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Protagoras

Does this sound about right for meaning?

Man is the measure of all things definition. A statement by the ancient Greek philosopher Protagoras. It is usually interpreted to mean that the individual human being, rather than a god or an unchanging moral law, is the ultimate source of value.
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Sounds reasonable to me.
 
ontological_realist said:
Protagoras said, "Man is the measure of all things."

Do you agree or disagree?
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Most people think there is an external world independent of their thoughts. In particular, the relation between two things which are not people is understood as independent of people. A relation between two things is a measure of one relative to the other (unless you define "measure" as dependent on people's thoughts and then the claim becomes trivially true). For example, The Eiffel Tower is 300 times a certain stick kept at Sèvres and formerly used as the meter standard, and this relation is usually understood as independent of what people think. Reality is its own measure. So the claim contradicts our conception of the world.

Of course, if you accept that Protagoras's "measure" means "the measure of the value of things to Man" then the claim becomes trivially true.

What wouldn't be is if "measure of all things" meant "the measure of the value of all things". I guess it would mean that Protagoras thought of the value of something as a relation between Man and this thing. If you take "Man" to mean "individuals", it doesn't work because one person is a thing to another person so that one person may have a value for other people and then the value of this person to other people wouldn't be measured by this person but by other people. So "Man" should mean people collectively, i.e. humanity. Here it's true that the value we give to things can be regarded as coming from social life and its history so, broadly, from humanity. Yet, this would only be (broadly) true if it's true that humanity is the only thing capable of assigning value to things. For example, other animals do. They may want for example to dispute a piece of meat or whether we should be anyway near their cubs.

Still, we can assume that Protagoras paid no attention to other animals or to the possibility of an intelligent alien species attributing value to things. So maybe he just meant that there is no God, or at least no value-attributing God, or perhaps that any values attributed to things by God are only there for Man, and only Man, to measure. Who knows.
EB
 
Horatio Parker said:
ontological_realist said:
Yes, this saying of Protagoras can be taken in so many different ways.
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That's the beauty of it. It stimulates thought.
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How can something so fatally flawed said by one be beautiful? There are things man will never measure or be present for those measuring to judge. Additionally there are things present for which man has no sense or means with which to measure or be measured. Finally. Its reasonable that others exist where mans doesn't who measure much more than does man. So the statement is not only wrong but arrogant.
 
fromderinside said:
Horatio Parker said:
That's the beauty of it. It stimulates thought.
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How can something so fatally flawed said by one be beautiful? There are things man will never measure or be present for those measuring to judge. Additionally there are things present for which man has no sense or means with which to measure or be measured. Finally. Its reasonable that others exist where mans doesn't who measure much more than does man. So the statement is not only wrong but arrogant.
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I missed where he said that all things are measurable or have been measured successfully.

Anyway, how do you know some things are measurable or others not if not by measure?
 
Fine.

First: He said all things and man is the measure of them.

Second: He said all things. Man is a thing that is the measure of them. Oh, and I know that man was not there when some things were there and man will not be there when more things are there. But, Protagoras said man is the measure of all things applies to both those things present when man is there and when man is not present there. So for his statement to be true all things are measurable, but, since Protagoras was a man he can't have known all things. That is also sufficient to falsify his claim.
 
fromderinside said:
Fine.

First: He said all things and man is the measure of them.
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Since we're dealing with a translation, I don't know if you can place "all things" first. Or not. Without a knowledge of ancient Greek, I'd leave it alone. Then, too, Pythagoras is a mythical figure. So who knows who wrote it.

Second: He said all things. Man is a thing that is the measure of them. Oh, and I know that man was not there when some things were there and man will not be there when more things are there. But, Protagoras said man is the measure of all things applies to both those things present when man is there and when man is not present there. So for his statement to be true all things are measurable, but, since Protagoras was a man he can't have known all things. That is also sufficient to falsify his claim.
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I think that he was making a point about understanding, about how fundamental it is to Man. Not an inventory or a list of things and their measurements. You can't remove man from the equation because it's about a relationship between the mind of man and the physical world. It's not an empirical claim of fact in the modern sense.
 
ontological_realist said:
Protagoras said, "Man is the measure of all things."

Do you agree or disagree?
Click to expand...

This must be understood in context as a statement against those who believed that everythinh comes from the gods. It is saying that there is no truth given by gods.

That to reach a good understanding we must be sceptical and investigate the matter from all possible viewpoints.

Protagoras was a sceptic and ateist.
 
Horatio Parker said:
Since we're dealing with a translation, I don't know if you can place "all things" first. Or not. Without a knowledge of ancient Greek, I'd leave it alone. Then, too, Pythagoras is a mythical figure. So who knows who wrote it.

