Protagoras of Abdera: the Man, His Measure Philosophia Antiqua
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Protagoras of Abdera: The Man, His Measure Philosophia Antiqua A Series of Studies on Ancient Philosophy Previous Editors J.H. Waszink† W.J. Verdenius† J.C.M. Van Winden Edited by K.A. Algra F.A.J. de Haas J. Mansfeld C.J. Rowe D.T. Runia Ch. Wildberg VOLUME 134 The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/pha Protagoras of Abdera: The Man, His Measure Edited by Johannes M. van Ophuijsen Marlein van Raalte Peter Stork LEIDEN • BOSTON 2013 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Protagoras of Abdera / edited by Johannes M. van Ophuijsen, Marlein van Raalte, Peter Stork. pages cm. – (Philosophia antiqua ; VOLUME 134) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-25120-5 (hardback : alk. paper) – ISBN 978-90-04-25124-3 (e-book) 1. Protagoras. 2. Sophists (Greek philosophy) I. Ophuijsen, J. M. van, 1953- II. Raalte, Marlein van, 1952- III. Stork, Peter, 1943-. B305.P84P76 2013 183'.1–dc23 2013005150 This publication has been typeset in the multilingual “Brill” typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering Latin, IPA, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities. For more information, please see www.brill.com/brill-typeface. ISSN 0079-1687 ISBN 978-90-04-25120-5 (hardback) ISBN 978-90-04-25124-3 (e-book) Copyright 2013 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Global Oriental, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers and Martinus Nijhof Publishers. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper. To Sicking (C.M.J. Sicking 1933–2000) CONTENTS Foreword ............................................................... ix Ineke Sluiter Acknowledgements . xi 1 Introduction: Protagoras of Abdera: amicus homo magis amica veritas?............................................................. 1 Johannes van Ophuijsen 2 A Protagonist of the Sophistic Movement? Protagoras in Historiography . 11 Noburu Notomi 3 Made to Measure: Protagoras’ µέτρον ............................... 37 Tazuko A. van Berkel 4 Τὸν ἥττω λόγον κρείττω ποιεῖν: Aristotle, Plato, and the ἐπάελµα of Protagoras . 69 Michele Corradi 5 The Most Correct Account: Protagoras on Language . 87 Adriaan Rademaker 6 L’e cacité en politique selon le Protagoras de Platon . 113 Paul Demont 7 Fangs, Feathers, & Fairness: Protagoras on the Origins of Right andWrong.......................................................... 139 Adam Beresford 8 Protagoras’ Myth in Plato’s Protagoras: Fiction or Testimony? . 163 Bernd Manuwald 9 Euboulia as the Skill Protagoras Taught. 179 Paul Woodruf 10 Privatising Perception: Plato’s Protagoreanism (Theaetetus 154B–157C) ........................................................ 195 Arnaud Macé viii contents 11 Perceptual Relativism and Change in the Secret Doctrine in Plato’s Theaetetus 152–160 . 217 Job van Eck 12 Protagoras through Plato and Aristotle: A Case for the Philosophical Signi cance of Ancient Relativism . 233 Ugo Zilioli Bibliography . 259 Index Locorum . 305 General Index. 322 FOREWORD The conference Protagoras of Abdera: the Man, his Measure, which took place at Leiden University in 2007, was organized as a special tribute to my predecessor, the Leiden Professor of Greek C.M.J. Sicking (1933–2000). Sicking, as he insisted on being called, had held the chair from 1964–1998, and the Department that I found on my arrival in Leiden very much bore his mark. Plato and Protagoras were everywhere. Sicking himself had written several pieces about Protagoras, two of which are published in the volume of his collected essays with the beautiful title Distant Companions. He believed that Protagoras must have formed a serious intellectual and moral threat to Plato, and that Protagoras’ ideas about what constitutes a good society was a viable and competitive alternative to Plato’s. Protagoras’ position, Sicking thought, may be fruitfully compared to versions of utilitarianism and to modern debates on the evolutionary origin of morality. Right before his unexpected death in January of 2000, Sicking had submitted a paper to the philosophy group of the National Research School in Classical Studies, OIKOS. In the accompanying letter he announced his intention of writing a full-scale monograph on Protagoras, who was also the topic of this last paper, although few people would have guessed so from its title: ‘ὡς and ὅτι’. The paper discussed these two Greek subordinators, often translated as ‘that’, and the approach was a purely linguistic