name is a part of the true proposition?

HERMOGENES: Yes.

SOCRATES: Yes, and a true part, as you say.

HERMOGENES: Yes.

SOCRATES: And is not the part of a falsehood also a falsehood?

HERMOGENES: Yes.

SOCRATES: Then, if propositions may be true and false, names may be true
and false?

HERMOGENES: So we must infer.

SOCRATES: And the name of anything is that which any one affirms to be
the name?

HERMOGENES: Yes.

SOCRATES: And will there be so many names of each thing as everybody
says that there are? and will they be true names at the time of uttering
them?

HERMOGENES: Yes, Socrates, I can conceive no correctness of names other
than this; you give one name, and I another; and in different cities and
countries there are different names for the same things; Hellenes differ
from barbarians in their use of names, and the several Hellenic tribes
from one another.

SOCRATES: But would you say, Hermogenes, that the things differ as the
names differ? and are they relative to individuals, as Protagoras tells
us? For he says that man is the measure of all things, and that things
are to me as they appear to me, and that they are to you as they appear
to you. Do you agree with him, or would you say that things have a
permanent essence of their own?

HERMOGENES: There have been times, Socrates, when I have been driven in
my perplexity to take refuge with Protagoras; not that I agree with him
at all.

SOCRATES: What! have you ever been driven to admit that there was no
such thing as a bad man?

HERMOGENES: No, indeed; but I have often had reason to think that there
are very bad men, and a good many of them.

SOCRATES: Well, and have you ever found any very good ones?

HERMOGENES: Not many.

SOCRATES: Still you have found them?

HERMOGENES: Yes.

SOCRATES: And would you hold that the very good were the very wise, and
the very evil very foolish? Would that be your view?

HERMOGENES: It would.

SOCRATES: But if Protagoras is right, and the truth is that things are
as they appear to any one, how can some of us be wise and some of us
foolish?

HERMOGENES: Impossible.

SOCRATES: And if, on the other hand, wisdom and folly are really
distinguishable, you will allow, I think, that the assertion of
Protagoras can hardly be correct. For if what appears to each man is
true to him, one man cannot in reality be wiser than another.

HERMOGENES: He cannot.

SOCRATES: Nor will you be disposed to say with Eu