The original myth of Prometheus  Prometheus was a Titan from Greek myth.  The name Prometheus means “foresight” and his twin brother’s name Epimetheus means “hindsight”.  Prometheus and Epimetheus journed from Mt. Olympus to Earth and they made clay fugures. Goddess Athena took the figures and breathed lifr into them.  The clay figures that Prometheus had created became Man.  The figures that his brother Epimetheus created became the beast, wich turned and attacked him. Hesiod

 Prometheuswas thecreator ofmankind andof technics.  He stolen thefire fromGods homeand give it toman.  Zeus thenpunish him.  (See the sculture)

Plato’s Protagora  On of the most important version of the myth of Prometheus was written by Plato, an ancient philosopher, in the V th century before Christ  The myth is conteint in a phylosophycal dialogue titled Protagora  This myth contain a lot of important phylosophycal themes:  Plasmation of living beings or animals  Plasmation of man  Men’s culture start from different technologies and politic

The Gods were about to create animals. They asked both brothers to equipe creatures with proper qualities, so that each can find his food, protect himself from heat,cold, and predators. . Ephimeteus said to Prometheus “Let me distibute, and you inspect”.  This was agreed, and Epimetheus made the distibution. (….)  Man alone was naked and scholess, and had neither bed nor arms of defence (…)  Prometheus stole the mechanical arts of Hephestus and Athena, and fire with them.  Thus man had the wisdom necessary to the support of life, but political wisdom he had not.

Let us think  Animal were very different  Man was created after animal  Man was created naked, without natural defences  Technical skills and political art was Prometheus’s gifts  …stolen to protect man  So culture is the protection for Men   biodiversity?   cultural diversity?

Mith and science  Fiction  Fixism  Radical difference between man and animals  Importance of culture  Man is a natural /cultural being  Observations, theory  Evolutionism  Man is an animal, he evolved from apes  Culture is important  Man is a natural/cultural being

Relativism?  Protagora was also an ancient philosopher  He theorized relativism, also cultural relativism  Cultural relativism is different fron cultural difference  While the second concept underline the richness of diversity, the first concern only the diversity  Plato didn’y agree with Protagora

Nature and culture  The mith of Prometheus concern the differences in nature and the difference between nature and culture  Human culture depends on the nature of humankind  So humankind seem very different from other natural being because he is defined by his culture

And nowadays?  Nawadays we have distinct philosophical ideas  Those ideas depend also on progress in sciences, expecially in biological sciences  Now we can think about humankind as a natural kind of being  Culture is not considered in opposition with nature