Ramón Román
Universidad de Córdoba
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«Logos and antilogos in Protagoras: the inexhaustibility of the truth field
A paper to be read in the Seventh International Conference On Greek Philosophy: «The Philosophy of Logos»
SAMOS, GREECE
August 1995
RAMÓN ROMÁN
LOGOS AND ANTILOGOS IN PROTAGORAS: THE INEXHAUSTIBILITY
OF THE TRUTH FIELD
A key feature of the history of philosophy is the separation, following the guidelines of the Aristotelian model, between the domain of rhetoric and the logical-ontological domain. A bias has taken root at the very heart of Western tradition which compels us to see in every rhetorical assertion a substitute for reflective and autonomous thought, ascribing to rhetoric a philosophical flaw which leads us to treat it as second-rate thought. The purpose of the present paper is twofold: first, to examine one of the most striking assertions of Protagorean thought: the alterations to which logos is subject; second, to show that the logical weakness of Protagoras' thought with regard to logos and antilogos is inversely proportional to its rhetorical strength.
IT IS NOT POSSIBLE TO CONTRADICT
Protagoras was the first to canvass the impossibility of ontological debate, by claiming in highly controversial terms that it is not possible to contradict (o_κ _στιv _vτιλέγειv); he asserted the inexhaustibility of the truth field by maintaining the trueness of any phenomenon for the person perceiving it. According to this approach, the judgements arising from our impressions are also true because the impressions themselves are primarily true, since for the subjectivist each individual's truth coincides with "the truth". Thus, anything which appears to me correct or true is true. Protagoras' thesis implies not only the relative nature of things but also, as Aristotle realised, the relative nature of truth: "whoever asserts - says the Stagyrite - that all appearances are true makes all things relative (_στε _ λέγωv _παvτατ_ _αιvόμεvαε_vαι _ληθ_ _παvταπoιε_ τ_ _vταπρόςτι)"[1].
Protagoras' argument on this question may be summarised as follows: The first point consists in asserting that while utterances exist to say something "that is", no utterance can exist in which someone says something "that is not"; thus, no-one can express in words something that is not[2]. Hence, when someone says something true, he is saying - in modern terms - "what is the case" about "what is the case". A person speaking untruthfully would be saying "what is not the case" about "what is the case". But what is not the case, simply is not, so this person is speaking of nothing. He is using words, but without reference, since the thing to which he might refer is simply not there. The contradiction concerns only propositions in which something is affirmed or denied. Thus, if two people make statements, three things may happen:
1/They say the same thing, in which case there is no contradiction[3].
2/One person is saying "what is the case", i.e. he is speaking truthfully, because the thing about which he is speaking is as he says it is, and the other person is saying something different from what the first person is saying[4]. Naturally, what the other person says is also true, although it is true of a thing other than the thing about which the first person was speaking, since all judgements are true because they are related to the personal experiences of the subject.
3/The final possibility is that neither of the two people is making a statement concerning the thing, so that neither makes the least mention of the thing; in this case, equally, there can be no contradiction[5].
Yet to assert that it is impossible to contradict runs counter to the opinion and common sense of all men. We all contradict each other in our daily activities and in our thinking. Curiously enough, Protagoras himself shared this view, for Diogenes Laertius tells us he was "the first to say that on any matter there are two opinions (which are) contrary to each other (Κα_ πρτoς __ηδύoλόγoυςε_vαιπερ_ παvτ_ςπράγματoς _vτικειμέvoυς _λλήλoις)"[6].
ARGUMENTS CONTRARY TO EACH OTHER
Hence, as Gomperz[7] has pointed out, Protagoras' position[8] may be seen as that of a simultaneously dialectical and dogmatic thinker. The antinomy gives rise to a curious dialectical multilaterality which, as Carchia has remarked, "eludes any logical designation of a truth value"[9]. How is this blatant contradiction to be resolved ? How can Protagoras be endowed with dialectical as well as dogmatic characteristics, without these standing in opposition to each other ? In order to analyse this second theory, two difficulties must first be cleared up. The first is based on the following reasoning:
1/ If Man's every perception is true, and that perception constitutes an argument, it may seem that concerning every matter there are not simply two logoi but a much greater number; indeed, as many logoi as there are different people with different perceptions. The reply to this objection is that all perceptions, however many there may be, may be reduced to just two, taking one as the starting-point. If the starting-point is A, the rest will be taken as not-A. But this leads to a second, more important, objection.
