Protagoras

Translate the Protagoras quote below. You can add and reword previous posts. Eventually we should have an in depth paragraph that fully breaks down both sentences into their philosophical meaning and implications.

1. "Of all things the measure is Man, of the things that are, that they are, and of the things that are not, that they are not." What Protagoras is saying is that objects do not have any intrinsic value or essence, that is based on the human using it. Fire for example can be used to warm and cook food, or it can be used to burn down villages. What this also means is that there is no absolute good or evil, because the individual decides what is good or evil for himself or herself. A lot of people see poison as evil, but to someone who wants to die it is one of the greatest goods. Ultimately, we decide for ourselves what is good and bad.

People ultimately gives value to what they observe. Observable reality is all relative and each person views an object differently from others.

Protagoras is stating that what it is, is. That judging by appearance, what we see is what we get. Different people might see or think differently about the same object but what it is to you or what it isn't to you, is mearsured by "man" (ourselvles). -So Jeong Kim

2. "About the gods, I am unable to know whether they exist, nor what theya re like in form; for the factors preventing knowledge are many: the obscurity of the subject, and the shortness of human life."\ I dunno, maybe there are gods maybe there aren't.

He is saying it is impossible to know if gods exist, how they appear/look because the subject is very unique. People trust in the gods alot, and to change people's view is dangerous. Also, life is to short to discover whether or not they exist because in the end, it really doesn't matter if they do.

It's impossible to find out if there are gods because there are no means to find out.

There's no way to determine if there's absolute truth, so there's no reason to even discuss it. -Jonathan Safron