44 ideas
| 125 | Is a gifted philosopher unmanly if he avoids the strife of the communal world? [Plato] |
| 1654 | In "Gorgias" Socrates is confident that his 'elenchus' will decide moral truth [Vlastos on Plato] |
| 4321 | We should test one another, by asking and answering questions [Plato] |
| 1553 | No perceptible object is truly straight or curved [Protagoras] |
| 1549 | Everything that exists consists in being perceived [Protagoras] |
| 1545 | Protagoras was the first to claim that there are two contradictory arguments about everything [Protagoras, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 1547 | Man is the measure of all things - of things that are, and of things that are not [Protagoras] |
| 3305 | There is no more purely metaphysical doctrine than Protagorean relativism [Benardete,JA on Protagoras] |
| 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 on Protagoras] |
| 3317 | You can only state the problem of the relative warmth of an object by agreeing on the underlying object [Benardete,JA on Protagoras] |
| 247 | God is "the measure of all things", more than any man [Plato on Protagoras] |
| 606 | Protagoras absurdly thought that the knowing or perceiving man is 'the measure of all things' [Aristotle on Protagoras] |
| 612 | Relativists think if you poke your eye and see double, there must be two things [Aristotle on Protagoras] |
| 114 | Rhetoric can produce conviction, but not educate people about right and wrong [Plato] |
| 116 | Rhetoric is irrational about its means and its ends [Plato] |
| 135 | All activity aims at the good [Plato] |
| 122 | Moral rules are made by the weak members of humanity [Plato] |
| 6016 | Early sophists thought convention improved nature; later they said nature was diminished by it [Protagoras, by Miller,FD] |
| 139 | A good person is bound to act well, and this brings happiness [Plato] |
| 128 | Is it natural to simply indulge our selfish desires? [Plato] |
| 4322 | In slaking our thirst the goodness of the action and the pleasure are clearly separate [Plato] |
| 136 | Good should be the aim of pleasant activity, not the other way round [Plato] |
| 134 | Good and bad people seem to experience equal amounts of pleasure and pain [Plato] |
| 4319 | In a fool's mind desire is like a leaky jar, insatiable in its desires, and order and contentment are better [Plato] |
| 132 | If happiness is the satisfaction of desires, then a life of scratching itches should be happiness [Plato] |
| 130 | Is the happiest state one of sensual, self-indulgent freedom? [Plato] |
| 1580 | For Protagoras the only bad behaviour is that which interferes with social harmony [Protagoras, by Roochnik] |
| 120 | Should we avoid evil because it will bring us bad consequences? [Plato] |
| 205 | Protagoras contradicts himself by saying virtue is teachable, but then that it is not knowledge [Plato on Protagoras] |
| 118 | I would rather be a victim of crime than a criminal [Plato] |
| 20239 | Unlike us, the early Greeks thought envy was a good thing, and hope a bad thing [Hesiod, by Nietzsche] |
| 140 | Self-indulgent desire makes friendship impossible, because it makes a person incapable of co-operation [Plato] |
| 131 | If absence of desire is happiness, then nothing is happier than a stone or a corpse [Plato] |
| 129 | Do most people praise self-discipline and justice because they are too timid to gain their own pleasure? [Plato] |
| 119 | A criminal is worse off if he avoids punishment [Plato] |
| 4320 | The popular view is that health is first, good looks second, and honest wealth third [Plato] |
| 137 | As with other things, a good state is organised and orderly [Plato] |
| 141 | A good citizen won't be passive, but will redirect the needs of the state [Plato] |
| 123 | Do most people like equality because they are second-rate? [Plato] |
| 124 | Does nature imply that it is right for better people to have greater benefits? [Plato] |
| 1659 | Protagoras seems to have made the huge move of separating punishment from revenge [Protagoras, by Vlastos] |
| 532 | Successful education must go deep into the soul [Protagoras] |
| 1552 | He spent public money on education, as it benefits the individual and the state [Protagoras, by Diodorus of Sicily] |
| 1551 | He said he didn't know whether there are gods - but this is the same as atheism [Diogenes of Oen. on Protagoras] |