Protagoras and the Challenge of Relativism

Plato's Subtlest Enemy

Ugo Zilioli

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English

Routledge
11 November 2016

Historiography; Classical history & classical civilisation; Philosophy: epistemology & theory of knowledge

Series: Ashgate New Critical Thinking in Philosophy

Protagoras was an important Greek thinker of the fifth century BC, the most famous of the so called Sophists, though most of what we know of him and his thought comes to us mainly through the dialogues of his strenuous opponent Plato. In this book, Ugo Zilioli offers a sustained and philosophically sophisticated examination of what is, in philosophical terms, the most interesting feature of Protagoras' thought for modern readers: his role as the first Western thinker to argue for relativism.

Zilioli relates Protagoras' relativism with modern forms of relativism, in particular the 'robust relativism' of Joseph Margolis, gives an integrated account both of the perceptual relativism examined in Plato's Theaetetus and the ethical or social relativism presented in the first part of Plato's Protagoras and offers an integrated and positive analysis of Protagoras' thought, rather than focusing on ancient criticisms and responses to his thought. This is a deeply scholarly work which brings much argument to bear to the claim that Protagoras was and remains Plato's subtlest philosophical enemy.

By: Ugo Zilioli
Imprint: Routledge
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 156mm,
Weight: 453g
ISBN: 9781138254725
ISBN 10: 113825472X
Series: Ashgate New Critical Thinking in Philosophy
Pages: 172
Publication Date: 11 November 2016
Audience: College/higher education , General/trade , Primary , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Ugo Zilioli is Marie Curie Experienced Researcher at Durham University, UK

Reviews for Protagoras and the Challenge of Relativism: Plato's Subtlest Enemy

'To defend relativism is about as thankless a task as philosophy ever confronted: informed readers typically take it to be a complete waste of time and even a mark of professional incompetence. But then, if you see its genuinely deep challenge, its defense counts as an exceptional kind of courage and amplitude of mind that very little else in philosophy ever equals. Zilioli embodies a candor and honesty and a scholar's thoroughness and scruple that are simply a pleasure to trust in the unraveling of the full import of Plato's treatment of Protagoras's argument in the Theaetetus and Protagoras. I think it's the straightforward clarity and passion of Zilioli's effort that makes it so memorable. Beyond that, it seems to me to have simply outflanked Protagoras's strongest detractors.' Joseph Margolis, Temple University, USA