MEASURE OF ALL THINGS

(Protagoras was born around 481 BC in Abdera in Ancient Greece. He was a pre-Socratic philosopher, and is named as one of the sophists by Plato, who in his dialogue of the same name credits him with having invented the role of the professional sophist ,or teacher of “virtue.” He died in 420 BC.)

Having unfolded in the previous entry what more or less amounts to an Apologia of Sophism, there should be no reason for us to present a vindication of the first sophist (in the narrow sense) Protagoras against the charges of being one. Our task ought to be to represent him here as a bona fide philosopher, and to discuss his pertinent views. But there are also two personal Protagorean stigmas, which ought not to be ignored.

Both of them concern his depiction as an atheist. He was indeed a famous proponent of agnosticism, which is epitomized in this classic phrase from his treatise On the Gods: “Concerning the gods, I have no means of knowing whether they exist or not, or of what sort they may be, because of the obscurity of this subject, and of the brevity of human life.”

Ironically, there are two salient points here, which lessen the impact of his accusers on the atheist charges. One is his use of the plural, gods, in this famous phrase, which is addressed to the polytheistic theology of the Greeks, and, as we had numerous chances to note, no serious philosopher could ever take polytheistic mythology seriously, explicit or implicit monotheism always being the basis of the philosophical religion. The other point is that the claim of the unknowability of God is not a sign of atheism, as we know from the religious Jews, who make this claim with regard to Ein Sof.

Indubitably, the best-known of his sayings is that man is the measure of all things. (In its complete form it says: “Man is the measure of all things: of things which are, that they are so, and of things which are not, that they are not.”) In my personal experience, virtually every Evangelical Christian in America is wholly convinced that these words represent the credo of humanism (an atheistic outrage, in their view), showing that for these godless creatures God has no stature to be the measure of all things, which, of course, He is. (By the way, what terrible arrogance, as if God were a measuring stick we could hold up for measurement!) I shall not enter into another disputation here on what really constitutes humanism, but I must argue that not just me, but all respectable authorities on Protagoras and on sophism indicate that despite the fame of this phrase, it has passed down to us without any context, as is so often the case with the Pre-Socratics, and its meaning is not entirely clear. As Bertrand Russell explains this, probably, quite correctly, this ought to be correctly interpreted as meaning that each man, and not man as such, as opposed to God, is the measure of all things, and that when men differ, there is no objective truth in virtue of which one is right and the other is wrong. The doctrine is essentially skeptical, and is presumably based on the deceitfulness of the senses. In other words, what Protagoras is saying here is that truth is in the eye of the beholder, but try to explain it to someone whose mind has been dead set!

Protagoras was a remarkable man, perhaps a genius, although of the kind, which does not soar high up, to reach the heavens, but stays so close to the ground that it is much harder to recognize. He had many talents and was undoubtedly a much learned man, a man of great wisdom and culture. Whatever his view on God was, he did not deny, but, quite the contrary, asserted the vital importance of religion to national culture, which is the view that I myself hold. We will do well, he said, since we cannot know the absolute truth, to follow the ceremonies and traditions and accept the practices of the community in which we live: the old customs and conventions have a vital social function in producing a cohesive and orderly community, even if they are not strictly speaking true. For without the common religious sanctions there would be nothing to hold society together, except a willingness to be guided by public opinion as expressed in and through the laws of one’s own community.

Here is some atheist speaking! Well, but at least in one Protagorean virtue I can completely agree with the American Evangelicals: here is a true humanist, and, let me add this on my own, a man of great wisdom.

Summing it up, Protagoras was a brilliant logical pragmatist, and by virtue of this accomplishment, a bona fide philosopher. Moreover, his prodigious debating skills revealed a perfected instrument of philosophical inquiry, which transcends all specific philosophies, accounting for an added power of one’s philosophical contemplation. And this is not all that one can say about his strengths and achievements.

Protagoras was a consummate teacher of rhetoric and debate. There are two kinds of rhetorical master: the con man and the philosopher. The first one’s purpose is to confuse his target, by obscuring the terms he is showering on him. The task of the philosopher is, on the contrary, to clarify the meanings of words, or, as I call this, definitions, definitions, definitions! As we know about him, Protagoras was genuinely fascinated by the study of orthoepeia, or the correct use of words. In this sense, too, he was a genuine philosopher, and if I might add, a kindred spirit in my eyes, since there are so many little pleasurable discoveries we happen to hold in common.