[MD] Protagoras and "Measure"

[MarshaV]

I'm sure it very difficult, but I wonder what reality would be if not filtered through the Plato/Aristotle lens...    



On Jan 3, 2010, at 5:31 PM, X Acto wrote:

> Aristotle
> Metaphysics
> Book Gamma
> 6
> "There are some who, either seriously or for the sake of
> arguement, raise a difficulty by asking who decides who
> is healthy and, in general on any issue, whose judgement
> is right. Such perplexities are like asking whether we are
> now asleep or awake. For all such questions arise because
> men demand a reason for everything; they seek to prove that 
> they can reach ultimate principals,but their very actions prove
> they are not convinced. We have already explained the source
> of their trouble: they seek a reason for things which have 
> no reason, since the beginning of demonstration can not
> be demonstrated."
> 
> 1012b
> "Against all such arguements, however, it must be
> asked, as has been said also in the previouse discussions
> .not that something is or is not, but that something has meaning;
> so that we must converse on the basis of definition by 
> grasping what falsity or truth means."
> 
> He goes on to state that to state anything as
> "the way it is" in naturally untrue since all things change.
> 
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: MarshaV <valkyr at att.net>
> To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
> Sent: Sun, January 3, 2010 9:32:35 AM
> Subject: Re: [MD] Protagoras and "Measure"
> 
> 
> 
>   "The clearest form of the argument is given by Aristotle.  In the fourth book of the *Metaphysics," 
> Aristotle advances two decisive principles regarding primary substance (*ousia*): (i) necessarily, 
> for every attribute, a substance either possesses that attribute or it does not, which is Aristotle's 
> version of the principle of excluded middle; and (ii) for any substance, if anything may be 
> predicted of it then, necessarily, its attributes cannot be accidents only, or only apparent 
> properties, the violation of which Aristotle takes to entail contradiction.  Protagoras, apparently, 
> violates both -- which shows at the least that relativism was thought in the ancient world to 
> involve a restriction on, or abandonment of, the principle of excluded middle.
>   Now,*if* it is not true that reality is changeless, then, of course, (ii) must be given up; and 
> if (ii) is abandoned, then, on Aristotle's own reading of (ii), (i) must be given up also.  But the 
> ancients understood the doctrine, "man is the measure," to entail at least that reality is not 
> changeless -- also, therefore, that if man can rightly claim to have knowledge, than, on Protagoras' 
> argument, knowledge cannot be addressed to what is changeless in reality.  This much at least 
> yields a stalemate between Aristotle and Protagoras: thus far, neither one's thesis is obviously 
> incoherent.  But even this much favors Protagoras, because Aristotle holds that the violation 
> of (i) and (ii) yields contradiction.  More would need to be said.
>   Aristotle does have more to say.  There is another argument, a bridge argument, that is decisive 
> for Aristotle:  "if not all things are relative, but some are self-existent, not everything that appears 
> will be true"; and *that*, which is tantamount to (ii), must, *somewhere* in Protagoras' argument, 
> yield the denial of those properties of particular substances *that are changeless.*  Nothing could 
> be more reasonable.  The only trouble is that Protagoras rejects the thesis that there *is* something 
> changeless, and Aristotle nowhere shows convincingly that *that* produces contradiction, except, 
> trivially, *by* presupposing the truth of what must first be shown to be true.  So Aristotle fails.  
> Certainly, in our own time, nearly every prominent thinker either believes that reality is not 
> changeless or believes that it is not demonstrably true that believing *that* cannot but be 
> incoherent."
>     (Margolis, Joseph, 'The Truth About Relativism' (Paperback), pp.77-78)
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>   
> _______________________________________________________________________
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Shoot for the moon.  Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars...