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Protagoras Unbound

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

F. C. White
F. C. White*
Affiliation:
University of Tasmania
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Extract

In this paper I want to do the following things. First I want to show that in the part of the Theaetetus where the relationship between knowledge and perception is examined, the concept of knowledge that is in question is very clearly characterized. We are left in no doubt as to what is to count as knowing. Secondly I want to unravel in some detail the case that Socrates puts on Protagoras’ behalf where he draws on what Protagoras actually wrote (151 E-152C); as opposed to what he may have taught secretly to his pupils (152C-160D). Thirdly I wish to argue that if we let the dialogue speak for itself, it is manifest that this case put up on Protagoras’ behalf at 151 E-152C is not overthrown; it is not even shaken.

In that part of the dialogue (151 D-186E) where the question is under examination whether or not knowledge and perception are the same, Socrates uses an idealized concept of knowledge. That is, he restricts the use of the word by setting down what he will consider to be the essential characteristics of knowledge, the sufficient and necessary conditions of its being instantiated. An excellent piece of philosophical procedure.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy Supplementary Volume , Volume 1 , Issue 1: New Essays in the History of Philosophy , 1975 , pp. 1 - 9
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 1975

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References

1 That the scope of the expression “as being knowledge” is not just “infallible” will become evident, if it is not so already, from the closer analysis of 151 E-152C which I present in the second section of this paper.

2 Cf. footnote 1. There seems to me some difficulty about the Greek here. I suspect that “ὡζ ἐπιοτήμη οὖσα'” may be a later gloss. My argument however is not upset by this, as I hope will become clear.

3 It may look as if I am adding an essential characteristic here. In fact I am including one which is presupposed or implicit in the thesis. The other two conditions are the ones that Socrates explicitly refers to.

4 When I refer to the first and second part I mean the following. There is one main premise that Socrates uses in 184B·l86E to argue that perception is not knowledge. This is that without a “grasp of being” there is no grasp of truth and so no knowledge. Given this common premise, Socrates has two ways of showing that perception does not grasp being and so is not knowledge. The first (i.e. being is one of the Kowá. and we do not perceive the Kawá) I refer to as the first part of Socrates' argument. The second way (perception is pre-reflective etc.) I call the second part of the argument.