Protagoras

by Silvermintz, Daniel

• ISBN13: 9781472510921
• ISBN10: 1472510925
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2015-12-17
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic

Summary

The presocratic philosopher Protagoras of Abdera (490–420 BC), founder of the sophistic movement, was famously agnostic towards the existence and nature of the gods, and was the proponent of the doctrine that 'man is the measure of all things'. Still relevant to contemporary society, Protagoras is in many ways a precursor of the postmodern movement. In the brief fragments that survive, he lays the foundation for relativism, agnosticism, the significance of rhetoric, a pedagogy for critical thinking and a conception of the human being as a social construction.

This accessible introductory survey by Daniel Silvermintz covers Protagoras' life, ideas and lasting legacy. Each chapter interprets one of the surviving fragments and draws connections with related ideas forwarded by other sophists, showing its relevance to an area of knowledge: epistemology, ethics, education and sociology.

Author Biography

Daniel Silvermintz is the Associate Professor of Humanities at the University of Houston-Clear Lake, USA.

Table of Contents

1. Protagoras and Postmodern Culture
2. Greece’s Other Socrates–Life of Protagoras
3. Man is the Measure–Contributions to Epistemology
4. Two Sides to Every Argument and Making the Weaker Argument Stronger —Contributions to Antilogic and rhetoric
5. Concerning the Gods–Contributions to Theology
6. Corrupting the Youth–Contributions to Ethics
7. Teaching Virtue and the Socially Constructed Man–Contributions to Sociology and Political Thought
Bibliography