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7 THE "HUMAN-MEASURE" FRAGMENT
- University of South Carolina Press
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7 THE "HUMAN-MEASURE" FRAGMENT The Greek text of the human-measure fragment is: Ilavnov XPTJI!UToov !!ETpov EOTLV avepoon:o~. TWV !!EV OVTOOV 00~ EOTLV' TWV (>£ OUK OVTOOV oo~ ouK EOTLV (DK 80 Bl). Given the fame of this doctrine and that it is widely quoted in virtually identical language, there is no reason to doubt it represents Protagoras' own words.1 The world view implicit in the human-measure fragment is substantially the same as that posited by the two fragments already analyzed. In Kahn's words, the human-measure fragment resonates with the ideas expressed in the two-logoi and stronger/weaker fragments, hence viewing the three fragments together amplifies an understanding of each. Of extant fragments by Older Sophists, perhaps none is as important and as difficult to interpret and understand as Protagoras' human-measure fragment. Modern commentators have described the statement as being the heart and soul of the sophistic movement, and one poet went so far as to say: "'Panton anthropos metron' 'Man is the measure of all things.' Twenty-five hundred years later we sometimes wonder whether Protagoras didn't after all summarize everything in just three words."2 The statement's ambiguity has allowed it to be all things to all people, and it has a legacy of multiple and contradictory interpretations. Both the brevity of the fragment and the lack of corroborative elaboration by Protagoras have led to controversies over its meaning.3 117 The Major Fragments of Protagoras RECONSIDERING THE STANDARD TRANSLATION The most common translation of the human-measure fragment is: "Of all things the measure is Man,4 of the things that are, that they are; and of the things that are not, that they are not." Rendering the humanmeasure fragment into English is a relatively simple task, but interpreting its doctrinal content is difficult. The first step is to ascertain the most likely meanings of the words in the fifth century. The second step is to identify possible novel usages and interpret them in light of probable conceptual antecedents. The difficulty with the words panton chrematon is similar to the problem of translating pragmata in the two-logoi fragment. The word chremata was common, and can be given a host of different meanings depending on context. The dominant sense of chremata is "things," though it can be used to indicate "goods" or "property" (concrete usage) and "matter" or "affair" (more abstract usage). "Things" is the best translation of the human-measure fragment because a generic meaning is indicated (since there are no other contextual clues), and because chrematon is preceded by panton (all, every, manifold), suggesting that Protagoras had in mind the widest possible range of objects. It is unclear whether Protagoras saw any difference between pragmata and chremata. Discussions of the human-measure fragment in Sextus, Plato, and Aristotle typically use chremata, though some paraphrases substitute pragmata (DK 80 A13, 14, 16). It may have been that Protagoras used the word chremata because it implied things that one uses or needs, such as goods or property, which derive their status as things from their relationship to humans.5 Significantly, such use of chremata can be found in Heraclitus, who generally used panta by itself to convey the notion of "all things."6 If panton were used here abstract-theoretically and chremata in the common and concrete sense of "things," then their juxtaposition in the statement may have been designed to underscore the breadth of "things" of which humans are the measure. On the other hand, it is possible that the choice of chremata over pragmata was based on acoustical, rather than semantic, criteria. Though it is not possible to know with precision the reasons for Protagoras' choice, it is sufficient to note that the construction panton chrematon clearly conveys the widest possible range of things as the subject of the statement. Untersteiner was not far off the mark when he translated both pragmata and chremata as "experiences."7 Metron is usually translated as "measure." In addition to the obvious 118 [3.80.144.110] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 07:01 GMT) The "Human-Measure" Fragment literal sense ot assessing quantity, "measure" can also refer to appropriate proportion or ordering. There are three uses of metron (or derivations ) in the fragments of Heraclitus, all of which equate measure with the balance and order of nature. One of them involves the regulation of opposites.8 Hence, Protagoras' claim that humans are the measure of all things is...