First Chapter

internal consequence of Socratic thought, as which it has in any case remained consciously to Plato himself down to his latest investigations concerning the ethical field.

It is quite possible that peculiarly Platonic motives have already flowed to a certain extent into this sharply outlined drawing of the overall image of Socrates; naturally, Plato will have preferred the traits in Socrates that were most accessible to him, those that continued to work most powerfully within him. But in any case, Plato is consciously aware with good reason that he owed this whole way of seeing problems, especially this closest integration of the moral with the logical question, to his master. From this, however, his own development in the writings immediately following—which remain predominantly with ethical questions and with the specific, Socratic manner of treating these questions—is now understood, from the Protagoras to the Gorgias. In the ever-deeper penetrating investigation of the concept of that knowledge in which, according to Socrates, virtue should consist, we will see the uniquely Platonic concept of knowledge unfold step by step.

2. Protagoras.

This first major dialogue of Plato's is built up almost entirely from the thought-motives that we learned to know in the Apology as the basic motives of Socratic thought. Plato's interest during this time is directed very especially to the concept of teaching or education understood in an essentially moral way. The reason is not far to seek. He appeared as the called successor of Socrates; it was a matter of giving an account to himself and others of the intention of his activity. This intention was undoubtedly an educational one; thus, right at the beginning of his activity, he could not avoid the question: what, then, in view of the Socratic warnings, is the situation with this whole claim of human cultivation, of education? Exactly with this claim, the "Sophists" had appeared a generation earlier in Athens and everywhere in the Greek world. Their enlightenment activity had aroused heavy offense, indeed hatred and persecution; the misfortune of Greece, and especially of Athens, was written on their account. And people had equated Socrates with them; they had made him, as an arch-Sophist, pay for what, in the eyes of the good patriots, this whole clan was guilty of. Therefore,