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For other uses, see Protagoras (disambiguation).
Salvator Rosa - Démocrite et Protagoras.jpg
Democritus (center) and Protagoras (right)
17th-century painting by Salvator Rosa
in Hermitage Museum
Born c. 490 BC[1]
Died c. 420 BC
Era Pre-Socratic philosophy
Region Western Philosophy
School Sophism
Main interests
language, semantics, relativism, rhetoric, agnosticism, ethics
Notable ideas




Protagoras was born in Abdera, Thrace, opposite the island of Thasos (today part of the Xanthi regional unit). According to Aulus Gellius, he originally made his living as a porter, but one day he was seen by the philosopher Democritus carrying a load of small pieces of wood he had tied with a short cord. Democritus realized that Protagoras had tied the load together with such perfect geometric accuracy that he must be a mathematical prodigy. Democritus promptly took him into his own household and taught him philosophy.[2] Protagoras became well known in Athens and even became a friend of Pericles.[3]

The dates of his lifetime are not recorded, but extrapolated from writings that have survived the ages. In Protagoras Plato wrote that, before a gathering of Socrates, Prodicus, and Hippias, Protagoras stated that he was old enough to be the father of any of them. This suggests a birth date of not later than 490 BC. In the Meno he is said to have died at approximately the age of 70, after 40 years as a practicing Sophist.[4] His death, then, may be presumed to have occurred circa 420 BC, but is not known for certain, since assumptions about it are based on an apparently fake story about his trial for impiety in Athens.[5]

Plutarch wrote that Pericles and Protagoras spent a whole day discussing an interesting point of legal responsibility, that probably involved a more philosophical question of causation:[6] "In an athletic contest a man had been accidentally hit and killed with a javelin. Was his death to be attributed to the javelin, to the man who threw it, or to the authorities responsible for the conduct of the games?"[7]




He also seems to have had an interest in "orthoepeia"—the correct use of words—although this topic is more strongly associated with his fellow sophist Prodicus. In his eponymous Platonic dialogue, Protagoras interprets a poem by Simonides, focusing on the use of words, their literal meaning, and the author's original intent. This type of education would have been useful for the interpretation of laws and other written documents in the Athenian courts.[9] Diogenes Laërtius reports that Protagoras devised a taxonomy of speech acts such as assertion, question, answer, command, etc. Aristotle also says that Protagoras worked on the classification and proper use of grammatical gender.[10]

The titles of his books such as, Technique of Eristics (Technē Eristikōn, literally "Practice of Wranglings", with wrestling used as a metaphor for intellectual debate) prove that Protagoras also was a teacher of rhetoric and argumentation. Diogenes Laërtius states that he was one of the first to take part in rhetorical contests in the Olympic games.[10]


Protagoras also said that on any matter, there are two arguments (logoi) opposed to one another, and according to Aristotle, Protagoras was criticized for having claimed "to make the weaker argument stronger (ton hēttō logon kreittō poiein)".[10]


As with many fragments of the pre-Socratic philosophers, this phrase has been passed down through the ages, without any context, and consequently, its meaning is open to interpretation. His use of the word χρήματα (chrēmata, "things used") instead of the general word ὄντα (onta, "entities") signifies, however, that Protagoras was referring to things that are used by, or in some way, related to, humans, such as properties, social entities, ideas, feelings, judgments, which originate in the human mind. Protagoras did not suggest that humans must be the measure of the motion of the stars, the growing of plants, or the activity of volcanoes.

As many modern thinkers will, Plato ascribes relativism to Protagoras and uses his predecessor's teachings as a foil for his own commitment to objective and transcendent realities and values. Plato ascribes to Protagoras an early form of what today, John Wild would label, phenomenalism.[14] That being an assertion that something that is, or appears for a single individual, is true or real for that individual.


Both Plato and Aristotle argue against some of Protagoras's claims regarding relativity; however, they argue that the concept provides Protagoras with too convenient an exemption from his own theory and that relativism is true for him yet false for those who do not believe it. They claim that by asserting that truth is relative, Protagoras then could say that whatever further theory he proposed must be true.[15]




The classicist John Burnet doubts this account, however, as both Diogenes Laërtius and Cicero wrote hundreds of years later and as no such persecution of Protagoras is mentioned by contemporaries who make extensive references to this philosopher.[20] Burnet notes that even if some copies of the Protagoras books were burned, enough of them survived to be known and discussed in the following century. A claim has been made that Protagoras is better classified as an atheist, since he held that if something is not able to be known it does not exist.[21]

Spectrum of topics[edit]


See also[edit]


  2. ^ Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticae 5.3.
  4. ^ Plato, Meno, 91e
  5. ^ Filonik, Jakub (2013). "Athenian impiety trials: a reappraisal". Dike (16): 36–39. doi:10.13130/1128-8221/4290. 
  6. ^ Guthrie, p. 263.
  7. ^ Plutarch, Life of Pericles
  8. ^ Plato, Protagoras, (319a)
  12. ^ Bostock, D (1988). Plato's Theaetetus. Oxford. 
  13. ^ This quotation is restated in Plato's Theaetetus at 152a. Sextus Empiricus gives a direct quotation in Adv. math. 7.60: πάντων χρημάτων μέτρον ἐστὶν ἄνθρωπος, τῶν μὲν ὄντων ὡς ἔστιν, τῶν δὲ οὐκ ὄντων ὡς οὐκ ἔστιν. The translation, "Man is the measure..." has been familiar in English since before the rise of gender-neutral language. In traditional English usage, man referred to hominids. Similarly, in Ancient Greek, Protagoras used the Greek word anthrōpos (human being, person), making a general statement about human beings.
  17. ^ DK 80B4.
  19. ^ Cicero, de Natura Deorum, 1.23.6
  21. ^ Tim Whitmarsh, Battling the Gods, Alfred A. Knopf, 2015, pp.88-89


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