Ancient · c. 490–420 BC
Who did Protagoras influence?
Students and legacy
The first sophist: man is the measure of all things — and virtue can be taught, for a fee.
Protagoras influenced Gorgias and Plato. That is 2 lines of the 448 documented lines of influence between the 279 thinkers on this map.
Read on Wikipedia Portrait: Jusepe de Ribera, Public domain See the whole map
Who was Protagoras?
Protagoras is the sophist whom Plato credits with inventing the role of the professional sophist. His most famous line, "Man is the measure of all things", was read by Plato as a denial of objective truth.
Protagoras seems to have meant that each person's judgments come from their own history and experience, so people will judge the same thing differently. He argued that a community can only make decisions through open, democratic debate if it accepts that other people's views are valid and must be respected.
Summarized from the lead of the Wikipedia article.
Who did Protagoras influence?
2 thinkers on this map draw directly on Protagoras.
Two steps away from Protagoras
The second generation
Contemporaries of Protagoras
Thinkers on this map born within 25 years of Protagoras, with no direct line between them.
- Empedocles c. 494–434 BC
- Zeno of Elea c. 495–430 BC
- Anaxagoras c. 500–428 BC
- Leucippus fl. 5th c. BC
- Socrates c. 470–399 BC
- Aspasia c. 470–400 BC
- Philolaus c. 470–385 BC
- Parmenides c. 515–450 BC
Protagoras by the numbers
- Direct influences
- 0
- Direct followers
- 2 — #45 of 279 on this map
- Thinkers upstream
- 0
- Thinkers downstream
- 197
- Wikipedia languages
- 71 — #29 of 54 among ancient philosophers
- Card rarity
- Epic
Questions about Protagoras
- Who influenced Protagoras?
- No earlier thinker on this map is recorded as a direct influence on Protagoras.
- Who did Protagoras influence?
- Gorgias and Plato.
- When did Protagoras live?
- c. 490–420 BC. The map files Protagoras under the ancient world.
- How rare is the Protagoras card?
- Wikipedia carries an article on Protagoras in 71 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