2/ A and not-A are clearly contradictory. If indeed Protagoras holds that there are always two opposing arguments concerning every matter, and both are true, what are we to say of the theory according to which it is impossible to contradict ? If, as it appears, Protagoras held that contradiction is impossible, then there is an apparent conflict with the theory of the two logoi. I say "apparent", because it must be understood that there are two levels involved in this problem: a logical-ontological level and a rhetorical level which radicalises the pragmatic aspect of rhetoric as a result of the gnosiological attitude of sophistry.
The apparent conflict can be reduced to the fact that the contradiction is possible only insofar as it concerns a verbal function, i.e. in debate, but that contradiction can never be applicable to the sphere of the things about which we speak. Thus, when we raise a contradiction it is only apparent, and if the two utterances composing the contradiction hold meaning, they must be referring to different and incomparable experiences on the part of the subjects with regard to reality. In other words, the contradiction arises in the domain of rhetoric, the extralogical mode of thought which houses the dialectics between immutable and irreducible positions that pierce through the logical dogmatism of Greek thought. In this sense, the development of eristics, of the art of refutation, is not advanced in sophistry as a strategic device of logos in order to arrive at a logical-ontological "truth", as it might be when used by Socrates, but rather as a principle providing a release from the claim to be true. The function of the sophist logos is free of the extra-rhetorical persuasion that reveals evidence of episteme as ontological knowledge.
These two orders, the thing spoken about and what is said of it, are perfectly reflected by Seneca, in a striking passage in which he distinguishes the sphere of things, the sphere of the language which refers to them, and the sphere of the utterance itself (metalanguage), concerning which (because it is a thing) two opposing sides may be argued:
"Protagoras declares that it is possible to argue either side of any question with equal force, even the question of whether or not one can argue either side of any question[10]"
The dialectic arising from the two positions of Protagoras does not in any sense refer to a logical datum, but simply to a gnosiological datum: judgements are mental entities which relate to the personal experiences to which the subject tends.
Thus, A and not-A are declarations to which all others can be reduced; they may both be true, without contradiction, for the declarations relate to different experiences, implied in the language which refers to them. It cannot be overlooked that this argument as a method denies the presuppositions of any logical debate on equal terms, i.e. it denies the possibility of any genuine disagreement. Debate presupposes an open issue; neither "yes" nor "no" should be advanced as the right answer. In other words, they cannot be given a priori. This is an indispensable condition of interpersonal external debate in which the reasons and considerations supporting each position on a given thesis compete with each other, dialectically, until one prevails and is established as an answer. This victory, however, is not truth, but rather the subjective appearance of truth, since we know that both "yes" and "no" are equally valid, according to how they appear to someone at that moment. The area of discursive and gnosiological antilogy is broached in Protagoras with a rhetorical strength inversely proportional to its logical weakness. The strength of judgements does not lie in their propositional capacity, for the assertions we make have equal truth value, given the nature of the judgements themselves as personal experiences.
We might reason, nonetheless, that if the debate is an internal one, in which a person argues against himself rather than against someone else, both replies could not be valid, since they would correspond to a single experience: mine. However, in this case any choice would be pointless, or rather, a fraud, for if what appears to me to be so is in fact as it appears to me, there is no point in any debate or discussion regarding whether what appears to me is as it appears to me or not[11].
RHETORIC VERSUS SELF-REFUTATION
The Protagorean description runs counter to the idea of a reason guaranteeing the process of choice. If there really are, for every question, two equally valid sides, the idea of reason validating our preference for one over the other collapses. Gomperz notes this piercing of logic from the rhetorical domain, and assesses Protagorean thought from the historical standpoint of human thought, i.e.: "the thought that, although two points of view may contradict each other, both may still be subjectively necessary and objectively valid"[12]. Thus, Homo mesura leads to the inexhaustibility of the truth field; truth, since it does not exist in an absolute form for anyone, does not exist in a general way.
