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Revisiting Protagoras’ Fr. DK B 1

Article  in  Elenchos · April 2018

DOI: 10.1515/elen-2017-0002

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 Elenchos 2017; 38(1-2): 23–43

Robert Zaborowski*
Revisiting Protagoras’ Fr. DK B 1
https://doi.org/10.1515/elen-2017-0002

Abstract: The paper offers an analysis of Protagoras’ fr. DK 80 B 1 and rejects the
traditional reading of Protagoras as relativist. By considering the ipsissima verba
that Protagoras makes use of in his passage, it is argued that alternative inter-
pretations are possible, of which epistemological reism and psychological indi-
vidualism are proposed. On a more general level, it is discussed to what extent
Protagoras’ fragment contains descriptive rather than normative claim.

Keywords: Protagoras, measure, relativism, epistemological reism, psychological

individualism

To Luc Brisson

… les êtres n’existent pour nous que par l’idée que nous avons d’eux …
(Marcel Proust, À la recherche du temps perdu, vol. 4, 220)

1 Introduction
First a caveat. This paper is neither about the slogan ‘man is the measure of all
things’ in philosophy and culture nor about Plato’s or Aristotle’s reception of
Protagoras’ ‘measure’ doctrine, often read as a putative doctrine of truth.1

1 See Plat. Tht. 161d3: εἰ γὰρ δὴ ἑκάστῳ ἀληθὲς ἔσται ὃ ἂν δι᾽ αἰσθήσεως δοξάζῃ […]. And Aristot.
Metaph. 1011a19–20: ὥστε ὁ λέγων ἅπαντα τὰ φαινόμενα εἶναι ἀληθῆ ἅπαντα ποιεῖ τὰ ὄντα πρός
τι. See also Sext. Emp. Adv. math. VII, 60, 3: καὶ Πρωταγόραν δὲ τὸν Ἀβδηρίτην ἐγκατέλεξάν
τινες τῶι χορῶι τῶν ἀναιρούντων τὸ κριτήριον φιλοσόφων, ἐπεί φησι πάσας τὰς φαντασίας καὶ
τὰς δόξας ἀληθεῖς ὑπάρχειν καὶ τῶν πρός τι εἶναι τὴν ἀλήθειαν διὰ τὸ πᾶν τὸ φανὲν ἢ δόξαν τινὶ
εὐθέως πρὸς ἐκεῖνον ὑπάρχειν.

A shorter version of the paper was presented at the 3rd International Congress of Greek
Philosophy, Lisbon, Apr. 20–22, 2016. The final version was completed during a research visit
to School of Divinity, History and Philosophy, Univ. of Aberdeen in June 2016 with financial
support from The Bednarowski Trust.

*Corresponding author: Robert Zaborowski, Institute of Philosophy, University of Warmia and

Mazury, Olsztyn, Poland, E-mail: thymos2001@yahoo.fr

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24 Robert Zaborowski

I wonder if there is any doctrine at all that we can reconstruct from Protagoras’
passage. Both Plato and Aristotle use Protagoras’ passage for their purposes which
means that for us – if our aim is to go deeper into Protagoras’ thought – they are
both biased readers and as such they can be of accessory relevance only.2 In Plato’s
Theaetetus (the topic of which is ‘what is knowledge?’,3 starting at 145e: ἐπιστήμη
ὅτι ποτὲ τυγχάνει ὄν) Protagoras’ position is incorporated by Socrates into the
discussion4 because Theaetetus suggests that “knowledge is nothing else than
perception”.5 Socrates states that for him, this and Protagoras’ sentence mean the
same, though phrased differently. In a word, for Plato Protagoras’ phrase is equal to
the claim that knowledge is perception.6 This position is subsequently dismantled.
We must agree with Plato and disagree with Protagoras only if we read Protagoras
in the way that Theaetetus understands him. But this is exactly what we cannot do
or what we cannot be sure of, for in Protagoras’ fragment – it cannot be stressed too
much – there is no mention of either knowledge or perception, or any verb or noun
related to cognition, let alone to truth.7
As for Aristotle he attacks Protagoras’ position because, according to him, in
his statement Protagoras violates the firmest of principles, i. e. the principle of
non-contradiction. But just as Protagoras’ fragment is often read in a shortened
version, i. e.

πάντων χρημάτων μέτρον ἐστὶν ἄνθρωπος,

instead of

πάντων χρημάτων μέτρον ἐστὶν ἄνθρωπος, τῶν μὲν ὄντων ὡς ἔστιν, τῶν δὲ οὐκ ὄντων ὡς
οὐκ ἔστιν,

2 The point was made by Decleva Caizzi (1978) 26: “la valutazione della fonte platonica implica
la filosofia di Platone, che a sua volta ci riporta al rapporto coi sofisti, per i quali però non
possiamo prescindere dallo stesso Platone: appare un pericoloso circolo vizioso […] nella
tradizione antica su Protagora: quanto pesa su di essa la presentazione platonica?”
3 Bett (1989) 168 rightly remarks that “…the Theaetetus is not, in any case, primarily an analysis
of Protagoras’ position, but a search for a definition of knowledge.”
4 See Plat. Tht. 151e8–152a4: μέντοι λόγον οὐ φαῦλον εἰρηκέναι περὶ ἐπιστήμης, ἀλλ’ ὃν ἔλεγε
καὶ Πρωταγόρας. τρόπον δέ τινα ἄλλον εἴρηκε τὰ αὐτὰ ταῦτα. φησὶ γάρ που “πάντων χρημάτων
μέτρον” ἄνθρωπον εἶναι, “τῶν μὲν ὄντων ὡς ἔστι, τῶν δὲ μὴ ὄντων ὡς οὐκ ἔστιν”.
5 H. N. Fowler, 151e3: οὐκ ἄλλο τί ἐστιν ἐπιστήμη ἢ αἴσθησις.
6 See also Plat. Tht. 183b8–c2: καὶ οὔπω συγχωροῦμεν αὐτῷ πάντ’ ἄνδρα πάντων χρημάτων
μέτρον εἶναι […] ἐπιστήμην τε αἴσθησιν οὐ συγχωρησόμεθα… (transl. H. N. Fowler: “and we do
not yet concede to him that every man is a measure of all things […] and we are not going to
concede that knowledge is perception …”).
7 According to Berkel van (2013) 62, “Protagorean relativism as we know it may be an invention of
Plato’s […] more likely to be part of a Socratic/Platonic program than of Protagorean thought.”

