Ancient philosophy of the Sophists briefly

The philosophy of the Sophists appears at a very interesting period in Greek history. This is the era of the dominance of the so-called ancient democracy, when the fate of city-states was often decided in squares. Ancient Greek poleis - specific republics with their own autonomous government - included residents of the main city and the surrounding countryside. When problems important to the state were being resolved, residents came to public meetings. The courts played a huge role, where they had to defend their point of view. The ability to speak beautifully and convincingly, as well as to lead other people, has become very important and vital. It is in such conditions that teachers of life and wisdom appear.

Sophists, philosophy (briefly) and origin of the term

This name itself is traditional for Greek discourse of that time. It is not for nothing that the term “philosophy” means the love of wisdom. But what is typical for this school? The name itself is not new. In ancient Greek, the word “sophistes” was used to define people who thoroughly knew and were able to do something. This could be called an artist, a good craftsman, or a sage. In a word, an expert. But from the fifth century BC, this term became one of the main characteristics of the phenomenon known to us as ancient philosophy. The sophists were experts in rhetoric.

The meaning of learning

The ability to speak convincingly is one of the main arts of ancient democracy, vital to making a public career. Developing the skill of logically and correctly expressing one’s thoughts becomes the basis of education, especially for future politicians. And eloquence comes to the fore, which has come to be considered the queen of the arts. After all, the way you frame your words is often the reason for your success. Thus, the Sophists became teachers of those who wished to think, speak and do correctly. They were looking for wealthy young men who wanted to go far politically or have another stunning civilian career.

The emergence of the Sophists

The Sophists arose due to the fact that a turning point occurred in the spirit of the Greek people - the Greeks felt the need to be guided in actions and deeds by their own mind. The Greeks have grown to their senses. This apparently made it easier for Anaxagoras to discover that some have intelligence.

In IF one should forget about the bad interpretation of the sophists. The uneducated public has the opinion that a sophist is an insidious demagogue who confuses a naive but good person with his speeches. As soon as such an audience notices that a person can look at an object this way or that way, it becomes frightened, sensing danger. The opportunity to know about something that it is both like this and not like this, causes a protest in a good fellow: “They are confusing me, for some reason they want to fool me!” The people who are most afraid of being fooled are idiots. You can't fool a fool.

Sophists are teachers of wisdom (that's what they called themselves). These are people who are wise themselves and can make others wise and strong in speech. They taught people to reason independently and express their thoughts convincingly. Real wisdom is not much knowledge like: I know where Africa is, where the Volga flows, etc.

The Sophists would not have arisen if the Greek people in the era of Pericles had not felt the need for self-determination, if the conviction had not arisen that a person should not be determined either by tradition, or by momentary passions, or by chance. People realized that in order to become independent, they need to process what is alien to them (that is, spontaneously formed ideas that they simply accepted and did not form on their own) and make them truly their own. The Greeks understood that their own thought must rework their own spontaneously formed opinions. On the basis of this, there was a revolution in the way of thinking, which was started by the Sophists.

How good our people lived when people thought for them. This is not only in the era of the CPSU, but also the hope in the Tsar-Father, the eternal Russian: “The master will come, the master will judge us.” Many also love the army precisely for this reason, where the essence is submission without thought. By definition, a person in the army cannot know better than the commander - the laf!

Now the Russian people are maturing to the idea of self-government (self-determination), the people want to learn to think independently. We are now in the same position as the Greeks in the era of Pericles (IV century BC) - therefore it is useful for us to study the sophists.

The Greeks wanted to determine their own lives, but if they are crazy, then there is only one thing left - to obey individual momentary passions. But it's not reliable. There was a need for competent answers to life's questions. The sophists were the first paid teachers who taught people to reason. How was the Greek formed before this? Spontaneously, through poems.

Since the need for education of the mind was high, some sophists lived luxuriously. Not only young people were interested in sophistry, but also politics. The strength of a politician lies in his ability to persuade. The tyrant does not need this skill: they do not agree - “axe head” - and there are no dissenters. An eloquent politician speaks convincingly. The art of a popular politician is to be able to present his interests as the interests of the people, to convince the people to follow him, as a representative and spokesman for the people's interests.

