The Sophists Philosophical quest: a key factor for the advancement of modern knowledge.
Introduction.
The dominant views about the sophist in the history of Philosophy always tend to placed them at a negative stand. For instance, Socrates and Plato provided a negative critique of the Sophist, they said that "the Sophist overemphasized the accidental subjective and personal elements in knowledge and conduct"
Though the term Sophist originally meant "those who are wise" but it is always believe that they later employed specious argument or reasoning or who lacked a sense of social responsibility and were deceptive in making the worse appear the better cause.
Aristotle also complained that the training provided by sophist such as Protagoras was a "fraud" because it taught the skill of "making the worse argument seems the better". All this accusation may cause young minds in the line of Philosophy to ask "what really was the major contributions of the Sophist? How relevant is their contribution in our contemporary society? Was the Sophist dubious as claimed by Socrates and Plato?
In my cause of working on this topic, the Sophist Philosophical quest; a key factor for the advancement of modern knowledge. I shall do well to explore the Sophist, their major contributions towards the expansion of knowledge and the relevant of the Sophist in this contemporary society.
In other to help you appreciate this paper, I shall attempt to deal firstly with the frequently asked questions. The first is; What is sophism? And the second, Who were the Sophist?
WHAT IS SOPHISM/SOPHIST?
Sophism is an early Pre-socratic school of Philosophy in ancient Greece. The term sophism comes from the Greek "Sophos" or "Sophia" meaning "wise" or "wisdom" respectfully.
Originally, SOPHISM referred to any expertise in a specific domain of knowledge or craft. Over time, the term Sophism came to denote a class of itinerant intellectuals who taught courses in "excellence" or "virtue" but often charging high fees for it. This group speculated about nature of language and culture and employed rhetoric to achieve their purpose generally to persuade or convince people.
Sophist originally, itinerant teachers in Greece (5th Cent. B. C.) Who provided thorough lectures and in return received fees for their audiences. The term originally meant "those who are wise" so the Sophist in the history of Philosophy were considered to be the wise men.
Major Sophist in the history of Philosophy.
Many sources have recorded more than 30 Sophist in the history of Philosophy but getting so closely, it appears that almost all the sources pointed out a few of them.
These major ones include;
i. Protagoras
ii. Gorgias
iii. Prodicus
iv. Thrasymachus
v. Antiphon and,
vi. Hippias.
Among the above six listed, the famous was Protagoras. For easy understanding, there is need for us to give a brief biography about them.
i. Protagoras.
The most famous of the Sophist was Protagoras (c.490-420BC) many sources attest to the fact that he (Protagoras) was the oldest and in many ways, the most influential. He is best known for his statement;
"Man is the measure of all things, of the things that are, they are, and of the things that are not, they are not"
This is to say that a person is the ultimate standard of all judgements that he or she makes. Meaning that whatever knowledge I might achieve about anything would be limited to my human capacities.
He claimed that individual and society as a whole are the measure of all things. Under either interpretation, he expresses a radical humanism and relativism that says there is no standard other than itself that individual or society invented.
Knowledge, Protagoras said, is limited to our various perceptions, and these perceptions will differ with each person. From this he drew the conclusion that everything is Relative to the individual. If two people abserve the same object, their sensations would be different because each would occupied a different position in relation to it. Similarly, the same breeze blowing on two people would fell cool to one while it would be warm to the other.
Whether the breeze is or is not cool cannot be answered in a simple way. It is in fact cool for one person and warm for the other. To say that a is a measure of all things, is therefore to say that our knowledge is measured by what we percieve. If something within us makes us percieve things differently, there is then no standard for testing whether one person's perception is right and another person wrong.
Protagoras thought that the objects we percieve by our various senses must posses all of the properties that different people perceive as belonging to them. For this reason, it is impossible to discover what is the "true" nature of anything; a thing has as many characteristics as there are people perceiving it, for this reason, there is no way to distinguish between the appearance of a thing and its reality.
On the theory of knowledge, it would be impossible to attain any absolute scientific knowledge since there are built-in differences in each observe which leads each of us to see things differently.
According to William F. Lawhead, The Voyage of Discovery: A historical introduction to Philosophy. Protagoras skepticism also led him to dismissed the possibility of theoretical discussions of theology. He said, "concerning the gods I am unable to discover whether they exist or not, or what they are like in form; for there are many hindrances to knowledge the obscurity of the subject and brevity of human"
Although he was not sure the gods existed but since religious beliefs was an intergral part of the civilized society and political community of his time, he therefore assume the belief in the gods as necessary for social stability.
Protagoras interests were practical not theoretical.
ii. Gorgias:
Gorgias (375B.C) was another Sophist. His extreme view differed from Protagoras since while Protagoras said that everything is Relative, Gorgias denied that there is no truth at all. He was really the likes of the Eleatic Philosophers like Parmenides and Zeno.
He propounded the extraordinary notions that;
a. Nothing exist.
b. If anything exist it is incomprehensible and,
c. Even if it is comprehensible, it cannot be communicated.
Gorgias, standing on the third notion that "even if it is comprehensible, it cannot be communicated" he argued that we communicate with words, but words are only symbols of signs and no symbol can ever be the same as the thing it symbolizes. For this reason, knowledge can never be communicated.
