Protagoras

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Protagoras ( Greek Πρωταγόρας Prōtagóras ; * probably around 490 BC in Abdera ; † probably around 411 BC ) was an ancient Greek philosopher . He is one of the most important sophists . His writings have not survived.

Life

The dates of life of Protagoras are not known. It is usually assumed that he was around 490 BC. Was born around 411 BC and Died. The little information available about his biography is contradictory and uncertain. His father was called Artemon or Maiandrios. His hometown was almost certainly Abdera, but Teos is also spoken of. It is possible that the Persian ruler Xerxes lived in the house of the rich father of Protagoras when he was on his way to Greece, which he was attacking. False information is likely to be that he was a student of the (probably older) Democritus , and that he was first a wooden bearer and then a secretary to Democritus. During his stays in Athens Protagoras presumably stood up for the powerful politician Pericles , from whom he was subsequently commissioned to draft the laws of the newly founded city of Thurioi . It is controversial how often Protagoras stayed in Athens and how long he lived there; in any case he is said to have been in 411 BC Banned from Athens as a result of an Asebie trial , then left for Sicily and drowned on the crossing. There are also differing views within research on the scope of his political activity in Athens. According to the testimony of Plato , who wrote a dialogue called Protagoras , Protagoras was an important and successful teacher. The sophist earned more money than the famous Phidias and ten other sculptors.

Teaching

Homo-Mensura-Sentence (Man is the measure of all things)

The best-known sophistic doctrine of all is a sentence handed down by Protagoras that has become a winged word , the so-called homo-mensura sentence. It reads: “Man is the measure of all things, the existing that they are, the non-existing that they are not.” Both the exact translation and the interpretation of this sentence are controversial. Plato assigns the sentence to the lost script Alḗtheia (truth), Sextus Empiricus to the also lost script Katabállontes (prostrating speeches); possibly the two are identical.

Plato, in whom the sentence has been handed down, interprets: "Isn't it true, he means it like this: as every thing appears to me, it is such to me, and as it appears to you, it is such to you." But then it is difficult to even make the assertion that a wind is cold, as it may appear cold to one and warm to another. And a generally applicable definition of what justice is would be difficult to give: “Just as what seems just and good to every city, so it is for them as long as they are convinced of it.” A completely different interpretation assumes, for example, that the Human is meant. Not the individual person, but “man in general” would then be the measure of all things. Things would be as they appear "to man"; a position that is reminiscent of Kant's epistemology. Yet another interpretation is provided by the economist Leopold Kohr. Accordingly, the individual human being is the measure of all things, not the nation, the ethnic group, the party, the universe, the time etc. Therefore, all political, economic and social undertakings of the human being should keep this measure of "the individual human being" in mind otherwise they would get out of hand in excess.

Rhetoric, linguistics and grammar

In another fragment of the Protagorean doctrine, it is said that in a debate it is important to make the argument put forward, even if it is the weaker one, into the stronger one. So the sophist is not concerned with the truth, whether his argument is really correct, but simply that his argument, whether true or false, defeats the other arguments. It is assumed that this is an argumentation technique that Protagoras taught his students in the subject of rhetoric .

Plato attributes a doctrine of the correct use of linguistic expression to Protagoras. Aristotle mentions a grammatical distinction in Protagoras, namely the nouns in the three genera male, female and inanimate.

logic

The interpretation of a fragment of the logic of Protagoras is also controversial. “There are two opposing statements about every thing.” The simplest interpretation is that it means that any thing can be given or denied any predicate. For example, “Socrates is human” and “Socrates is not human”. This also coincides with the view of Diogenes Laertios , who reported: "Protagoras first asserted that there were two opposing standpoints on every matter. On the basis of these he also put questions [to his hearers], a procedure which he brought up first Has."

religion

In a script called Perì theôn (About the Gods), which has not survived , Protagoras wrote: “As for the gods, it is impossible for me to know whether they exist or not, nor what their form is. The forces that prevent me from knowing are numerous, and the question is also confused and human life is short. ”Protagoras shows himself here as an agnostic . One can neither say whether there are gods nor how they might be made. Soon after his death he was known as a doubter about the existence of the gods.

Lore

His numerous writings mentioned by ancient authors are lost today. Our knowledge of Protagoras' teaching is therefore based only on reports from other ancient sources. One of these reports comes from Sextus Empiricus , who explains the Homo-mensura sentence as follows (whether this explanation comes from Protagoras himself is controversial, but it gives important hints for the interpretation of the sentence): Protagoras think that "the terms (logoi ) of all appearances in matter, so that matter as such could be everything it seems to all. People, however, grasped now this, now that, according to their different states. " According to Sextus' report, Protagoras is indeed a representative of subjectivism and relativism, but the influence of eleatism , which assumes an objective truth, is clear, since the range of all possible appearances of an object is laid out in itself (i.e. in its matter). However, humans perceive (as if through a filter) only one possibility of appearance. So the same wind is cold for one person, warm for another. However, warmth and cold are due to the wind, not in people.

reception

Because of his confession that he cannot know anything about the gods, it is also impossible for Protagoras to give any divine measurements or evaluations of divine origin. That is why his homo-mensura sentence is the expression of human modesty, that as a human being we cannot have divine standards at our disposal, but only human ones. From ancient times to the present day, Protagoras interpreted his modesty as arrogance, but by those thinkers who were of the opinion that certain knowledge was accessible to them. This applies to Plato and Aristotle as well as to countless Christian theologians.

