[MD] Protagoras

[John Carl]

On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 9:15 AM, MarshaV <valkyr at att.net> wrote:

This book was so delicious.
>
>

The morsel you offered is tasty...



>  But under the epistemology attributed to

> Protagoras in 'Theaetetus' and revealed by other fragments, dissoi logoi
> are
> unavoidable outcomes of any group discourse.



This is borne out in the practical experiences of community building
workshops, as well.  Time and again - two sides form up against one another
as part of its communication process or "discourse".  Pretty much
unavoidable, you get a democrat, a republican is gonna form up in
opposition.  That old pendulum just gotta swing.




>  The title of one Protagoras's
> lost works, 'Truth", bears the subtitle 'Refutations", suggesting that the
> sophist understand dissoi logoi to be a means of discovering _a_ truth
> rather than the expression of a distance from a separate, single Truth
> within phenomena.  His most famous saying reinforces this notion:  "Of all
> things the measure is human, of the things that are, they are, and of the
> things that are not, they are not".



Reminds me of not this, not that.  Except I've been getting a feeling from
the little reading I've been doing now that "not this, not  not-this; not
that, not not-that" translates the ineffable a bit better.

What am I saying?  Good grief.  "translates the ineffable better"... yeah
right. I can spell buddhist better than you.

RoFL



> Protagoras denies any significance to
> the existence of phenomena outside individual human experience.  He is
> given
> the opportunity to lay out his doctrine about sensation in Plato's dialogue
> 'Theaetetus'.  The character "Protagoras" there argues that a wind that
> feels hot to one person and cold to another really _is_ both hot and cold.
>


That is an excellent point, and one I wish I'd thought of earlier in my life
because it probably would have saved me a lot of arguments with my wife -
who got tired of me reminding her when she complained of being cold that
"you wouldn't consider Northern California winters "cold" if you'd been born
in North Dakota.


The sophists found it both impossible and unnecessary to determine any
> single Truth about appearances; more important is negotiating useful
> courses
> of action for groups of people given their varying perceptions about the
> world.


Communal pragmatists.  I like 'em already.




> That understanding and use comes to be through the propositions
> people form about them; in other words, the human-as-measure doctrine is an
> answer to dissoi logoi.



Ok this is akin to some Royce I've found also; meaning evolves in relations
of concepts which grow richer with the more you know.  The more input, the
more intellect the better - two heads are better than one.  Just ask Platt
and Ham!  Wait.  On second thought, don't.  They believe in the isolated
individual intellect as supreme.  I don't want to hear their opinion.  They
might disagree with mine.

But wait!  My point is exactly that the quality of my thinking is increased
by intellectual variety and even contradiction.  That contradiction is a
path to ... well not THE truth maybe, but more than "a" truth... something
very vital and important to me in fact, MY truth.  My very own truth that I
can carry with me and bonk people over the head with sometimes.  Inflict my
truth upon them.

Basically, the same sort of degenerate activity as metaphysical speculation
but more of a team sport.




>  It is important to identify the recognition of
> contradictory statements as a starting point for the rhetorical work of
> Protagoras and other sophists rather than a despairing conclusion about the
> futility of human inquiry, as for Zeno who engaged in absurd paradoxes.
>

Futility of human inquiry is one divided by Zeno.



> Further evidence of Protagoras's rejection of any truth outside of human
> experience is his comment on the gods: "Concerning the gods, I am not able
> to say whether they exist or what they are like, for there are many things
> that hinder me".


What a smart guy.  I wish to God and He to me that all humans were as
sensible.


Though a skeptical attitude toward the gods was not
> uncommon in the fifth century, Protagoras's agnosticism contributes to the
> general picture of his knowledge theory.  Like the Presocratics, who sought
> reasons for physical phenomena outside the explanations of myth,
> Protagoras's careful expression of ignorance directs energy away from the
> search for external knowledge source and throws the responsibility for
> determining the nature of things onto humans."
>
>
Humanity grows up and takes responsibility.  Very nice.  Thanks Marsha.

Me like 'em.

John