Logical Oddities in Protagorean Relativism
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Evan Keeling
Abstract
This paper discusses two broadly logical issues related to Protagoras’ measure doctrine (M) and the self-refutation argument (SRA). First, I argue that the relevant interpretation of (M) has it that every individual human being determines all her own truths, including the truth of (M) itself. I then turn to what I take to be the most important move in the SRA: that Protagoras recognises not only that his opponents disagree with him about the truth of (M), but also that they hold that (M) is false simpliciter. By recognising that his opponents do not make the relativising concession he makes for them, he is forced to accept that (M) is false. I go on to argue that several other defenders of the SRA end up with a regress which is difficult to end and might not favour anti-Protagoreans. On my reading, by recognising what his opponents believe, Protagoras is barred from adding qualifiers, and the possible regress doesn’t get off the ground. I conclude with brief discussions of how Protagoras might try to avoid the result of the SRA and the argument’s role in this part of the Theaetetus.
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Artikel in diesem Heft
- Titelseiten
- Articles
- Heraclitus, Change and Objective Contradictions in Aristotle’s Metaphysics Γ
- Logical Oddities in Protagorean Relativism
- Regress? I’ve Had a Few?
- Infinite Regress Arguments as per impossibile Arguments in Aristotle: De Caelo 300a30–b1, Posterior Analytics 72b5–10, Physics V.2 225b33–226a10
- Pyrrhonian Scepticism, the Infinite Regress of Reasons, and Ancient Infinitism
- Beyond the Principle of Non-Contradiction: Damascius on the Ineffable
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Titelseiten
- Articles
- Heraclitus, Change and Objective Contradictions in Aristotle’s Metaphysics Γ
- Logical Oddities in Protagorean Relativism
- Regress? I’ve Had a Few?
- Infinite Regress Arguments as per impossibile Arguments in Aristotle: De Caelo 300a30–b1, Posterior Analytics 72b5–10, Physics V.2 225b33–226a10
- Pyrrhonian Scepticism, the Infinite Regress of Reasons, and Ancient Infinitism
- Beyond the Principle of Non-Contradiction: Damascius on the Ineffable
