Dialogue

  1 Intro|       supposed to be a full-grown man. Allowing nine or ten years
  2 Intro|         that ‘he would be a great man if he lived.’~In this uncertainty
  3 Intro|          the Protagorean saying, ‘Man is the measure of all things;’
  4 Intro|         himself maintain that one man is as good as another in
  5 Intro|           in the Meno: ‘How can a man be ignorant of that which
  6 Intro|       identified his own thesis, ‘Man is the measure of all things,’
  7 Intro|          cited in this dialogue, ‘Man is the measure of all things,’
  8 Intro|          hand, the doctrine that ‘Man is the measure of all things,’
  9 Intro|        that ‘What appears to each man is to him;’ and a reference
 10 Intro|          that he would be a great man if he lived.’ ‘How true
 11 Intro|            who was himself a good man and a rich. He is informed
 12 Intro|        our faces; but, as he is a man of science, he may be a
 13 Intro|        within me is the friend of man, though he will not allow
 14 Intro|         same thing when he says, “Man is the measure of all things.”
 15 Intro|       things.” He was a very wise man, and we should try to understand
 16 Intro|          Protagorean saying that “Man is the measure of all things,”
 17 Intro|          are always true, and one man’s discernment is as good
 18 Intro|           as another’s, and every man is his own judge, and everything
 19 Intro|       have to go to him, if every man is the measure of all things?
 20 Intro|            or you discourse about man being reduced to the level
 21 Intro|         attack. He asks whether a man can know and not know at
 22 Intro|         feeling, or denied that a man might know and not know
 23 Intro|     extreme precision, I say that man in different relations is
 24 Intro|           But I still affirm that man is the measure of all things,
 25 Intro|         although I admit that one man may be a thousand times
 26 Intro|          of wisdom or of the wise man. But I maintain that wisdom
 27 Intro|          the healthy. Nor can any man be cured of a false opinion,
 28 Intro|      words,—‘What appears to each man is to him.’ And how, asks
 29 Intro|      Protagoras’ own thesis that ‘Man is the measure of all things;’
 30 Intro|    venture to maintain that every man is equally the measure of
 31 Intro|   residing in the city; the inner man, as Pindar says, is going
 32 Intro|        whether his neighbour is a man or an animal. For he is
 33 Intro|     searching into the essence of man, and enquiring what such
 34 Intro|           larger sum. Such is the man at whom the vulgar scoff;
 35 Intro|           or to the reasons why a man should seek after the one
 36 Intro|       servant-maids, but to every man of liberal education. Such
 37 Intro|           common. The unrighteous man is apt to pride himself
 38 Intro|          death. And yet if such a man has the courage to hear
 39 Intro|          Protagoras maintain that man is the measure not only
 40 Intro|        future? Would an untrained man, for example, be as likely
 41 Intro|        amassed a fortune if every man could judge of the future
 42 Intro|          sphere of being: ‘When a man thinks, and thinks that
 43 Intro|          any parallel case? Can a man see and see nothing? or
 44 Intro|           true falsehood,’ when a man puts good for evil or evil
 45 Intro|          odd was even? Or did any man in his senses ever fancy
 46 Intro|         Let us suppose that every man has in his mind a block
 47 Intro|           block in the heart of a man’s soul, as I may say in
 48 Intro|            No one can confuse the man whom he has in his thoughts
 49 Intro|          false opinion, or that a man knows what he does not know.~
 50 Intro|      having’ from ‘possessing.’ A man may possess a garment which
 51 Intro|       that ignorance could make a man know, or that blindness
 52 Intro|     reflection or expression of a man’s thoughts—but every man
 53 Intro|          man’s thoughts—but every man who is not deaf and dumb
 54 Intro|           anything is composed. A man may have a true opinion
 55 Intro|          For example, I may see a man who has eyes, nose, and
 56 Intro|    distinguish him from any other man. Or he may have a snub-nose
 57 Intro|           dimly perceived by each man for himself. In what does
 58 Intro|          Protagorean thesis that ‘Man is the measure of all things.’
 59 Intro|         or criteria of truth. One man still remains wiser than
 60 Intro|        truth must often come to a man through others, according
 61 Intro|          did not consider whether man in the higher or man in
 62 Intro|      whether man in the higher or man in the lower sense was a ‘
 63 Intro|         truth,’ from the world to man. But he did not stop to
 64 Intro|         analyze whether he meant ‘man’ in the concrete or man
 65 Intro|           man’ in the concrete or man in the abstract, any man
 66 Intro|          man in the abstract, any man or some men, ‘quod semper
 67 Intro|          destroy logic, ‘Not only man, but each man, and each
 68 Intro|            Not only man, but each man, and each man at each moment.’
 69 Intro|            but each man, and each man at each moment.’ In the
 70 Intro|       alone would not distinguish man from a tadpole. The absoluteness
