Ancient · c. 485–380 BC
Who influenced Gorgias?
Influences
The sophist who argued nothing exists, and that rhetoric moves souls more than truth does.
Gorgias was influenced by Empedocles and Protagoras. That is 2 lines of the 448 documented lines of influence between the 279 thinkers on this map.
Read on Wikipedia Portrait: Giuseppe Emanuele Ortolani e C. Biondi, Public domain See the whole map
Who was Gorgias?
Gorgias of Leontinoi in Sicily was a travelling sophist and rhetorician who taught for fees and gave public displays at Olympia and Delphi, taking questions from the audience and answering on the spot. Some ancient writers call him a pupil of Empedocles.
He is credited with bringing rhetoric from Sicily to Attica and with spreading the Attic dialect as the language of literary prose. He has been called "Gorgias the Nihilist", though how well that fits his philosophy is disputed.
Summarized from the lead of the Wikipedia article.
Who influenced Gorgias?
2 direct influences on this map, earliest first.
- Empedocles c. 494–434 BC
- Protagoras c. 490–420 BC
The line of teachers behind Gorgias
The longest documented line of influence ending at Gorgias runs 4 generations back, to Thales of Miletus.
Two steps away from Gorgias
Indirect influences
- Through Empedocles: Pythagoras, Parmenides
Contemporaries of Gorgias
Thinkers on this map born within 25 years of Gorgias, with no direct line between them.
- Zeno of Elea c. 495–430 BC
- Socrates c. 470–399 BC
- Anaxagoras c. 500–428 BC
- Leucippus fl. 5th c. BC
- Aspasia c. 470–400 BC
- Philolaus c. 470–385 BC
- Prodicus c. 465–395 BC
- Democritus c. 460–370 BC
Gorgias by the numbers
- Direct influences
- 2
- Direct followers
- 0
- Thinkers upstream
- 7
- Thinkers downstream
- 0
- Wikipedia languages
- 66 — #33 of 54 among ancient philosophers
- Card rarity
- Epic
Questions about Gorgias
- Who influenced Gorgias?
- Empedocles and Protagoras.
- Who did Gorgias influence?
- No later thinker on this map is recorded as drawing directly on Gorgias.
- When did Gorgias live?
- c. 485–380 BC. The map files Gorgias under the ancient world.
- How rare is the Gorgias card?
- Wikipedia carries an article on Gorgias in 66 languages, which makes it an Epic card. Legendary starts at 100 languages, Epic at 50 and Rare at 25.
More ancient philosophers
- Confucius 551–479 BC
- Aristotle 384–322 BC
- Plato c. 428–348 BC
- Socrates c. 470–399 BC
- Pythagoras c. 570–495 BC
- Laozi c. 6th c. BC
- Cicero 106–43 BC
- Thales of Miletus c. 624–546 BC