Protagoras and Logos: A Study in Greek Philosophy and Rhetoric

2 INTERPRETING ANCIENT FRAGMENTS

2 INTERPRETING ANCIENT FRAGMENTS Plucked out of context and dropped into the twentieth century, the few extant lines by Protagoras appear trivial if not nonsensical. Not only are there pitifully few statements attributed to Protagoras, but much of what is available has been filtered through sources not altogether friendly to Protagoras' project.1 T. A. Sinclair, deploring the scanty remains of Protagoras' writings, noted that "when the evidence is so meagre, interpretation is hazardous and subjective, and it is not surprising that even in antiquity conflicting opinions were held and conflicting traditions current."2 The problem I want to address is how to give Protagoras' fragments their "best-accessible reading"-a phrase I borrow from Thomas S. Kuhn's description of the method of historical interpretation with which he tries to provide the most plausible and coherent reading to otherwise implausible and incoherent texts.3 The operating assumption is that what may seem implausible to a modern reader may make perfect sense if understood in the text's historical context. Hence, the question is: In reconstructing Protagoras' contributions to early Greek philosophy and rhetoric, how does one construct the most reasonable and interesting account of his words and the narratives about him?4 20 Interpreting Ancient Fragments PROBLEMS FACING THE MODERN INTERPRETER The issue of competing methods of interpretation of ancient Greek texts has received renewed attention. Havelock has suggested that the training of classicists emphasizes distrust for the "use of theory" and "a priori" approaches to interpretive problems.5 Such distrust notwithstanding , Havelock insists that previous readings of most ancient and classical texts have in fact been influenced by unstated assumptions about the language and literary habits of Greek culture.6 Much of Havelock 's work can be read as an effort to identify and correct these unstated assumptions and provide an alternative way of reading Greek texts. Similarly, Charles H. Kahn noted that all interpretation is informed by presuppositions. He concludes: "If we do not deliberately construct or select our own interpretive framework, we become unconscious and hence uncritical prisoners of whatever hermeneutical assumptions happen to be 'in the air."'7 Following Havelock, Kahn, and others, I think it is important to identify the presuppositions guiding the reading of Protagoras I defend in this book. In addition to the traditional prescriptions of sound reasoning and appropriate use of evidence, I posit the following hermeneutic practices for recapturing Protagoras' contributions: 1) Protagoras' fragments make the most sense when viewed as intelligent responses to issues and concerns of his own time. 2) Modern philosophical concepts should be bracketed as much as possible when one initially interprets Protagoras' fragments and doctrines in order to avoid improper and premature schematization of the history of ideas. 3) The ancient sources of information about Protagoras' doctrines must be treated with the same cautiousness as modern commentaries. 4) The influence of the Greek transition from a mythic-poetic to a more literate, humanistic-rationalistic culture must be considered in interpreting texts of the sixth, fifth, and fourth centuries BCE. 5) Four hermeneutic principles useful for translating and interpreting Protagoras' fragments are ipsissima verba primacy, triangulation, linguistic density, and resonance. Discourse is not produced in a vacuum. It is accepted that Plato's writings on rhetoric, for example, were written in response to various sophistic writings and teachings. Aristotle, in turn, wrote in response to Plato as well as to the Sophists. It is hard to imagine that Protagoras was speaking and writing in a manner other than in response to influential writers and thinkers of his time. 21 Early Greek Rhetorical Theory As simple as this point is, its significance for interpreting fragments should not be underestimated. An example can help to illustrate the point: Gorgias' tract On Not-Being seems patently absurd on first reading . The traditional interpretation has Gorgias arguing that nothing exists , that if anything did exist it is inapprehensible to humans, and that even if it were apprehensible it would be incommensurable and inexpressible .8 Some scholars cite Gorgias' argument as proof that he was unphilosophical and a nonserious thinker.9 Others, such as Guthrie, see the text as a creative and amusing parody of Parmenides' poem "On Nature or That Which Is" which proves Gorgias' disdain for idle philosophical speculation.10 Yet another interpretation, by Kerferd, suggests that Gorgias' treatise was a serious and seminal work on the philosophical problem of meaning and reference.11 Each interpretation varies...