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Friday, January 11, 2008

Protagoras's final exam

In his august 1945 A History of Western Philosophy, Bertrand Russell recounts a story about the Sophist Protagoras that I'd heard before but enjoyed again. You might too:

Protagoras and other Sophists taught a lot of well-heeled Athenians how to present cases in court. For a reason I take to have been pedagogical (rather than, say, narcissistic), Protagoras told one of his graduates that he would forgive his fee for the course if he won his first court case.

Turns out that the graduate's first case was brought by Protagoras, who sued the student for payment of his fee....[paraphrased in my own words]

Russell notes that the story is probably apocryphal, but apocryphal or not it's a good story (unlike many stories in the Bible that are simply disgusting, however many people believe them and whether literally or figuratively).

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