Theaetetus

​SOCRATES: Playing the unfair part in such a matter is when someone does not conduct his discussions separately as one who is competing, and separately as one who is conversing, and in the former case plays and trips people up as much as he can, but in conversing is serious and corrects the one who is talking with him, pointing out to him only those errors in which he was misled by himself and his former associations. For if you do this, those who spend their time with you will blame themselves for their own confusion and perplexity, but not you; they will pursue you and love you, but they will hate themselves and flee from themselves into philosophy, so that by becoming other than they were, they may be rid of those who they were before. But if you do the opposite of this, as the many do, the opposite will happen to you, and you will make your associates hate this pursuit instead of becoming philosophers when they grow older. If, therefore, you follow my advice, as was also said before, not with ill-will or in a combative spirit, but gently letting yourself down with a friendly mind, you will truly examine what it is we say, when we declare that all things are in motion, and that what seems to each person, this also is for him, both for the individual and for the city. And from these things you will examine whether knowledge and perception are the same or different, and not, as just now, from the habitual usage of words and names, which the many drag about in whatever way it happens, causing all kinds of perplexities for one another. These things, Theodorus, I have contributed as a help to your companion according to my ability, small resources from a small source; but if he were alive himself, he would have helped his own doctrines in a grander style. THEODORUS: You are joking, Socrates; for you have helped the man in a very vigorous manner. SOCRATES: Well spoken, my friend. And tell me: did you notice that Protagoras was just now saying and reproaching us because we made our arguments toward a child, and were competing against his doctrines using the child’s fear, and calling this a sort of mere joke, while solemnizing his ‘measure of all things’, he urged us to be serious about his argument? THEODORUS: How could I not notice it, Socrates? SOCRATES: What then? Do you bid us obey him? THEODORUS: Very much so. SOCRATES: You see, then, that all these here, except you, are children. If, therefore, we are to obey the man, you and I must, by questioning and answering each other, be serious about his argument, so that he may not have this at least to charge against us, that joking with youngsters we examined his doctrine. THEODORUS: What? Would not Theatetus follow an investigated argument better than many who have large beards?