The Power of Rhetoric in Shaping Political Reality

In this episode, we consider some of the philosophically insightful sections of Nietzsche's lectures on rhetoric & the Sophists. In particular, we examine the figure of Protagoras, of whom we have little information, but who is credited with establishing the Sophists as a philosophical school focused on rhetoric. The latter half of the episode concerns the Platonic dialogue named for Protagoras, the "great speech" of Protagoras contained within, and the somewhat puzzling dispute between Protagoras and Socrates on whether or not virtue can be taught.