(including also Gorgias, Hippias, and Prodicus) collectively known as
the Older Sophists, a group of traveling teachers or intellectuals who
were experts in rhetoric (the science of oratory) and related
subjects. Protagoras is known primarily for three claims (1) that man
is the measure of all things (which is often interpreted as a sort of
radical relativism) (2) that he could make the "worse (or weaker)
argument appear the better (or stronger)" and (3) that one could not
tell if the gods existed or not. While some ancient sources claim that
these positions led to his having been tried for impiety in Athens and
his books burned, these stories may well have been later legends.
Protagoras' notion that judgments and knowledge are in some way
relative to the person judging or knowing has been very influential,
and is still widely discussed in contemporary philosophy.
1. Life
Surprising little is known of Protagoras' life with any certainty. Our
main sources of information concerning Protagoras are:
1. Plato (427-347 BCE): Protagoras is a leading character in
Plato's dialogue Protagoras and Protagoras' doctrines are discussed
extensively in Plato's Theaetetus. Plato's dialogues, however, are a
mixture of historical account and artistic license, much in the manner
of the comic plays of the period. Moreover, Protagoras died when Plato
was quite young and Plato may have depended on not entirely reliable
second-hand evidence for his understanding of Protagoras.
2. Diogenes Laertius (third century CE): Diogenes' Lives of the
Philosophers is probably our single most extensive source for many
early Greek philosophers' works and biographies. Unfortunately, his
work was compiled over six hundred years after Protagoras' death and
is an uncritical compilation of materials from a wide variety of
sources, some reliable, some not, and many hopelessly garbled
3. Sextus Empiricus (fl. late 2nd century CE): Sextus Empiricus was
a skeptic of the Pyrrhonian school. Sextus wrote several books
criticizing the dogmatists (non-skeptics). His treatment of Protagoras
is somewhat favorable, but since his purpose is to prove the
superiority of Pyrrhonism to all other philosophies,we cannot trust
him to be "objective" in a modern sense; moreover, like Diogenes, he
wrote several hundred years after Protagoras' death and may not have
had completely reliable sources.
The first step in understanding Protagoras is to define the general
category of "sophist," a term often applied to Protagoras in
antiquity. In the fifth century, the term referred mainly to people
who were known for their knowledge (e.g. Socrates, the seven sages)
and those who earned money by teaching advanced pupils (e.g.
Protagoras, Prodicus) and seemed to be a somewhat neutral term,
although sometimes used with pejorative overtones by those who
disapproved of the new ideas of the so-called "Sophistic
Enlightenment". By the fourth century the term becomes more
specialized, limited to those who taught rhetoric, specifically the
ability to speak in assemblies or law courts. Because sophistic skills
could promote injustice (demagoguery in assemblies, winning unjust
lawsuits) as well as justice (persuading the polis to act correctly,
allowing the underprivileged to win justice for themselves), the term
"sophist" gradually acquired the negative connotation of cleverness
not restrained by ethics. Conventionally, the term "Older Sophist" is
restricted to a small number of figures known from the Platonic
dialogues (Protagoras, Gorgias, Prodicus, Hippias, Euthydemus,
Thrasymachus and sometimes others). Whether these figures actually had
some common body of doctrines is uncertain. At times scholars have
tended to lump them together in a group, and attribute to them all a
combination of religious skepticism, skill in argument,
epistemological and moral relativism, and a certain degree of
intellectual unscrupulousness. These characteristics, though, were
probably more typical of their fourth century followers than of the
Older Sophists themselves, who tended to agree with and follow
generally accepted moral codes, even while their more abstract
speculations undermined the epistemological foundations of traditional
morality.
When we separate Protagoras from general portraits of "sophistic", as
most scholars (e.g. the ones listed below in the bibliography)
recommend, our information about him is relatively sparse. He was born
in approximately 490 B. C. E. in the town of Abdera in Thrace and died
c. 420 B. C. E. (place unknown). He traveled around Greece earning his
living primarily as a teacher and perhaps advisor and lived in Athens
for several years, where he associated with Pericles and other rich
and influential Athenians. Pericles invited him to write the
constitution for the newly founded Athenian colony of Thurii in 444 B.
C. E. Many later legends developed around the life of Protagoras which
are probably false, including stories concerning his having studied
with Democritus, his trial for impiety, the burning of his books, and
his flight from Athens.
2. Career
If our knowledge of Protagoras' life is sparse, our knowledge of his
career is vague. Protagoras was probably the first Greek to earn money
in higher education and he was notorious for the extremely high fees
he charged. His teaching included such general areas as public
speaking, criticism of poetry, citizenship, and grammar. His teaching
methods seemed to consist primarily of lectures, including model
orations, analyses of poems, discussions of the meanings and correct
uses of words, and general rules of oratory. His audience consisted
mainly of wealthy men, from Athens' social and commercial elites. The
reason for his popularity among this class had to do with specific
characteristics of the Athenian legal system.
