Overview
Protagoras (c. 490–c. 420 BCE) was the most famous Greek Sophist, a traveling teacher of virtue and civic speech from Abdera. Plato’s Protagoras and Theaetetus dramatize his relativism and educational claims. Tradition says he was charged with impiety in Athens; details are uncertain. Handbook dates are approximate for the fifth century BCE. He helped make paid higher education a public issue.
Main ideas
“Man is the measure of all things” asserts that appearances are true for the perceiver—sparking debates on relativism about truth. Virtue (excellence) is teachable through training in logos and civic practice. Opposed arguments (dissoi logoi) can be developed on every issue; the weaker can be made stronger—raising ethical alarms. Gods’ existence is opaque; theological agnosticism fits human measure. Rhetoric and political techne are central to democratic life. Education promises success in the polis for a fee.
Major works
- Truth (fragments)
- On the Gods (fragments)
- Reported in Plato’s Protagoras
- Reported in Plato’s Theaetetus
Legacy
Protagoras remains the emblem of sophistic relativism and of democratic education’s promises and risks. Epistemology textbooks still open with man-the-measure. Rehabilitation of the Sophists in modern scholarship starts with him.