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Jan 2020
53m 56s

Ep. 233: Plato's "Protagoras" on Virtue ...

Mark Linsenmayer, Wes Alwan, Seth Paskin, Dylan Casey
About this episode

On the Platonic dialogue written around 380 BCE about an encounter between Socrates and one of the leading Sophists of his day.

What is virtue ("the political art" according to Protagoras), and can it be taught? What are the relations of the various virtues to each other? Do they really amount ultimately to one and the same thing, i.e. wisdom? In this entertaining dialogue, Socrates and Protagoras swap positions, and Socrates seems to parody the Sophists' style.

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