Protagoras - Greek Philosopher, Timeline and Family

Protagoras was born in Abdera, Thrace, in Ancient Greece. It is said that he was a porter and earned his living through shifting objects for others. He was once seen by philosopher Democritus while he was carrying some load.

Democritus was amazed at the defined technicality with which Protagoras had tied the load together. His faultless geometric precision bound Democritus to recognize him as a mathematics genius. He took him under his wings and introduced him to philosophy.

Protagoras became a teacher and used to teach and profess the ideals related to politics and virtue. He was occupied with the matter of whether virtue can be taught or not throughout this philosophical career.

He was not like the other educators of his times, (who were involved with definite teaching in public speaking and oratory); rather he was more interested in teaching his students to reason the various phenomena one faces in human life.

Protagoras taught how human beings ought to manage their personal affairs and household in the most efficient way, how to run the social affairs and most importantly, how to contribute to the society in general through one’s words and actions.

Protagoras was interested in the matter of ‘orthoepeia’, which means that he believed in the most accurate use of words and grammar. It is also said that he invented taxonomy of speech acts like assertion, question, answer, command, etc.

He wrote ‘The Technique of Eristics’ - the book suggests that he was a teacher of public speaking and debate. It is also said that he was the first philosopher to take part in the oratory contests in the Olympic Games.

His famous work ‘Truth’, establishes him as a philosopher of relativism. He said in the book-- "Man is the measure of all things, of the things that are that they are, of the things that are not that they are not."

His philosophy of relativism meant that truth is relative and depends on the individual who perceives it as every individual has a different perception and criteria of identifying with the situation. His theories tend to contradict the objective truth.

Plato credits relativism to Protagoras and used his teachings as testing material for his own dedication to objective and transcendent realities and values. He attributes him to phenomenalism, where truth differs for each individual.

Protagoras was a promoter of skepticism. In ‘On the Gods’, a work now lost, he wrote that he was skeptic about existence of god. This caused anger among Athenians and he was exiled; all the copies of his work were destroyed.

Some of Protagoras’ works that was preserved through the centuries are: ‘Antilogiae’, ‘Truth’, ‘On the Gods’, ‘Art of Eristics’, ‘Imperative’, ‘On Ambition’, ‘On Incorrect Human Actions’, ‘on Virtues’, ‘On the Original State of Things and Trial over a Fee’, etc.

The most prominent work from Protagoras, the work that Socrates extensively used in his later studies and philosophies, is his philosophy of relativism, in which he revealed that truth is relative and depends on how each individual perceives it.

Protagoras is said to have died at the age of 70 and it is assumed that his death occurred circa 420.

Protagoras practiced as a Sophist for 40 years.

He was famous in Athens and was a friend of Pericles.