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 Revisiting Protagoras’ Fr. DK B 1 25

here too we must be careful and keep in mind the principle of non-contradiction
in its full form, which is not simply that:

it is impossible at once to be and not to be8

but rather that:

“It is impossible for the same attribute at once to belong and not to belong to the same
thing and in the same relation”; and we must add any further qualifications that may be
necessary to meet logical objections. This is the most certain of all principles, since it
possesses the required definition ….9

Thus, the matter becomes even more fragile because it is not at all clear whether
Protagoras is thinking of “two different (or contradicting)” measures of the
“same” thing,10 “at once” and “in the same relation”. For instance examples
provided by Socrates in the Theaetetus refer either to two different men, times,
or relations.11 In these examples at least one condition is not satisfied and,
consequently, Protagoras cannot be blamed for not respecting the principle of
non-contradiction. In his passage we meet the opposition τῶν μὲν ὄντων ὡς
ἔστιν versus τῶν δὲ οὐκ ὄντων ὡς οὐκ ἔστιν which means that for the same
subject at the same moment in the same relation a thing in question either is or
is not. There is no hint of one and the same thing both being and not being, and
more particularly, there is no mention of ἅμα (‘at the same time’) in Protagoras
as this is the case in Aristotle.12

8 Aristot. Metaph. 1006a3–4, transl. H. Tredennick.

9 Transl. H. Tredennick. Aristot. Metaph. 1005b19–23: τὸ γὰρ αὐτὸ ἅμα ὑπάρχειν τε καὶ μὴ
ὑπάρχειν ἀδύνατον τῷ αὐτῷ καὶ κατὰ τὸ αὐτό (καὶ ὅσα ἄλλα προσδιορισαίμεθ᾽ ἄν, ἔστω
προσδιωρισμένα πρὸς τὰς λογικὰς δυσχερείας)· αὕτη δὴ πασῶν ἐστὶ βεβαιοτάτη τῶν ἀρχῶν·
ἔχει γὰρ τὸν εἰρημένον διορισμόν. See also Metaph. 1063b15–16: ὅτι οὐκ ἐνδέχεται τὰς
ἀντικειμένας φάσεις περὶ τοῦ αὐτοῦ καθ᾽ ἕνα χρόνον ἀληθεύειν…One may wonder what the
phrase ‘other qualifications’ (ὅσα ἄλλα) means. Lee (2005) 65, writes: “If one person thinks that
another person’s belief is false, then that belief must be both true and false. And from this, it
follows that not all beliefs are true – that some are both true and false. With this argument
Aristotle shows that Protagoras is committed to contradictions.” Yet, if ‘for the same person’ is
among ‘other qualifications’, then there is no contradiction, because the same belief is true for
one person and false for another.
10 In the English translation of Aristotle “thing” is added, the Greek gives: τῷ αὐτῷ.
11 In Plat. Tht. 152b2–3 the example is of a blowing wind being cold for one who feels cold and
not cold for one who doesn’t feel cold. See Brisson (1997) 110: “Mais si la perception dit toujours
ce qu’il en est, alors l’erreur devient impossible et il n’y a plus de place pour la contradiction.
[…] Par suite, la critique aristotélicienne selon laquelle Protagoras aurait contrevenu à la loi de
non-contradiction ne tient pas.”
12 See Aristot. Metaph. 1007b18–19 & 1009a33.

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Surely Plato and Aristotle are right in their criticism of the passage from the
point of view of the truth criterion especially if the passage is understood as they
understand it.13 But I am not sure and maybe we can reasonably doubt whether
it was Protagoras’ aim to establish a truth criterion. Instead of looking for any
particular doctrine I would like to see what can be inferred from Protagoras’
passage. Let us see if Protagoras’ adage can mean any thing other than the
‘knowledge/perception’ identification and try to recognize it as providing a more
modest claim than that pertaining to the doctrine of knowledge or truth. Both,
Plato and Aristotle interpret the fragment – we can only wonder whether this
was all they had at hand or if they just extracted what they were interested in
from the work at the risk of not being reliable reporters in the history of
philosophy – as expressing a kind of relativism.14

2 Analysis and Interpretation

The fragment DK 80 B 1 runs as follows15:

πάντων χρημάτων μέτρον ἐστὶν ἄνθρωπος, τῶν μὲν ὄντων ὡς ἔστιν, τῶν δὲ οὐκ ὄντων ὡς
οὐκ ἔστιν.

Four words must be analysed: χρημάτων, μέτρον, ἄνθρωπος, and ὡς (ὡς ἔστιν,
and: ὡς οὐκ ἔστιν). I start with the last one.

(i) ὡς (ὡς ἔστιν, or: ὡς οὐκ ἔστιν)

13 It is sometimes assumed that the passage must refer to the truth criterion because it comes
from or even is the opening of Protagoras’ treatise Truth. Several reviewers of this paper
expressed this assumption. See also Lee (2005) 54: ‟Protagoras’ ambitious title for his book,
‘Truth’, was presumably meant both to refer to the subject matter, that is, truth and how to
discover it, and to propose its contents as being true.” However, I prefer the more cautious
approach of Brisson (1997) 92–93: “En réalité, ces titres [Sur les dieux et Sur la vérité] ne
permettent pas de se faire une idée du contenu des ouvrages auxquels ils pourraient renvoyer,
ouvrages dont on ne sait même pas s’ils ont véritablement existé en tant que tels et sous quelle
forme ils se présentaient.”
14 Relativism may be understood as a view that an object (e. g. things) is correct or incorrect in
relation to a subject, regardless of how the latter is conceived (individually, collectively, in this
or another sense). This is, however, somewhat vague, as one may wonder what the phrase
“things are correct or incorrect” exactly means, for “things are judged as correct or incorrect” is
not the same as “things are perceived as correct or incorrect”. In its stronger version, on the
other hand, relativism asks whether things are true or false – and this seems to be case with
interpretation of Protagoras’ position.
15 There is no doubt expressed about the fragment itself or its content and no variant is known.

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It has been observed that ὡς ἔστιν (and: ὡς οὐκ ἔστιν) is ambiguous since it
can be rendered as either ‘that (they) are’ or ‘how (they) are’. I think this makes a
real difference only at face value. In fact, any judgement about quality is
reducible to a judgement about existence.16 More particularly, “how x is” is
reducible, first, to a quality q, then to the existence of this quality q of x.
Therefore asking “if x is” is a question about the first order existence of x, and
“how x is” is a question about the second order existence of x, i. e. about the
existence of its being so and so. Accordingly, however ὡς is understood,
whether as introducing a question about the first-, or second- (or third- etc.)
order existence of x, it amounts to a question about existence in all cases. Man
is, therefore, said to be “the measure of the existence or non-existence of things”,
be it: “the measure of the existence or non-existence of a thing” or: “the measure
of the existence or non-existence of the given thing’s being so and so”.

(ii) ἄνθρωπος

It has been discussed whether “man” is to be understood individually or

generically in this passage.17 That it can be read both ways is manifest, for
example, in Plato. At one point individual is contrasted with another individual
(e. g. Tht. 161d3–7), at another a man is contrasted with pig or a dog-faced
baboon (Tht. 161c4–5),18 and at another with god (Tht. 162c5–6, Leg. 716c4–5).
If one privileges the generic reading he can find a fine support in Heraclitus.19

16 It can also be observed that to speak about “the measure of what does not exist and how it
does not exist” amounts to reifying non-existence, while what is not is not and cannot be
predicated at all. One way out is to understand ‘how’ as amounting to ‘in what sense’, i. e. “the
measure of what does not exist and in what sense it does not exist”, e. g. “this is not existent for
me whereas it is existent for you.”
17 See von Fritz (1946) 22–23: “…whether ἄνθρωπος in the sentence means “man” in general or
every single human individual. Kapp’s interpretation shows clearly that it means both […]. The
second problem is whether ὡς in ὡς ἔστι and ὡς οὐκ ἔστιν means “that” or “how”.” Von Fritz
speaks (p. 23) about “Protagoras illustrat[ing] his point by means of the qualities”, yet, as we
read the fragment, Protagoras illustrates nothing. See also 23–24: “…Plato […] had already given
a one-sided interpretation of Protagoras’ statement …”, i. e. limited to sensations contra Kerferd
(1997) 250: “Clearly the man-measure doctrine is of considerable interest as a doctrine of
perception.”
18 Di Lanzo (2015) 273, insists on the striking resemblance between Heraclitus’ examples (e. g.
DK 22 B 9, B 13, B 82, B 79, B 61 (see next footnote)) and “ciò che vien detto nel Protagora
platonico, laddove viene asserita l’esistenza di cibi, bevande, medicine e altre cose, molte delle
quali non sono utili agli uomini, ma ai cavalli, ad altri animali e alle piante.”
19 See DK 22 B 61: θάλασσα ὕδωρ καθαρώτατον καὶ μιαρώτατον, ἰχθύσι μὲν πότιμον καὶ
σωτήριον, ἀνθρώποις δὲ ἄποτον καὶ ὀλέθριον. (transl. D. Graham: “Sea is the purest and most
polluted water: for fish drinkable and healthy, for men undrinkable and harmful.”)

