The Sophists: Ancient Greek Intellectuals and Their Impact
The Sophists: Greek Intellectuals
The Sophists were a large group of Greek intellectuals who taught in Athens during the 5th and 4th centuries BC in exchange for high pay. Many were concerned only with winning dialectical arguments, which led to a negative connotation.
They were great travelers, coming into contact with other cultures and causing a change in philosophy. None were Athenian (and therefore could not participate in the assembly).
They arose because, in this era of pre-Socratic philosophy, cosmology was in crisis, and there were new social and educational needs resulting from the development of Athenian democracy.
They were considered teachers of virtue, taught rhetoric and dialectic, and prepared students for social success.
Two Generations of Sophists
It’s important to distinguish between two generations of thinkers:
- Those who made interesting contributions to the history of thought: They directed their research to the foundations of the legitimacy of laws and sought the rational foundations of society and social and moral values, thereby creating new avenues of research. Among them are: Protagoras and Gorgias.
- The teachers of rhetoric: Their interests were closer to achieving a dialectical triumph over their adversaries than the pursuit of truth. They looked only in the realm of personal and individual basis to teach it to use fallacious arguments. Among these, we can place Callicles and Thrasymachus.
Shared Features of the Sophists
Despite the differences, they shared several features:
- They charged for their teachings. This was their main occupation, and they considered this task a job itself and not just a moral obligation.
- They shared a certain relativism and skepticism:
- As skeptics, they understood that if there is absolute truth, it is impossible to know. Gorgias said, “There be, if any, could not be known, if known, could not be communicated his knowledge through language.” Their skepticism was philosophical and epistemological, reducing general knowledge and truth to appearances.
- As relativists, they understood that there are no absolute moral truths or standards and should always be analyzed in relation to something. That is why Protagoras says that “man is the measure of all things, which are in that are and are not as they are not.” Sophists are relativistic in cultural, religious, moral, and political fields.
- They shared concerns and distinction between physis and nomos and the assumption of the convention understand that moral standards and policies are the result of work, agreement and human decision.
- Neither the policies or rules are sacred institutions, norms and institutions could be others.
- With regard to morality and the distinction physis-nomos, with the last Sophists should clarify that these believe that in this area if the prevailing natural but is reduced to two laws: the law of the strongest and the pursuit of pleasure and that any law made by men who violate these rules will be unnatural.
With the Sophists, the cosmological time ended, and a period illustrated the philosophy in which man is confident and rational capacity began. With them, philosophy studied man (anthropology) and opens the eternal debate about the moral norms of positive law (nomos) and natural law (physis). Although at the time received strong criticism from Socrates and not Plato was regarded by contemporary philosophy, Nietzsche’s hand, valued this philosophical movement that considered genuinely philosophical.