Plato deals with Protagoras' teaching in the dialogue Theaetetus . In the dialogue Protagoras he makes him the title figure. There, in conversation with Socrates, he lets him formulate a creation myth of mankind, which can be understood as the mythical disguise of a theory of democracy.

Protagoras recognized his work as a teacher in the interests of the community, his thorough thinking about people and his justification for philosophizing free of myths.

Portraits and lunar craters

For a while a figure was thought to be Protagoras because someone had scratched the now illegible letters PROTAG into the base of the figure. Today it is assumed that it does represent someone else. The lunar crater Protagoras is named after Protagoras.

See also

Source collections and translations

literature

Web links

Wikiquote: Protagoras  - Quotes

Footnotes

  1. ↑ a b George B. Kerferd, Hellmut Flashar: Protagoras from Abdera . In: Hellmut Flashar (ed.): Outline of the history of philosophy. The philosophy of antiquity , Volume 2/1, Basel 1998, pp. 28–43, here: p. 28.
  2. ↑ Diogenes Laertios, On the life and teachings of famous philosophers 9.50.
  3. ↑ Diels / Kranz, Fragments of the Pre-Socratics 80A1 = Diogenes Laertios, About the life and teachings of famous philosophers 9.50.
  4. ↑ Hermann Diels, Walther Kranz (ed.): Fragments of the pre-Socratics 80A2 = Flavius ​​Philostratos , Vitae sophistarum 1,10,1.
  5. ↑ a b c George B. Kerferd, Hellmut Flashar: Protagoras from Abdera . In: Hellmut Flashar (ed.): Outline of the history of philosophy. The philosophy of antiquity , Volume 2/1, Basel 1998, pp. 28–43, here: p. 29.
  6. ^ Plato, Meno 91d.
  7. ↑ Axel W. Bauer : What is man? Attempts at answering medical anthropology. In: Specialized prose research - Crossing borders. Volume 8/9, 2012/2013 (2014), pp. 437–453, here: p. 437 ( The human being as the measure of things ).
  8. ↑ Hermann Diels, Walther Kranz (ed.): Fragments of the pre-Socratics 80B1 = Plato, Theaitetos 152a.
  9. ^ Plato, Theaetetus 152a.
  10. ↑ Plato, Theaetetus 167c.
  11. ↑ George B. Kerferd, Hellmut Flashar: Protagoras from Abdera . In: Hellmut Flashar (ed.): Outline of the history of philosophy. The philosophy of antiquity , Volume 2/1, Basel 1998, pp. 28–43, here: p. 32.
  12. ↑ Hermann Diels, Walther Kranz (ed.): Fragments of the pre-Socratics 80B6 = Aristoteles, Rhetorik 1402a23-1402a24.
  13. ↑ George B. Kerferd, Hellmut Flashar: Protagoras from Abdera . In: Hellmut Flashar (ed.): Outline of the history of philosophy. The philosophy of antiquity , Volume 2/1, Basel 1998, pp. 28–43, here: p. 38.
  14. ↑ Hermann Diels, Walther Kranz (Ed.): Fragments of the pre-Socratics 80A26 = Plato, Phaidros 267d.
  15. ↑ George B. Kerferd, Hellmut Flashar: Protagoras from Abdera . In: Hellmut Flashar (ed.): Outline of the history of philosophy. The philosophy of antiquity , Volume 2/1, Basel 1998, pp. 28–43, here: p. 41.
  16. ^ Aristotle, Rhetoric 1407b6-1407b8.
  17. ↑ George B. Kerferd, Hellmut Flashar: Protagoras from Abdera . In: Hellmut Flashar (ed.): Outline of the history of philosophy. The philosophy of antiquity , Volume 2/1, Basel 1998, pp. 28–43, here: p. 37.
  18. ↑ Hermann Diels, Walther Kranz (ed.): Fragments of the pre-Socratics 80A1 = Diogenes Laertios, About the life and teachings of famous philosophers 9.51.
  19. ↑ Christoph Helferich: History of Philosophy: From the Beginnings to the Present and Eastern Thinking . JB Metzler, Stuttgart 2012, ISBN 978-3-476-02426-8 , pp. 15 .
  20. ↑ Hermann Diels, Walther Kranz (ed.): Fragments of the pre-Socratics 80B4 = Diogenes Laertios, On the life and teachings of famous philosophers 9.51 and Eusebius of Caesarea , Praeparatio evangelica 14.3.7.
  21. ↑ George B. Kerferd, Hellmut Flashar: Protagoras from Abdera . In: Hellmut Flashar (ed.): Outline of the history of philosophy. The philosophy of antiquity , Volume 2/1, Schwabe, Basel 1998, pp. 28–43, here: p. 38.
  22. ↑ Wolfgang Deppert: Relativity and Security , in: Michael Rahnfeld (Ed.): Is there safe knowledge? , Leipzig 2006, pp. 90-188.
  23. ↑ Friedrich Albert Lange: History of materialism and criticism of its significance in the present. Frankfurt am Main 1974.
  24. ↑ George B. Kerferd, Hellmut Flashar: Origin and essence of the sophistry . In: Hellmut Flashar (ed.): Outline of the history of philosophy. The philosophy of antiquity , Volume 2/1, Basel 1998, pp. 3–10, here: p. 8.
personal data
SURNAME Protagoras
BRIEF DESCRIPTION ancient Greek philosopher
DATE OF BIRTH around 490 BC Chr.
PLACE OF BIRTH Abdera
DATE OF DEATH around 411 BC Chr.