But the sophists made contributions not only to the education of the Greek people - among them there were also those who contributed to the history of the development of philosophy. Such are Protagoras and Gorgias.

Characteristic

Since rhetoric and eloquence were in great demand in society, these newfangled sages began to charge for their services, which is reflected in historical sources. Their originality also lies in the fact that the philosophy of the Sophists practically abandoned religious justifications for their positions. And why did they need them? After all, sophists are practitioners who teach politicians. In addition, they laid certain foundations of modern culture. For example, ensuring the correctness of eloquence, they developed norms for literary Greek. These sages posed in a new way questions that had long been asked by ancient philosophy. The sophists also took a different look at many problems that they had not noticed before. What is a person, society, knowledge in general? How absolute are our ideas about the world and nature, and is this even possible?

Elder

Sophists, as a phenomenon in the history of thought, are usually divided into two groups. The first is the so-called “elders”. These include all the main achievements attributed to this philosophical direction. The "Elders" were contemporaries of many other great sages. They lived during the time of the Pythagorean Philolaus, representatives of the Eleatic school Zeno and Melissa, natural philosophers Empedocles, Anaxagoras and Leucippus. They were more of a set of techniques, rather than some single school or trend. If you try to characterize them as a whole, you can see that they are the heirs of naturalists, since they try to explain everything that exists by rational reasons, point out the relativity of all things, concepts and phenomena, and also question the foundations of contemporary morality. The philosophy of the older generation of sophists was developed by Protagoras, Gorgias, Hippias, Prodicus, Antiphon and Xeniades. We will try to tell you more about the most interesting things.

The calling of the "minor sophists"

Little reliable information has survived about the “younger sophists.” They represent the teachings of Lycophron and Alcidamantus. Speaking briefly about the main ideas of philosophers, we can highlight ethical and social directions:

breaking down the barrier between social classes;
elite is an invention of an interested group of people;
nature created everyone free, without slavery.

Thrasymachus discussed the usefulness for the powerful of this world. He believed that each government creates its own set of laws: democracy - free, tyranny - oppressive. The philosopher criticizes religion and justifies atheism. He says: “If the deities observed the actions of people, they would see the treasure - justice. And people notice that they hardly use it themselves.”

Protagoras

Most is known about this philosopher. We even know the years of his life. According to some reports, he was born in 481 BC and died in 411. He was born in the trading city of Abdera and was a student of the famous Democritus. The latter's thinking had a significant influence on Protagoras. He developed the doctrine of atoms and emptiness, as well as the multiplicity of worlds, constantly dying and arising again, into the idea of \u200b\u200bthe relativity of things. The philosophy of the Sophists has since become a symbol of relativism. Matter is transitory and constantly changing, and if something dies, then something else comes to take its place. This is our world, Protagoras argued. So it is with knowledge. Every concept can be given an opposite interpretation. It is also known that Protagoras was the author of the atheistic work “On the Gods.” It was burned, and the philosopher himself was doomed to exile.

"Younger"

Classical ancient philosophy really disliked these sages. The sophists were portrayed by its masters as cunning liars. “Teachers of imaginary wisdom,” Aristotle called them. Among these philosophers one can name such names as Alcidamas, Thrasymachus, Critias, Callicles. They professed extreme relativism and came to the conclusion that the concepts of good and evil are practically no different from each other. What may be good for one person is bad for another. In addition, human institutions are very different from natural laws. If the latter are unshakable, then the former vary greatly, depending on the ethnic group and culture, and are something of an agreement. Therefore, our ideas about justice often manifest themselves in the rule of law by the strong. We make people slaves, but all people are born free. History has appreciated their teaching. For example, Hegel stated that these sages did a lot for the birth of dialectics.

Sophists

Lecture “The Emergence of Philosophy. Sophists." Course by Konstantin Bandurovsky “Philosophical Consciousness”.

Theses

The turn from early natural philosophy to the understanding of man and society is associated with the school of sophists. The sophists laid the foundations of various social and human sciences: linguistics, jurisprudence, political science, rhetoric, etc.

