Protagoras

Also known as Protagoras of Abdera

Protagoras ( ; ; ) was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher and rhetorical theorist. He is numbered as one of the sophists by Plato. In his dialogue Protagoras, Plato credits him with inventing the role of the professional sophist.

AI overview

Protagoras was an ancient Greek philosopher and teacher of rhetoric who lived before Socrates and is credited by Plato with being the first professional sophist—someone who taught persuasive speaking and argumentation for a fee. He matters historically because he represents an important early approach to philosophy and education that influenced how Greeks thought about language, reasoning, and knowledge.

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Person · Open Library

Born: 5th cent. BC
Works: 3

Top works

La parole de Protagoras
Dissoi Logoi - Textos Relativistas
Protagora
Protágoras de Abdera. Dissoi Logoi

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Listeners: 4
Total plays: 6

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Recent publications · Crossref

5 total works indexed

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Quotes

“Πάντων χρημάτων μέτρον ἄνθρωπον εἶναι, τῶν μὲν ὄντων, ὡς ἔστι, τῶν δὲ μὴ ὄντων, ὡς οὐκ ἔστιν.”
“Δύο λόγους εἶναι περὶ παντὸς πράγματος.”
“Περὶ μὲν θεῶν οὐκ ἔχω εἰδέναι οὔθ᾽ ὡς εἰσίν, οὔθ᾽ ὡς οὐκ εἰσίν· πολλὰ γὰρ τὰ κωλύοντα εἰδέναι, ἥ τ᾿ ἀδηλότης καὶ βραχὺς ὢν ὁ βίος τοῦ ἀνθρώπου.”
“When they [the Athenians] meet for a consultation on civic art, where they should be guided throughout by justice and good sense, they naturally allow advice from everybody, since it is held that everyone should partake of this excellence, or else that states cannot be.”
“You, Socrates, began by saying that virtue can't be taught, and now you are insisting on the opposite, trying to show that all things are knowledge, justice, soundness of mind, even courage, from which it would follow that virtue most certainly can be taught.”

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Key facts

Philosopher.region: Western philosophy
Philosopher.era: Pre-Socratic philosophy
Philosopher.image: 250px
Philosopher.caption: Protagoras by Jusepe de Ribera, 1637
Philosopher.name: Protagoras
Philosopher.birth_place: Abdera
Philosopher.death_date: (aged c. 70)
Philosopher.school_tradition: Sophism
Philosopher.main_interests: Language, semantics, rhetoric, agnosticism, ethics
Philosopher.notable_ideas: RelativismThe "man measure" thesis

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Wikidata facts

Place of birth: Ancient Abdera
Image: Salvator Rosa - Démocrite et Protagoras.jpg

Show 5 more facts

date of birth: 0490-00-00
date of death: 0420-00-00
Commons category: Protagoras
P8168: Forbidden Passions
significant place: Ancient Abdera

Sources (3)

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~12 min read

Article

9 sections

Contents

Biography
Philosophy
Relativism
Agnosticism
Spectrum of topics
See also
Notes
References
External links

Protagoras is also believed to have created a major controversy during ancient times through his statement that "Of all things the measure is Man, of the things that are, that they are, and of the things that are not, that they are not" which was usually rendered simply as "Man is the measure of all things", interpreted (possibly wrongly, since he disagreed) by Plato to mean that there is no objective truth; Protagoras seems to have meant that each person's own personal history, experiences and expectations, developed over their lifetime, determine their judgments, opinions, and statements regarding "truth" (which is the title of the book in which Protagoras made this statement). When a person makes a judgment about a certain thing—good or bad or beautiful or unjust—that person will differ from other people's judgments because their experience has been different.