I'm not sure how much a devout Protagorean would be moved by Socrates's (a)-related arguments. Perhaps one could simply bite the bullet and say that we never know things about the future.
Small note: is it weird to classify alteration as motion (181d)? Doesn't Aristotle claim that other alterations reduce in some sense to motion?
Sorry for the scattered post. Happy reading!
Thanks for posting, Nate. Just one more question: at 182a, Socrates says that the active factor in perception is a quality, but "perhaps 'quality' seems a strange world to you [Theodorus]; perhaps you don't quite understand it as a general expression." I wonder what sort of ambiguity or confusion Socrates anticipates in Theodorus here. Is the problem about distinguishing qualities from objects? Or is it a problem about what the object of perception is: a quality as opposed to the thing itself? I'm sure there are a dozen other options as well.
ReplyDeleteColfert: Thanks for commenting! My original post is a real mess.
ReplyDeleteI imagine you're aware of this already, but Burnyeat/Levett leave us a footnote (in my edition at least) that _poiotês_ there is the first instance of that word in Greek. So one part of Socrates's anticipation is probably just Plato's acknowledgement that there's a neologism there.
Of course, that leaves very much open the philosophical question of what _Socrates_ anticipates _Theodorus_ doesn't know (as opposed to what Plato anticipates his readers won't recognize). I'm inclined to take your suggestion that this involves a distinction between qualities and objects. What is supposed to be controversial or unfamiliar is that the active factor is "such-and-such" but not therefore a _property_, not a thing that would be appropriate to pick out with a noun. Or is the question one of bearing vs. being a certain kind of property?