Initially, the word “sophist” was synonymous with the word “sage” - this was the name given to people who were knowledgeable in various public and private issues, capable of giving reasonable advice, and leading a virtuous lifestyle. However, from the middle of the 5th century. this name began to be attributed to the teachers of eloquence who appeared in Greece. The need and popularity of teaching eloquence is explained by the development of public life in Ancient Greece: every citizen had to speak at political meetings and in court, it was necessary to be able to defend his point of view, convince listeners and refute the enemy. Oratory also played an important role in diplomacy; it was not for nothing that many of the sophists carried out political assignments. Since then, the word sophistry has appeared - the ability to cunningly conduct debate. The difficulty of studying the sophists is that most of their works have been lost, and we can judge their views based on the writings of their opponents (Plato, Aristotle).

Philosophically, sophistry does not represent a homogeneous phenomenon; in various sophists one can detect the influence of the Eleatics, Heraclitus, and atomists. What the sophists had in common was that they paid little attention to issues of natural philosophy, central to the previous stage of development of Greek thought, being more interested in problems of rhetoric, grammar, legal proceedings, cognition and humanitarian issues in general. The Sophists (along with Socrates) carried out a humanistic turn in ancient Greek philosophy. Unlike the teachings of the Pre-Socratics, often reproached for the abstractness of their knowledge, the theory of the Sophists is closely connected with practice (primarily judicial and political).

Greek sophistry is divided into two stages:

senior sophistry (Protagoras, Gorgias, Hippias, Antiphon); younger sophistry (Lycophron, Alcidamantus, Thrasymachus).

The founder of sophistry can be considered Protagoras of Abdera (490 - 420 BC), who, according to Diogenes Laertius, was the first to teach eloquence for a fee. Democritus took Protagoras as a student, seeing how he, being a porter, rationally stacked logs into bundles. Protagoras developed the art and techniques of argument; Paying great attention to the verbal expression of thought, he classified the tenses and modalities of the verb, and systematized the methods of inference.

In the book “On the Gods,” Protagoras denied the possibility of knowing the gods due to the brevity of human life and the complexity of the subject. Protagoras was accused of atheism (although he only claimed the unknowability of the gods) and the Athenians expelled him from the city (according to another version, they sentenced him to death; Protagoras fled, but drowned during his escape) and burned his books in the square. Modern researchers discover political motives in the trial of Protagoras.

Protagoras put forward the idea of epistemological relativism (the relativity of truth); he believed that completely opposite statements, equally true, are possible about any subject. This was based on the statement “Man is the measure of all things.” Since Protagoras did not distinguish between feelings and reason, we can conclude that everything that appears to a person is true: for example, it is equally true that honey is sweet and that honey is bitter, since it appears sweet to a healthy person and bitter to a sick person. However, Protagoras himself had something else in mind: it is useless to convince a sick person that honey is actually sweet, it is necessary to cure him and he himself will understand this. He considered sophistry to be this kind of therapy, which does not instill the truth, but teaches a person the ability to think and independently discover the truth.

The teachings of the Sophists were also characterized by skepticism (a position that denies the existence of absolute truth) and agnosticism (a position according to which it is impossible to know the essence of something). The sophist Gorgias owns the treatise “On Nature, or On the Non-Existent,” which is considered one of the most striking manifestos of agnosticism.

Gorgias (c. 480 - c. 380) from Leontina (Sicily), a student of Empedocles, claimed that he came to Athens as an envoy of his city, where he became famous as an orator and teacher of rhetoric. Gorgias claimed that he did not teach virtue and wisdom, but only oratory. Gorgias's speech was distinguished by its special poetic expressiveness. He developed and used special rhetorical techniques called Gorgian figures. Phrases that are similar in form and corresponding in volume, the use of parallel members of a sentence and members of a sentence that are in antithesis. The works of Gorgias are characterized by rhythmic design and similar sounding endings.

According to Gorgias, true knowledge does not exist, because even what we personally experienced we remember and know with difficulty; we must be content with the plausible opinion. The main idea of the treatise is “Nothing exists; but even if something exists, it is not knowable; but even if it is knowable, it is inexplicable for another.” Gorgias substantiates these three provisions with the following arguments.

