Review article

https://doi.org/10.21464/sp33116

A Short History of Protagoras’ Philosophy

Janko M. Lozar orcid.org/0000-0001-9396-755X ; University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Arts, Aškerčeva cesta 2, SI–1000 Ljubljana

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Abstract

It is a well-known fact that, with Nietzsche and Heidegger, a powerful re-evaluation of the history of philosophy took place, which brought about an inversion of the previously prevalent paradigm of progressive advancement. In Hegel and Husserl, to mention but two major figures of modern philosophy, the history of philosophy was conceived as the advancement from humble beginnings in ancient Greece, towards the ultimate culmination in absolute subjectivity in modern philosophy. Nietzsche and Heidegger, on the other hand, both in their way, more or less compellingly challenged this view by revealing the history of philosophy as regression and downfall rather than advancement. In their common view, the grand, yet undeveloped beginnings of philosophy, as recognised in the figures such as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, were strictly understood as the first downfall from the truly grand beginnings to be found in Pre-Socratic thinkers such as Heraclitus, Parmenides, Anaximander, and even the notorious sophist Protagoras. The paper attempts to shed light on this cataclysmic shift of the philosophical¬historical paradigm by paying particular attention to the history of interpretation of Protagoras’ philosophical impetus. The treatise ends with an open interpretative horizon, thereby emphasizing the importance of a re-consideration of the two opposing paradigms of the history of philosophy.

Keywords

Protagoras; Plato; Aristotle; Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel; Friedrich Nietzsche; Martin Heidegger; history of philosophy

Hrčak ID:

219853

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/219853

Publication date:

6.11.2018.

Article data in other languages: croatian french german

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