Aristophanes depiction of Socrates the sophist is revealing on at least three levels. If humans had knowledge of the past, present or future they would not be compelled to adopt unpredictable opinion as their counsellor. The Apology is one of the so-called Early Dialogues of Plato. The low standing of the sophists in Athenian public opinion does not stem from a single source. It is clearly a major issue for Plato, however. In his treatise, The Art of Rhetoric, Aristotle established a system of understanding and teaching rhetoric. Plato uses the term eristic to denote the practice it is not strictly speaking a method of seeking victory in argument without regard for the truth. He is best known for his subtle distinctions between the meanings of words. 5. Logic enables one to recognize when a judgment requires proof and to verify the validity of such proof. are unclear one unresolved issue is whether he should be identified with Antiphon of Rhamnus (a statesman and teacher of rhetoric who was a member of the oligarchy which held power in Athens briefly in 411 B.C.E.). The elaborate parody displays the paradoxical character of attempts to disclose the true nature of beings through logos: For that by which we reveal is logos, but logos is not substances and existing things. A human being is the measure of all things, of those things that are, that they are, and of those things that are not, that they are not (DK, 80B1). Lastly, we come to Stoicism, and for good reason. According to Kerferd, the sophists employed eristic and antilogical methods of argument, whereas Socrates disdained the former and saw the latter as a necessary but incomplete step on the way towards dialectic. But primarily the Sophists congregated at Athens because they found there the greatest demand for what they had to offer, namely, instruction to young men, and the extent of this demand followed from the nature of the citys political life. This was one of old Artie's books that I only glossed over in my formative years. Reporting upon Gorgias speech About the Nonexistent or on Nature, Sextus says that the rhetorician, while adopting a different approach from that of Protagoras, also eliminated the criterion (DK, 82B3). Section 1 discusses the meaning of the term sophist. Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. In Book Ten of Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle suggests that the sophists tended to reduce politics to rhetoric (1181a12-15) and overemphasised the role that could be played by rational persuasion in the political realm. Scholarship by Kahn, Owen and Kerferd among others suggests that, while the Greeks lacked a clear distinction between existential and predicative uses of to be, they tended to treat existential uses as short for predicative uses. Socrates converses with sophists in Euthydemus, Hippias Major, Hippias Minor, Gorgias, Protagoras and the Republic and discusses sophists at length in the Apology, Sophist, Statesman and Theaetetus. This in large part explains why contemporary scholarship on the distinction between philosophy and sophistry has tended to focus on a difference in moral character. From a philosophical perspective, Protagoras is most famous for his relativistic account of truth in particular the claim that man is the measure of all things and his agnosticism concerning the Gods. Contents. Section 3 examines three themes that have often been taken as characteristic of sophistic thought: the distinction between nature and convention, relativism about knowledge and truth and the power of speech. For terms and use, please refer to our Terms and Conditions 1999. They claimed that since Sophists were (in their eyes) unethical and lived in a different way. One difficulty this passage raises is that while Protagoras asserted that all beliefs are equally true, he also maintained that some are superior to others because they are more subjectively fulfilling for those who hold them. The major focus of Gorgias was rhetoric and given the importance of persuasive speaking to the sophistic education, and his acceptance of fees, it is appropriate to consider him alongside other famous sophists for present purposes. Powell (ed. 2003. Once we attend to Platos own treatment of the distinction between philosophy and sophistry two themes quickly become clear: the mercenary character of the sophists and their overestimation of the power of speech. There is near scholarly consensus that Protagoras is referring here to each human being as the measure of what is rather than humankind as such, although the Greek term for human hanthrpos certainly does not rule out the second interpretation. But this was an individual matter, and attempts by earlier historians of philosophy to divide the Sophistic movement into periods in which the nature of the instruction was altered are now seen to fail for lack of evidence. Protagoras agnosticism is famously articulated in the claim that concerning the gods I am not in a position to know either that (or how) they are or that (or how) they are not, or what they are like in appearance; for there are many things that prevent knowledge, the obscurity of the matter and the brevity of human life (DK, 80B4). An alternative, and more