Athens was an extremely litigious society. Not only were various
political and personal rivalries normally carried forward by lawsuits,
but one special sort of taxation, know as "liturgies" could result in
a procedure known as an "antidosis" (exchange). A liturgy was a public
expense (such as providinga ship for the navy or supporting a
religious festival) assigned to one of the richest men of the
community. If a man thought he had been assigned the liturgy unfairly,
because there was a richer man able to undertake it, he could bring a
lawsuit either to exchange his property with the other man's or to
shift the burden of the liturgy to the richer man. Since Athenians had
to represent themselves in court rather than hiring lawyers, it was
essential that rich men learn to speak well in order to defend their
property; if they could not do so, they would be at the mercy of
anyone who wanted to extort money from them. While this made the
teachings of Protagoras extremely valuable, it also led a certain
conservative faction (e.g. the comic playwright Aristophanes) to
distrust him, in the same way that people now might distrust a slick
lawyer.
3. Doctrines
Protagoras' doctrines can be divided into three groups:
1. Orthoepeia: the study of the correct use of words
2. Man-measure statement: the notion that knowledge is relative to the knower
3. Agnosticism: the claim that we cannot know anything about the gods
a. Orthoepeia
Perhaps because the practical side of his teaching was concerned with
helping students learn to speak well in the courtroom, Protagoras was
interested in "orthoepeia" (the correct use of words). Later sources
describe him as one of the first to write on grammar (in the modern
sense of syntax) and he seems interested in the correct meaning of
words, a specialty often associated with another sophist, Prodicus, as
well. In the Protagoras, the Platonic dialogue named after the famous
sophist which has both Protagoras and Prodicus as participants,
Protagoras is shown interpreting a poem of Simonides, with special
concern for the issue of the relationship between the writer's intent
and the literal meanings of the words. This method of interpretation
was one which would be especially useful in interpreting laws and
other written witnesses (contracts, wills, etc.) in the courtroom.
Unfortunately, we don't have any actual writings by Protagoras on the
topic.
b. Man-Measure Statement
Of the book titles we have attributed to Protagoras, only two, "Truth"
(or "Refutations") and "On the Gods" are probably accurate. Of
Protagoras' works, only a few brief quotations embedded in the works
of later authors have survived. (The quotations of and reports about
Protagoras below are referred to by their 'Diels-Kranz,' or 'DK'
number, the usual way of referring to such fragments and testimonia.
The Diels-Kranz numbering system is explained here.) Of Protagoras'
ipsissima verba (actual words, as opposed to paraphrases), the most
famous is the homo-mensura (man-measure) statement (DK80b1): "Of all
things the measure is man, of the things that are, that [or "how"]
they are, and of things that are not, that [or "how"] they are not."
This precise meaning of this statement, like that of any short extract
taken out of context, is far from obvious, although the long
discussion of it in Plato's Theaetetus gives us some sense of how
ancient Greek audiences interpreted it. The test case normally used is
temperature. If Ms. X. says "it is hot," then the statement (unless
she is lying) is true for her. Another person, Ms. Y, may
simultaneously claim "it is cold." This statement could also be true
for her. If Ms. X normally lives in Alaska and Ms. Y in Florida, the
same temperature (e. g. 25 Celsius) may seem hot to one and cool to
the other. The measure of hotness or coldness is fairly obviously the
individual person. One cannot legitimately tell Ms. X she does not
feel hot — she is the only person who can accurately report her own
perceptions or sensations. In this case, it is indeed impossible to
contradict as Protagoras is held to have said (DK80a19). But what if
Ms. Y, in claiming it feels cold, suggests that unless the heat is
turned on the pipes will freeze? One might suspect that she has a
fever and her judgment is unreliable; the measure may still be the
individual person, but it is an unreliable one, like a broken ruler or
unbalanced scale. In a modern scientific culture, with a predilection
for scientific solutions, we would think of consulting a thermometer
to determine the objective truth. The Greek response was to look at
the more profound philosophical implications.
Even if the case of whether the pipes will freeze can be solved
trivially, the problem of it being simultaneously hot and cold to two
women remains interesting. If this cannot be resolved by determining
that one has a fever, we are presented with evidence that judgments
about qualities are subjective. If this is the case though, it has
alarming consequences. Abstractions like truth, beauty, justice, and
virtue are also qualities and it would seem that Protagoras' dictum
would lead us to conclude that they too are relative to the individual
observer, a conclusion which many conservative Athenians found
alarming because of its potential social consequences. If good and bad
are merely what seem good and bad to the individual observer, then how
can one claim that stealing or adultery or impiety or murder are
somehow wrong? Moreover, if something can seem both hot and cold (or
good and bad) then both claims, that the thing is hot and that the
thing is cold, can be argued for equally well. If adultery is both
good and bad (good for one person and bad for another), then one can
construct equally valid arguments for and against adultery in general
or an individual adulterer. What will make a case triumph in court is
not some inherent worth of one side, but the persuasive artistry of
the orator. And so, Protagoras claims he is able to "make the worse
case the better" (DK80b6). The oratorical skills Protagoras taught
thus had potential for promoting what most Athenians considered
injustice or immorality.
