Protagoras

A lawyer and so-called “sophist” was Protagoras, the son of Artemon or Meandrides or Neandrius. He was not an aristocrat like most of the important scientists and philosophers in ancient Greece but a poor worker from a poor family in Abdera. Protagoras “The Wisdom” was born between 485-480 BC in Abdera. Democritus “discovered” this “philosopher” while Protagoras was transporting wood with his donkey. Democritus considered that he worked very effectively and considered him to be intelligent and so he asked him to visit his school of philosophy.

Protagoras learned very fast and soon he was a famous rhetoric speaker. Protagoras was the teacher of Isocrates, Prodicus of Ceos and others. Euagoras, had to pay 1000 minae to his teacher Protagoras. Euagoras agreed to pay Protagoras the first part of 500 minae, as he did, and to pay the remaining 500 minae when he will earn this money as salary for his first successfully case as a lawyer in the court. But Euagoras was not interested to work. Protagoras asked the court to consider this case and he assumed that the result will be in his favor:

Because if you Euagoras win the case in the court then you have to pay the remaining 500 minae as we agreed and if not then because the court decided so.

But Protagoras underestimates his student and the success of his teaching because Euagoras replied that he will not pay the remaining 500 minae:

Because if I am successful in the court then I will not pay because the court decided so and if I am not successful I do not have to pay because we agreed so.

Protagoras is an agnostiker saying that: Concerning the gods, whether they exist or not, I do not know, because of the difficulty of the topic and the shortness of human life. The Athenians were angry with this statement and they wanted Protagoras to share the same fate as Socrates.Timon of Phlius the poet (and philosopher) wrote a short poem about Protagoras describing how the Athenians tried to burn his books. But Protagoras who was around 70, the same age as Socrates when he was sentenced to death, escaped and avoided the punishment. He died around 410 BC.

But it is with us as if some one else measured us and we came to know how big we are by seeing that he applied the cubit-measure to such and such a fraction of us. But Protagoras says ‘man is the measure of all things’, as if he had said ‘the man who knows’ or ‘the man who perceives’; and these because they have respectively knowledge and perception, which we say are the measures of objects. Such thinkers are saying nothing, then, while they appear to be saying something remarkable. Aristotle

He is known because he said that: Man is the measure of all things of those that are that they are, of those that are not that they are not.

The question is who is this “Man”? Does he mean “Man” in general or is this “Man” a specific person. I think that Protagoras says in reality: “I (Protagoras) am the measure of all things.” It is me that counts and nobody else and that what is good or not is not something absolute but relative depending on the person. Is there an absolute truth, for example that of geometry and its propositions? Protagoras would say that there are actually no true geometrical objects like circles or lines and therefore it is meaningless to answer this question.