From méontologie (continued).
Protagoras was almost a contemporary of Democritus. According to tradition, it would have been his disciple after another, his master. Difficult to determine. It would probably make more sense at first glance to be the disciple who turned into a sophist would founder. Yet another tradition he blames squarely to be the founder of the term fallacy. Protagoras was a sophist emeritus and famous who probably was born about thirty years before a Democrat, in the same city. Difficult to estimate the two men were not known, but there is no evidence that their philosophy is connected directly.
Surely Protagoras Abderian produces a certain tradition, that is to say he is an heir with Democritus of Persian and Hindu wisdom in Abdera who found a cultural center (not only political-military) foreground. It is curious to find Protagoras at a crossroads in the city of Athens Thurii where he was the leading constitutional expert at the request of Pericles. The Treaty of Non- be trying to make a radical response to questions posed by Herodotus and Protagoras: the laws and thoughts emanate from the man - and not gods. I would rather
for Protagoras that expresses a different tradition than nihilistic type of Democritus, the atomistic tradition. For if Leucippus has lived as a master of Democritus effective, it should be pretty much close to the contemporary Protagoras. In this case, Protagoras would have founded another school in the nihilistic tradition, Democritus atomic while being an innovator sophist Protagoras would be the point of having founded this neologism in Greece. The Sophists did not exist prior to their appearance in Greece. There are traditions of their elders by charging their knowledge and lessons to wealthy students BCE of ancient Greece, but not how rational and with this profligate nihilism.
Assume that Protagoras who founded the constitution Thurii on philosophical and legal bases fully human without the help of the gods, was founded more than Democritus know. When you read the philosophy of Democritus, it seems spoof theoretical knowledge in which he has learned a lot and much repeated, excellent student, never invented anything (which is where the good student and also a sham, since creation should be the culmination of all higher knowledge, he is also sharp).
In contrast, in Protagoras, innovation seems to be that radically streamlined and exclusively human, emanating from a certain mentality which Protagoras would have been a precursor, if not the precursor. If Protagoras is an innovator and sophist Gorgias is a nihilist earlier by tradition it represents, the sophists express the strongest theoretical individualism, as each carries its own message sophist theory and the various sophistic doctrines are significantly different .
When Gorgias (483-374 BC.), A contemporary of Protagoras (490-420), composed his Treaty of nonbeing , it can express his radical theory that mimics the game of rhetorical nature, as if the sophist's own was considered that the exercise was a theoretical question rather superficial and useless. The theory proposes that the tradition passed on by Democritus is maintained by the Sophist (Protagoras and Gorgias whom) for a methodological error as a waste of time since the initial questioning on the causes leaves to appear whenever the impossibility of any response clear and definitive.
While Democritus theorized on the basis of being the atoms, which coexist with non-being, both endless, incoherent and impossible theory, theory quickly abandoned, Protagoras and the sophists in his suite drop any hint of theorizing and focus on the virtuosity of language (and other related techniques). My interpretation of the relationship between Protagroas Democritus and based on this thesis: that the founder of the historical movement of the sophists is in the same mold of thought that Democritus of Abdera base, but that both thinkers offer two different doctrines within the same mold.
Democritus is a theorist of nihilism progeny Abderian which takes in my opinion so fairly accurate theories inherited from Indian traditions. Protagoras is an innovator of these traditions which sailed between India, Persia and Abdera. It proposes an adaptation of these theories, rather faithfully transcribed by Democritus, removing all the theoretical content (physical) and offering an impressive development implications of language.
Democritus remains a theorist of nihilism, when Protagoras offers a purely practical nihilism, which is reminiscent of the work and requirements of some logicians and philosophers of language contemporaries in the vein of so-called analytic philosophy. The doctrine of Protagoras was also almost completely lost, which says a lot about the credit that the ancients gave to these theories and atomistic sophists. Why was lost Democritus, Gorgias, Protagoras, the sophist, Epicurus, and many others of this tradition virulent nihilistic, because if they produced the doctrines were understood to be dangerous and destructive for those who read and transcribed?
