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Chapter XXXII.—Wherein Scepticism Differs From The Protagorean Doctrine
[216] Protagoras
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also holds that ‟Man is the measure of all things, of existing things that they exist, and of non-existing things that they exist not;” and by ‟measure” he means the criterion, and by ‟things” the objects, so that he is virtually asserting that ‟Man is the criterion of all objects, of those which exist that they exist, and of those which exist not that they exist not.” And consequently he posits only what appears to each individual, and thus he introduces relativity.
[217] And for this reason he seems also to have something in common with the Pyrrhoneans. Yet he differs from them, and we shall perceive the difference when we have adequately explained the views of Protagoras.
What he states then is this—that matter is in flux, and as it flows additions are made continuously in the place of the effluxions, and the senses are transformed and altered according to the times of life and to all the other conditions of the bodies.
[218] He says also that the ‟reasons” of all the appearances subsist in matter, so that matter, so far as depends on itself, is capable of being all those things which appear to all.
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And men, he says, apprehend different things at different times owing to their differing dispositions; for he who is in a natural state apprehends those things subsisting in matter which are able to appear to those in a natural state, and those who are in a non- natural state the things which can appear to those in a non-natural state.
[219] Moreover, precisely the same account applies to the variations due to age, and to the sleeping or waking state, and to each several kind of condition. Thus, according to him, Man becomes the criterion of real existences; for all things that appear to men also exist, and things that appear to no man have no existence either.
We see, then, that he dogmatizes about the fluidity of matter and also about the subsistence therein of the ‟reasons” of all appearances, these being non- evident matters about which we suspend judgement.
Pyrrhoniae Hypotyposes. Sextus Empiricus. Robert Gregg Bury (Translator). London. 1933.
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