When Sextus Empiricus sees in Protagoras a subjectivist for whom every judgement is true simpliciter, he is admitting that Protagorean relativism violates (logically speaking) the law of contradiction. The Skeptics' criticism is explained in the following passage:
"One cannot say that every appearance is true, because of its self-refutation (τ_vπεριτρoπήv), as Democritus and Plato urged Protagoras; for if every appearance is true (ε_ γ_ρπ_σα _αvτασία _στ_v _ληθής), it will be true also, being in accordance with an appearance, that not ever appearance is true, and thus it will become a falsehood that every appearance is true (κα_ o_τωτ_ π_σαv _αvτασίαvε_vαι _ληθ_ γεvήσεταιψε_δoς)"[13].
This criticism of Protagoras' allegedly fierce though inconsistent dogmatism is due more to a radicalisation of sophistry on the part of Socrates than to any antilogical feature of Protagorean reasoning. It is hardly surprising that Sextus' analysis of the theory of peritropé is based on Democritus and Socrates-Plato, who take no account of the rhetorical stance in Protagoras' thought, in which the dialectic of positions is in no sense a logical datum. Sextus' argument assumes value only from an ontological-relativist consideration of Protagorean philosophy; only in this sense is there justification for condemning as dogmatic the classical sophist argument, from which we can only escape by applying in our decision-making an old Skeptic formula: the suspension of judgement.
The logical difficulty proposed by the Skeptics' argument, and its lack of foundation according to Sextus Empiricus, only have meaning if we admit Socrates' radicalisation of the gnosiological attitude of sophistry. This may lead us to claim that the Protagorean argument is both illogical and unfounded. In the dialogues, when Plato attributes to the Sophists the art of the antilogical, he redefines it and exploits it for pragmatic gain compatible with his own style of philosophical debate. At times, he uses antilogies for purely eristic purposes, to advance the strategy of the true logos, i.e. as a technique which in itself is neither good nor bad. The process consists generally in choosing the answer to a question, and having affirmed it decisively, seek new declarations visibly inconsistent with that initial answer. On rare occasions, this method leads Socrates or Plato to modify the initial answer, but equally on occasions the dialogue reaches a stalemate, leaving the participants in a state of (_πoρία), unable to find any way out of the contradictions in which they have become trapped. And this is the case because the characteristic feature of the phenomenal world is its continual change, so that it may be described as a continuous sensation between being something and not being that something. In the phenomenal world, the things about which we speak may be simultaneously large and small, heavy and light, depending on a given point of reference; thus we could say that the phenomenal world is "antilogical" by nature, simply because it is continually changing. Thus the opposition between (λόγoι) which forms the starting point of antilogies not only occurs as a feature of debate, but in the events of the phenomenal world[14]. The difference between Protagoras and Plato lies in the activation or de-activation of that observation; for Protagoras, the ontological dimension of the apparent world is recognised as the only viable dimension, while for Plato the apparent dimension is no more than a false and erroneous reflection of the non-phenomenal and ontologically genuine world.
Socrates' opposition to sophistic rhetoric concentrates, mistakenly, on any logical prerogatives that this rhetoric might have rather than on the dimension of skill envisaged by eulegein. What Socrates opposes in rhetoric is precisely its least Protagorean dimension, its logic, i.e. its capacity to convince someone to choose between truth and falsehood; this capacity is not explicit in discourse, in Protagorean logos and antilogos. In this sense, Carchia has remarked[15], "dialogical brachylogy" opposed to "oratory macrology"[16] seeks to confound any attempt to attain an autonomous logos. And it is precisely this Protagorean eristic which prevents rhetoric from being interchangeable with any other form of metaphysics. Thus, the basis for any debate is denied, since the possibility of genuine ontological disagreement is ruled out; in this light, then, it may be argued that Protagoras anticipates, at an ontological level, the Skeptic thesis of isostheneia[17] which holds, precisely, that "Yes" and "No" are equally valid as answers to the same question, and that we cannot choose between the two.
If, then, there is no possibility of genuine ontological disagreement[18], what function has the sophist logos in philosophical debate ? A purely rhetorical function. There can thus be no valid argument against the rhetorical and dilemma-oriented procedure of Protagoras' antilogies. We are therefore constrained to refute the thesis of peritropé which would lead Protagorean thought towards a logical dogmatism incompatible with the principle of non-contradiction. And, as Carchia remarks[19], given that the act of logic is itself a personal mental experience, all assertions have equal truth-value, because the strength of a judgement is not to be found in its propositional capacity.
