Extract

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Irina Deretić

Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade

On the Origin and Genesis of Humans and Other Mortals in Plato’s Protagoras

1. Introduction

“Where did we come from?” This is an endless riddle for human thought. Furthermore, it challenges us with the question: “Who are we?” This is an even more perplexing and complex issue. One of the most prominent and well-known answers to these two questions is given by Protagoras1 in Plato’s dialogue named after him. It is not surprising that the same famed sophist, who claimed that a human is the measure of all things,2 is the one also telling us this myth about the origin of humankind and its virtues.

The story and its interpretation are parts of Protagoras’ so-called Great Speech, which includes not only the myth itself, but also the sophist’s interpretation of it. Protagoras used the myth to support his claim about the possibility of teaching virtue. My primary intention is not to interpret the role of the myth in the course of this dialogue or to evaluate it in terms of its consistency, persuasiveness, and argumentative power as a part of Protagoras’ so-called Great Speech. Instead, ← 21 | 22 → I will endeavor to (a) find out what this myth conveys about the origin, the development, and the nature of humans, and, (b) what it reveals about the dimensions and aspects of us, which are, as we shall see, not irrelevant...