Note 27 — Chapter XXXI · KRATYLUS.
Reading edition
To show how constantly this Protagorean dictum is misconceived, as if Protagoras had said that things were to each individual what he was pleased or chose to represent them as being, I transcribe the following passage from Lassalle’s elaborate work on Herakleitus (vol. ii. p. 381):— “Des Protagoras Prinzip ist es, dass überhaupt Nichts Objektives ist; dass vielmehr alles Beliebige was Einem scheint, auch für ihn sei. Dies Selbstsetzen des Subjekts ist die einzige Wahrheit der Dinge, welche an sich selbst Nichts Objektives haben, sondern zur gleichgültigen Fläche geworden sind, auf die das Subjekt willkührlich und beliebig seine Charaktere schreibt.”
Protagoras does not (as is here asserted) deny the Objective: he only insists on looking at it in conjunction with, or measured by, some Subject; and that Subject, not simply as desiring or preferring, but clothed in all its attributes.