[1].ARISTOTLE, Metaphysics, 1011 a 20.
[2].This argument appears in Plato's Euthydemus, where we are told that the Protagorean school made much use of it, and that it was used by others before Protagoras: "If you recall, Ctessipus," he said, "a moment ago we proved that nobody says something that is not (μηδέvαλέγovτα _ς o_κ _στι); indeed, it was made quite clear that no-one can express in words what is not (τ_ γ_ρμ_ _v o_δε_ς __άvηλέγωv)". PLATO, Euthydemus, 286 a. Clearly, if man is the measure of all things, every individual opinion is both true and false, which renders its contradiction impossible.
[3].Both make the statement about the same thing, and in that case are saying the same. Cf. PLATO, Euthydemus, 286 a.
[4].Loc. cit., 286 b.
[5].Ibidem. [According to classical logic, we might in this case be dealing with two contrary propositions; in a relation of contrariness two contrary propositions cannot be simultaneously true, but they can be simultaneously false].
[6].D.L.,IX,51; Cf. also PLATO, Theaetetus, 152 c, ARISTOTLE, Metaphysics, 1007 b, 18-24 and especially 1009 to 7-10; finally, see SENECA, Letters, 88, 43.
[7].GOMPERZ, H., Sophistik und Rhetorik, Leipzig/Berlin, 1912 (repub. Darmstadt, 1967), chap. 8, pp. 126-278.
[8].As we may conclude it to be from an analysis of the Dissoi logoi, or Dialexeis (accepted as Protagorean in origin, cf. UNTERSTEINER, Sofisti. Testimonianze e frammenti, fasc. III, 1967) and an examination of the testimony of Plato (Theaetetus and Euthydemus), Aristotle (Metaphysics) and Sextus Empiricus (Outlines of Pyrrhonism).
[9].CARCHIA, G., Retorica del sublime, Roma-Bari, 1990, [Trad. Mar García Lozano, Retórica de lo sublime, Madrid, 1994, p. 46].
[10]."Protagoras ait de omni re in utramque partem disputari posse ex aequo et de hac ipsa, an omnis res in utramque partem disputabilis sit", SENECA, Letters, 88,43.
[11].We might borrow for this description of the problem a well-known remark by Wittgenstein: "whatever is going to seem right to me is right . And that only means that here we can't talk about «right» (richtig ist, was immer mir als richtig erscheinen wird. Und das heißt nur, daß hier von «richtig» nicht geredet kann)". WITTGENSTEIN, L., Philosophical Investigations (Philosophische Untersuchungen), Oxford, 1953, § 258.
[12].GOMPERZ, H., Op. cit., p. 242; Cf. CARCHIA, G., Op. cit., p. 48.
[13].SEXTUS EMPIRICUS, M., VII, 389-390. The last paragraph is to be found in DK 68 A 114.
.My interpretation coincides with that of Kerferd; for a discussion of this problem see KERFERD, G.B., The sophistic movement, Cambridge, 1981, pp. 61-67 and ROMAN, R. El escepticismo antiguo, posibilidad del conocimiento y búsqueda de la felicidad, Córdoba, 1994, pp. 154-166.
[15].Op. cit., p. 53
[16].Cf. PLATO, Protagoras, 328 d-329 b.
[17].Burnyeat observes that the idea that there are two valid sides to any question is a consequence of Protagorean subjectivism. Cf. BURNYEAT, M.F., "Protagoras and Self-Refutation in Later Greek Philosophy", The Philosophical Review, LXXXV, (1976), pp. 44-69, mainly pp. 60 and 61, note 27.
[18].Hence the failure of Socrates and Plato to understand Protagoras' philosophy, evident in their observation that as a specific doctrine Protagoras defended the Heraclitean system; they did not grasp that the rhetorical aspect of Protagorean thought has in fact no logical connection. Cf. Theaetetus, 179 d et seq.
[19].Cf. CARCHIA, G., Op. cit., p. 45-46.
RAMÓN ROMÁN
PROFESOR TITULAR DE FILOSOFÍA
DEPARTAMENTO DE FILOSOFÍA Y ANTROPOLOGÍA SOCIAL
UNIVERSIDAD DE CÓRDOBA (ESPAÑA)