Rachael Becker
PHIL – 1900
November 11, 2016
Tutorial #2: On Plato’s Theaetetus
Q1. The defense Protagoras gave provides us with a plausible alternative way of handling the
claim in Cratylus that if some people are wiser than others, than Protagoreanism is false. The
argument in the Theaetetus says that it is possible to have some people be wiser than others. The
argument states that, although people have different views on what is right and wrong, and to
each person their views are true, a wise person’s ideas may just be “better”, or more right,
(167a). The reason a person may have perceived his or her view wrongly is because that person
was forming a view on what he or she was immediately experiencing; and what one is
immediately experiencing is always true (167b). Although some views may be “better” than
others, that does not mean they are “truer”, because what someone is immediately experiencing
is always true to that person. For example, to a sick man the things he eats may appear and
actually be bitter; but to a healthy man they appear and are the opposite. That does not make one
man wiser than the other; it just means they judge differently and that one is “better” than the
other, and it is the wise man’s job to teach them the correct judgement. A wise man cannot teach
people that one’s experience is more true than another’s, but he can teach them that, although it
may seem unpleasant now, it can be viewed as pleasant to another person. In this way, some men
can be wiser than others because they know what is a better way of saying or going about things.
People have different states of mind that are true for themselves and their experiences. Pleasure
is one way to put this into perspective because it doesn’t deal with the future tense. Because of
this, people can identify their experiences and know what they’re experiencing. This is what
Socrates argues for Protagoras in the Theaetetus; helping to make Plato’s first premise against
constructivism inapt.
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Q2.
(1) When people think things are as they experience them, they think what is true and really is
for them.
(2) People can have different opinions on future experiences.
(3) Not every opinion is correct.
(4) People with authority, or knowledge, on a subject matter are more likely to be correct when
predicting future experiences.
(Conclusion) One man, who is “the measure”, can be wiser than another.
This argument allows Protagoras to be right in saying that one man can be wiser than
another. Although people experience things that are true for themselves, people can have
different opinions on these things. For example, a gymnast’s judgement on if an instrument is out
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