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See also:PROTAGORAS (c. 481-411 B.C.) , See also:Greek philosopher, was See also:born at See also:Abdera . He is known as the first of the See also:Sophists' (q.v.), i.e. he was the first to See also:teach for See also:payment . It is said that he received nearly L400 from a single See also:pupil . He learned See also:philosophy in the Ionian school, and was perhaps a pupil of See also:Democritus, though this is doubtful on See also:chronological grounds . He was an older contemporary of See also:Socrates . He was so highly esteemed by See also:Pericles that he was entrusted with the task of framing See also:laws for the new See also:colony of See also:Thurii (Plut . Pericles, 36) . At the See also:age of seventy, having been accused by Pythodorus, and convicted of See also:atheism, See also:Protagoras fled from See also:Athens, and on his way to See also:Sicily was lost at See also:sea . According to See also:Plato (Prot., 318 E), he endeavoured to communicate " prudence " (d(3otAia) to his pupils, " which should See also:fit them to See also:manage their households, and to take See also:part by word and See also:deed in civic affairs." The See also:education which he provided consisted of See also:rhetoric, See also:grammar, See also:style and the See also:interpretation of the poets . His formal lectures were supplemented by discussions amongst his pupils . He See also:left behind him several See also:treatises, of which only a few fragments havesurvived . In Truth, by way of justifying his rejection. of philosophy or See also:science, he maintained that " See also:man is the measure of all things—of what is, that it is, and of what is not, that it is not." Besides Truth, and the See also:book Of the Gods which caused his condemnation at Athens, See also:Diogenes Laertius attributes to him treatises on See also:political, ethical, educational and rhetorical subjects . Protagoras was the first to systematize grammar, dis- tinguishing the parts of speech, the tenses and the moods . AUTHORITIES.—biog . Laert., ix . 8, &c.; the very different representations in Plato's Protagoras and Theaetetus; k the fragments in Johannes Frei, Quaestiones Protagoreae (See also:Bonn, 1845), and A . J . Vitringa, Disquisitio de Protagorae vita et Philosophia (See also:Groningen, 185z) ; for the Thurian legislation, M . H . E . Meier, Opuscula, i . 222, and See also:Gomperz in See also:Franz.See also:Hoffmann's Beitrage zur Gesch. See also:des griech. and rout . Rechts (187o) . On Protagoras' philosophy see the histories of philosophy, e.g . Gomperz, Greek Thinkers (Eng. trans., 1901) i . 438–475 and 586-592, See also:Zeller, See also:Ueberweg, See also:Erdmann, and See also:works quoted under SOPHISTS . |
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