Epistemology after Protagoras: Responses to Relativism in Plato, Aristotle, and Democritus

351 Pages·2005·2.49 MB·English

by  Mi-Kyoung Lee

Title Pages
University Press Scholarship Online
Oxford Scholarship Online
Epistemology after Protagoras: Responses to Relativism
in Plato, Aristotle, and Democritus
Mi-Kyoung Lee
Print publication date: 2005
Print ISBN-13: 9780199262229
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: October 2005
DOI: 10.1093/0199262225.001.0001
Title Pages
Epistemology after Protagoras Epistemology after Protagoras
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(p.iv)
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Dedication
University Press Scholarship Online
Oxford Scholarship Online
Epistemology after Protagoras: Responses to Relativism
in Plato, Aristotle, and Democritus
Mi-Kyoung Lee
Print publication date: 2005
Print ISBN-13: 9780199262229
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: October 2005
DOI: 10.1093/0199262225.001.0001
Dedication
(p.v) For PETER (p.vi)
Preface and Acknowledgements
University Press Scholarship Online
Oxford Scholarship Online
Epistemology after Protagoras: Responses to Relativism
in Plato, Aristotle, and Democritus
Mi-Kyoung Lee
Print publication date: 2005
Print ISBN-13: 9780199262229
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: October 2005
DOI: 10.1093/0199262225.001.0001
(p.vii) Preface and Acknowledgements
This book was originally inspired by a question: did philosophical scepticism arise de novo
in the Hellenistic period with the Academics and the Pyrrhonists, as is commonly thought,
or could elements of scepticism be found earlier in the classical period? Were Plato and
Aristotle simply unaware (or dismissive) of scepticism as a serious challenge to their own
more optimistic views of the possibility of acquiring knowledge? I found that Protagoras'
arguments, as presented and developed in Plato's Theaetetus, and Aristotle's related
discussion of Protagoras in Metaphysics Γ, anticipate in striking ways some of the attacks
which Hellenistic sceptics used. Furthermore, Plato's and Aristotle's cases against
Protagoras constitute a powerful defence against the sorts of arguments that the
Hellenistic sceptics would eventually deploy. My goal in this book, therefore, has been to
explore and arrive at a better understanding of the impact of Protagoras' relativist
arguments, together with Plato's, Aristotle's, and Democritus' responses to those
arguments, on the development of classical Greek epistemology.
Much of the material for this book grew out of work I did in graduate seminars given by
Gisela Striker, who also taught me as an undergraduate at Columbia University and
supervised my Ph.D. dissertation at Harvard University. In addition, her published work
on Hellenistic scepticism and on the sophists inspired many of the leading questions and
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Preface and Acknowledgements
ideas in this book. It is through countless discussions, and many invaluable criticisms and
suggestions, that she helped me shape this material into a book. I could not have hoped
for a better teacher and adviser.
I am also grateful to the following people for their generous and helpful comments on
drafts of various chapters: Chloe Balla, Patricia Curd, Gail Fine, W. D. Hart, Rachana
Kamtekar, Kathrin Koslicki, Connie Meinwald, Dana Miller, Stephen Menn, Susan Sauvé
Meyer, Lije Millgram, Ian Mueller, Hilary Putnam, David Sedley, and Angela Smith.
Although I sometimes end up disagreeing with him, I—and all scholars—am greatly
indebted to Myles Burnyeat for his work on the Theaetetus. I have also benefited from
conversations with him and his seminar on the De Anima at Harvard in the autumn of
1991. I thank Pat Curd for showing me part of her forthcoming commentary on
Anaxagoras. I also thank Jørgen Mejer for helpful discussions of Democritus and
Diogenes Laertius. Three anonymous readers for Oxford University Press carefully read
and commented on successive drafts of this book; their meticulous comments and tough
criticisms helped me enormously to get this book into shape. I would (p.viii) like to thank
my editor, Peter Momtchiloff, for his advice and encouragement, Jacqueline Baker and
Rebecca Bryant of OUP, and my copy‐editor, Nigel Hope, for all their help with the book.