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28 Robert Zaborowski

Between the narrowest (the human as individual) and the broadest (the human
as species) reading several others can be inserted, e. g. humans as a social group
at several levels: economical, cultural, racial etc.20 On the other hand, the
individual reading can be restricted even more to an individual human in this
individual moment having this individual disposition, etc.21
If we understand human being generically it can be objected that it is so true
as to be trivial, for human beings can judge about objects and about features
that exist for them in any way whatsoever. I don’t claim that Protagoras has
intentional objects in mind, but his sentence is valid for intentional objects as
well.22 However, to know about “what is”, that “what is” must manifest itself to
human beings in some way. Imagine people devoid of smell. Objects that smell
would be then non-existent for them. Their world would be formed of things that
they are interested in and that they take into consideration. All other things
beyond their grasp are non-existent for them, either no longer or not yet.
Similarly, if there are other features for which we have no sense/s, these kinds
of feature are non-existent for us. It would be peculiar if the world were built in
such a way that the number of kinds of features was equal to the number of
human senses. What Protagoras may say is that there can be more aspects of
things than those that are grasped by people – yet they don’t know about them.
On this reading Protagoras would be a proponent of scepticism similar to
Xenophanes.23
The human as a subject measures, i. e. delimits the range of what exists in
all manners altogether: conceptually, perceptually, imaginarily, etc. If there is a
thing for which one human being at least has neither concept nor perception,
nor image, nor anything whatsoever, this thing is non-existent to human beings.
On the other hand, if there is at least one human being who has an idea, concept
or perception of x, x is integrated into the realm of the human beings’ world.

20 Compare Graham (2010) 719: “For different values of F we can get different kinds of
relativism; for instance […] perceptual relativism […] ethical relativism. We can also vary the
subject according to which the judgment is made: […] subjective relativism […] cultural relati-
vism […] species relativism, and so on.”
21 See Plat. Tht. 154a7–8:…ὅτι οὐδὲ σοὶ αὐτῷ ταὐτὸν διὰ τὸ μηδέποτε ὁμοίως αὐτὸν σεαυτῷ
ἔχειν; (transl. H. N. Fowler: “nothing appears the same even to you, because you yourself are
never exactly the same?”).
22 Compare Plat. Tht. 189a6–10, who seems to have in mind something of this kind: ὁ δὲ δὴ
δοξάζων οὐχ ἕν γέ τι δοξάζει; ἀνάγκη. ὁ δ᾽ ἕν τι δοξάζων οὐκ ὄν τι; (transl. H. N. Fowler: “So,
then, does not he who holds an opinion hold an opinion of some one thing? He must do so. And
does not he who holds an opinion of some one thing hold an opinion of something that is?”)
23 See DK 21 B 34:…εἰ γὰρ καὶ τὰ μάλιστα τύχοι τετελεσμένον εἰπών, / αὐτὸς ὅμως οὐκ οἶδε·…
(transl D. Graham: “…For even if he should completely succeed in describing things as they
come to pass, / nonetheless he himself does not know …”).

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Think about a work of art or literature, fictional objects or irrational numbers, no

matter in what sense these things are said to actually exist.24 Obviously one can
say that there is something beyond what the human species conceives, thinks,
sees, imagines etc.25 – beyond any kind of grasping26 – but what would this
mean and what would it be? As long as it remains beyond our grasp, it is non-
existent for us. Mutatis mutandis, the same stands for “human being” under-
stood individually.

(iii) χρημάτων

Πάντων χρημάτων is less abstract and general than πάντων. And one might
wonder whether it was deliberate on the part of Protagoras to restrict πάντων to
πάντων χρημάτων, for surely he could have told πάντων simpliciter,27 as did
Heraclitus,28 or whether his restriction is an insignificant lapse. But what is a
thing? For instance, in Anaxagoras contemporaneous to Protagoras we read:

… νοῦς δέ ἐστιν ἄπειρον καὶ αὐτοκρατὲς καὶ μέμεικται οὐδενὶ χρήματι, ἀλλὰ μόνος αὐτὸς ἐπ’
ἐωυτοῦ ἐστιν. εἰ μὴ γὰρ ἐφ’ ἑαυτοῦ ἦν, ἀλλά τεωι ἐμέμεικτο ἄλλωι, μετεῖχεν ἂν ἁπάντων
χρημάτων, εἰ ἐμέμεικτό τεωι· ἐν παντὶ γὰρ παντὸς μοῖρα ἔνεστιν, ὥσπερ ἐν τοῖς πρόσθεν μοι
λέλεκται· καὶ ἂν ἐκώλυεν αὐτὸν τὰ συμμεμειγμένα, ὥστε μηδενὸς χρήματος κρατεῖν ὁμοίως
ὡς καὶ μόνον ἐόντα ἐφ’ ἑαυτοῦ. ἔστι γὰρ λεπτότατόν τε πάντων χρημάτων καὶ
καθαρώτατον, καὶ γνώμην γε περὶ παντὸς πᾶσαν ἴσχει καὶ ἰσχύει μέγιστον· … (DK 59 B 12).29

24 Or think of Shakespeare’s: “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, / Than are
dreamt of in your philosophy.” (Hamlet I, 5, 167–168).
25 Practically all acts included in Descartes’ cogito as listed in Meditationes de prima philoso-
phia II, 28 can be enumerated here.
26 A technical term in ancient thought is κατάληψις. See e. g. Gorgias DK 82 B 3 (quoted
below).
27 Compare Berkel van (2013) 60, n. 81: “if Protagoras wanted to say ‘of the whole world’, he
could easily have said παντός; if he had wanted to say ‘everything’, πάντων would have
sufficed.”
28 See DK 22 B 90: πυρός τε ἀνταμοιβὴ τὰ πάντα καὶ πῦρ ἁπάντων ὅκωσπερ χρυσοῦ χρήματα καὶ
χρημάτων χρυσός.
29 Transl. D. Graham: “…mind is boundless, autonomous, and mixed with no object, but it is
alone all by itself. If it were not by itself, but had been mixed with something else, it would
have a portion of all objects, if it had been mixed with any; for there is a portion of
everything in everything, as I said earlier. And the things mixed with it would hinder it
from ruling any object in the way it does when it is alone by itself. For it is the finest of all
objects and the purest, and it exercises complete oversight over everything and prevails above
all.” See also DK 59 B 4:…σπέρματα πάντων χρημάτων καὶ ἰδέας παντοίας ἔχοντα καὶ χροιὰς
καὶ ἡδονάς. […] ἀπεκώλυε γὰρ ἡ σύμμιξις πάντων χρημάτων […] τούτων δὲ οὕτως ἐχόντων ἐν
τῶι σύμπαντι χρὴ δοκεῖν ἐνεῖναι πάντα χρήματα.