one. And yet, the group with which he was planning to discuss this text consisted mostly of philosophers, and the study of ὡς and ὅτι was meant to shed light on Protagoras’ ‘man-measure’ thesis by subjecting one of its linguistic elements to intense philological scrutiny. Protagoras chooses ὡς over ὅτι and Sicking wondered whether that choice carried a meaning that might help us get a grip on the contents of Protagoras’ text. Even if the attempt did not provide the ultimate key to Protagoras’ words, it was worth the try. Unfortunately, Sicking’s untimely death made it impossible for him to execute his plan of a monograph, a great shame if the two papers in Distant Companions are a reliable indication of what might have followed. They are still among the very best studies of Protagoras that we have. When Sicking died, his work was carried on. Small-scale research seminars on Protagoras were conducted over several years, in which senior and junior researchers and interested students investigated Protagoras and prepared a new collection of sources. As a playful countermovement to the International x foreword Plato Society, this group founded with a modest ourish the National Protagoras Society, a context for a lecture series that inspired some of the contributions in this volume. Several of Sicking’s former PhD students, notably Fred Arends, Jan van Ophuijsen, and Marlein van Raalte, and his collaborator of many years Peter Stork, who had become respected Platonists and students of Protagoras in their own right, took part as speakers or organizers in the colloquium of which this volume is the result. I have always been impressed by the intellectual perseverance and scholarly dedication of this group, and by their determination to pay this extraordinary tribute to the extraordinary scholar who was their teacher. I hope some of the liveliness and engagement that characterized the conference has carried over into this volume. Leiden, December 2012 Ineke Sluiter ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Our rst debt of gratitude is to the participants of the Symposium, held at Leiden, July 5–7, 2007, that has lent its title to the present volume. Equally indispensable was the support of the Symposium’s sponsors: Brill’s Publishers, Burgersdijk & Niermans Booksellers & Auctioneers, the Executive Board of Leiden University, the De Vogel Foundation, the Leiden University Fund, OIKOS (The Netherlands’ Research School in Classical Studies), the Faculty of Philosophy of Leiden University, the Faculty of Philosophy of Utrecht University, the PALLAS Institute (Humanities Faculty, Leiden University), and ZENO (the Utrecht Research Institute for Philosophy). We are especially grateful to our co-organiser of the Symposium, Frans de Haas and to his fellow editors of Philosophia Antiqua, as well as to Brill’s anonymous referee for his or her helpful suggestions. Through the years, many colleagues and students have been part of and contributed to the study of Protagoras leading to the Symposium, especially in the context of various seminars and lecture-series within the framework of The National Protagoras Society: Fred Arends, Daniël Bartelds, Myrthe Bartels, Tazuko van Berkel, Thijs de Beus, Jeroen Bons, Christiaan Caspers, Thomas Hart, Casper de Jonge, Nina Kroese, Mariska Leunissen, Noburu Notomi, Adriaan Rademaker, Chiara Robbiano, Ineke Sluiter, Joris Stolwijk, and Eva de Vos. We remember these sunousiai of intensive study of the sources—with animated discussion of whatever subject we found the logos leading to—with joy and gratitude. December 2012 JMvO MvR PS chapter one INTRODUCTION: PROTAGORAS OF ABDERA: AMICUS HOMO MAGIS AMICA VERITAS? Johannes van Ophuijsen One might be forgiven for despairing of the possibility of unearthing Pro- tagoras from under the weight of the Platonic testimonies designed, as they seem, to strengthen his case only in order to demolish it more efectively. (Or his cases; we cannot even take it for granted that Protagoras aspired to the consistency and coherence between his successive pronouncements on diferent topics that Plato would expect from a philosopher.) It may well seem that Protagoras’ original views were not su ciently speci c and determined for us to rescue him from Plato’s strictures; hence, even more than with other Greek thinkers, when philosophers and philologists are talking to each other about Protagoras at all they appear to be talking at cross-purposes in a way that reduces the chance of progress for either party. If Plato’s objection was that, well-intentioned