Gorgias abandoned Philosophy and turned to rhetoric and tried to perfect it as the art of persuation.
Having earlier concluded that there is no truth, Gorgias was willing to employ the art of whatever practical ends he chose.
iii. Thrasymachus.
Thrasymachus in the republic is portrayed as the Sophist who asserted that injustice is to be preferred to the life of Justice. He did not look upon Justice as a defect of character. On the contrary, Thrasymachus considered the unjust person as positively superior in character and intelligence.
To Thrasymachus, indeed, "injustice paya", not only at the meager level of the pick-pocket (although there is profit in that too), but especially for those who carry injustice to perfection and make themselves masters of whole city nations. Justice he said, is pursued by simpletons and heads to weakness.
He regarded justice as being the interest of the stronger and believed that "might is right". Laws, he said, are made by the ruling party for its own interests. These laws define what is "right". In all countries alike, the notion of "right" means the same thing since "right" is simply the interest of the party established in power, so Thrasymachus says, "the sound conclusion is that what is right is the same everywhere: the interest of the stronger party"
Thrasymachus emphasized the sociological fact that those people who have the most power are in position to dictate what we will call just or not. Hence, since morality is just a matter of social convention, then "justice" will be whatever serves the interests of the powerful.
iv. Antiphon.
A contemporary of Socrates argues that we naturally seek what is advantageous to us. We are all subject to the law of self-preservation. However this law has not passed by any human legislators but it is a law of nature itself. If we violate this law, the penalty is death, and unlike human courts, nature's penalties follow swiftly and automatically. Antiphon in one of his fragments noted:
"Most of the things which are just by law are hostile to nature... but life and death are the concern of nature and living creatures live by what is advantageous to them and die from what is not advantageous; and the advantages which accrue from law are chains upon nature, whereas those which accrue from nature are free"
He also offers a moral policy by saying that;
"A man will be just, then, in a way most advantageous to himself if in the presence of witnesses, he holds the laws of the city in high esteem, and in the absence of witnesses, when he is done those of nature."
Having looked into some Sophists like Protagoras, Gorgias, Thrasymachus, and Antiphon,(though Prodicus and Hippias are not discussed due to the limit of the work) let's turn our focus on the contributions of the Sophist.
CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE SOPHISTS.
The history of Philosophy provides to us an insight to Philosophical thoughts. It helps to chronologically approach the different ideas of Philosophers and Philosophical movements. Each movement or school of thought has a special or major contributions towards Philosophizing.
Right from Thales, Anaximander, Anaximanes to Heraclitus, Democritus and down to the Sophist. There has been this continuous flow of Philosophizing that gives special credit to each movement. The Sophist contributions was really a major one and mind twisted. The Pre-socratics focused their attention on nature and their argument were on cosmology, cosmogony and ontology... but the Sophist came up with a new method of Philosophizing. As Cicero put it; "the Sophist brought Philosophy down from heaven to the dwellings of men". As the work "Sophist" entails "those who are wise" their doctrine was extremely skeptical and through their skepticism, they end up inventing new ideas in the course of Philosophizing.
*They taught the people of Athens. Moving from one place to another as an itinerant teachers. This means that they contributed to the expansion of knowledge of the Athenians.
*They offered guidance in practical matters to the rising class of the Athenian's politicians.
*They trained people on how to defend their claims. Though Aristotle complained that the training the Sophist provided was a fraud because it taught the skill of making the worse argument seems the better, but I see this as a major contribution to the side of Philosophy because since Philosophy is said to be the love of wisdom, then a true Philosopher must have the wisdom to work out salvation for himself.
*They discussed major themes such as;
- Nature and convention
- Relativism
- Language and reality.
On an individual stand, Protagoras, one of the Sophist contributed by saying that "Man is the measure of all things". Though many scholars may criticize the Sophist and think that they were not contributing anything. But I think that the actual set of Philosophers who knew how to Philosophize were the Sophist. They were not dogmatic, they centered their Philosophy in everything. Most especially on questions concerning human affairs like knowledge, values and actions and thereby expanded the range of Philosophy beyond merely cosmological concerns.
* The Sophist provided a Philosophical weeding service by undercutting beliefs that were naively based on dogma and tradition.
* They raised critical questions in epistemology, ethics and politics that have been ignored or taken for granted by their predecessors.
* Their skepticism and ethical relativism forced later Philosophers to think more carefully about the foundation of knowledge and values.
* Their study of language and argument contributed to the development of logic, rhetoric and grammar.
* The Sophist were a progressive force against entrenched tradition because they traveled about, they could look beyond the boundaries of the much too provincial city-states.
*The Sophist critique of blind faith in tradition led to more practical political solutions in the form of Pan-Hellenism or a great sense of unity between the Greek states.
Though the Sophist did not teach a common doctrine, they were United by a common hostility towards traditional Greek beliefs. The Sophist Philosophical quest is seen as a key factor for the advancement of Philosophical knowledge even till date. The relevant of the Sophist Philosophy can be seen in all faces of life today.
It has been noted that the Sophist were best known for their skills of persuasive argument. Today in our contemporary societies, the skill of persuasive argument is still relevant.
Whereby people uses these skills of persuasive argument to convince their cleints, making them to believe on a certain phenomenon.
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