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30 Robert Zaborowski

From this we can infer that in Anaxagoras “thing” can not be predicated of all,
because νοῦς is not a thing. But what about a relation between νοῦς and (all)
things? Is relation a thing? In Protagoras too there is something that can not be
included in the class of things because in fragment DK 80 B 4 we are told that:

περὶ μὲν θεῶν οὐκ ἔχω εἰδέναι, οὔθ’ ὡς εἰσὶν οὔθ’ ὡς οὐκ εἰσὶν οὔθ’ ὁποῖοί τινες ἰδέαν·…30

Since god or gods’ existence and non-existence is beyond Protagoras’ knowledge

(πολλὰ γὰρ τὰ κωλύοντα εἰδέναι),31 this proves that god is not a thing, for if it
were, human being would be a measure of its existence. Lack of knowledge of
god/s is expressed by an almost identical phrase to that in fr. B 1, i. e. pertaining
to existence or non-existence (τῶν μὲν ὄντων ὡς ἔστιν, τῶν δὲ οὐκ ὄντων ὡς οὐκ
ἔστιν versus οὔθ’ ὡς εἰσὶν οὔθ’ ὡς οὐκ εἰσὶν), here of god, there of things. This is
why those who, like Kerferd, apply the formula to gods make an inaccurate
claim.32 If Protagoras does not know whether gods exist or not, this makes him
even more prudent, since his famous dictum is limited to the human domain,
while, for example, Plato – who in Leg. 716c paraphrases by saying that god is a

30 “Concerning the gods, I cannot ascertain whether they exist or whether they do not, or what
form they have …” (transl. D. Graham). See Plato, Tht. 162d6–e2: θεούς τε εἰς τὸ μέσον ἄγοντες,
οὓς ἐγὼ ἔκ τε τοῦ λέγειν καὶ τοῦ γράφειν περὶ αὐτῶν ὡς εἰσὶν ἢ ὡς οὐκ εἰσίν, ἐξαιρῶ…(transl. H.
N. Fowler: “you bring in the gods, the question of whose existence or non-existence I exclude
from oral and written discussion …”). According to Schramm (2017) 28, Protagoras doesn’t know
whether they exist or not because the gods cannot be known by senses: “weil die Götter, wenn
sie denn existieren, ihrer Definition nach unsterblich sind und über das Erfassen durch bloße
Wahrnehmung hinausgehen, und der Mensch aufgrund seiner sterblichen, auf
Wahrnehmungen angewiesenen Verfassung allgemein nicht in der Lage ist, solche Wesen wie
die Götter, die das menschliche Maß übersteigen, zu erkennen. Wie für andere über-sinnliche,
metaphysische Entitäten gibt es damit kein Wissen über ihre Existenz oder Nicht-Existenz.”
31 It might be objected that Protagoras (as a man) is a measure of his neither knowing nor not-
knowing about the gods (objection made by P. Pludra-Zuk, personal communication, Aug. 2017).
But then how to include things about which he doesn’t know whether they are or are not into either
of the two categories of fr. B 1: “things that are and things that are not”? Should a third category not
be specified? But of what kind? Things that neither are or not are? This is where the gap between
epistemic and ontic aspect is more visible: while a man may have no knowledge about a thing’s
existence, a thing either exists or doesn’t (neither exists nor doesn’t exist makes no sense unless one
thinks about the future thing). While the opposite is conceivable (the man is a measure of things
that either are or are not that they either are or are not), how to think about a measure of things that
neither are nor are not that they neither are nor are not? If there is no knowledge whether they are or
are not there is no measure of their existence.
32 See Kerferd (1997) 249: “…if we as individuals or collectively believe that the gods exist then
for us they do exist” etc. Accurately Berkel van (2013) 62: “But Protagoras did restrict the
application of MM: The realm of the gods is excluded.”

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measure of everything – assumes that he possesses knowledge about god that

Protagoras avows that he doesn’t possess.
If the set of “things” is narrower than that of “all”, one can wonder how
much narrower it is. We can think of other non-things in Protagoras, though this
is a speculation given that we have no more direct data to either corroborate or
invalidate it. Are mathematical relations things?33 Or astronomical phenomena?
Or propositional contents, for instance the very content of Protagoras’ sen-
tence?34 For anyone who answers in the affirmative, Protagoras turns out to be
an uncompromising relativist with the result that he refutes himself.35 But is this
really the case? Could he commit such a blunder of refuting himself, manifest
even to a philosophically untrained mind? Furthermore, notice that Protagoras
had a choice when speaking about things, for Greek offers more than one word
for this class. He could have said not only simply πάντα, but also πράγματα36 or
ὄντα. Provided Protagoras had an interest in language, we may suppose that he
was well aware of the distinction. The difference between the options is maybe
that χρῆμα is a “thing” considered as “something to be used” or with a view to
its use, that is, from the practical point of view.37 Finally, ὄντα would be

33 According to Schramm (2017), mathematical objects for Protagoras are beyond the grasp of
perception and as such fall into the realm governed by scepticism. See Schramm (2017), 29:
“Auch hinsichtlich der Mathematik kommt Protagoras zu einem gewissen Skeptizismus derart,
dass auch bei mathematischen Gegenständen die Wahrnehmung ihrer sinnlichen Erscheinung
nicht zu einem Wissen aufgrund von Wahrnehmung führt. Eine andere Form des Wissens
mathematischer Gegenstände, etwa als geistige oder Verstandeserkenntnis, wird anscheinend
nicht angenommen.”
34 In Plat. Men. 81c5–7 πάντα χρήματα refer to objects of knowledge:…ἡ ψυχὴ ἀθάνατός τε
οὖσα καὶ πολλάκις γεγονυῖα, καὶ ἑωρακυῖα καὶ τὰ ἐνθάδε καὶ τὰ ἐν Ἅιδου καὶ πάντα χρήματα,
οὐκ ἔστιν ὅτι οὐ μεμάθηκεν…(transl. W. R. M. Lamb: “…the soul is immortal and has been born
many times, and has beheld all things both in this world and in the nether realms, she has
acquired knowledge of all and everything …”).
35 In Tht. 161d7–e3 Socrates remarks:…τί δή ποτε, ὦ ἑταῖρε, Πρωταγόρας μὲν σοφός, ὥστε καὶ
ἄλλων διδάσκαλος ἀξιοῦσθαι δικαίως μετὰ μεγάλων μισθῶν, ἡμεῖς δὲ ἀμαθέστεροί τε καὶ
φοιτητέον ἡμῖν ἦν παρ᾽ ἐκεῖνον, μέτρῳ ὄντι αὐτῷ ἑκάστῳ τῆς αὑτοῦ σοφίας; (transl. H. N.
Fowler: “why in the world, my friend, was Protagoras wise, so that he could rightly be thought
worthy to be the teacher of other men and to be well paid, and why were we ignorant creatures
and obliged to go to school to him, if each person is the measure of his own wisdom?”).
36 See Sext. Emp. PH 1, 216–219 ( = Graham 2010, 702–703) who glosses χρημάτων with
πραγμάτων.
37 See Versenyi (1962) 182: “If the preceding interpretation of the meaning of “man” and
“things” in the fragment is correct, Protagoras’ use of the word χρήματα – rather than ὄντα or
even πράγματα – becomes exceedingly appropriate, for the original meaning of χρήματα is not
just things, beings, or objects in general, but things with a special relation to our involvement
with them: things one uses or needs; goods, property, etc.; generalized into affairs, events,