I also thank Itır Günes̜ for help with the proofs. None of these people should be blamed
for the errors and lapses of judgement which still remain.
I thank the Senior Fellows of the Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington DC and its
former directors, Deborah Boedeker and Kurt Raaflaub, for giving me the opportunity to
work on this book in the splendid library and environment of the Center for a year. I also
acknowledge the support of the National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Stipend
for the writing of this book. My colleagues at the Department of Philosophy at the
University of Illinois at Chicago, especially Connie Meinwald and Bill Hart, have been
incredibly supportive, both by reading my work and by shielding me from the more time‐
consuming duties in the department.
I am grateful to my parents, Hye‐Sook and Joon Chang Lee, and to my sister, Sue Lee,
for their unwavering support throughout all the years I have worked on this project. And
finally, for all of his advice, comments on drafts, and encouragement, I thank my husband
Peter Hunt, to whom I dedicate this book.
Chapter 3 is a revised and expanded version of ‘The Secret Doctrine: Plato's Defense of
Protagoras in the Theaetetus’, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy (ed. David Sedley),
19 (Winter 2000), 47–86. Reprinted, with revisions, by permission of Oxford University
Press. Chapter 5 is a revised and expanded version of ‘Thinking and Perception in Plato's
Theaetetus’, in Mark McPherran (ed.), Recognition, Remembrance, and Reality: New
Essays on Plato's Epistemology and Metaphysics, Apeiron 32/4 (Dec. 1999), 37–54.
Reprinted, with revisions, by permission of Academic Publishing and Printing.
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List Of Abbreviations
University Press Scholarship Online
Oxford Scholarship Online
Epistemology after Protagoras: Responses to Relativism
in Plato, Aristotle, and Democritus
Mi-Kyoung Lee
Print publication date: 2005
Print ISBN-13: 9780199262229
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: October 2005
DOI: 10.1093/0199262225.001.0001
(p.xi) List Of Abbreviations
A
Testimonium in Diels–Kranz
B
Fragment in Diels–Kranz
DA
Aristotle, De Anima
DK
Diels–Kranz, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker
DL
Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Philosophers
DS
Theophrastus, De Sensibus
EN
Aristotle, Ethica Nicomachea
GC
Aristotle, De Generatione et Corruptione
KRS
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List Of Abbreviations
Kirk, Raven, and Schofield
LS
Long and Sedley, The Hellenistic philosophers
M
Sextus Empiricus, Against the Professors [Adversus Mathematicos]
Met.
Aristotle, Metaphysics
OT
Aristotle, Oxford Translation, ed. W. D. Ross
PH
Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism [Pyrrhoneae hypotyposes]
Prot.
Plato, Protagoras
Rep.
Plato, Republic
ROT
Aristotle, Revised Oxford Translation, ed. Jonathan Barnes
SE
Sextus Empiricus
Soph.
Plato, Sophist
Tht.
Plato, Theaetetus
T
Fragments and Testimonia in Taylor 1999a
Unless otherwise indicated, translations of Plato's Theaetetus come from the Levett/
Burnyeat translation (Hackett, 1990), except in §§5.4–8, where J. McDowell's translation
(Oxford, 1973) has been used. For passages from the other Platonic dialogues, the
translations in Plato: Complete Works, ed. J. M. Cooper (Hackett, 1997) have been used.
