope of Plato's rhetoric. Translators James Arieti and Roger Barrus confront and talk about the serious linguistic offerings made in rendering tough or vague phrases into an simply readable and comprehensible rendition. in addition they contain an old assessment of the highbrow milieu of fifth-century B.C.E. Athens, cautious biographies of the dialogues significant characters, notes that debate the most important concerns, citations of the literary and philosophical parallels, and phone recognition to rhetorical strategies. furthermore, Arieti and Barrus offer appendices at the demanding situations of translating Plato's Greek into English, the varied sleek interpretations of the ode through Simonides that Socrates and Protagoras lampoon, the connection of the discussion to Aristotle's Sophistical Refutations, and a thesaurus elucidating some of the key phrases within the discussion.
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Example text
Is the lesson that arguing for victory with creatively ingenious techniques is not the be-all and end-all of rational activity a sufficiently serious teaching for a work by Plato? Is not this lesson self-evident? Is it not self-evident at least as soon as it is articulated, without the need for an entire dialogue on the point? The history of Greece and the history of the world since Greek times show, alas, that the lesson is not self-evident. The hucksterism of salesmen, the amorous pleas of seducers, the spellbinding rants of pulpit-thumpers, and the rhetorical manipulations of demagogues all show the willingness to use and abuse the power of speech.
78 It seems quite possible that Aristotle is writing these lines under the influence of the Academy, for it is redolent of the low reputation in which Plato holds the reasoners. Perhaps, with a touch of Protagoras’ reasoning, we might assert that what could be used against Protagoras in one way might be brought to his defense in another way. Protagoras declared that there are two sides to every ques76. Apology 19b–c; Clouds 889–1112. We should remember that by the time Aristophanes was writing the Clouds, Protagoras was already dead and his statement could easily be subjected to deliberate distortion, as indeed everything is, in comedy.
Use of the term “be confident” here and the earlier use of “courage” anticipate their use later, in the argument with Protagoras. 25. Whom here refers to what the man is. In the Gorgias, when Chaerephon and Socrates are going to Callicles’ house to meet the famous rhetorician Gorgias, Socrates tells Chaerephon (447d) to ask Gorgias who he is. In the case of some professions, it is not an easy thing to say just who they are, and the difficulty is Socrates’ crowbar for prying open the problematic profession.