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Essays, Opinion, & Commentary |
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(Note: Numbers in this type of bracket { - } refer to notes at the end of the article.) Interpreting the Elder Sophists, by Marco Angelini, Ph.D. (continued)
Through research in the fields of orality, logo-therapy, linguistics, anthropology, vase studies, poetry and theatre, and especially those which combine and compare disciplines, a fruitful and significantly alternative picture of early fifth/century thought can be gained, compared to conventional studies that concentrate on the period as a pre/philosophical stage of development leading to classical thought. Notable examples of this kind of inter discipinary research are provided by Lain Entralgo, MacKay, Foley, and the keystone work on oral poetries produced by Parry. The negative view of Protagoras and Gorgias that is found in many traditional histories of ancient thought is, according to this argument, linked to the limitations of the metaphysical approach in the tradition of Plato and Aristotle. Specifically, the epistemological assumption that meaningful philosophical discourse must be based on stable quanta that constitute the structure of objective reality imposes an ontological reading of reality that both disqualifies the Sophists from relevance, but, at the same time, need not actually be admitted by a consistent Sophistic position (and there is strong evidence that Protagoras, for example, did reject these terms). I would argue that by exploring the metaphysical boundaries of philosophical knowledge, as it is construed by the dominant traditions in Presocratic thought, could help to place into relief a crucial fault line in ancient Greek thought that still has consequences for the way we construe culture and knowledge. This discontinuity, I would maintain, separates the mainstream oral/poetic culture of archaic thought from the emerging, yet marginal, culture of the "philosophico/religious" {9} groups that were engaged in developing a radically new form of rational discourse. In so doing, and taking Protagoras as my main source (since there is a great deal more literature, both ancient and modern, devoted to him), I believe it could be shown that the elder Sophist was not intent on developing an uncomplicated humanistic relativism in reaction to Parmenidean absolutism; rather, that he based his view of the human experience on a radically fluid vision of phenomena and the self in constant interconnection, a vision that has resonances with the oral/poetic mentality and culture of pre/classical traditions. It is un-controversial by now to remind ourselves that true science based on real knowledge relies, for Plato, on what in the Cratylus are termed pragma (things) that have 'some firm essence of their own'(386E), and in Aristotle on the view expressed in his Metaphysics that the Real corresponds to 'something whose nature is changeless' (1010a). Plato's Forms and Aristotle's Essences represent the end point of Socratic rationalism's enduring questioning of "what is...?" a quality, virtue, or any other predicate. Aristotle's 'to ti en einai', the "being what it is" of a thing (in his Metaphysics) should thus be contrasted with the multiple instances of reality we perceive in the first order. Since Protagoras seems to agree that all things are fundamentally bi-vocal and subject to persuasion, 'on every subject there are two logoi (reasons, arguments) opposed to one another' (DK80A1), his discourse cannot aspire to be philosophy, but remains at the lower-order level of rhetoric since a scientific proposition concerning the category of universals has no need of persuasion in order to convince. Returning to Margolis's analysis of Aristotelian metaphysics, I believe it can be shown that modern understandings of Sophistic rhetoric rely on a misconstrual of Protagorean thought which has denied the richness of his discourse, which should be properly understood as situated and radically dialogical. Margolis maintains that Aristotle's elaboration of his law of non contradiction in the Metaphysics is directed against Protagoras (first among others mentioned in Book IV) so as to relegate the Sophist's homo mensura doctrine to the sub philosophical realm of rhetoric. The philosopher believes that an important consequence of the proposition that a person is the measure of all things is that it is impossible to believe the same thing to be and not be at the same time, a statement that from the point of view of philosophy could only be true at the superficial level of doxa (opinion). This position has clear and obviously important parallels with Plato's similar view in the Theaetetus, that Protagoras heads the list of thinkers stretching back to Homer who hold that reality is flux and ever-changing, as well as with the radical Eleatic position towards Being which calls for a strict distinction between what is and what is not (Being and not/Being). Protagoras, indeed, consciously challenges the crude Parmenidean version of this founding brick of philosophical discourse through the second clause of his homo mensura statement which clarifies that a person is the measure of "what is, that it is, and what is not, that it is not". Those thinkers, like the poets and Sophists, who believe that knowledge (sophia, also "wisdom") resides at the level of the flux of phenomena are not philosophers, since, for Aristotle, 'the most certain of all principles, since it answers to the depiction given above [of being qua being], [is that] it is impossible for anyone to believe the same thing to be and not to be' {10}. Though formulated so as to carry logically binding force, Margolis continues, it is important to note that this principle of non-contradiction is not construed in terms of a logical proposition that would be recognisable today; strictly speaking, there is nothing invalid about the proposition that "A is and is not B". For Aristotle, Protagoras is in contradiction because any statement must, a fortiori, refer to predicates that are changeless, essences or substances in the philosopher's language. This, however, is a metaphysical assumption that need not necessarily be shared by others on logical terms. The principle of non-contradiction is relevant to the formal or aletheic (truth bearing) conditions of valid argument, thus binding on what is to count as knowledge, only in reference to the ontological beliefs about the structure of reality that a speaker holds. Margolis argues that Aristotle is right to make a connection between logic and reality, but is wrong in attempting to universalise his version of the ontological relations that hold them together (1995:112). For Margolis, the metaphysical assumption that there exists an essential, a-temporal aspect to entities that are knowable and fundamentally noetic in nature, for which there is an is/ness that possesses an ontological reach beyond the flux of appearance, is a problematic one for modern philosophers who, nonetheless, have not fully risen to the challenge of questioning this deep Socraticism in Western thought. Protagoras does not formally contradict himself when he claims that a thing is and is not according to contingent factors; he violates the principle only on Aristotle's ontic terms, terms which are not necessarily binding on Protagoras. The Sophist's position is consistent with his view of the fluid, non essentialness of things, and thus has only to reject Aristotle's view of the relationship between logic and reality in order to be consistent. This, Protagoras does frequently, within the scope of the relatively few genuine fragments we possess, by declaring that 'on every subject there are two logoi [reasons, arguments, meanings] opposed to one another' {11} and a similarly anti-monist interpretation is usually ascribed to the phrase 'it is impossible to contradict' {12}. Aristotle's position that what is, is, and anyone who claims otherwise is in contradiction, is not formally true since he never actually shows that Protagoras cannot abandon the principle of his [Aristotle's] metaphysics' (Mailloux, 1995:114). The philosopher here, according to Margolis, has confused a logical claim that is perfectly acceptable (that reality is unchanging) with an ontic/epistemic one that is not necessarily true, since it depends on an interpretation of the structure of reality that is not binding on others. Holding to the claim that his characterisation of the relationship between logic, truth and reality is necessary and universal, Aristotle is bound to judge thinkers who do not share his ontic position as shallow and inferior, or at least bound to misconstrue their position, having located them in an inappropriate system of beliefs. Thus, if the manner in which Protagoras rejects rationalist metaphysics in favour of a more fluid and ambiguous view of Being can be shown decisively and in some detail, then our historical construal of Protagorean thought must be placed in doubt, as it has hitherto been almost exclusively based on philosophical interpretations derived from Plato and Aristotle.
