Sophists

 The Sophists were orators, public speakers, mouths for hire in an oral culture.  They were gifted with speech.  They were skilled in what becomes known as Rhetoric.  They were respected, feared and hated.  They had a gift and used it in a manner that aroused the ire of many.  They challenged, questioned and did not care to arrive at the very best answers.  They cared about  winning public speaking contests, debates, and lawsuits

 To support one's position in any matter, nothing better could be offered than a quotation from one of the works, which told of the gods and their actions.  If an action of the gods could be found that was similar to that being taken by a party to a debate then that was evidence of the correctness of that action.  Therefore, those who were the fastest and most accurate at being able to locate quotations and take them and apply them to a given situation would often win the debate, the contest, the lawsuit or discussion.

 The Sophists held no values other than winning and succeeding.  They were not true believers in the myths of the Greeks but would use references and quotations from the tales for their own purposes.  They were secular atheists, relativists and cynical about religious beliefs and all traditions.  They believed and taught that "might makes right". (Pecorino, 2000)

 English word “rhetoric” is derived from Greek rhḗtorikḗ, which apparently came into use in the circle of Socrates in the fifth century B.C. in the democracies of Syracuse and Athens, and first appears in Plato’s dialogue Gorgias. In Greek it specifically denotes the civic art of public speaking

 It is a specific cultural subset of a more general concept of the power of words and their potential to affect a situation in which they are used or received. Ultimately, what we call “rhetoric” can be traced back to the natural instinct to survive and to control our environment and influence the actions of others in what seems the best interest of ourselves, our families, our social and political groups, and our descendants.   (Kennedy, 1994)

 Early Greek philosophy was mainly concerned with the Object, trying to determine the ultimate principles of all things. Coupled with a skeptical attitude towards the validity of sense and perception, and later on encountering less developed nations all led to a natural questioning of the ways of life, religious and ethical codes and if they were just conventions or not.

 The main difference of Sophism to early Greek philosophy that it dealt with man.

 Along this there was a difference in the method, where as early Greek philosophers tended to be deductive, the Sophists tended to accumulate wide particular observations and facts, then they drew conclusions partly theoretical and partly practical.  (Copleston, 1993)

 The names survive of nearly 30 Sophists properly so called, of whom the most important were Protagoras, Gorgias, Antiphon, Prodicus, and Thrasymachus

 Plato protested strongly that Socrates was in no sense a Sophist—he took no fees, and his devotion to the truth was beyond question.

 The Sophists taught men how to speak and what arguments to use in public debate. A Sophistic education was increasingly sought after both by members of the oldest families and by aspiring newcomers without family backing. Sophistic movement performed a valuable function within Athenian democracy in the 5th century BCE. It offered an education designed to facilitate and promote success in public life

 Plato concludes that the widespread use of antilogic is evidence that Sophists had no real regard for the truth, which must itself be free from antilogic.

 Relativism and skepticism have often been regarded as common features of the Sophistic movement as a whole.

 Sophists were in revolt against attempts to explain the physical world by appeals to principles that could not be perceived by the senses; and instead of framing new “objective” explanations, they attempted to explain things, where explanation was required (Kerferd, 1999)

Some excerpts of well known sophists: 

Protagoras:

Man is the measure of all things

There is relative truth only

Everyone has his own truth 

Gorgias:

Nothing exists

If something does exist we cannot know it

Even if we can know it we cannot communicate it 

Thrasymachus :

Might makes right 

 The Sophists challenged and criticized and destroyed the foundations of traditions and the moral and social order and they put nothing in its place nor did they care to.  While Socrates looked for objective and eternal truths the Sophists were promoting ideas of relativism and subjectivism, wherein each person decides for him or herself what the true and the good and the beautiful are. (Pecorino, 2000)

Copleston, F. S. (1993). A history of Philosophy (Vol. Volume I). New York: Double Day.

Kennedy, G. A. (1994). A new history of classical rhetoric. New Jersey: Princeton Press.

Kerferd, G. B. (1999). Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved from Encyclopedia Britannica: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Sophist-philosophy

Pecorino, P. A. (2000). History of Philosophy.