Friday, November 15, 2024 3:30pm
About this Event
Fifth Ave at Bigelow, Pittsburgh, 15213
Classics, Philosophy, and Ancient Science (CPAS) Present
“Pinning Down Plato’s Protagoras” by John MacFarlane (Berkeley)
Abstract: Protagoras is often mentioned in discussions of relativism about truth, on the strength of the position Plato attributes to him in the Theaetetus: “as each thing appears to me, so it is for me, and as it appears to you, so it is for you” (152a). Many consider him the first truth relativist, and Plato’s famous self-refutation argument against him is mentioned in virtually every general discussion of truth relativism. I distinguish a number of possible positions about the content of appearances which Plato might be attributing to Protagoras, only some of which are forms of relativism about truth. I argue that the textual evidence is most consistent with two of these positions, which I call Relational Properties and Moderate Relativism. However, it is not clear whether Plato had the means to distinguish between these positions. I go on to suggest that, far from rejecting Protagoras’s view of the contents of appearances, Plato shares it. Either Protagoras is not a relativist about truth, or Plato is one too.
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