Who Were the Sophists?

The Sophists were the first known rhetoricians. They were philosophers that came up with ways to win an argument, and at a monetary price, anyone could learn how to win their own argument. It worked similar to how a technological school works today. This was important in the time and place the sophists were in because of the government becoming more and more oppressive, and the citizens of Athens needed to know how to win their argument in the court of law.

Plato was known to argue with the sophists, and that’s because the sophists true intent in their rhetoric was winning. There was nothing they valued as highly as winning an argument, regardless of the means to reach that conclusion. This is what Plato and other philosophers and rhetoricians had a problem with so much—the sophists didn’t care if they reached some kind of truth, or even if the argument was logical. They just needed to be the successor of the argument.

The Sophists were pragmatic in their beliefs. They believed in relative truth, or the belief that truth only exists in a culture and is subject to change overtime. This falls in line with their belief that everything is subjective. This is them saying everyone is right because everyone sees things differently. Everyone can decide for him or herself what is true and beautiful and good.

So if everyone is right, then how can someone be wrong? The Sophists argued that in their classes on rhetoric, their students can be taught how to persuade someone to see their side of the argument. Unlike other philosophers of their era, their spectrum of thought zeroed in on humans (specifically, persuasion of humans) rather than divine things.

Sources:

Pecorino, Philip A. "Chapter 2: The Greeks." Introduction to Philopsophy. Queensboro: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License, 2000. N. pag. Print.

Herzberg, Bruce, and Patricia Bizzel. The Rhetorical Tradition: Readings from Classical times to the Present. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2001. Print.

West, Stephen. "Episode #003: Socrates and the Sophists." Philosophize This! Apple Podcasts. 23 June 2013. Radio.