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Ideas of Protagoras, by Text

[Greek, c.481 - 411 BCE, Born at Abdera, in northern Greece. Died in Sicily.]

441BCE fragments/reports
p.16 3305 There is no more purely metaphysical doctrine than Protagorean relativism [Benardete,JA]
p.49 3313 If my hot wind is your cold wind, then wind is neither hot nor cold, and so not as cold as itself [Benardete,JA]
p.54 3317 You can only state the problem of the relative warmth of an object by agreeing on the underlying object [Benardete,JA]
p.63 1580 For Protagoras the only bad behaviour is that which interferes with social harmony [Roochnik]
p.99 205 Protagoras contradicts himself by saying virtue is teachable, but then that it is not knowledge [Plato]
p.175 247 God is "the measure of all things", more than any man [Plato]
p.187 1659 Protagoras seems to have made the huge move of separating punishment from revenge [Vlastos]
p.214 1549 Everything that exists consists in being perceived
p.219 1552 He spent public money on education, as it benefits the individual and the state [Diodorus of Sicily]
p.289 606 Protagoras absurdly thought that the knowing or perceiving man is 'the measure of all things' [Aristotle]
p.331 612 Relativists think if you poke your eye and see double, there must be two things [Aristotle]
p.441 6016 Early sophists thought convention improved nature; later they said nature was diminished by it [Miller,FD]
A01 p.211 1545 Protagoras was the first to claim that there are two contradictory arguments about everything [Diog. Laertius]
A23 p.219 1551 He said he didn't know whether there are gods - but this is the same as atheism [Diogenes of Oen.]
B01 p.211 1547 Man is the measure of all things - of things that are, and of things that are not
B07 p.220 1553 No perceptible object is truly straight or curved
B11 p.127 532 Successful education must go deep into the soul