mousikē and Sophistry in Plato’s Protagoras

In the following paper I argue that Plato’s Protagoras is fundamentally about the utilization of mousikē to define sophistry. Protagoras imitates a choral education and argues for sophistry as the endpoint for musical education in Greek society. However, in setting sophistry in dialogue with mousikē Plato gestures to the radical implications of the private training of sophistic mousikē and its performance in public context.