edifying, account of the relation between physis and nomos is found in Protagoras great speech (Protagoras, 320c-328d). It is moreover simply misleading to say that the sophists were in all cases unconcerned with truth, as to assert the relativity of truth is itself to make a truth claim. Scholarship in the nineteenth century and beyond has often fastened on method as a way of differentiating Socrates from the sophists. That theory is in fact the theory of inferences of a very specific sort: inferences with two premises, each of which is a categorical sentence, having exactly one term in common, and having as conclusion a categorical sentence the . The business model of the sophists presupposed that aret could be taught to all free citizens, a claim that Protagoras implicitly defends in his great speech regarding the origins of justice. Deakin University Socrates is Best-Known as a Moral Philosopher. His teachings were based on morality and he believed that the purpose of life is happiness. 530 Words 3 Pages Good Essays In short, the difference between Socrates and his sophistic contemporaries, as Xenophon suggests, is the difference between a lover and a prostitute. Finally, under the Roman Empire the term was applied to professors of rhetoric, to orators, and to prose writers generally, all of whom are sometimes regarded as constituting what is now called the Second Sophistic movement (see below The Second Sophistic movement). Plato thought that much of the Sophistic attack upon traditional values was unfair and unjustified. Ers is thus presented as analogous to philosophy in its etymological sense, a striving after wisdom or completion that can only be temporarily fulfilled in this life by contemplation of the forms of the beautiful and the good (204a-b). The philosopher, then, considers rational speech as oriented by a genuine understanding of being or nature. The importance of consistency between ones words and actions if one is to be truly virtuous is a commonplace of Greek thought, and this is one important respect in which the sophists, at least from the Platonic-Aristotelian perspective, fell short. It was Plato who first clearly and consistently refers to the activity of philosophia and much of what he has to say is best understood in terms of an explicit or implicit contrast with the rival schools of the sophists and Isocrates (who also claimed the title philosophia for his rhetorical educational program). This is a long-standing ideal, but one best realised in democratic Athens through rhetoric. Aristotle agrees with his teacher here, opening the SR by defining "the art of the sophist" as "one who makes money from an apparent but unreal wisdom." He's in it for the cash, the . This critique of the sophists does perhaps require a minimal commitment to a distinction between appearance and reality, but it is an oversimplification to suggest that Platos distinction between philosophy and sophistry rests upon a substantive metaphysical theory, in large part because our knowledge of the forms for Plato is itself inherently ethical. Since Homer at least, these terms had a wide range of application, extending from practical know-how and prudence in public affairs to poetic ability and theoretical knowledge. The reference list below is restricted to a few basic sources; readers interested to learn more about the sophists are advised to consult the excellent overviews by Barney (2006) and Kerferd (1981a) for a more comprehensive list of secondary literature. Drama and Dialectic in Platos Gorgias in Julia Annas (ed.). Although these arguments may be construed as part of an antilogical exercise on nature and convention rather than prescriptions for a life of prudent immorality, they are consistent with views on the relation between human nature and justice suggested by Platos depiction of Callicles and Thrasymachus in the Gorgias and Republic respectively. Apart from his works Truth and On the Gods, which deal with his relativistic account of truth and agnosticism respectively, Diogenes Laertius says that Protagoras wrote the following books: Antilogies, Art of Eristics, Imperative, On Ambition, On Incorrect Human Actions, On those in Hades, On Sciences, On Virtues, On Wrestling, On the Original State of Things and Trial over a Fee. His work as a historian, which included compiling lists of Olympic victors, was invaluable to Thucydides and subsequent historians as it allowed for a more precise dating of past events. One could therefore loosely define sophists as paid teachers of aret, where the latter is understood in terms of the capacity to attain and exercise political power through persuasive speech. (The Sophists). On Truth, which features a range of positions and counterpositions on the relationship between nature and convention (see section 3a below), is sometimes considered an important text in the history of political thought because of its alleged advocacy of egalitarianism: Those born of illustrious fathers we respect and honour, whereas those who come from an undistinguished house we neither respect nor honour. Understandably given their educational program, the sophists placed great emphasis upon the power of speech (logos). Platos Theaetetus (152a), however, suggests