The Pre-Socratics Part 7: The Sophists

The population density of Manhattan is 74,800 per square mile. We don't know exactly what the population density of Athens was, but we estimate maybe 120,000 people in a 0.68 square mile area – 176,500 people per square mile. I think it's no surprise that communication was essential in Athens of this time. Enter, the Sophists. "Sophist" originally meant something akin to a wise or educated person in more than one field, but by the time of Socrates and Fifth Century BC Athens this term came to mean something quite specific: someone who made a living by teaching others in the arts of rhetoric and oratory.

Aristotle and Plato did not have a good opinion of the Sophists – the reason being they taught people how to persuade, not how to discover truth. I'm sure that you've been in an instance where you knew you were right about something, but someone else was more persuasive than you, thus misleading others around you. To a philosopher, who might not always be the best communicator (let's face it), this is eternally frustrating.

The Sophists were not just educators in vocal trickery though, but in all manner of things of a more advanced education than was previously available in Athens – the city-state was becoming wealthy at the time and the desire for discussion about natural phenomena, history, literature, society and ethics had grown. Indeed, this is why Socrates directed so much attention to ask the Sophists to justify what might be considered a good way to live. While we refer to them as "the" Sophists, this isn't really a formal school as such but rather a collection of similar wandering people who all had distinct thoughts. While there are many known Sophists, and I will list some: Gorgias, Protagoras, Antiphon, Hippias, Prodicus, Critias, Thrasymachus. While there are more, these are the main ones. In the interest of brevity, I will only cover two Sophists here briefly: Gorgias and Protagoras.

Protagoras

Born in 490BC, Protagoras claimed to be the first sophist, charging fees for the education in oration as we have discussed. Protagoras could be considered a sort of intellectual leader of the Sophists, and from him came some of the elements common to all. He taught aretē, which is a kind of quality of being successful. According to Plato in Protagoras, Protagoras says

My boy, if you associate with me, the result will be that the very day you begin you will return home a better person, and the same will happen the next day too. Each day you will make constant progress toward being better…

Good counsel concerning his personal affairs, so that he may best manage his own household, and also concerning the city’s affairs, so that as far as the city’s affairs go he may be most powerful in acting and in speaking.

Protagoras has an interesting approach to truth. He says that each man determines truth and falsehood: if I determine the wind to be hot, I am correct; if you determine the wind to be cold you are also correct. Yet he also maintains that contradiction is impossible, according to Diogenes Laertius. Perhaps Protagoras means that personal judgements like "hotness" and "coldness" are always true because these are relative and contextual. Some things however, may not be "personal judgements" and contradictions as such are impossible in those circumstances.

Gorgias

Also born around 490BC, and is said to have lived for some one hundred years. He travelled and charged fees for public performances where he would speak on any topic the audience proposed. Gorgias differs to Protagoras in that he does not teach aretē, but rather only teaches rhetoric, which is not morally good or bad but neutral. Rhetoric can be used for good or evil, and it depends on he who wields it.

Discussions about rhetoric at the time naturally lead the ancient Greeks to wonder about the relationship between thought, language and reality. In way, this is a sort of early form of philosophy of linguistics and neuroscience. At any rate, Gorgias has a rather radical position in his work On What-Is-Not, or On Nature (which sadly does not survive but we have several summaries of it from other authors) that is: nothing exists, even if something does exist humans can not comprehend it, even if it is comprehensible humans can not communicate it. Naturally, this lead to a great deal of controversy; in two ways. One: whether this is even a serious contribution to philosophy, and two; if it is a serious contribution, what is it? Richard D McKirahan does not think it a serious contribution or what Gorgias actually believed but rather a parody on the thought of some of the earlier pre-Socratic thinkers, particularly the Eleatic school. Although in some way, should this cast doubt on the earlier and very serious work of Parmenides, that would be a significant contribution to philosophy. At any rate, you should not be convinced easily by Gorgias that nothing exists at all.

References

Protagoras by Plato

History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russel

Philosophy Before Socrates by Richard D McKirahan

History of Philosophy by A. C. Grayling

The Presocratic Philosophers by Jonathan Barnes

Preamble - Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6 - Part 7 - Socrates