Thought I might put a paper that I did last quarter on the Theaetetus of Plato...
When making claims to knowledge, if the past or future is not considered or taken into account, then an important part of any argument has been forgotten. Protagoras claims to be an expert in teaching virtue. As carpenters teach the trade of carpentry, Protagoras taught rhetoric and how to be successful in the eyes of the public. Protagoras being one of the first great sophists he distinguished himself as being an expert in the field and is widely known for his idea behind the measure doctrine. In the Theaetetus, Protagoras states that ultimately all our beliefs are equally true and truth is relative to the individual. Ultimately, Protagoras’ claim to expertise is not in agreement with the idea that all beliefs are equally true, to better convey this I will use Socrates’ objection that you cannot apply the Protagoras’ claims to future judgments, which in-turn displays how Protagoras’ claim is self-refuting.
If Protagoras claims to be an expert then he possesses knowledge that is more true than the knowledge another person possesses, but if he claims that all our beliefs are equally true then nobody can be an expert. If truth is relative to a person and a person thinks and believes their thought is true, how is it that Protagoras’ thought or belief is truer than that person? The better understanding of what it means to be an expert is necessary in this case. To be an expert entails that the certain person knows extensive and in depth knowledge on the subject that they are preaching. To be at the level of an expert, a person will be looked up at in the eyes of the public and offer something that others cannot. An expert is someone who believes they either understand or possess knowledge that can be beneficial to other people and their understanding of something will help other people understand that particular subject. This is when crossroads meet: by Protagoras stating that he is an expert entails that he has beliefs in which are truer than other people’s beliefs, but according to Protagoras stating that he believes in something also states that he believes that another person’s beliefs that Protagoras’ beliefs in something is false, is true.
In the Theaetetus, Socrates takes on the role of Protagoras and sheds light on how Protagoras would defend his position on expertise and his understanding of beliefs. Burnyeat conveys how Protagoras’ idea that all our beliefs are equally true and that being an expert does not affect this. By comparing Protagoras to a doctor, it understands the idea of an expert as someone who makes one’s perceptions overall better or improved. It is also understood that this does not conflict with the measure doctrine because what we feel and think is true for that person is still true for that person, but is better at this point (pg. 23). The important point to understand with this position is that the overall the expert does not wish to change one’s perceptions because their perceptions are true for them, but only make an improvement on the perception. Burnyeat uses an analogy that seems to fit well: as if one’s eyesight is improved. According to Protagoras an expert overall is someone who can change bad appearances to good ones. He then uses the example of a sick man who sees food as being bitter, and the healthy man as seeing food as scrumptious (166de). Therefore the expert in this situation would be a doctor. The doctor does not change the perception of food as a whole, but makes it better. He creates the perception of food as being good with the use of drugs and help people have a better perception towards a specific situation. Protagoras at this point though would make sure of distinguishing the difference between something that is better and something that is truer. Protagoras according to Socrates would explain that the expert is not making anything truer, but he is simply making it better. Truer is the idea that something is different or has to take on a different role in a perception or change the perception, not necessarily making it solemnly better (167c). It seems that, at this point, Protagoras would have made himself clear at what he has meant to convey as someone being an expert. This in turn to him does not conflict with the measure doctrine or what is seen as all our beliefs are equally true, because he still regards all beliefs as being true, just that he, an expert, can make true beliefs somewhat better in a fashion. Protagoras’ position would then be to save his measure doctrine theory by taking the path “In this way we are enabled to hold both that some men are wiser than others, and also that no man judges what is false” (167d). By not being able to judge the wiser, man is not able to accuse someone of false perception, and accuse someone of being incorrect. Therefore, at this point all perceptions are still correct, but the expert, or wiser person, can build upon a perception and make it better or somewhat alter the perception. Socrates’ main objection to Protagoras’ claim is that you cannot apply it to future judgments.
In particular, Socrates’ main argument towards Protagoras’ is one of future judgments, and that future judgments are based around the idea of objective truth. Socrates makes a point of conveying how are we to understand the future if we cannot be in the future at that moment. Socrates begins with the example of heat, and how one man might believe that he will get a fever, but a different man, a doctor, believes in the opposite that the man will not get a fever. Socrates then makes it clear that how this would not be possible to happen at the same time. For if all perceptions are true perceptions, then both perceptions of the future cannot happen at the same moment, and both men cannot be equally correct if the man will have a fever or if he will not. (178c). If there are two men, and they can both have judgments about the future and what it will come to be, how is it possible that both of them can be correct about a future judgment? Therefore, these people are not depending on the mind for an actual judgment, but merely making a prediction about what is to be, eventually. “Protagoras’ stance would then be: no prediction is ever proved wrong, just as no memory is ever inaccurate. All that happens is it seems to one self at one time that something will be true (or has been true), and seems to another self at another time that something different is true” (SEP). This claim will be then falsified if the man does not have a fever in the future, maybe tomorrow, or will be falsified if the doctor was incorrect and the man did eventually have a fever. At this point the future perspective of an individual is not of importance, because if the future self is correct then he happened to be correct, but was not considered knowledge, but what would be called a prediction of what was to be. If the individual incorrectly perceived what was to be in the future by looking back to the past, then the individual had a false belief. To help shed light on Socrates’ overarching idea he uses Protagoras’ profession as an example, “No one would have paid large fees for the privilege of talking with him if he had not been in the habit of persuading his pupils that he was a better judge than any fortune-teller—or anyone else—about what was going to be and seem to be in the future” (179a). By Protagoras’ viewpoint being, an expert is one that will be able to facilitate the possibility of understanding the future and well being of the future. The problem with this is the future, and, if incorrect, then the expertise of that person has been negated. Therefore, if the man believed that he was going to get a fever in a week, but the man was incorrect, then Protagoras has no way of defending the perception of a false belief that would happen in the future.
The understanding of Protagoras’ Measure doctrine and the combination of expertise is ultimately self-refuting. If an individual has one perception on how they will be in the future as one way, but someone makes a judgment of how that person will be in the future a different way, then a belief of the future cannot be in alignment with all beliefs being equally true.
