Theaetetus (168)

SOC.In the former he may jest and try to trip up his opponent as much as he can, but in real argument he must be in earnest and must set his interlocutor on his feet, pointing out to him those slips only which are due to himself and his previous associations. For if you act in this way, those who debate with you will cast the blame for their confusion and perplexity upon themselves, not upon you; they will run after you and love you, and they will hate themselves and run away from themselves, taking refuge in philosophy, that they may escape from their former selves by becoming different. But if you act in the opposite way, as most teachers do, you will produce the opposite result, and instead of making your young associates philosophers, you will make them hate philosophy when they grow older. If therefore, you will accept the suggestion which I made before, you will avoid a hostile and combative attitude and in a gracious spirit will enter the lists with me and inquire what we really mean when we declare that all things are in motion and that whatever seems is to each individual, whether man or state. And on the basis of that you will consider the question whether knowledge and perception are the same or different, instead of doing as you did a while ago, using as your basis the ordinary meaning of names and words, which most people pervert in haphazard ways and thereby cause all sorts of perplexity in one another. Such, Theodorus, is the help I have furnished your friend to the best of my ability—not much, for my resources are small; but if he were living himself he would have helped his offspring in a fashion more magnificent.

THEO. You are joking, Socrates, for you have come to the man’s assistance with all the valor of youth.

SOC. Thank you, my friend. Tell me, did you observe just now that Protagoras reproached us for addressing our words to a boy, and said that we made the boy’s timidity aid us in our argument against his doctrine, and that he called our procedure a mere display of wit, solemnly insisting upon the importance of the measure of all things, and urging us to treat his doctrine seriously?

THEO. Of course I observed it, Socrates.

SOC. Well then, shall we do as he says?

THEO. By all means.

SOC. Now you see that all those present, except you and myself are boys. So if we are to do as the man asks, you and I must question each other and make reply in order to show our serious attitude towards his doctrine; then he cannot, at any rate, find fault with us on the ground that we examined his doctrine in a spirit of levity with mere boys.

THEO. Why is this? Would not Theaetetus follow an investigation better than many a man with a long beard?