BENJAMIN J. GRAZZINIupon together. This is perhaps most striking in their engagement with
the Protagorean hypothesis. Socrates speaks on behalf of Protagoras
and his orphaned logos—“for the sake of justice” (164e6– 7)—because
Protagoras is dead, and cannot defend himself and his offspring. It
is worth quoting one of the most striking passages in the dialogue at
length. Speaking of Protagoras, Socrates says to Theodorus:
But, my friend, it is not clear if we are running past what is right. For
it is likely that he, being older, is wiser than us. And if, for example,
he were to pop up right here, just up to the neck, after charging me
with saying a lot of nonsense and you with agreeing with me, he would,
as is likely, slip down and run off. But I suppose it is necessary for us
to make do ourselves, such as we are, and always say what we believe.
(171c10 – d5)That is, if there were some other standard to which they could appeal,
Socrates, Theaetetus, and Theodorus might be better able to say what
knowledge is—but there is no other standard. They show how it can-
not be simply the case that a human being is the measure of all things.
On the Protagorean hypothesis, the self-identity of beings is dissolved
in the fl ow of coming-to-be and passing-away. There is no thing that
subsists about which we could speak, nor anything we could say about it.
The fl owing ones have, “according to their own hypothesis, no words”
(183b3 – 4). When we say that a human being is the measure of all things,
we render ourselves unable to say anything at all.
Socrates and Theaetetus also show how it cannot be simply the
case that things have their own measures, to which knowledge must cor-
respond. To adequately address this issue would take so long as to do
away with the present discussion, but I take this to be the hypothesis un-
derlying the discussions of right opinion and right opinion with logos. In
both discussions, things are taken as being what they are independent
of their being known, and knowledge as right opinion (as opposed to
false opinion) would correspond to the correct belief or judgment about
those things.^39 Now, the fact that I opine or judge that such and such
is the case cannot determine the truth or falsity of my opinion.^40 Some
other standard must be brought to bear on my opinions. Knowledge is
supposed throughout these sections of the Theaetetus to be that which
would bridge the gap between this indeterminacy of opinion and the
world. But insofar as knowledge itself is being treated in terms of opin-
ion, that gap can never be closed. And this, I take it, is why Socrates and
Theaetetus are unable within this framework to say how false opinion is
impossible. For if there is no way to say how my opinions relate to that