Notes: 1. This phrase is borrowed from Schiappa's Protagoras and Logos, University of South Carolina Press, (1991:32). 2. Despite differing interpretations over some of the philological nuances, the main Protagorean and Gorgian fragments are highly attributable as genuinely theirs. 3. Notably, by Cherniss, H., Aristotle's Criticism of Presocratic Philosophy, Octagon, 1935; and McDiarmid, JB, Theophratus on the Presocratic Causes, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, 61, 1953. 4. The debate over orality and literacy, especially in regard to ancient Greece, is contentious and far from settled; the most recent contribution is a conference at the University of Natal at Durban entitled Oral Tradition and its performance: Beyond the Verbal / Non-verbal Divide, 14-16 July, 1997. 5. See Schiappa, E., "Did Plato Coin Rhetorike?," in American Journal of Philology 111, 1990. 6. Well established studies that do so are: Barnes, The Presocratic Philosophers; Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy; Kirk and Raven, The Presocratic Philosophers; Cornford, Before and After Socrates; Hussey, The Presocratics. 7. Mainly from Aristotle, Simplicius and Plutarch. 8. McKirahan reports that DK 31B100 has been interpreted by some as the description of an experiment on the scientific properties of breathing; its importance is given not by its accuracy but by the fact that Empedocles uses an actual model to describe a natural phenomenon. 9. This phrase is taken from Detienne, M. The Masters of Truth in Archaic Greece, Zone Books, (1996: 106). 10. Aristotle, Metaphysics, 100056, Book IV. 11. Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Trans. R. D. Hicks, Harvard UP. 1925, DL9, 51. 12. Ibid., DL9.53; understood by most commentators as implying the absence of any external frame of interpretation that could yield objective, universal possibilities for reference.
Bibliography Primary Sources Barnes, J. (ed.) (1984), The Complete Works of Aristotle, Princeton, Princeton UP. Diels/Kranz, (ed.)(1952), Fragments of the Presocratics, Berlin, Weidmann, 6th edition. Hamilton, E. & Cairns, H. (1961), The Collected Dialogues of Plato, Princeton, Princeton UP. Diogenes Laertius, Hicks, R.D. (Transl.) (1925), Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Cambridge (Mass.), Harvard UP. Secondary Sources Detienne, M. (1996), The Masters of Truth in Archaic Greece, Zone Books. Foley, J.M. (1990), Traditional Oral Epic, California UP. Havelock, E.A.(1963), Preface to Plato, Blackwell. Laìn Entralgo, P. (1970), The Therapy of the Word, Yale UP. Mackay, A., in Worthington, I. (ed) (1996), Voice into Text, E.J. Brill. Mailloux, S. (ed) (1995), Rhetoric, Sophistry, Pragmatism, CUP. McKirahan, R.D. (1994), Philosophy Before Socrates, Hackett. Parry, M. (1971), The Making of Homeric Verse: The Collected Papers of Milman Parry, Clarendon Press. Schiappa, E. (1991), Protagoras and Logos, South Carolina UP. Secondary Sources (articles) Angelini, M. (1996), "The Myth of Rationality," Scholia NS 5 (Abstract), p.165. --------------- (1997), "Did Protagoras Have An Epistemology?," Journal of Ancient Civilizations 12, pp. 1/10. Mackay, A. (1995), "Narrative Tradition in Early Greek Oral Poetry and Vase Painting," Oral Tradition 10/2, pp. 282/303. Schiappa, E. (1990), "Did Plato coin Rhetorike?" American Journal of Philology 111, pp. 460/473. Sidgwick, H. (1872), "The Sophists," Journal of Philology 4, pp. 288/307.
Dr. Angelini studied Government and History at the London School of Economics, receiving his Bachelor's degree in 1992, and his Master's in Political Theory in 1993. He received his Ph.D. in the History of Ideas from the Politics Department of The Queen's University of Belfast, in 1998. His dissertation was entitled "The Myth of Rationality." Dr. Angelini taught "Political Ideas" at the London School of Economics in 1997-98, and "Political Ideologies" at Queen's University, Belfast, from 1995-97. Currently, he is a Tutor at Ealing Tertiary College in London, where he is responsible for academic skills. The Radical Academy welcomes Dr. Angelini to our growing list of contemporary scholars who contribute to this website. You may respond to this essay in The Radical Academy Philosophy Forum |
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