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convenient because of τῶν μὲν ὄντων and τῶν δὲ οὐκ ὄντων. Therefore since
there is at least one non-thing in Protagoras (in his fr. B 4) the passage refers to
things only. And non-things seem not to be at stake.
More specifically, is “human being” a “thing” in Protagoras? Again, we have
no context that could help us here. I suggest that if the above χρήματα/
πράγματα/ὄντα semantic distinction is accepted, then human being is χρῆμα
only as long as he is considered as an object to be used, as a tool, say as a slave
or any other person I consider as one from whom I can benefit.38 Apart from this
kind of case, human being is not a thing. Accordingly, either a human being is
not a thing and then it is not a measure of human beings including himself or a
human being is a thing and then it is a measure of human beings including
himself. If one argues for the latter, i. e. that human being is a thing in every
single case, he should, however, face the following curious consequences:
(i) if the human being is a thing, this would mean that this thing is a measure
of things, whether of other human beings or of things proper,

and also:
(ii) if the human being is a thing, this would mean that human being is a
measure of human beings,39 including himself.40

This could be expressed symbolically thus: if M(human being) = t(thing/

things), and m stands for measure, then
(i) t = (m)t

and
(ii) M = (m)M.

matters we are concerned with. […] Narrowing down the contemporary meaning of χρήματα –
any thing, object, whatsoever – to its original connotation, Protagoras announces a practical
program: The things we are concerned with are i. e. χρημάτα, things we are decisively related to;
thus there is no point in speaking in a grand manner about what things may or may not be in
themselves; what we have to take into account and concentrate on is what they are for us, in the
world we live in, in a world in which our relationship to things, our living in the world, is
decisive.”
38 For Aristot. EN 1119b26–27: χρήματα δὲ λέγομεν πάντα ὅσων ἡ ἀξία νομίσματι μετρεῖται (“we
call things all of which the value is measured by money”). On this view, man is a thing insofar
as its value is convertible into money. Such is the case of a slave etc.
39 A “measure of human being/human beings” which is different from: a “measure of his/
their” states/thoughts/etc.
40 This is when treating myself by myself as a tool.

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As it is easy to see, i) and ii) lead to the infinite regress and this in two ways,
either:
(i) t = (m)t > t = (m)(m)t > t = (m)(m)(m)t > …

or:

(ii) M = (m)M > M = (m)(m)M > M = (m)(m)(m)M > … .41

This can be avoided only if human being is taken in the same sentence as having
two different meanings, say:
Mpart/individual = (m)Mwhole/generic or the other way round: (m)Mwhole/generic = Mpart/
individual. But there is no mention of this either in Protagoras’ passage or in any
commentary.
Of course we don’t know what Protagoras would reply to these objections.
Maybe he wouldn’t say anything because they are irrelevant insofar as human
being is not, according to him, a thing. Apart from the claim that god is not a
thing (χρῆμα), the rest of the above section is conjectural. This is why it may be
better to read his statement regarding χρήματα this way: Man is the measure of
the existence of that which is considered by him – i. e. Protagoras – to be “a
thing”, or, maybe more accurately, the existence or non-existence of which man
is the measure is to be considered to be “a thing”, “thing” in the sense in which
Protagoras understands it. And what is non-thing man is not a measure thereof.
As a measure man stands in relation to anything that is thereby a thing. And this
seems to commit Protagoras to a kind of epistemological reism,42 that is, to a
view that only things can be known and as such they are known only by
individual subjects.

(iv) μέτρον

I have already made use of “measure” and I have made of it a verb: “to
measure”. This is syntactically different but conceptually explains nothing.

41 As a matter of fact, it is even worse, since if ‘man’ is ‘measure’ and ‘man’ is ‘thing’, then not
only ‘a thing( = man) is a measure of a thing’ but also ‘a measure( = man) is a measure of a
measure’, which makes the whole passage senseless.
42 According to reism “only things exist”. But, as Woleński (2016), remarks, “[t]he interpreta-
tion of this very rough view depends on how things are understood.” Consequently, reism may
be a kind of materialism (see Kotarbiński’s version: only bodies are things) but does not have to
be and may be a kind of dualism (see Brentano’s version: things are material bodies and
spiritual souls).

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The burning question is: what does measure/measuring mean and if it means
criterion, as many suggest,43 what kind of criterion is human being?44 This is
crucial because measure is the link that connects (πάντων) χρημάτων and
ἄνθρωπος. If the former is understood as object and the latter as subject, it
could then be asked what kind of relation they are in, respectively, as object and
subject. We often hear about cognition and, more frequently, about perception.
In fact, the identification of metron with perception is taken for granted by
many.45
But as I have mentioned, in Protagoras’ sentence, which is complete, or so it
seems, there is no hint of cognition or perception. But even if the passage were
about perception, perception is a short process and, accordingly, human being
would have at his disposal only measures with short-term validity. Unless he is
devoid of a sense of duration,46 he would realize sooner or later that his
measures change, since on one day his is in a fine mood and on another he is

43 To start with Sextus Empiricus, PH 1, 216–219 ( = Graham 2010, 702–703) where μέτρον is
explicitly identified with κριτήριον.
44 For Berkel van (2013) 37, μέτρον is a metaphor. For her (p. 50), “one of the interpretative
problems is the reconciliation of the concept of measure with the dichotomy in the second half
of the statement “of things that are (the case), that/how they are (the case), and of things that
are not (the case), that/how they are not (the case)” – which apparently suggests some act of
sifting.” What matters is that, as she says (p. 63), “measuring and sifting, μετρεῖν and κρίνειν,
are entirely different operations […] Sextus’ κριτήριον is not the same thing as Plato’s κριτήριον;
nor is κρίνειν co-extensive with μετρεῖν; and neither Plato’s κριτήριον nor his κριτής is an
innocent substitute for μέτρον.”
45 Even if many agree that knowledge = perception is Theaetetus’ thesis, nevertheless they take
perception as being inherent to Protagoras’ sentence, e. g. Dumont (1994) 4730: “Telle est la
signification physique de la formule selon laquelle le sens est la mesure de toutes choses: c’est
ce que le pseudo-Aristote résume en disant que «le phénomène est pour chacun mesure»
[Aristote, Mét. K. 1062b19, D. K. Protagoras A 19]. Que Platon fasse sien le relativisme de
Protagoras en ce qui concerne la sensation, cela est incontestable.”
46 After all, this is what is being discussed in the Theaetetus, e. g. 166b1–c: αὐτίκα γὰρ δοκεῖς
τινά σοι συγχωρήσεσθαι μνήμην παρεῖναί τῳ ὧν ἔπαθε, τοιοῦτόν τι οὖσαν πάθος οἷον ὅτε
ἔπασχε, μηκέτι πάσχοντι; πολλοῦ γε δεῖ. […] δώσειν ποτὲ τὸν αὐτὸν εἶναι τὸν ἀνομοιούμενον
τῷ πρὶν ἀνομοιοῦσθαι ὄντι; μᾶλλον δὲ τὸν εἶναί τινα ἀλλ᾽ οὐχὶ τούς, καὶ τούτους γιγνομένους
ἀπείρους, ἐάνπερ ἀνομοίωσις γίγνηται (transl. H. N. Fowler: “Do you suppose you could get
anybody to admit that the memory a man has of a past feeling he no longer feels is anything
like the feeling at the time when he was feeling it? Far from it. […] would he ever admit that a
person who has become unlike is the same as before he became unlike? […] would he admit that
a person is one at all, and not many, who become infinite in number, if the process of becoming
different continues?”). One could also think about a possible scenario set by Plato in Rep. VII.
But even then it should be noted that the shadows on the cave wall that the prisoners perceive
pertain “only” to material objects, since what is non-material produces no shadow. See R.
Zaborowski (2006).