For Aristotle's Metaphysics, Ross' 1928 Oxford translation of the Metaphysics has been
used. For the Democritean fragments and testimonia I have used C. C. W. Taylor's
translation (Toronto, 1999). (p.xii)
Introduction
University Press Scholarship Online
Oxford Scholarship Online
Epistemology after Protagoras: Responses to Relativism
in Plato, Aristotle, and Democritus
Mi-Kyoung Lee
Print publication date: 2005
Print ISBN-13: 9780199262229
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: October 2005
DOI: 10.1093/0199262225.001.0001
Introduction
Mi-Kyoung Lee (Contributor Webpage)
DOI:10.1093/0199262225.003.0001
Abstract and Keywords
This book starts from the question: did skepticism only arise in the Hellenistic era? It is
argued that skepticism was in the air even earlier in the classical period — not in the form
of a well-defined school of thought or position, but in the form of certain loosely-related
ideas and arguments. Some of these were articulated by Protagoras in his book Alêtheia
‘Truth’, which began with the striking claim that ‘Man is the measure of all things, of what
is that it is, of what is not that it is not.’ Protagoras’ claim posed a challenge to the ideals of
expert knowledge, truth, and to the privileged role of reason in discovering the truth.
Plato, Aristotle, and Democritus responded to this challenge in their work.
Keywords: skepticism, truth, measure, expert knowledge, reason
In the Hellenistic period of Greek philosophy, the lines between philosophical camps on
the question of whether and how knowledge can be acquired are clearly drawn. We find
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Introduction
self‐proclaimed sceptics, such as the Academics and Pyrrhonists, posing a forceful
challenge to their ‘dogmatic’ opponents, compelling them to justify their confidence in the
very possibility of knowledge. Their opponents counter this in turn by formulating their
theories of knowledge as proposals concerning a criterion of truth, that is, a self‐evident,
infallible measure of the truth that can be used to distinguish with certainty between true
and false assertions and thus secure the foundations of knowledge. However, before the
Hellenistic era, worries about whether knowledge is really possible seem curiously
absent. Certainly expressions of the difficulty of attaining knowledge go back to the
earliest Greek thinkers. And in the classical period, Plato addresses the question of what
knowledge must be like and how one should go about looking for it in his principal
epistemological doctrines, such as his theory of recollection, and in his educational
programme predicated on the existence of Forms as the proper object of knowledge. He
thinks that acquiring knowledge is extremely difficult, and that most people do not have
real knowledge; Socrates in the Republic denies that he has any such knowledge himself.
But Plato, like his predecessors, seems to assume that it is possible, at least in principle,
to acquire knowledge and discover the truth. This then raises the question: did
scepticism only first arise in the Hellenistic period? Or was it already around, in the air, in
the classical period? Were Plato, Aristotle, and other philosophers of the classical period
simply unaware of scepticism as a problem, confident that philosophical knowledge can be
reached, though no doubt with difficulty? Or did they recognize and grapple with some of
the ideas and arguments that would later be marshalled for the sceptical position?
The aim of this book is to describe and investigate the development of epistemology in the
classical period of ancient Greece, focusing on the figures of Protagoras, Plato, Aristotle,
and Democritus. My thesis is that scepticism was in the air—not in the form of a well‐
defined school of thought or position, but in the form of certain loosely related ideas and
arguments. Some of these were articulated by Protagoras in his book Alētheia (‘Truth’),
which began with the striking claim that ‘Man is the measure of all things, of what is that it
is, (p.2) of what is not that it is not.’ One might wonder whether this is really ‘sceptical’,
since it implies that knowledge is much easier to attain than one might have thought: we
are all ‘measures’, that is, knowers of what is true and what is false.1 But in fact the
measure doctrine—Protagoras' claim that things are for each as they appear to each—
poses a challenge to the concept of expert knowledge and understanding, for it implies
that no one can ever be wrong about anything. It poses a challenge to the concept of
truth as the deeper reality behind appearances, for it implies that there is no such
deeper reality to discover and explain. And it poses a challenge to the idea that reason
alone has privileged access to the truth, for it implies that, in virtue of the sensory
faculties and ordinary capacity for judgement that we all possess, we are each of us
equally sufficient ‘measures’ of what is true and what is false. It is not surprising, then,
that many of the arguments Protagoras used in support of the measure doctrine—his
argument from conflicting appearances, his argument that there are no authoritative
grounds for deciding that one belief is true rather than another, his particular focus on
conflicts and relativity in perceptual and value judgements—later resurface in the
sceptical repertoire.
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