Relativization and Explanation: Two Responses to the Compresence of Opposites

This paper describes two ways in which Plato addresses the compresence of opposites in appearances and shows how his treatment of the phenomenon is a response to Protagoras: (1) by relativizing the opposites so as to avoid making the contradictory claims that the same thing is characterized by F and not-F, and (2) by seeking the cause of the conflicting phenomena. Relativization, a rational strategy for avoiding contradiction which Plato inherits from Protagoras, enables the user to avoid refutation in a dialectical encounter, though Plato thinks (like Heraclitus and Democritus) that knowledge requires explaining, rather than only resolving, the contradictions that arise from compresent opposition. But the metaphysics that would explain unlimited relativization is a metaphysics of relative-coming-to-be that, even though it guarantees infallibility of and contact with reality for each perceiver, ends in the impossibility of knowledge. For Plato, knowledge requires relativization limited by, and in the service of, explanation.