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    Carmelics

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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
    Statements
    321,452
    Perspectives
    108,905
    Topics
    42
    Home/Original/inverse
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    Inverse View

    It is not the case that If Protagoras genuinely believes in relativism, arguing for relativism is incoherent

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    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.Arguing for a position presupposes that the position has cross-framework persuasive force
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    • 2.Relativism denies that any position has cross-framework persuasive force
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    • 3.Therefore arguing for relativism is self-undermining
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Protagoras's own reported self-refutation argument (Plato's Theaetetus 171a) shows relativism entails the truth of its own falsity for non-believers.
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    • 2.A position that entails its own falsity from within its own framework cannot be coherently asserted as true even by its proponent.
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    • 3.Genuine belief in relativism therefore commits Protagoras to simultaneously holding that relativism is false for those who find it unpersuasive, undermining his act of arguing.
      ?

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    Reason against 2 of 2
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    • 1.Performative contradiction, as analyzed by Habermas in 'The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity', occurs when an utterance's content contradicts the pragmatic presuppositions of making that utterance.
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    • 2.Arguing for relativism pragmatically presupposes a framework-transcendent norm of rational persuasion that relativism's content explicitly denies.
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    • 3.Protagoras's advocacy thus instantiates the performative self-refutation Burnyeat identifies as fatal to the homo-mensura doctrine.
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