Introduction to Philosophy

Notes for Philosophy 150A

Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2006 (Assignment for today: Read to p. 54.)

The Athenian Period. Fifth and Fourth Centuries B.C.E. The Sophists: Protagoras, Gorgias, Thrasymachus, Callicles, Critas. Socrates.

General orientation. Winning the argument versus pursuit of truth per se. And they charged for their lessons. An indication of this is clearly to be found in this paradox attributed to Protagoras and his student.

It is said that Protagoras once agreed with one of his students that he could delay payment of his tuition until he had won his first case. The agreement seemed sound, until the student was sufficiently qualified to start offering his services professionally. He hung a sign outside his office, but no business came his way. Protagoras decided to sue his former student.
Protagoras reasoned that he was sure to win. He reflected that either he would win the case, in which case his student would be required to pay his tuition, or he would lose, in which case his former student would have won his first case and would therefore be required to pay his tuition under the terms of their original agreement.
But Protagoras’s student was a very good student. He reasoned that either he (the former student) would lose that case, in which case he would still never have won a case and would therefore not be required to pay under the terms of their original agreement, or he would win the case and the court would rule that he did not have to pay.
Who was right?
Here is another example of a Greek paradox, known as the crocodile paradox. “A woman was walking by the Nile when a crocodile seized her child. The crocodile promised to give the child back if she correctly predicted what he would do with it. She says that the crocodile will eat the child. If she is right the crocodile is bound to give the child back; in which case she is wrong, and the crocodile can eat it; in which case . . . . .”
One last paradox, perhaps the most famous of them all, and certainly the shortest. A man from the island of Crete said: “All Cretans are liars.” It would seem to be the case that he was lying, if it is true that all Cretans are liars. But if it is true that all Cretans are liars, then the man who told us that all Cretans are liars was him himself lying, in which case we should not believe that all Cretans are liars. So that if he was lying (about all Cretans being liars), then he was not lying, because he is a case in point, as we say. And if he was not lying, and all Cretans are in fact liars, then he too must have been lying, in which case we should not believe his statement that all Cretans are liars.

Protagoras (ca. 490—ca. 422 BCE). Prudent acceptance of tradicional customs. Expediency. Homo mensura. Everything is relative. (The traditional refutation of this: the status of the statement itself.) Everything relative to human subjectivity. Subjectivism, relativism and expediency = sophism.

Gorgias His arguments would fall under the category criticized by Socrates: arguments that makes the weaker argument appear the stronger. (Rhetoric).

Thrasymachus We know of his arguments through Plato’s dialogue The Republic. “Justice is in the interest of the stronger.” Gyges’ ring.

The positive side of the Sophists. They shifted the emphasis of philosophy away from the cosmos in general, and toward the human being. (Perhaps beginning the rift between science and philosophy (+psychology?).

Socrates (469-399). He never wrote anything (philosophical, at least). Written down by his student Plato. The spirit of Socratic inquiry. His life and death. Widely considered the greatest philosopher in the Western tradition. Why? Perhaps because of the sincerity of his quest for truth. Maeutic method.

# posted by Michael @ 7:05 PM