Plato's Concept Of Epistemology

Epistemology is defined as the section of philosophy that deals with the origin, nature, and limits of knowledge. The philosophy of knowledge is often classified as one of the main problems studied by philosophers, as well as logic, metaphysics and axiology. Epistemology asks, “How do we know?”, “What is truth” and “What do our terms really mean”.

In order to grasp a firm concept of the epistemological significance to Protagoras’ theory, I believe that it is vital that we first understand a general introduction of Plato’s perception on the subject of epistemology. Theaetetus, which dates from about 369 BC , is often considered Plato’s greatest work on epistemology, if not his greatest work on everything. Located at the gates of Megara, we

Socrates criticises Protagoras in the Theaetetus that “You admit you earn money teaching, but I cannot imagine what you could possibly teach anyone. After all, you admit that each person’s opinion is as good as anyone else’s. This means that what your students believe is as good as anything you could possibly teach them. Once they learn that each person is the measure of all things, what possible reason would they have to pay you for any further lessons? How can you possibly teach them anything once they learn that their opinions are as true as yours?” I find this fascinating as I remark how Protagoras’ ‘man is the measure of all things’ implies that no one is wiser than anyone else as each individual experiences their own truth. I agree with Plato’s rejection on this basis as this argument clearly attacks the theory that the opinion or judgement formed on the basis of perception is denoted as

Such examples include cases of sense-perception without knowing , knowing without sense-perception , knowing and not-knowing and sense-perceiving in some way without knowing in that way I find these examples clearly understandable, and correct as they juxtapose the conditions of Protagoras’ theory. If perception is knowledge, then should an individual perceive a language, then they should have knowledge and comprehend it, which is obviously false. The next case implies that with regards to memory and perception, recollection of things is classified as knowing them, yet not perceiving them. I find the ‘covered eye’ response most fascinating as I take into account the co-existence of knowing and not knowing. Should one eye be closed and one open, then the individual can both perceive and not perceive at the same time, leading to a contradiction. The seventh case highlights how an individual can perceive clearly and unclearly, but such adverbial peculiarities do not apply to the forms of knowing. ***

Another contradiction to Protagoreanism may be represented by the peritropê or table-turning objection. If we assume that ‘all beliefs are true’, a consequence of Protagoras’ ‘man is the measure of all things’, we must also admit that there exists a belief such that ‘not all beliefs are true’. I agree that we can deduce that, if all beliefs are true, then the belief