Michele Corradi:“ ‘I like you far the best’:Socrates, Heir of Protagoras?”

The problem of the relationship between Socrates and Protagoras has interested many scholars in recent times. Its origins are ancient and probably to be found in the Clouds of Aristophanes, where Socrates is assigned many Protagorean aspects. Plato seems to react to this image in his dialogues. Beyond the undeniable aspects of opposition, Plato also shows and underlines significant convergences between the two figures. At the end of the Protagoras, in a sort of prophecy, the sophist seems to indicate Socrates in some way as his heir. Moreover, in the Theaetetus a revived Protagoras seems to take on a pedagogical function towards Socrates in the field of the correct use of the dialectic. My talk aims to highlight and explain the meaning of the subtle strategy that Plato develops, through a wise use of literary models, in the two dialogues, in order to show the complex relationship between Socrates and Protagoras.