The Sophists and Socrates Short Notes

The Sophists and Socrates

The Sophists

The enterprise of the early philosophers started to be put into doubt (different theories led to opposite conclusions). The Presocratics were succeeded by the Sophists. These were “itinerant professors, who moved from city to city lecturing on various topics, including grammar, the interpretation of poets, the philosophy of mythology, religion and most importantly, rhetoric (the study of the ways of using language effectively)”. The Sophists emerged in a period when the Greeks had come in closer contact with other peoples, not just the people of Persia, Babylon and Egypt, but also with other less advanced civilizations such as the Scythians and the Thracians. The change from the Presocratics to the Sophists can be explained with reference to: a. A change in subject-matter b. A change in the method employed c. A change in purpose The Presocratics studied nature and the universe; thus they can be called naturalists or cosmologists. On the other hand, the Sophists shifted the focus to man; thus they can be called anthropologists (this applies to Socrates too). The Presocratics used mainly the deductive method (although they also made use of observation). The Sophists, on the other hand, sought to accumulate a large number of facts, and from these, they moved to draw conclusions, partly theoretical, partly practical. Thus their method can be called empirco-inductive. The Presocratics were for truth, while the sophists were for effectiveness and success (moreover they believed that objective truth was not possible). Protagoras: man is the measure of all things – problem with this sentence: a) man: does it refer to individual man or to community/ whole human species? b) things: objects of perception or ethical judgements? In the Theatetus Protagoras is depicted as saying that individual sense-perception is relative to the perceiver and that the wise man should substitute sound practices for unsound practices (however there is no true 1

practice/or universally true). In the Protagoras he is depicted as saying that certain ethical tendencies are implanted in all man, however, applied differently in different societies (this is shown by the fact that laws varied from one society to another) - one cannot say that one legal code is truer than another. Prodicus: on the origin of religion - in the beginning men worshipped as gods the sun, moon, rivers lakes etc. – in other words those things that were useful to them and gave them food. Later, when men invented various arts – agriculture, viniculture, metal work etc. men started worshipping gods like Demeter (the goddess of harvest), Dionysius/ Hephaestus (the god of technology, blacksmiths, craftsmen, artisans, sculptors, metals, metallurgy, fire and volcanoes). Gorgias: was a student of Empedocles, but then seemed to have been led to scepticism by the riddles of Zeno. He held that a) nothing exists, b) if something exists we cannot know it, c) if we can know it, we cannot communicate it to others. In other words, Gorgias seemed to have been a radical sceptic and a relativist. However, some argue that these claims by Gorgias were simply a rhetorical exercise. Thrasymachus: he accepted the idea that there is no truth, and used it as a foundation to his own doctrine of „Might is Right‟. He argued that people only speak of justice in order to secure their own power and accepts this as a natural tendency, a fact which has to be exploited to further personal interests. Socrates

It is difficult to know exactly what was Socrates' teaching. Socrates never wrote anything, and so everything we know about his teaching, we know it through the writings of others. The sources of Socrates are mainly Plato, Xenophon, various statements of Aristotle and Aristophanes ('Clouds'). The major difficulty for a reconstruction of the thoughts of Socrates is that these people sometimes recount contrasting views. Aristotle says that Socrates made two important improvements in science: the employment of inductive arguments and his search for universal definitions. Induction means deriving a general/universal principle from a number of particulars. Universal definitions, as opposed to particular definitions, are very important if one is to construct a foundational ethics. Socrates search for universal definitions can be contrasted to the Sophists‟ relativistic doctrines. Socrates is also famous for his use of dialectic: 2

1. During a conversation, Socrates asks the interlocutor (someone who is engaged in a dialogue) to define a concept. This can be achieved by either asking the interlocutor for a definition, or by leading the interlocutor to define a concept. For example, Socrates might ask, 'what is justice?' (Socrates would profess to be ignorant in the subject matter). 2. Socrates would then point out the inadequacy of the definition given. Then the interlocutor would redefine, and so on, with or without final success. For example, „is it unjust to deceive? Yes. But what if a father deceives his son so as to give him a medicine?‟ This method often humiliated the interlocutors; however, Socrates‟ aim was to find the truth, not as a matter of speculation, but in order to live the good life. Socratic irony - this is Socrates' profession of ignorance. Socrates called his method midwifery. On the one hand, this is a playful allusion to his mother, but on the other hand, and most importantly, he helped others to give birth to true ideas. It is important to keep in mind that Socrates' philosophy was a practical one. Socrates equated knowledge with virtue (moral optimism) - he who knows what is right will also do what is right. No one does evil for its own sake. This can be called ethical intellectualism, i.e. the identification of the ethical with the intellectual. Aristotle's criticism - Socrates paid no attention to moral weakness. From the identification of knowledge with virtue it follows that there is one virtue, i.e. insight into what is truly good for man. Moreover it also follows that virtue is teachable; not rational teaching, but leading man to insight.

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