the first reading and I will assume its correctness here. It has been common critical practice to attempt to trace sophistic influences or sources for particular passages in Euripides' plays. Socrates was the big-city philosopher in ancient Athens. Reality, to him, existed in a concrete fashion. The dichotomy between physis and nomos seems to have been something of a commonplace of sophistic thought and was appealed to by Protagoras and Hippias among others. Whereas the speechwriter Lysias presents ers (desire, love) as an unseemly waste of expenditure (Phaedrus, 257a), in his later speech Socrates demonstrates how ers impels the soul to rise towards the forms. Rather, Aristotle saw logic as a tool that underlay knowledge of all kinds, and he undertook its study because he believed it to be a necessary first step for learning. In the fifth century B.C.E. Hippias is best known for his polymathy (DK 86A14). He Wasn't a 'Teacher'. Perhaps the most instructive sophistic account of the distinction, however, is found in Antiphons fragment On Truth. Logos is a notoriously difficult term to translate and can refer to thought and that about which we speak and think as well as rational speech or language. Sophistry for Socrates, Plato and Aristotle represents a choice for a certain way of life, embodied in a particular attitude towards knowledge which views it as a finished product to be transmitted to all comers. Platos critique of the sophists overestimation of the power of speech should not be conflated with his commitment to the theory of the forms. The elimination of the criterion refers to the rejection of a standard that would enable us to distinguish clearly between knowledge and opinion about being and nature. As Socrates questions his potential pupil regarding what sort of wisdom he seeks, it becomes evident that Theages seeks power in the city and influence over other men. This is not to deny that the ethical orientation of the sophist is likely to lead to a certain kind of philosophising, namely one which attempts to master nature, human and external, rather than understand it as it is. This closing section examines the attempt of Plato to establish a clear line of demarcation between philosophy and sophistry. The sophists were itinerant professional teachers and intellectuals who frequented Athens and other Greek cities in the second half of the fifth century B.C.E. After Pericles death this avenue became the highroad to political success. In modern times the view occasionally has been advanced that this was the Sophists only concern. The sophists were thus a threat to the status quo because they made an indiscriminate promise assuming capacity to pay fees to provide the young and ambitious with the power to prevail in public life. Callicles, a young Athenian aristocrat who may be a real historical figure or a creation of Platos imagination, was not a sophist; indeed he expresses disdain for them (Gorgias, 520a). The sophists were itinerant teachers. About the Nonexistent or on Nature transgresses the injunction of Parmenides that one cannot say of what is that it is not. The basic thrust of Antiphons argument is that laws and conventions are designed as a constraint upon our natural pursuit of pleasure. Email: george.duke@deakin.edu.au The Theages, a Socratic dialogue whose authorship some scholars have disputed, but which expresses sentiments consistent with other Platonic dialogues, makes this point with particular clarity. What is just according to nature, by contrast, is seen by observing animals in nature and relations between political communities where it can be seen that the strong prevail over the weak. The sophist essentially preyed on unsuspecting individuals and used extreme forms of manipulation and persuasion to get what they want. Sophists specialized in one or more subject areas, such as philosophy, rhetoric, music, athletics, and mathematics. It is perhaps significant in this context that Protagoras seems to have been the source of the sophistic claim to make the weaker argument defeat the stronger parodied by Aristophanes. The term nomos refers to a wide range of normative concepts extending from customs and conventions to positive law. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. Plato and Aristotle altered the meaning again, however, when they claimed that professional teachers such as Protagoras were not seeking the truth but only victory in debate and were prepared to use dishonest means to achieve it. The word sophistry . It is not surprising, Protagoras suggests, that foreigners who profess to be wise and persuade the wealthy youth of powerful cities to forsake their family and friends and consort with them would arouse suspicion. ), in which Socrates is depicted as a sophist and Prodicus praised for his wisdom. It is, as the article explains, an oversimplification to think of the historical sophists in these terms because they made genuine and original contributions to Western thought. Socrates, although perhaps with some degree of irony, was fond of calling himself a pupil of Prodicus (Protagoras, 341a; Meno, 96d). The sophists, for Xenophons Socrates, are prostitutes of wisdom because they sell their wares to anyone with the capacity