 71 Intro|          really the effect of one man, who has the means of knowing,
 72 Intro|      spirit is broken in a wicked man who listens to reproof until
 73 Intro|   presented to us. To assert that man is man is unmeaning; to
 74 Intro|         us. To assert that man is man is unmeaning; to say that
 75 Intro|        when Protagoras said that ‘Man is the measure of all things,’
 76 Intro|     reason. It is a faculty which man has in common with the animals,
 77 Intro|           or the social nature of man.~In every act of sense there
 78 Intro| simultaneous with their growth in man a growth of language must
 79 Intro|          track than the civilised man; in like manner the dog,
 80 Intro|          as in animals so also in man, seems often to be transmitted
 81 Intro|           as in his whole nature, man is a social being, who is
 82 Intro|          mind, of the relation of man to God and nature, imperfect
 83 Intro|          which we can distinguish man from the animals, or conceive
 84 Intro|   suspected of having no meaning. Man is to bring himself back
 85 Intro|         any other seems to take a man out of himself. Weary of
 86 Intro|      their own experience. To the man of the world they are the
 87 Intro|           the higher interests of man. But nearly all the good (
 88 Intro|          of those studies which a man can pursue alone, by attention
 89 Intro|          the oldest experience of man respecting himself. These
 90 Intro|       heart and the conscience of man rise above the dominion
 91 Intro|           more accurately defined man’s knowledge of himself and
 92 Intro|          allow the personality of man to be absorbed in the universal,
 93 Intro|         with Protagoras, that the man is not the same person which
 94 Intro|     history. We study the mind of man as it begins to be inspired
 95 Intro|            and every word which a man utters being the answer
 96 Intro|      follows:—~a. The relation of man to the world around him,—
 97 Intro|       change of the old nature of man into a new one, wrought
 98 Intro|       himself be a better-ordered man.~At the other end of the ‘
 99 Intro|        God, is the personality of man, by which he holds communion
100 Intro|         fact, the highest part of man’s nature and that in which
101 Intro|        more than every reflecting man knows or can easily verify
102 Intro|           to the whole science of man. There can be no truth or
103  Thea|         most certainly be a great man, if he lived.~TERPSION:
104  Thea|        who was himself an eminent man, and such another as his
105  Thea|        and in general an educated man?~THEAETETUS: I think so.~
106  Thea|           be a command to a young man, bids me interrogate you.
107  Thea|          other workers. How can a man understand the name of anything,
108  Thea|          No.~SOCRATES: And when a man is asked what science or
109  Thea|           in a race by a grown-up man, who was a great runner—
110  Thea|           those who join together man and woman in an unlawful
111  Thea|       which the mind of the young man brings forth is a false
112  Thea|       that no god is the enemy of man—that was not within the
113  Thea|          but quit yourself like a man, and by the help of God
114  Thea|     another way of expressing it. Man, he says, is the measure
115  Thea|         says so.~SOCRATES: A wise man is not likely to talk nonsense.
116  Thea|     Graces, what an almighty wise man Protagoras must have been!
117  Thea|         same to you as to another man? Are you so profoundly convinced
118  Thea|        hidden ‘truth’ of a famous man or school.~THEAETETUS: To
119  Thea|        are expressed in the word ‘man,’ or ‘stone,’ or any name
120  Thea|        spirits, and answer like a man what you think.~THEAETETUS:
121  Thea|      perception, or that to every man what appears is?~THEAETETUS:
122  Thea|       great sage Protagoras, that man is the measure of all things;
123  Thea|         is only sensation, and no man can discern another’s feelings
124  Thea|        piece of folly, if to each man his own are right; and this
125  Thea|          talk about the reason of man being degraded to the level
126  Thea|          Some one will say, Can a man who has ever known anything,
127  Thea|          which is only, whether a man who has learned, and remembers,
128  Thea|           definition holds, every man knows that which he has
129  Thea|      Certainly.~SOCRATES: Often a man remembers that which he
130  Thea|          the inference is, that a man may have attained the knowledge
131  Thea|           the question, whether a man who had learned and remembered
132  Thea|    question, which is this:—Can a man know and also not know that
133  Thea|         you answer the inevitable man?~THEAETETUS: I should answer, ‘
134  Thea|      little boy, whether the same man could remember and not know
135  Thea|          admit the memory which a man has of an impression which
136  Thea|         acknowledge that the same man may know and not know the
137  Thea|          Or would he admit that a man is one at all, and not rather
138  Thea|         of non-existence. Yet one man may be a thousand times
139  Thea|          that wisdom and the wise man have no existence; but I
140  Thea|           but I say that the wise man is he who makes the evils