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tired and his senses are, he is aware, less accurate. And if they are useful only
for such a short time, his perceptions are not reliable for longer operations and
cannot be sued for the sake of forming a durable attitude or belief, least in
possible projects. On this account, human being would be a set of measures,
some of them possibly contradictory, as his cognition, on this view, is but a
series of perceptions. And this would make man’s cognition impossible if
cognition is a lasting process. I don’t think Protagoras went as far as to rule
out a hierarchy of elements constitutive of cognition, in which case he wouldn’t
have saved it and wouldn’t be capable of setting forward his own claim. So what
we can do?
An ideal solution would be, therefore, to translate “measure” as a kind of
general relation without eliminating some and privileging other types of rela-
tion, as is the case with, for example, perception. Why should it be perception
rather than thought or senses rather than experiences? The reason for going for
perception is that Plato’s and Aristotle’s readings are so assimilated that they are
often taken to be the best option. But I would like, if possible, to try to bracket
them for a while. The meaning of the passage then seems more modest. It is
about measuring individually rather than valuing universally the world of an
individual which embraces anything, including any so-called objective data,
only if the subject (man, ἄνθρωπος) apprehends or, to use Protagoras’ expres-
sion, measures them.47 In this sense, all what is approached by a subject is, for
this reason, subjective. Is it not true that any object given in human cognition is
grasped by or from the point of view of the subject? Even the content of the so-
called subjectless sentences or mathematical truths is given, when it becomes
the object of human cognition, to a subject. In a word, any content, when given,
is given to a particular subject.
Protagoras does, therefore, address a rather psychological issue and any
objection of relativism is inappropriate – unless you want to say that anything
including relation implies relativism48 – because Protagoras in his fragment, if I
am right, has no ambition to set the foundations for an objective science. It is a
psychological truth that my world is as large as what is present to me, what I
know about or can know about it and that what is unknown to me, say an

47 See Versenyi (1962) 182: “…In this sense of the word, χρῆμα already implies a μέτρον, i. e.
something in relation to which it is what it is, so that the fragment becomes nearly tautological,
or at least trivial, for it takes no great insight or ingenuity to pronounce the relativity of things
relative by definition, or to point out that man is the measure of things whose essence – by
definition – depends on man’s relationship to them.”
48 If so relationalism would be a more appropriate label for this view, or even an anthropo-
centric relationalism. See Schramm (2017) 24: “Das deutet darauf hin, dass die „Dinge“ nicht an
sich, sondern im Verhältnis zum Menschen sind, was und wie sie sind.”

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unknown happening in an unknown place in an unknown time, is non-existent

to me. Such reading is supported by fragment F2 (in Graham):

… the being of things that are consists in being manifest. […] it is manifest to you who are
present that I am sitting, but to one who is absent it is not manifest that I am sitting; it is
non-evident whether I am sitting or not.49

Note that ‘manifest’ is not limited to perception. I may say that “something is
clear to me” in the sense of “something being comprehended by me”.50
U. Zilioli, following E. Schiappa, is sceptical about authenticity of this frag-
ment.51 But I am sceptical if we can say, as Zilioli says, that “[a]lthough they
have private perceptual worlds, these two Protagorean individuals are not
solipsistic individuals” (Zilioli 2002, 178). It is not that I think this is untrue,
but simply in Protagoras’ remnant fragments there is no support for such a
thesis, nor for its opposite either. Claiming that according to Protagoras
“[a]lthough the second individual does not have the same feelings as the
first, the former can understand the private (up to now) feelings of the
latter”52 is, consequently, an over-interpretation.53

49 After Woodruff in: Graham (2010) 704–705 (τὸ εἶναι τοῖς οὖσιν ἐν τῶι φαίνεσθαι ἔστιν.
[λ]έγει ὅτι φαίνομαι σοὶ τῶι παρόντι καθήμενος· τῶιδέ ἀπόντι οὐ φαίνομαι καθήμενος· ἄδηλον εἰ
κάθημαι ἢ οὐ κάθημαι.).
50 If so, not only sense experience – as remarked by Casertano (2009) 173: “[…] esperienza
sensibile. Questa infatti è sempre vera […]” – but all kinds of experience are true.
51 See Zilioli (2002) 6, n. 23. No reason is given.
52 Zilioli (2002) 178. Maybe Aristippus’ claim can be read as a narrow version of Protagoras
claim and pertaining to solipsicism: “They [i. e. Cyrenaics] affirm that mental affections can be
known, but not the objects from which they come […]” (transl. R. D. Hicks, DL II 92: Τά τε πάθη
καταληπτά. ἔλεγον οὖν αὐτά, οὐκ ἀφ᾽ ὧν γίνεται). See also Chaignet (1887) 173 (but this is about
Aristippus): “L’âme humaine ne peut connaître que ses propres états. Le monde, tel qu’il nous
est donné, n’est qu’un contenu de notre propre conscience. Nous ne savons même pas si les
sensations des autres hommes correspondent aux nôtres.”
53 Which seems more distant from Gorgias’ famous statement: […] δεύτερον ὅτι εἰ καὶ ἔστιν,
ἀκατάληπτον ἀνθρώπῳ, τρίτον ὅτι εἰ καὶ καταληπτόν […] (DK 82 B 3, transl. D. Graham: “[…] [II]
the second that even if it is exists, it is incomprehensible to man, [III] the third that even if it is
comprehensible, it surely cannot be expressed or communicated to another”) than from what
Plato’s Gorgias says in the eponymous dialogue. See also Plat. Gorg. 481c5–d1: ὦ Καλλίκλεις, εἰ
μή τι ἦν τοῖς ἀνθρώποις πάθος, τοῖς μὲν ἄλλο τι, τοῖς δὲ ἄλλο τι ἢ τὸ αὐτό, ἀλλά τις ἡμῶν ἴδιόν
τι ἔπασχεν πάθος ἢ οἱ ἄλλοι, οὐκ ἂν ἦν ῥᾴδιον ἐνδείξασθαι τῷ ἑτέρῳ τὸ ἑαυτοῦ πάθημα. (transl.
W. R. M. Lamb: “Callicles, if men had not certain feelings, each common to one sort of people,
but each of us had a feeling peculiar to himself and apart from the rest, it would not be easy for
him to indicate his own impression to his neighbor.”) The latter looks like an anticipation of
Wittgenstein’s argument against private language.