Why Aristotle he had a considerable posterity, though tortuous too, so it flows naturally he relayed his own version, highly innovative, including spread of nihilism by Democritus and the Sophists? The doctrine of Protagoras, for which we still can be summarized in two simple principles and neighbors
"Man is the measure of all things: of those, as they are, those are not the because they are not. "
"Man is the measure of all things: of those, as they are, those are not the because they are not. "
" Man is the measure of all things: of those, as they are, those who are not, because they are not. "
These two maxims could be summarized as follows:
1) knowledge is impossible;
2) knowledge is relative to the observer.
We are open between the millennial maelstrom Taoist tradition (concerning some key elements) and substrates of theoretical quantum physics (especially around the writings of the founder Boehr). This tradition is somewhat lapidary: Protagoras says basically that is quite futile to think about fundamental issues and theoretical, because knowledge is impossible. Only basic knowledge can post. Hence the emphasis on learning the language.
If Protagoras doctrine draws its knowledge Abderian, inflection he gives is significantly different from the atomic doctrine dear to Democrats (and its mysterious master Leucippus): if both participants of nihilism, with the contradictory existence granted to non-being, Democritus believes that the theoretical foundation is necessary, when Protagoras inflects this design to determine that historically the first theory is uncertain as useless.
Protagoras Perhaps he sought before Democritus a chronological point of view, to escape the trap which is strained by the atomistic version of nihilism is the idea of a contradictory and untenable theory, which gives the existence of joint infinite sets two antagonistic (being and nonbeing). The fallacy as it was founded by Protagoras would have in common, beyond doctrinal differences, seek to bring coherence to nihilism, or at least more consistent than any case impossible, at least one sustainability inconsistent.
Sophists were gone the same starting point Aristotle, but they have failed. Aristotle would have succeeded in building lasting nihilism, where the Sophists have failed. That the sophists are older with Protagoras that Democritus is not surprising, because the Democrat is Abderian propagator of a doctrine that is not Greek anyway. As for the failure of the sophist, as it was launched and christened by Protagoras, it rests on the idea that we can produce applications without fundamental theory just pre-existing, that is to say with a theory implicitly false.
Sophists have perfected without worrying about the consequences of coherence causes. This error explains their unbelievable fall. For if Plato mocks their venality and dishonesty behind these ridiculous charges and will be retained by posterity, there is the theoretical criticism: they talk all the better he does not know whereof they speak. They are smooth talkers without basis. Perhaps it is this method to look inept than Nietzsche when he removes the background without replacement, that is to say, only by promoting the appearances behind the appearances, in a cycle of reduplication more indefinite infinite.
It is plausible that the sophists have attempted, in this sleight of theoretical fictitiously replaced by the practice of resolving contradictions within the doctrine atavistic nihilistic, as they appear so glaring in the atoms. We found other schools for the primate vassal theoretical practice in the rule - thus Cyrenaics hedonistic or even skeptical of the school Pyrrho. The Epicureans cite the doctrine of Democritus atomic around, but they will give it a theoretical difference of importance (in addition to minor differences): for them being there some finite, while for Democritus the atoms be is infinite in that the compositions from the atoms are undefined.
The Epicureans would probably understand Democritus and atoms, as they have tried a few centuries later, to combine the theoretical framework of Democritus to the exclusive practice of the sophists and reductive in solving the most glaring inconsistencies while stressing the importance of moral action. The failure of the sophists left the field open to the proposal Aristotelian sophists who condemned the use of language in theory, Aristotle understood the urgency of correcting the excessive theoretical inconsistencies present in Democritus while facing the problem .
And his solution was, to relegate the problem of inconsistency in the theoretical sphere of non-being, where the undecidable makes it less disturbing. In doing so, the Aristotelian doctrine is very theoretical, very difficult and highly impractical. Epicurus thus proposes to build a morality that is in connection with the theory, but that is more affordable and less lead on scientific research as a way of life on the margins of society in decay. When we understand that the Garden of Epicurus was worth more hypocritical than monastic retreat, inconsistency resurfaced with a vengeance. Epicurus and loses his bet to reconcile the theorist atoms Democritus and Protagoras the founder and destroyer of the fallacy of the first questions unnecessary.
