The Sophists influenced the cultured class in Athens. Plato showed Socrates challenging the Sophist Protagoras in arguments in his dialogue Protagoras.
Plato wanted to display the contrast between Socrates and the Sophists:
Socrates seeked knowledge that he did not have, Sophists claimed to have knowledge of how to live well, possess excellence and be able to teach it. Socrates was motivated by truth, the Sophists wanted fame of winning arguments as mentioned in examples in dialogues like Euthydemus.
In Plato’s dialogues, Socrates critiqued different Sophists. For instance, he said Thrasymachus claimed that justice is a concept of oppression. And Protagoras, truth is relative to the subject, or Callicles, that the best life contains as many sensory pleasures as possible. In Gorgias, he made the distinction between genuine knowledge and illusion of knowledge by clever speaking.
Protagoras was known for his relativistic account of truth, the thesis “a human being is the measure of all things, of those things that are, that they are, and of those things that are not, that they are not”
Protagoras referred to each human being as the measure of what is rather than ‘humankind. The Greek term hōanthrōpos meaning human, considered the second interpretation.
Plato’s Theaetetus considered the first interpretation. Protagoras asserted that if the wind, for example, feels/ seems cold to me and feels/ seems warm to you, then the wind is cold for me and is warm for you. This was supported by Aristotle in Metaphysics.
Another interpretation could be to understand Protagoras’ statement as ontological or epistemological.
Kerfered discussed possible readings.
Protagoras could be asserting that –
The wind was subjective, not mind independent.
The wind existed independently of ones perception, but in itself its neither cold nor warm as these qualities are private.
The wind existed independently of ones perception and is both cold and warm, if two qualities can be in the same mind-independent entity.
The Theaetetus suggested he could be asserting political and ethical realms, “whatever is considered just and admirable in a city is just and admirable in that city.”
The dialogue Theatetus portrayed Socrates’ attack against Protagoras’ relativism.
Socrates asked what is knowledge, Theaetetus responded with a list of examples of knowledge like geometry, astronomy, arithmetic, crafts or skills like cobbling etc.
Socrates said Theaetetus’ response was circular, because even if one knew cobbling was knowledge of making shoes, one couldn’t know what was cobbling unless one knew what was knowledge.
Theaetetus responded ‘knowledge is perception.’ Socartes converted this definition into Protagoras’ thesis of “man is the measure of all things, of the things that are that, of the things that are not that or how they are not.”
Socrates argued, if each person was a measure of their own truth then that made Protagoras a measure of his own truth, then how would it be possible for one to be wiser than others.
In ‘Cratylus’ and in Euthydemus, Socrates said, “if speaking falsehood or ignorance was not possible then it’s impossible to make a mistake” He questioned the purpose of teaching if action, speech, and thought couldn’t be wrong.
Regarding the Sophists, the wisdom of a teacher like Protagoras had nothing to do with truth but he could improve the way things appear to other people, just like an expert doctor’s treatment could make a patient feel better by making his food taste sweet than bitter.
The first part of critique was the self-refutation argument that was two-pronged argument. It was about false beliefs, the second part was built on the first part and threatened the validity of the man as measure thesis.
The first one described that many people believed that there were false beliefs, therefore, if all beliefs were true as Protagoras suggested, then there were false beliefs. If against protagoras, we could say that not all beliefs are true, then there are false beliefs. Either way there are false beliefs. This existence of false beliefs is inconsistent with the “man is the measure of all things” thesis, and hence, if there are false beliefs Protagoras’ truth was false.
The second part of Socrates’ critique was the most subtle argument which aimed to undermine Protagoras’ view of relativism. As per the thesis, if you believed in something but others disagreed with you, it would be true for you but false for others. If both Protagoras and others didn’t believe in the thesis then it would be false. Alternatively, if Protagoras believed it and many others did not, then the number of people who did nt believe were far more than those who did. Protagoras would have to agree to his view because he agreed that everybodys beliefs are true for themselves. Based on this he would have to agree that his own view was false. Hence, the truth of the measure thesis was undermined.
Thirdly, Socrates highlighted the difference between justice and philosophical views on this. Justice was concerned with present issues and assumed rules were included while the philosophical minds investigated and understood justice as an absolute, non relativistic value.
Socrates also explained the thesis ignored that an expertise may be entitled to be held true as they possessed the expert skill and predictive powers. For instance, ones body temperature could be immune to values like the good but an expert physician would be qualified to accurately predict whether one would develop fever the next day. Hence the moral and epistemological dimensions of Protagorean relativism were not justified.
Diogenes Laertius said Protagoras was the first to use argumentative techniques. He claimed that “there were two contradictory arguments about everything, and he used it to develop the consequences of contradictory premises”
Robin Waterfield pointed that historical context was helpful in understanding Protagarus views. Sophists claimed to teach virtue which was political and less moral for them. Protagorus believed good citizenship could be taught not born with.
Plato’s Phaedrus, Cratylus described Protagoras’ teachings of correct use of terms, gender distinction, verb tense, grammar could be to make a good impression on other citizens. But Protagoras was interested in them for their own sake too. In the dialogue Protagoras, Protagoras was projected as a utilitarian democrat with beliefs that promoted practicality and usefulness.
Waterfield argued Protagoras didn’t reduce knowledge to sense perception but he meant for each person the way they arrived at knowledge was the final authority for what was true for them whether it was through senses or not.
Waterfield argued that unlike Plato or Arsitotle, Protagoras’ relativism didnt deny the law of non-contradiction. Protagoras explained subjective suffixes in his descriptions of knowledge. “x is y for person A” or “ x is not y for person B”. Nothing suggested that it was possible that x was both y and not y for the same person A. Hence the law of non-contradiction was not violated.
One could argue for Protagoras it was possible for someone to be mistaken about where their true advantage was. The impressions were true, some were better for one than others, hence teachers role was important. He could be referring to persuasiveness, pleasure created by speeches rather than objective truth.
Protagoras’ “man is the measure of all things” was self-refuting if we observed Protagoras didn’t state ‘man is the measure of all things’ as a truth. It was a guideline about the practically correct debate in a democracy where it was important to look at both sides of a question. Waterfield called Protagoras a moderate skeptic because he didn’t deny there were truths or morally correct positions or that there was wind outside of what we perceived in our experiences like an extreme skeptic.
In conclusion, Waterfield’s reading of Protagoras is we can look at political virtue in a non-cynical way. It doesn’t have to be the skill for talking well in order to gain power, as Socrates would describe. Instead it can be the skill of considering different opinions and arriving at better beliefs. It is unlikely that Protagorus would allow killing somebody as acceptable if one found that acceptable. So for Protagoras’ the idea that nothing is false must be improvised. Some beliefs are better than others and politically beneficial to utilitarianism.
The purpose of Protagoras’ teaching was to bring an improved state of affairs. Waterfield wrote, his thoughts were based on moderate scepticism. If we cannot be certain about the truth of a matter, then we are justified in arguing either side of the case and in denying the falsehood. Protagoras’ own written work could allow to view him as a coherent, innovative thinker.
In today’s times, Protagoras’ moderate scepticism seems more realistic than a search for absolute truths as seen in Plato’s work. because in democracies, there are difference of opinions and scope for disagreement and it is important to figure which view is better among many views which are relatively true on their own.
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