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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Protagoras by Plato: conspicuous towards the end. There is Alcibiades, who is compelled by the
necessity of his nature to be a partisan, lending effectual aid to
Socrates; there is Critias assuming the tone of impartiality; Callias, here
as always inclining to the Sophists, but eager for any intellectual repast;
Prodicus, who finds an opportunity for displaying his distinctions of
language, which are valueless and pedantic, because they are not based on
dialectic; Hippias, who has previously exhibited his superficial knowledge
of natural philosophy, to which, as in both the Dialogues called by his
name, he now adds the profession of an interpreter of the Poets. The two
latter personages have been already damaged by the mock heroic description
of them in the introduction. It may be remarked that Protagoras is
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