From: "Jerry W. Shepperd" <shepperd AT austincc.edu>
To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
Cc: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: [Homestead] Was Rural voters; Now "Sophists"
Date: Thu, 09 Dec 2004 15:22:00 -0600
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.