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Greg Gauthier 2022-09-02 08:40:50 +01:00
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content/post/protagoras,-homo-mensura,-and-self-refutation.md
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### Is *Homo Mensura* Self-Refuting?
Plato's Theaetetus involves a famous exchange between Socrates, an old mathematician named Theodorus, and his brilliant young pupil named Theaetetus, in which they attempt to answer the question of what is knowledge. The common denominator in this exchange, is that Protagoras is an old friend of Theodorus, and Theaetetus has adopted Protagorean relativism as his own doctrine. The exchange between Socrates and the two men is (in addition to attempting to discover a theory of knowledge in general) is at least in part intended to demonstrate that the doctrine of Protagoras is self-refuting. This essay will provide a brief overview of the key interpretations of the doctrine of Protagoras, cover the basic arguments and their criticisms by various philosophers[^1], and then render a judgement (ironically?) in conclusion.
Plato's Theaetetus involves a famous exchange between Socrates, an old mathematician named Theodorus, and his brilliant young pupil named Theaetetus, in which they attempt to answer the question of what is knowledge. The common denominator in this exchange, is that Protagoras is an old friend of Theodorus, and Theaetetus has adopted Protagorean relativism as his own doctrine. The exchange between Socrates and the two men is at least in part (in addition to attempting to discover a theory of knowledge in general) intended to demonstrate that the doctrine of Protagoras is self-refuting. This essay will provide a brief overview of the key interpretations of the doctrine of Protagoras, cover the basic arguments and their criticisms by various philosophers[^1], and then render a judgement (ironically?) in conclusion.
The first statement of the famous doctrine of Protagoras comes just before 160e in the dialogue: "*that man is the measure of all things*". But the work of analysing what that means does not really begin until 161c-d, where it is restated as: "*a thing is, for any individual, what it seems to him to be*"[^2] In his initial objection, though, Socrates rapidly restates the thesis in yet other new ways: "*whatever the individual judges by means of perception is true for him*", and "*only the individual himself can judge of his own world*", and "*what [a man] judges is always true and correct*", and again later at 162d, "*a thing is for each man what it seems to him to be*".