Second: He said all things. Man is a thing that is the measure of them. Oh, and I know that man was not there when some things were there and man will not be there when more things are there. But, Protagoras said man is the measure of all things applies to both those things present when man is there and when man is not present there. So for his statement to be true all things are measurable, but, since Protagoras was a man he can't have known all things. That is also sufficient to falsify his claim.
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I think that he was making a point about understanding, about how fundamental it is to Man. Not an inventory or a list of things and their measurements. You can't remove man from the equation because it's about a relationship between the mind of man and the physical world. It's not an empirical claim of fact in the modern sense.
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Of course he was making the point you post. Other impressions like ...'empathasis on measure' .... 'can be taken in so many different ways ' .... aren't really germane. Also the saying applies only to the time in which Protagoras (whoever that really is) lived.
 
fromderinside said:
Horatio Parker said:
Since we're dealing with a translation, I don't know if you can place "all things" first. Or not. Without a knowledge of ancient Greek, I'd leave it alone. Then, too, Pythagoras is a mythical figure. So who knows who wrote it.



I think that he was making a point about understanding, about how fundamental it is to Man. Not an inventory or a list of things and their measurements. You can't remove man from the equation because it's about a relationship between the mind of man and the physical world. It's not an empirical claim of fact in the modern sense.
Click to expand...

Of course he was making the point you post. Other impressions like ...'empathasis on measure' .... 'can be taken in so many different ways ' .... aren't really germane. Also the saying applies only to the time in which Protagoras (whoever that really is) lived.
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People are no longer concerned with understanding? Or thought and discussions must be in the language of science to have meaning?
 
Horatio Parker said:
fromderinside said:
Of course he was making the point you post. Other impressions like ...'empathasis on measure' .... 'can be taken in so many different ways ' .... aren't really germane. Also the saying applies only to the time in which Protagoras (whoever that really is) lived.
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People are no longer concerned with understanding? Or thought and discussions must be in the language of science to have meaning?
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Understanding? I'm all about understanding. Meaning? That which has no public replication of identity has no meaning is what I guess you refer to as language of science. So yes.
 
fromderinside said:
Horatio Parker said:
People are no longer concerned with understanding? Or thought and discussions must be in the language of science to have meaning?
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Understanding? I'm all about understanding. Meaning? That which has no public replication of identity has no meaning is what I guess you refer to as language of science. So yes.
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How does science express the centrality of understanding to our experience of reality. Can It do better than Protagoras?
 
Almost any derivative of information theory (game theory, decision theory, etc) will get you there. Think of how both teams got estimates of Boson energy, six delta is your clue, for instance. If all one wants is a garden variety of folk, or over-the-fence, understanding like that of Donald Trump about leading Protagoras serves just fine. Meaningless, but serves just fine.
 
fromderinside said:
Almost any derivative of information theory (game theory, decision theory, etc) will get you there. Think of how both teams got estimates of Boson energy, six delta is your clue, for instance. If all one wants is a garden variety of folk, or over-the-fence, understanding like that of Donald Trump about leading Protagoras serves just fine. Meaningless, but serves just fine.
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I think what Protagoras does, which your smorgasbord of data systems does not, is, one, focuses on the process instead of the result and two, emphasizes the role of the participant/observer. That the understanding of the universe can reside on a hard drive or in a book is meaningless without a someone to interact with it.
 
Horatio Parker said:
fromderinside said:
Almost any derivative of information theory (game theory, decision theory, etc) will get you there. Think of how both teams got estimates of Boson energy, six delta is your clue, for instance. If all one wants is a garden variety of folk, or over-the-fence, understanding like that of Donald Trump about leading Protagoras serves just fine. Meaningless, but serves just fine.
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I think what Protagoras does, which your smorgasbord of data systems does not, is, one, focuses on the process instead of the result and two, emphasizes the role of the participant/observer. That the understanding of the universe can reside on a hard drive or in a book is meaningless without a someone to interact with it.
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Were it the case that ours is the only species anywhere that measures, then surely man is the measure[r] of all things -- the mind(s) of the universe.

Such humility.
 
Juma said:
ontological_realist said:
Protagoras said, "Man is the measure of all things."

Do you agree or disagree?
Click to expand...

This must be understood in context as a statement against those who believed that everythinh comes from the gods. It is saying that there is no truth given by gods.

That to reach a good understanding we must be sceptical and investigate the matter from all possible viewpoints.

Protagoras was a sceptic and ateist.
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That seems to be a good point!
 
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