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References
The
Path of Knowledge Protagoras Protagoras
(480-411 B.C.) Philosophical
Background of the The
Philosophy Sophists Relativism
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Protagoras
The Protagoras of Plato
Protagoras plays an important role in Plato's dialogues, one of which is named Protagoras and involves a fictional, yet realistic, conversation between the sophist and Socrates. Another dialogue is named after a young boy named Theaetetus and involves a discussion between he, Socrates, and Theodorus who is a friend of Protagoras. The dialogue begins with discussion about Protagoras' relativism, then it moves onto considerations about the nature of knowledge and closes with a definition of knowledge that has stayed with us over the millennia: Knowledge is justified, true belief. That is the modern version of Plato's definition. On this view, our beliefs will only count as knowledge when they are true (accord with the objective facts) and when the person who holds the belief has evidence or justification for it.
In Plato's theory of knowledge (which he gives in Theaetetus as an alternative to Protagoras' theory), reality operates as a standard against which belief and perception can be measured. Belief is created by perceptions of reality. Note that Plato's theory of knowledge is also a theory of error, for it is possible to misperceive reality and create a false belief. Also note that true belief alone is not the same as knowledge. We could have a true belief by sheer luck. In order to have genuine knowledge of reality, we must have both a true belief about it and sufficient justification (evidence) for that belief. Plato acknowledges that the relations between justification and belief are not clear. We may have no flawless way to tell when our evidence is sufficient. The history of philosophy contains many efforts to correct this deficiency. Scientific method is a system of building evidence by testing belief against observation (perception).
Compare Plato's account to the Protagorean relativism which holds ; "Of all things the measure is Man, of the things that are, that they are, and of the things that are not, that they are not." Plato interprets this claim as based on a theory, attributed to Protagoras, that holds knowledge and perception to be the same. Plato points out that this implies that appearance and reality are indistinguishable and that no one can ever be mistaken about what they know. When a person is in good health, a wine may taste sweet; but when she is ill, the same wine may taste bitter. This the wine is neither sweet not bitter in itself, it only becomes sweet or bitter when related to an individual through perception. In a way, there is no fixed reality at all. There is only the reality becoming which is formed into nameable objects and qualities when acted on by perception. You may be quite familiar with the idea that our minds create our reality. This notion is popular in new age and self-help literature, magickal thought of the past and present, and even some contemporary versions of constructivist educational theory. Below is a possible picture of Plato's interpretation of Protagoras' theory.
Compare this conception of knowledge to the Platonic theory depicted above. They are very different and even opposed in several regards. This diagram is based on the interpretation of Protagoras given in Theaetetus. Read the following passage carefully by referring back to the diagram and checking to see whether the diagram accurately depicts what the passage describes.
| "When
the eye and the appropriate object meet together and give birth to
whiteness and the sensation connatural with it, which could not have
been given by either of them going elsewhere, then, while the sight:
is flowing from the eye, whiteness proceeds from the object which
combines in producing the colour; and so the eye is fulfilled with
sight, and really sees, and becomes, not sight, but a seeing eye;
and the object which combined to form the colour is fulfilled with
whiteness, and becomes not whiteness but a white thing, whether wood
or stone or whatever the object may be which happens to be coloured
white. And this is true of all sensible objects, hard, warm, and the
like, which are similarly to be regarded, as I was saying before,
not as having any absolute existence, but as being all of them of
whatever kind. generated by motion in their intercourse with one another;
for of the agent and patient, as existing in separation, no trustworthy
conception, as they say, can be formed, for the agent has no existence
until united; with the patient, and the patient has no existence until
united with the agent; and that which by uniting with something becomes
an agent, by meeting with some other thing is converted into a patient.
And from all these considerations, as I said at first, there arises
a general reflection, that there is no one self-existent thing, but
everything is becoming and in relation; and being must be altogether
abolished, although from habit and ignorance we are compelled even in this discussion to retain the use of the term." Plato, Theaetetus, |
This passage presents a remarkable conception of reality. You can see in it why the Protagorean theory is called Relativism, because all knowledge and being itself is dependent upon relations between the perceiver and the perceived. If this is the way things are, the implications are astounding. Plato advances his criticism of relativism by drawing out a number of those implications.
Next
- learn more about Plato's critique of Protagoras 
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