Plato may be one of the most famous Greek philosophers in history, but his way of thinking did not represent all the Athenian intellectuals who populated that Mediterranean power during the 5th century B.C. Protagoras, the best known of the Sophist philosophers, embodies a way of understanding reality diametrically opposed to that defended by Socrates’ disciple.

In this article we will see what characterized the philosophy of Protagoras and how it was his way of thinking based on relativism .

Who was Protagoras?

This well-known philosopher was born in Abdera, in the north of Greece, although he travelled a lot, something that is typical of men with an intellectual profile who lived during the era of Hellenic splendour. At the time when Pericles led the city-state of Athens, Protagoras was his adviser and counselor, and even, at the governor’s request, drafted the constitution of a Greek colony.

Having lived so long, not much is known about the personal details of his life. We do know his intellectual positions, since Plato devoted quite a lot of effort to refute his arguments in his books , as we shall see.

The relativistic theory of Protagoras

The fundamental and basic aspects of the theory of Protagoras, based on an explicitly relativistic way of thinking , are the following.

1. The function of philosophy is not to access absolute truths

Protagoras believed that every statement is conditioned by the context in which it is made. This means that it cannot express in words universal truths, since it is always limited by the time and place in which it has been generated, either by the lack of information about something or by the lack of objectivity of the person who holds the statement, who is often personally and emotionally involved in the debate.

Similarly, context also affects the way in which the statement is interpreted, and can have completely opposite meanings depending on where it is used.

2. There are as many points of view as there are people

Each human being sees things in his own way, given that our past and our life paths are unique and clearly distinguishable from the rest. When faced with the same topic of discussion, it is always possible to find many people who think differently from everyone else. Although we may look alike, we tend to differ in many ways.

3. What is true is up to each of us

It follows that there are many truths , valid for certain people and not so valid for others, and that this cannot be avoided whatever we do.

4. Philosophy must convince

Since we cannot agree on absolute truths, the task of the philosopher is to make the ideas he defends sound convincing, not to make them so (since we cannot imagine something that is universally valid, which for Protagoras would imply that it is valid for everyone.

Therefore, the intellectual must think more about the effects of throwing a statement than about the veracity of that statement. This will make the discourse he defends seductive and attract the sympathies of many people.

The Role of Sophist Philosophers

The previous point is something shared by a type of philosophers called sophists. Sophists were advisors and counsellors who trained the most influential men of Greece in the art of rhetoric , which made a lot of sense in Athens. In this city-state democracy consisted fundamentally in knowing how to defend certain ideas in assembly, which is why a large part of intellectual life was oriented towards politics.

Thus, Protagoras and many other Sophists benefited from this form of government to teach the most useful techniques of discourse and prosody, capable of making a bad argument seem good in the eyes of others.

This was strongly criticized by both Socrates and his disciple, Plato, as both believed in the existence of universal truths. The implications of Protagoras’ work were to say that behind reality there is no universal truth structuring everything that exists, only certain ways of ordering ideas and words to make them sound good and fit one’s way of thinking. Hence this intellectual stance is called relativism: everything is relative and only opinions (or, more accurately, both opinions and who holds them) matter.

Nowadays relativism still exists , although the Sophists disappeared with Ancient Greece. The defenders of this current in the XX and XXI centuries are fundamentally defenders of the postmodern conception of reality, according to which it must be recognized that there are different stories about what exists and these must coexist.