Abstract

This chapter focuses on Plato's Protagoras. This dialogue that has received enormous attention in discussions concerning Plato on pleasure because toward the end of the Protagoras Socrates discusses a form of hedonism, on the basis of which he then bases his subsequent argument on the nature of virtue and action. Since this hedonism facilitates his argument, it is natural to conclude that Socrates must endorse it. And, of course, this would mean that Plato, at least at some point in his career, was a hedonist.