141  Thea|         which appear and are to a man, into goods which are and
142  Thea|    already said,—that to the sick man his food appears to be and
143  Thea|         and is bitter, and to the man in health the opposite of
144  Thea|          you assert that the sick man because he has one impression
145  Thea|          foolish, and the healthy man because he has another is
146  Thea|          in this spirit is a wise man, and deserves to be well
147  Thea|          paid by them. And so one man is wiser than another; and
148  Thea|         be serious, as the text, ‘Man is the measure of all things,’
149  Thea|      nobody. At any rate, my good man, do not sheer off until
150  Thea|          you are like destiny; no man can escape from any argument
151  Thea|       words are, ‘What seems to a man, is to him.’~THEODORUS:
152  Thea|           uttering the opinion of man, or rather of all mankind,
153  Thea|         the thesis which declares man to be the measure of all
154  Thea|           they do not think, that man is the measure of all things,
155  Thea|    neither a dog nor any ordinary man is the measure of anything
156  Thea|      hardly knows whether he is a man or an animal; he is searching
157  Thea|     searching into the essence of man, and busy in enquiring what
158  Thea|           observes that the great man is of necessity as ill-mannered
159  Thea|        nor to consider that every man has had thousands and ten
160  Thea|  happiness of a king or of a rich man to the consideration of
161  Thea|          what they are, and how a man is to attain the one and
162  Thea|           situation, but by every man who has not been brought
163  Thea|          character is that of the man who is able to do all this
164  Thea|        not merely in order that a man may seem to be good, which
165  Thea|          the true cleverness of a man, and also his nothingness
166  Thea|           vulgar. The unrighteous man, or the sayer and doer of
167  Thea|   Protagoras, we will say to him, Man is, as you declare, the
168  Thea|         of heat:—When an ordinary man thinks that he is going
169  Thea|           of us than the ordinary man?~THEODORUS: Certainly, Socrates,
170  Thea|           a prophet nor any other man was better able to judge
171  Thea|            that he must admit one man to be wiser than another,
172  Thea|       that every opinion of every man is true may be refuted;
173  Thea|            which are present to a man, and out of which arise
174  Thea|          his doctrine, that every man is the measure of all things—
175  Thea|      measure of all things—a wise man only is a measure; neither
176  Thea|        met him when he was an old man, and I was a mere youth,
177  Thea|         ask you: With what does a man see black and white colours?
178  Thea|    Assuredly.~SOCRATES: And can a man attain truth who fails of
179  Thea|         opinion, and say that one man holds a false and another
180  Thea|         shall we say then? When a man has a false opinion does
181  Thea|            Is it possible for any man to think that which is not,
182  Thea|         you mean?~SOCRATES: Can a man see something and yet see
183  Thea|           the exact truth: when a man puts the base in the place
184  Thea|        you suppose that any other man, either in his senses or
185  Thea|           you say.~SOCRATES: If a man has both of them in his
186  Thea|           wrong in denying that a man could think what he knew
187  Thea|       there exists in the mind of man a block of wax, which is
188  Thea|          you to understand that a man may or may not perceive
189  Thea|    deception about things which a man does not know and has never
190  Thea|          ignorant.~THEAETETUS: No man, Socrates, can say anything
191  Thea|          a tiresome creature is a man who is fond of talking!~
192  Thea|           describe the habit of a man who is always arguing on
193  Thea|        You mean to argue that the man whom we only think of and
194  Thea|          to be impossible; did no man ever ask himself how many
195  Thea|         does not exist, or that a man may not know that which
196  Thea|            I could not, being the man I am. The case would be
197  Thea|       possessing’: for example, a man may buy and keep under his
198  Thea|         SOCRATES: Well, may not a man ‘possess’ and yet not ‘have’
199  Thea|    speaking? As you may suppose a man to have caught wild birds—
200  Thea|          that in the mind of each man there is an aviary of all
201  Thea|  receptacle was empty; whenever a man has gotten and detained
202  Thea|         already. And thus, when a man has learned and known something
203  Thea|           it, we do assert that a man cannot not possess that
204  Thea|       therefore, in no case can a man not know that which he knows,
205  Thea|        rid of the difficulty of a man’s not knowing what he knows,
206  Thea|        the first place, how can a man who has the knowledge of
207  Thea|         that ignorance may make a man know, and blindness make
208  Thea|          will say, laughing, if a man knows the form of ignorance
209  Thea|        and do you conceive that a man has knowledge of any element
210  Thea|        imagine Theaetetus to be a man who has nose, eyes, and