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["Jerry W. Shepperd" <shepperd AT austincc.edu>]

At 03:03 PM 12/9/04, Gene GeRue wrote:

> You use the word sophist different than I;

As used in the following article, Sophist refers to those who can argue for 
any side or position, somewhat like attorneys who can argue either for the 
defense or the prosecution, or advertisers who can promote any 
product.  This is where we get the word "sophistry", which means the 
promotion of a knowingly wrong argument or idea.

Jerry S.

SOPHISTS

The growing demand for education in 5th century BCE. Greece called into 
existence a class of teachers known as sophists. They were a professional 
class rather than a school, and as such they were scattered over Greece and 
exhibited professional rivalries. The educational demand was partly for 
genuine knowledge, but mostly reflected a desire for spurious learning that 
would lead to political success. They wandered about Greece from place to 
place, gave lectures, took pupils, and entered into disputations. For these 
services they exacted large fees, and were, in fact, the first in Greece to 
take fees for teaching wisdom. Though not disgraceful in itself, the wise 
men of Greece had never accepted payment for their teaching. The sophists 
were not, technically speaking, philosophers, but, instead taught any 
subject for which there was a popular demand. Topics included rhetoric, 
politics, grammar, etymology, history, physics, and mathematics. Early on 
they were seen as teachers of virtue in the sense that they taught people 
to perform their function in the state. Protagoras of Abdera, who appeared 
about 445 BCE. is named as the first Sophist; after him the most important 
is Gorgias of Leontini, Prodicus of Ceos and Hippias of Elis. Wherever they 
appeared, especially in Athens, they were received with enthusiasm and many 
flocked to hear them. Even such people as Pericles, Euripides, and Socrates 
sought their company.

The most popular career of a Greek of ability at the time was politics; 
hence the sophists largely concentrated on teaching rhetoric. The aims of 
the young politicians whom they trained were to persuade the multitude of 
whatever they wished them to believed. The search for truth was not top 
priority. Consequently the sophists undertook to provide a stock of 
arguments on any subject, or to prove any position. They boasted of their 
ability to make the worse appear the better reason, to prove that black is 
white. Some, like Gorgias, asserted that it was not necessary to have any 
knowledge of a subject to give satisfactory replies as regards it. Thus, 
Gorgias ostentatiously answered any question on any subject instantly and 
without consideration. To attain these ends mere quibbling, and the scoring 
of verbal points were employed. In this way, the sophists tried to 
entangle, entrap, and confuse their opponents, and even, if this were not 
possible, to beat them down by mere violence and noise. They sought also to 
dazzle by means of strange or flowery metaphors, by unusual figures of 
speech, by epigrams and paradoxes, and in general by being clever and 
smart, rather than earnest and truthful. Hence our word "sophistry": the 
use of fallacious arguments knowing them to be such. Early on Sophists were 
seen to be of merit as people of superior skill or wisdom, as we find in 
Pindar and Herodotus. We learn from Plato, though, that even in the 5th 
century there was a prejudice against the name "sophist". By Aristotle's 
time, the name bore a contemptuous meaning, as he defines "sophist" as one 
who reasons falsely for the sake of gain.

With the revival of Greek eloquence, from about the beginning of the second 
century CE., the name "sophist" attained a new distinction. At that time 
the name was given to the professional orators, who appeared in public with 
great pomp and delivered declamations either prepared beforehand or 
improvised on the spot. Like the earlier sophists, they went generally from 
place to place, and were overwhelmed with applause and with marks of 
distinction by their contemporaries, including the Roman Emperors. Dion 
Chrysostom, Herodes Atticus, Aristides, Lucian, and Philostratus the Elder 
belong to the flourishing period of this second school of sophists, a 
period which extends over the entire second century. They appear afresh 
about the middle of the fourth century, devoting their philosophic culture 
to the zealous but unavailing defense of paganism. Among them was the 
emperor Julian and his contemporaries Libanius, Himerius, and Themistius. 
Synesius may be considered the last sophist of importance.

 <http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/1/about.htm>© 2004  International 
Encyclopedia of Philosophy