Leo Strauss (1899–1973) was one of the preeminent political philosophers of the twentieth century. From 1949 to 1968 he was professor of political science at the University of Chicago. He is the author of many books, among them The Political Philosophy of Hobbes, Natural Right and History, and Spinoza’s Critique of Religion, all also published by the University of Chicago Press. Robert C. Bartlett is the Behrakis Professor of Hellenic Political Studies at Boston College. He is the author or editor of many books, including The Idea of Enlightenment and Sophistry and Political Philosophy, and he is cotranslator of Aristotle’s “Nicomachean Ethics.”

• Note on the Leo Strauss Transcript ProjectEditorial HeadnoteIntroduction1 Sophistry and Rhetoric: Plato’s Gorgias Reconsidered2 Callicles’s Challenge to Socrates in the Gorgias3 Sophistry, Rhetoric, and the Philosophic Life4 The Turn to the Protagoras (309a–312b)5 Meeting Protagoras (312b–316c)6 Is Virtue Teachable? (316c–320c)7 The Long Speech of Protagoras: Mythos (320c–322d)8 The Long Speech of Protagoras: Mythos and Logos (322d–325b)9 The Long Speech of Protagoras, Teacher of Virtue (325b–329d)10 The Cross-Examination of Protagoras: Virtue and Its Parts (329d–335c)11 The First Breakdown of the Conversation and Its Aftermath (335c–341c)12 Virtue in the Element of Poetry (341c–347c)13 What Is Courage? (347c–352e)14 On the Hedonism of the Many (352e–356c)15 The Hedonistic Calculus and the Problem of Courage (356c–359c)16 Courage, Hedonism, and the Refutation of Protagoras (359c–362a)17 Summary and Conclusion: Rhetoric and SophistryNotesIndex

“This book is an easy, pleasant, and stimulating read. It is informal and playful, and it constitutes a drama in its own right. Here one gets to watch a master and subtle interpreter of texts take on an exceedingly puzzling Platonic dialogue in front of a dozen or so very bright young students.”