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A striking parallel54 may be found in Parmenides’ fr. DK 28 B 4’s first line:

λεῦσσε δ’ ὅμως ἀπεόντα νόωι παρεόντα βεβαίως·

The dative νόωι is ambiguous insofar as it can be read either as dative proper (to
whom?) or as dative instrumental (by what means?). In the former case – which
is the solution adopted by Burnet, Diels & Kranz, Untersteiner, Pasquinelli,
Voilquin, Austin, Coxon, Dumont, Conche, Henn – in which one reads ‘by
noos’, we obtain55:

See nevertheless [how] what-is-absent by mind is-[made]-present firmly.

That is to say that it is the mind that instantiates things.56 If someone limits
Parmenides’ noos to “mind” and replace metron in Protagoras’ passage with
“perception”, we arrive at a similar message with either of them referring to only
a part of cognition. But if we read noos more broadly, as I do, and don’t limit
Protagoras’ “measure” to perception, as I do, it can be the case that both pre-
Socratics say the same thing: psychologically what is existent to me is true, that
is, what is the case for me. Maybe Protagoras – together with Parmenides –
could be regarded as anticipating the theory of the intentional object: man is a
measure of things, that is, of what-is-given-to-him-in/by-his-experience.
Let me give some examples. If A is 180 cm and B 170 cm tall, the latter is
shorter. We have an objective length measure. But what about A’s sweating
while doing physical exercise? Is she doing better than B, who does not sweat,
or is it simply that her physiology is different? The National Sleep Foundation
tells us that for an adult person 7–9 hours of sleep is a recommended range, 6
and 10 may be appropriate and less than 6 or more than 10 is not recom-
mended.57 What about someone still in a good condition and happy who sleeps
an unrecommended number of hours, either less than 6 or more than 10? A can
wonder if he works as much as he can. Is he progressing as much as he is able
to? And if not, is this because he is lazy or because this is all he can do? Here we

54 Not for Mansfeld (1981) 52: “Perhaps Protagoras attempts to strike a blow against such
statements as Parmenides’ “with the mind behold what is not present equally with what is
firmly present” [Vors. 28 B 4, 1] …”
55 See Zaborowski (2008) 72–73.
56 Protagoras then would be together with Parmenides a subjective idealist. Dodds (1973) 95,
ascribes such view to Protagoras but since he takes Protagoras to be the inventor of it (“making
reality simply a function of the observer, the work of the individual mind. Protagoras would
thus be the inventor of Subjective Idealism, a doctrine of which Antiquity is otherwise inno-
cent”), he seems to exclude Parmenides from this group.
57 See https://sleepfoundation.org/how-sleep-works/how-much-sleep-do-we-really-need.

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have no objective measure to speak about which one is correct or right or

appropriate. And what about A’s being tired quicker than B’s or B’s stronger
resistance to pain? Is A’s pain stronger than B’s? Sometimes I can hardly
compare two different pains of my own or can even have trouble describing it
sufficiently so that it can be identified, say, by a doctor. In several matters it is
hard to set or find an external and universal measure. And if I am about to have
an injection or blood collection for the first time and I ask a colleague whether it
will be painful, what can he tell me? Imagine that he says it is not because it
wasn’t in his case. But now in my case it turns out to be clearly painful but it is
so – as a more experienced observer might say – as a result of the clumsiness of
the nurse. And if another says that this is not the reason, and the real reason is
that I am more sensitive, how do we know which is correct? All individual
parameters that escape universal criteria for any reason whatsoever and are
hard to diagnose are relevant to Protagoras’ statement.58
If now you want to call it individual truth, I invite you to remember
Kierkegaard’s last sentence from Either/Or’s last part, Ultimatum:

… for only the truth that builds up is truth for you.

– the Danish philosopher, I suppose, would be the last person you would label a
relativist. Protagoras seems to say that one human being is a different “mea-
sure” to another human being. But he does not say that either is better. I think
what is better is not to enthusiastically infer that all is relative but rather to
conclude that there is no general measure at all in a large part of our world. In
this part of the world a human being is a measure for himself.

3 Conclusion
Since Plato’s time Protagoras has commonly been thought to have destroyed a
universal criterion and introduced a relative one. Plato and, next, Aristotle
seems to forge this view.59 But in fact, in the fragments of Protagoras we possess

58 But please be well aware that this works only if we agree to consider these cases as
examples of “things”.
59 Zilioli (2002) 157, argues against “caricatur[ing] Protagoras’ whole epistemological position”,
and calls (p. 178), “Protagoras’ epistemological position on perceptions a kind of inter-subjectivist
position” and, more exactly (p. 179): “an inter-subjectivist in relation to perceptual knowledge,
Protagoras is a relativist so far as concerns ethical knowledge.” His conclusion (p. 177) is that
“Protagoras’ theory of knowledge is a complete epistemological theory, which has to do with the
individual’s perceptions (and feelings) and the ethical judgements of the polis”.

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there is barely any doctrine of knowledge or truth.60 And Plato and Aristotle are
not referring to some other passages of Protagoras in which he would have said
more about the issue. If this is correct, it seems as if Plato and Aristotle
misinterpreted Protagoras.61 This is a historical point.
A philosophical point is the question of what can be inferred from his
passage. What can be inferred is that Protagoras’ claim does not have to be
considered a manifesto of relativism, and here I defend Protagoras against the
charge of relativism.62 I do this because I think an alternative reading is more
fruitful and also because it satisfies the principle of charity to a larger extent.63

60 Daniel Graham usefully suggested to me (personal communication, Jan. 2017) that

Protagoras’ B 1 sounds a lot like Plato’s Soph. 263b2–12: τούτων δὴ ποῖόν τινα ἑκάτερον
φατέον εἶναι; τὸν μὲν ψευδῆ που, τὸν δὲ ἀληθῆ. λέγει δὲ αὐτῶν ὁ μὲν ἀληθὴς τὰ ὄντα ὡς
ἔστιν περὶ σοῦ. […] ὁ δὲ δὴ ψευδὴς ἕτερα τῶν ὄντων. […] τὰ μὴ ὄντ᾽ ἄρα ὡς ὄντα λέγει. […]
ὄντων δέ γε ὄντα ἕτερα περὶ σοῦ. πολλὰ μὲν γὰρ ἔφαμεν ὄντα περὶ ἕκαστον εἶναί που, πολλὰ δὲ
οὐκ ὄντα. (transl. H. N. Fowler: “Now what quality shall be ascribed to each of these sentences?
One is false, I suppose, the other true. The true one states facts as they are about you. […] And
the false one states things that are other than the facts. […] In other words, it speaks of things
that are not as if they were. […] And states with reference to you that things are which are other
than things which actually are; for we said, you know, that in respect to everything there are
many things that are and many that are not.”)
61 Lee (2005) 54, writes: “Plato represents Protagoras as putting forward the measure doctrine
as an objective truth which is true for everyone.” And then she asks (p. 55): “Did Plato carelessly
drop the crucial qualifiers? Perhaps – it would certainly be tiresome to have to add the
qualifiers in every sentence whenever discussing Protagoras’ view.” Well, I agree that it may
be the reason but the result turns out to be a simplification and deformation of the view, as Lee
herself observes (p. 46): “our ancient sources sometimes characterize Protagoras’ claim as the
unrelativized statement ‘all beliefs are true’, instead of the properly relativized statement ‘all
beliefs are true for those who have them’.” Curiously, quoting the shorter version is a recurrent
practice in the history of philosophy, e. g. a short form of Aristotle’s PNC (in this paper, above),
Descartes’ mysterious claim on ancient philosopher’s views on emotions at the opening of his
Passions of the Soul, Descartes’ cogito read as exclusively intellectual, Hume’s “reason being a
slave of the passions” without the proviso which precedes this metaphor. Such laziness leads
too often to unfairness towards the quoted author.
62 At least two readers of my draft pointed to the fact that I don’t quote the paper by Bett
(1989). But why should I do so? Since he writes (p. 139): “There is but one Sophist, Protagoras,
whom we have reason to regard as a relativist in any deep or interesting sense. It is not entirely
clear whether even he deserves this label. But if he does, it is solely on the basis of his famous
doctrine that “Man is the measure of all things” (DK 80B1)” – and also in a kind of conclusion
(p. 168), “Plato interprets Protagoras as a relativist, in the deep sense we have throughout been
interested in […] If that is indeed Plato’s interpretation, Plato’s Theaetetus becomes the one
piece of evidence for relativism, in the deep sense, among any of the Sophists.” – my impres-
sion is that Bett supports the interpretation I try to depart from.
63 To be fair, Socrates in Tht. 164e2–6 sets out the idea of “assist[ing Protagoras] in the name of
justice”. According to Lee (2005) 24, “Plato did such a good job with his defence of Protagoras