c. Agnosticism
While the pious might wish to look to the gods to provide absolute
moral guidance in the relativistic universe of the Sophistic
Enlightenment, that certainty also was cast into doubt by philosophic
and sophistic thinkers, who pointed out the absurdity and immorality
of the conventional epic accounts of the gods. Protagoras' prose
treatise about the gods began "Concerning the gods, I have no means of
knowing whether they exist or not or of what sort they may be. Many
things prevent knowledge including the obscurity of the subject and
the brevity of human life." (DK80b4)
4. Social Consequences and Immediate Followers
As a consequence of Protagoras' agnosticism and relativism, he may
have considered that laws (legislative and judicial) were things which
evolved gradually by agreement (brought about by debate in democratic
assemblies) and thus could be changed by further debate. This position
would imply that there was a difference between the laws of nature and
the customs of humans. Although Protagoras himself seemed to respect,
and even revere the customs of human justice (as a great achievement),
some of the younger followers of Protagoras and the other Older
Sophists concluded that the arbitrary nature of human laws and customs
implies that they can be ignored at will, a position that was held to
be one of the causes of the notorious amorality of such figures as
Alcibiades.
Protagoras himself was a fairly traditional and upright moralist. He
may have viewed his form of relativism as essentially democratic —
allowing people to revise unjust or obsolete laws, defend themselves
in court, free themselves from false certainties — but he may equally
well have considered rhetoric a way in which the elite could counter
the tendencies towards mass rule in the assemblies. Our evidence on
this matter is unfortunately minimal.
The consequences of the radical skepticism of the sophistic
enlightenment appeared, at least to Plato and Aristophanes, among
others, as far from benign. In Aristophanes' play, the Clouds, a
teacher of rhetoric (called Socrates, but with doctrines based to a
great degree on those of the Sophists, and possibly directed
specifically at Protagoras or his followers) teaches that the gods
don't exist, moral values are not fixed, and how to make the weaker
argument appear the stronger. The result is moral chaos — the main
characters (Strepsiades and his son Pheidippides) in Clouds are
portrayed as learning clever tricks to enable them to cheat their
creditors and eventually abandoning all sense of conventional morality
(illustrated by Pheidippides beating his father on stage and
threatening to beat his mother). Although no one accused Protagoras
himself of being anything other than honest — even Plato, who
disapproved of his philosophical positions, portrays him as generous,
courteous, and upright — his techniques were adopted by various
unscrupulous characters in the following generation, giving sophistry
the bad name it still has for clever (but fallacious) verbal trickery.
5. Influence
Protagoras' influence on the history of philosophy has been
significant. Historically, it was in response to Protagoras and his
fellow sophists that Plato began the search for transcendent forms or
knowledge which could somehow anchor moral judgment. Along with the
other Older Sophists and Socrates, Protagoras was part of a shift in
philosophical focus from the earlier Presocratic tradition of natural
philosophy to an interest in human philosophy. He emphasized how human
subjectivity determines the way we understand, or even construct, our
world, a position which is still an essential part of the modern
philosophic tradition.
6. References and Further Reading
a. Primary sources
* Aristophanes. Clouds. Intro. and trans. by Carol Poster. In
Aristophanes 3, ed. David Slavitt and Palmer Bovie. Philadelphia PA:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999: 85-192.
* Diels, Hermann. Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker. Rev. Walther
Kranz. Berlin: Weidmann, 1972-1973.
* Diogenes Laertius. Lives Of Eminent Philosophers. Trans. R. D.
Hicks. 2 vols. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1959.
* Plato. Plato II: Laches, Protagoras, Meno, Euthydemus. Trans. W.
R. M. Lamb. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1967.
* —. Plato VII: Theaetetus, Sophist. Trans. H. N. Fowler.
Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1925.
* Sextus Empiricus. Sextus Empiricus. Trans. R. G. Bury. 4 vols.
Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1953-59.
* Sprague, Rosamund Kent, ed. The Older Sophists: A Complete
Translation by Several Hands. Columbia SC: University of South
Carolina Press, 1972.
b. Secondary sources
* Guthrie, W. K. C. The Sophists. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1971
* de Romilly, Jaqueline. The Great Sophists In Periclean Athens.
Trans. Janet Lloyd. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1992.
* Kennedy, George. The Art Of Persuasion In Greece. Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1963.
* Kerferd, G. B. The Sophistic Movement. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1981.
* Rankin, H. D. Sophists, Socratics & Cynics. London: Croom Helm, 1983.
* Schiappa, Edward. Protagoras and Logos. Columbia SC: University.
of South Carolina Press 1991.
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