to pay (Memorabilia, I.6.13). Prodicus epideictic speech, The Choice of Heracles, was singled out for praise by Xenophon (Memorabilia, II.1.21-34) and in addition to his private teaching he seems to have served as an ambassador for Ceos (the birthplace of Simonides) on several occasions. For Plato, the sophist reduces thinking to a kind of making: by asserting the omnipotence of human speech the sophist pays insufficient regard to the natural limits upon human knowledge and our status as seekers rather than possessors of knowledge (Sophist, 233d). His texts shaped philosophy from Late Antiquity, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Journal of Thought is a nationally and internationally respected, peer-reviewed scholarly journal sponsored by the Society of Philosophy and History of Education. Nonetheless, increased travel, as exemplified by the histories of Herodotus, led to a greater understanding of the wide array of customs, conventions and laws among communities in the ancient world. Gorgias visited Athens in 427 B.C.E. Caddo Gap Press, founded in 1989, specializes in publication of peer-reviewed scholarly journals in the fields of multicultural education, teacher education, and the social foundations of education. Gorgias of Leontini (c.485 c.390 B.C.E.) Plato suggests that Protagoras sought to differ his educational offering from that of other sophists, such as Hippias, by concentrating upon instruction in aret in the sense of political virtue rather than specialised studies such as astronomy and mathematics (Protagoras, 318e). The first topic will be discussed in section 3b. However, such an attempt is misguided for various reasons. Most of the ancient world was focused on the gods and the metaphysical explaining everything. The fact that the sophists taught for profit may not seem objectionable to modern readers; most present-day university professors would be reluctant to teach pro bono. The actual number of Sophists was clearly much larger than 30, and for about 70 years, until c. 380 bce, they were the sole source of higher education in the more advanced Greek cities. Essentially, the motives of the Sophists were corrupt and they lacked the morality that the majority of the philosophers claimed to possess despite any refuting evidence to this fact. As Pheidippides prepares to beat his mother, Strepsiades indignation motivates him to lead a violent mob attack on The Thinkery. Some philosophical implications of the sophistic concern with speech are considered in section 4, but in the current section it is instructive to concentrate on Gorgias account of the power of rhetorical logos. In what are usually taken to be the early Platonic dialogues, we find Socrates employing a dialectical method of refutation referred to as the elenchus. For just as different drugs dispel different secretions from the body, and some bring an end to disease and others to life, so also in the case of logoi, some distress, others delight, some cause fear, others make hearers bold, and some drug and bewitch the soul with a kind of evil persuasion (DK, 82B11). There is a further ethical and political aspect to the Platonic and Aristotelian critique of the sophists overestimation of the power of speech. The Sophistic Movement, in M.L. From another more natural perspective, justice is the rule of the stronger, insofar as rulers establish laws which persuade the multitude that it is just for them to obey what is to the advantage of the ruling few. The Socratic Method Was Genius at Work. Translations are from the Cooper collected works edition of Plato and the Sprague edition of the sophists unless otherwise indicated. what is duty? For by nature we all equally, both barbarians and Greeks, have an entirely similar origin: for it is fitting to fulfil the natural satisfactions which are necessary to all men: all have the ability to fulfil these in the same way, and in all this none of us is different either as barbarian or as Greek; for we all breathe into the air with mouth and nostrils and we all eat with the hands (quoted in Untersteiner, 1954). Although the sophist Thrasymachus does not employ the physis/nomos distinction in Book One of the Republic, his account of justice (338d-354c) belongs within a similar conceptual framework. Socrates Died as He Lived, Uncompromising. This account of the relation between persuasive speech, knowledge, opinion and reality is broadly consistent with Platos depiction of the rhetorician in the Gorgias. Thereafter, at least at Athens, they were largely replaced by the new philosophical schools, such as those of Plato and Isocrates. Only a handful of sophistic texts have survived and most of what we know of the sophists is drawn from second-hand testimony, fragments and the generally hostile depiction of them in Platos dialogues. 1995. Eristic, Antilogic, Sophistic, Dialectic: Platos Demarcation of Philosophy from Sophistry. His appeal to better and worse beliefs could, however, be taken to refer to the persuasiveness and pleasure induced by certain beliefs and speeches rather than their objective truth. In the Sophist, in fact, Plato implies that the Socratic technique of dialectical refutation represents a kind of noble sophistry (Sophist, 231b).