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Article: Protagoras visits the Darwinian planet.(Exploring the Foundations of Humanism)(Cover Story)
- Article from:
- The Humanist
- Article date:
- March 1, 1998
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1998 American Humanist Association. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Humans create their own reality Humans are the masters of the world. This, in a nutshell, is the message of the great anti-Socratic philosopher, Protagoras.
The underlying question here is whether humans invent reality or discover it. invent it, every bit, says Protagoras. This is a stupendous insight into the fact that the cultural world we inhabit is our own creation. Our minds have made all these wondrous things. We bring culture into being: art, religion, politics, ethics, philosophy -- even science. Angels and gods and monitored elections, spears and railroads and computers -- we invented them all.
But do we invent every single thing? Even the ...