Title: What is the most viable solution to the mind-body problem?
Abstract: In the Theaetetus Socrates asks the question 'what is knowledge (episteme)?'. A large part of the dialogue is devoted to the first definition: knowledge is perception (aisthesis). Immediately after Theaetetus proposes this definition, Socrates argues that Protagoras' famous measure doctrine (man is the measure of all things) says the same thing in a different way, and the ensuing discussion is primarily an inquiry into Protagoras' doctrine. Socrates introduces the so-called 'Secret Doctrine', allegedly an esoteric Protagorean doctrine supposed to reveal the truth behind the measure doctrine. A prominent component of the Secret Doctrine is what we might call a 'flux doctrine': nothing ever is, but everything is always coming to be. Scholars have struggled to understand the precise nature of the flux doctrine and the way it is supposed to underpin the measure doctrine. In the talk I shall explore some of the exegetical and philosophical difficulties one encounters when attempting to answer these questions and I shall share some tentative answers.