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40 Robert Zaborowski

If applied to physics or mathematics Protagoras’ claim would be obviously

false.64 But as regards (the world of) personal experience,65 it is accurate. It
does justice to the fact that people’s personal experiences are different.66 Thus
the passage is, in my opinion, better read as descriptive than normative. What
it grasps is the individual character of experiences the content of which
cannot be learnt from books.67 This content exists if not ontologically then at

that Sextus and Diogenes (or their sources) did not realize that the theory in the Theaetetus is
Plato’s invention, not Protagoras’.”
64 Given the shortness of the fragment I am not in a position to refute a claim that for
Protagoras the objects of physics or mathematics count as “things” for which man is the
measure. But since the context is silent about this or even does not, in my opinion, suggest
such an interpretation of “things”, the burden of proof lies on one who credits Protagoras with
universal relativism.
65 Compare Mansfeld (1981) 52: “The fragment is concerned with personal knowledge – at a
moment of time t, to be sure – and the critical value thereof rather than with sense-data and the
real world.” See also Berkel van (2013) 61: “…Protagoras’ position was rather one of perspecti-
vism than of relativism: saying that measuring always contains reference to a human being may
be a metaphor to indicate that we cannot but see things from a first person perspective.” For
perspectivism on may want to think about F. Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals III, 12:
“There is only a perspective seeing, only a perspective “knowing”; and the more affects we allow
to speak about one thing, the more eyes, different eyes, we can use to observe one thing, the
more complete will our “concept” of this thing, our “objectivity,” be. But to eliminate the will
altogether, to suspend each and every affect, supposing we were capable of this – what would
that mean but to castrate the intellect?” For a comparison between Nietzsche and Protagoras
see Lee (2005) 35 & n. 10.
66 See Brisson (1997) 109: “…Protagoras veut dire que la perception de ce qui est chaud est
toujours perception de ce qui est chaud, sans se poser la question de l’existence ou de la non-
existence de l’objet qui est chaud, ou même de la présence ou de la non-présence de la chaleur
dans cet objet.”
67 See Crane (2014a) 217–234 where it is argued that the content of an experience does not have
to be propositional. This is so because while a proposition is either true or false, the content of
an experience is neither true nor false. It is rather more or less accurate. Accordingly, it would
be absurd to speak about asserting or denying in the case of experiences, but not in the case of
propositions. See also Crane (2014b) 281–297, where Crane claims that apart from physical facts
there are subjective facts that are different to “‘book-learning’ facts” (p. 293), learnt by “certain
kinds of experience, or occup[ing] a certain position in the world” (ibid.). Their existence
depends on experiencing subjects. Needless to say, this is said without mentioning
Protagoras. And similarly in a recent collection of papers by Sobel (2016). Although Sobel
doesn’t mention Protagoras, in his reassessment of subjectivism he makes a strong case for
Protagoras’ position. His paramount example are matters of taste. See also Mansfeld (1981) 45:
““brief” and “lenghty” [statements] are relative concepts, and what one thinks about them, i. e.
their evaluation, is a strictly personal affair involving the whole person, without for that reason
being in the least arbitrary.”

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 Revisiting Protagoras’ Fr. DK B 1 41

least psychologically; hence I would call Protagoras a psychological

individualist.68
Alternatively, his position may be called epistemological reism. It means
that by taking something into consideration I reify it in the sense of making it an
object of my grasping, be it perception, thought, belief or feeling. By measuring
an object, be it a thing, another person, myself or a concept, I view it in light of
my measuring, leaving its other aspects aside.69 This seems plausible in so far as
the word metron does not have to refer to measuring the value of a thing, i. e.
valuing a thing. Protagoras’ fr. B 1 points to the fact that there are “things” not
measurable by a universal measure, or to use a common adjective, objectively,
and even if they were, they should still be grasped individually because there is
no non-subjective access, access without a subject, without she who approaches
and grasps them. To the question “Is Protagoras a relativist?” my response is
that he turns out to be a relativist only if two following conditions are satisfied,
both not evident by themselves:
(i) we must understand χρήματα as referring not only to things simpliciter
but also to all, that is to all facts, mental events, propositional contents,
mathematical relations, natural phenomena etc., for a logical corollary of fr. B
1 is that of non-things man is not a measure,
(ii) we must understand μέτρον not only as delimiting but also as valuing
the realm of man.
I think that though it is not impossible to interpret Protagoras’ phrase as
relativist, this is only one way of interpreting it and, I must say, quite a specific
one. And it is not only specific but also curious – curious in the sense that, to my
knowledge, none of the supporters of relativism in Protagoras’ fragment has
spelled out the place and conditions of the relativist interpretation within the
family of interpretations of Protagoras’ fr. B 1 that could be offered.70
Consequently, the relativist interpretation of Protagoras’ fragment, even if pos-
sible, is too hasty. It is well-grounded if we assume that Protagoras had ethical
and scientific applications of his dictum in mind, an assumption which, at best,
is not uncontroversial.

68 It can also be regarded as a constitutive individualism, e. g. Decleva Caizzi (1978) 34: “…B 1
conferisce al singolo un’insperata sicurezza conoscitiva; gli conferisce la garanzia e la certezza
del proprio universo psico-fisico.”
69 H. Bergson comes to my mind but I cannot not dwell on this here.
70 For a comprehensive list of readings see Decleva Caizzi (1978) 25: “soggettivismo più o meno
esasperato, oggettivismo estremo, sensismo, fenomenismo, positivismo, pragmatismo, relati-
vismo, convenzionalismo.”

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42 Robert Zaborowski

Acknowledgments: I am grateful to Dariusz Piętka, Daniel Graham, Catherine

Collobert, Jean-François Pradeau and two anonymous reviewers for their
remarks and comments.

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