Editing Protagoras (section)

===Relativism===
{{Rhetoric}}Protagoras also said that on any matter, there are two arguments (''logoi'') opposed to one another. Consequently, he may have been the author of ''[[Dissoi logoi]]'', an ancient Sophistic text on such opposing arguments.<ref>Gera, D.L. Two Thought Experiments in the ''Dissoi Logoi''. ''The American Journal of Philology''121(1): 24.</ref> According to [[Aristotle]], Protagoras was criticized for having claimed "to make the weaker argument stronger".<ref>''ton hēttō logon kreittō poiein''</ref><ref name=stan />

Protagoras is credited with the philosophy of [[relativism]], which he discussed in his lost work, ''Truth'' (also known as ''Refutations'').<ref name=poster2005 /><ref>{{cite web |last=Mattey |first=G.J. |title=Protagoras on Truth |url=http://hume.ucdavis.edu/mattey/phi021/protag.html |access-date=22 October 2013}}</ref> Although knowledge of Protagoras' position is limited, his relativism is inferred from one of his most famous statements: "Man is the measure of all things: of the things that are, that they are, of the things that are not, that they are not."<ref>{{cite book |last=Bostock |first=D |title=Plato's Theaetetus |year=1988 |location=Oxford}}</ref><ref>This quotation is restated in Plato's ''[[Theaetetus (dialogue)|Theaetetus]]'' at [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Plat.+Theaet.+152a 152a]. [[Sextus Empiricus]] gives a direct quotation in ''Adv. math.'' 7.60: πάντων χρημάτων μέτρον ἐστὶν ἄνθρωπος, τῶν μὲν ὄντων ὡς ἔστιν, τῶν δὲ οὐκ ὄντων ὡς οὐκ ἔστιν. ''Man'' is the traditional translation for the Greek word ''anthrōpos'' (''human being, person''), representing a general statement about human beings.</ref>

Protagoras appears to have meant that each individual is the measure of how things are perceived by that individual. Therefore, things are, or are not, true according to how the individual perceives them. For example, Person X may believe that the weather is cold, whereas Person Y may believe that the weather is hot. According to the philosophy of Protagoras, there is no absolute evaluation of the nature of a temperature because the evaluation will be relative to who is perceiving it. Therefore, to Person X, the weather is cold, whereas to Person Y, the weather is hot. This philosophy implies that there are no absolute "truths". The truth, according to Protagoras, is relative, and differs according to each individual.<ref name=poster2005>{{cite encyclopedia |last=Poster |first=Carol |title=Protagoras |url=http://www.iep.utm.edu/protagor/ |encyclopedia=Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy |orig-year=2002 |year=2005 |access-date=22 October 2013}}</ref>

[[Plato]] ascribes relativism to Protagoras and uses his character [[Socrates]] as a foil for his own commitment to objective and transcendent realities and values. Plato ascribes to Protagoras an early form of what [[John Daniel Wild|John Wild]] categorized as [[phenomenalism]].<ref>[[John Daniel Wild|John Wild]], "[https://www.jstor.org/stable/2103131 On the Nature and Aims of Phenomenology]," ''Philosophy and Phenomenological Research'' 3 (1942), p. 88: "Phenomenalism is as old as Protagoras."</ref> That being an assertion that something that is, or appears for a single individual, is true or real for that individual. However, as described in Plato's ''[[Theaetetus (dialogue)|Theaetetus]]'', Protagoras's views allow that some views may result from an ill body or mind. He stressed that although all views may appear equally true, and perhaps, should be equally respected, they certainly are not of equal gravity. One view may be useful and advantageous to the person who has it, while the perception of another may prove harmful. Hence, Protagoras believed that the sophist was there to teach the student how to discriminate between them, i.e., to teach [[arete|virtue]].

Both Plato and Aristotle argue against some of Protagoras's claims regarding relativity; however, they argue that the concept provides Protagoras with too convenient an exemption from his own theory and that relativism is true for him yet false for those who do not believe it. They claim that by asserting that truth is relative, Protagoras then could say that whatever further theory he proposed ''must'' be true.<ref>{{cite book |last=Lee |first=Mi-Kyoung |title=Epistemology after Protagoras: Responses to relativism in Plato, Aristotle |date=2005 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford |isbn=0-19-926222-5 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=i-dZyzjOqBoC&q=protagoras+relativism&pg=PR11}}</ref>