"protagoras" - читать интересную книгу автора (Plato)

And what am I doing?

You are going to commit your soul to the care of a man whom you call
a Sophist. And yet I hardly think that you know what a Sophist is; and
if not, then you do not even know to whom you are committing your soul
and whether the thing to which you commit yourself be good or evil.

I certainly think that I do know, he replied.

Then tell me, what do you imagine that he is?

I take him to be one who knows wise things, he replied, as his
name implies.

And might you not, I said, affirm this of the painter and of the
carpenter also: Do not they, too, know wise things? But suppose a
person were to ask us: In what are the painters wise? We should
answer: In what relates to the making of likenesses, and similarly
of other things. And if he were further to ask: What is the wisdom
of the Sophist, and what is the manufacture over which he
presides?-how should we answer him?

How should we answer him, Socrates? What other answer could there be
but that he presides over the art which makes men eloquent?

Yes, I replied, that is very likely true, but not enough; for in the
answer a further question is involved: Of what does the Sophist make a
man talk eloquently? The player on the lyre may be supposed to make
a man talk eloquently about that which he makes him understand, that
is about playing the lyre. Is not that true?

Yes.

Then about what does the Sophist make him eloquent? Must not he make
him eloquent in that which he understands?

Yes, that may be assumed.

And what is that which the Sophist knows and makes his disciple
know?

Indeed, he said, I cannot tell.

Then I proceeded to say: Well, but are you aware of the danger which
you are incurring? If you were going to commit your body to some
one, who might do good or harm to it, would you not carefully consider
and ask the opinion of your friends and kindred, and deliberate many
days as to whether you should give him the care of your body? But when
the soul is in question, which you hold to be of far more value than