ABSTRACT
Impressed with how differently people from different cultures live and even think, the ancient Greek Sophists argued that what a given person takes to be true is really nothing more than a convention of his or her community. And since there is no independent, neutral vantage point from which to adjudicate such contradictory claims, it must be concluded that all truth is relative, that man is the measure of all things-just as Protagoras said. Neither Socrates, nor Plato, nor Aristotle found the argument compelling, and in their efforts to achieve knowledge of what is was born a project that within a few thousand years would grow into that of the exact sciences. The finest fruits of these sciences are the same not just for human beings but for all rational beings.
