PROTARGHUS AND SOCRATES

Protarchus' attack on the negative ways of the elenchus at Philebus 19c seems to be accepted by Socrates, so that the Philebus ends – at least from Socrates' point of view – with some sort of positive conclusion. So perhaps also the dialectic of question and answer has been laid to rest; perhaps Plato no longer supposes there to be value in the investigation of someone's beliefs for consistency or in the exposure of confusion in someone's opinions. Perhaps even the preliminary activities of the noble sophist should be put aside, in favour of setting out some subject in the manner prescribed by (broad) collection and division (or if, as Protarchus allows, not by collection and division, then in some other productive way). It may be, therefore, that by the time the Philebus draws to a close, the significance of person to person dialectic has receded in favour of – what might seem – more analytic methods of philosophy, which require neither the personal engagement of any of the participants, nor that philosophical progress should be made by dialogue itself. By this time, that is to say, we may no longer need to search for the sincerity of an interlocutor, since propositions and theories and principles may be entertained and considered irrespective of whether they are believed. By this time, furthermore, we may no longer need to ask whether the dialogue form is significant to the philosophical content of the dialogue, since by now it has receded into a mere formality.