Protagoras (Protagoras)

Protagoras; Protagoras, of Abdera, c.. 490-OK. 420 years. BC. e., Greek writer. One of the first and most prominent Sophists. The founder of sophistic lifestyle (travel lectures, teaching for higher fees, stay in the homes of wealthy people interested in culture). According to legend, a pupil of the Persian magi. It was later legends, according to which P. first was a loader, and then became a disciple of Democritus. Probably P. was several times in Athens. During the first visit he made friends with Pericles, who entrusted him with drawing up the statute for the Panhellenic colony Furies in Southern Italy (444-443 gg. BC. e.). Subsequently, he worked in Sicily (probably in contact with the rhetorical school of Corax of Syracuse and Theis). Repeated by many ancient authors of the history of the nomination against P. accusations of atheism, his exile (or escape) from Athens, and death in a shipwreck is not reliable. - Unable to set the number of operations VP, since ancient cited certain provisions, not noting whether they were included in the larger work.

It is the product could have several versions of the name, because in the era of P. begins to appear a long tradition of giving names of prose. Among the original works of P. (none survived) should be called truth, or refute speech (Aletheia e Kataballontes) - a work of which we are most aware. From him is preserved in different ways interpreted the first sentence: "Man is the measure of all things, existing and not existing". Judgments of different people can be equally valid, although one of them for whatever reasons, is more correct (for example, a healthy proposition is more correct than the proposition of the patient). Kontroversii (Antilogiai), a work in which P. argued that "of all things, there are two conflicting judgments, and no refutation impossible. Faithful representation of Kontroversiyah gives surviving essay Dual speech (Dissoi logoi) unknown sophist end of V. BC. e., ascending to the product n. (eg, illness is bad for the patient, but good for the doctor).

The gods (Peri theon) - the first Greek writing with a similar name. The famous first sentence, . which casts doubt on the possibility of objective knowledge of the deity: "The gods can not say either that they exist, . nor that they do not exist, because in the way of obtaining such knowledge are too many obstacles, . chief among them being the impossibility of knowledge of the subject through the mind and the brevity of human life "- have been advanced as reasons for the above charges of impiety and the burning of the product,
. Probably, in the remaining part of P. treated the gods as the object of human beliefs and argued that religion is primarily concerned with the very existence of people. Composition of Being (Peri tu ontos) contained the controversy with the teachings of Eleatic (cm. Parmenides). This work, apparently, read Neoplatonist Porphyry.

Plato in his dialogue Protagoras puts into the mouth of the protagonist known myth about the origin of man and human culture. Question at issue is whether it is authentic look n. P. proclaimed relativism and sensationalism, and his disciple Kseniad from Corinth, with the extreme conclusions MP, made a conclusion about the impossibility of knowledge. P. laid the foundations of scientific grammar through differentiation of proposals, delivery of a noun and adjective, verb tenses and moods. He worked as problems with proper speech. P. enjoyed great prestige among the descendants. He had an influence on Democritus, Plato, Antisthenes, Euripides (which was another), Herodotus, and probably to skeptics. P. is the main character of Plato's dialogue, and one of the works of Heraclides of Pontus.