[lit-ideas] Protagoras -- and the Measure of All Things

  • From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Sat, 17 Nov 2007 23:01:56 EST

"Depends on what you mean by "man", doesn't it?  If one means that the  
individual person is the measure of all things, then I agree with Plato and  
John.  But if man is taken to be "the cultural consensus", then I think  
Plato 
and John are wrong.  What else is there but the cultural  consensus to give 
meaning."
 
Problem with Protagoras is:
 
1. He is dismissed as a sophist, but as Larry Kramer has pointed out  
elsewhere, those are the _real_ sophoi.
 
2. You won't find his theories unless it's via the bias of Plato.
 
I tend to incline with Geary to the feeling that Protagoras is right.  
Children are usually (well, teenagers) using rules to measure this and that, 
and  
sometimes their own membra viril. The human being is very concerned about  
measures. 
 
Protagoras generalizes out of that and says that "Man" (Anthropos), by  which 
he must mean the _genus_ is the measure of all things. 

Think of a glass of water. The measure of the glass is (must) be  
proportioanl to the measure of the man. We don't want too big a glass, nor too  
little. 
Ditto with trousers, etc.
 
I cannot think of one item that man uses that he doesn't need it in the  
Right Size, which is the right size for "Man".
 
Cheers,
 
JL



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