If a being is eternal, then it is infinite, and if it is infinite, then it is nowhere, and if nowhere, then it does not exist. If a being is not eternal, then it came either from a being, which is impossible, since then a being would be before itself, or from a non-being, which is also impossible, since nothing comes from a non-being. Therefore, being is neither eternal nor non-eternal. Therefore, it does not exist at all. (Gorgias also argues that there is no existence, since it is neither one nor multiple).

Even if the existing exists, it is not thought, since the thinkable is not identical to the existing, otherwise Scylla and the Chimera would exist in reality.

If a being is thought, then it is inexplicable to another, since we explain through words, and the word is not identical to the object it denotes and cannot explain it, since, on the contrary, we explain the word by pointing to the object.

The reasoning of Gorgias is a typical example of the constructions of the sophists, called sophism. Sophistry is reasoning aimed at convincing a person of something absurd, confusing him, and forcing his opponent to engage in fruitless verbal debate. Many sophisms are based on the polysemy of words or even on their consonance. Others are erroneously constructed syllogisms or the substitution of another meaning into the terms of the syllogism. The most famous examples of sophism are “The Horned One” (“You did not lose what you have. But you lost the horns. Therefore, you have them”) and “The Dog” (“This dog is the father. But he is yours. So the dog is your father."

Sophistical tricks became part of the methods of eristics - the art of gaining the upper hand in an argument at any cost. However, sophisms also had a positive pedagogical value, teaching a person to analyze statements and think about the speech of others.

Aristotle classified sophisms, their purposes and methods of detection (in his treatise “On Sophistic Refutations”), but he did not distinguish between sophisms and logical paradoxes, also used by the sophists. Logical paradoxes reveal actual logical difficulties and contradictions. Such paradoxes are the “Liar's Paradox” (the statement “I am lying” is true if it is false, and false if it is true) or the “Barber’s Paradox” (The barber shaves all the residents of the city who do not shave themselves. Should he shave himself?).

The study of the constitutions of various cities and the customs of various peoples led to moral relativism - the denial of a single criterion of good and evil for all, the rejection of the existence of a single moral law. According to the anonymous “Double Speeches”: “Disease is an evil for the sick, but a good for doctors. Death is evil for those who are dying, but for sellers of things needed for funerals and for gravediggers it is good.” At the same time, some sophists opposed human laws, changeable and contradictory to each other, with the laws of nature, uniform and unchangeable, by which one should live.

The activities of the sophists caused discontent among the people, since many sophists criticized traditional religious beliefs and even expressed atheistic ideas. According to Thrasymachus, gods exist, but do not pay attention to people. Prodicus of Keos believed that “the ancient people deified the moon, the sun, rivers and streams - everything that benefits us, just as the Egyptians recognized the Nile as divine. That is why bread is revered under the guise of Demeter, wine - Dionysus, water - Poseidon, fire - Hephaestus,” and Critias believed that religion was invented in order to force people to fulfill the laws. The most famous wicked man was Diagoras of Melos, who came to Athens in the 30s of the 5th century. - he parodied the hymns of the mystics and mocked the Eleusinian mysteries by “dancing” them. He also owns the atheistic treatise “Destructive Speeches.”

The younger sophists defended the idea of the equality of all people, so Alcidamant believed that “God made everyone free, nature made no one a slave,” Antiphon denied the difference between Hellenes and barbarians and did not recognize the advantages of noble origin.

There was also a “second sophistry” from the Roman Empire of the 2nd–4th centuries, which flourished during the reign of Julian the Apostate, the patron of the sophists. However, the works of representatives of the “second sophistry”, who strived for sophistication and perfection of speech, were more literary than philosophical. The second sophists include Flavius Philostratus (c. 178 – c. 248), who wrote “The Lives of the Sophists”, Athenaeus (3rd century AD), the author of the work “The Sophists at the Feast Table”, etc.

The activities of the Sophists were sharply criticized by Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, who characterized them as seekers of gain from false wisdom; Because of this criticism, the word “sophistry” acquired a derogatory connotation. However, the sophists made significant contributions to the art of rhetoric, to the study of language, and developed a critical approach in the field of theology and ethics. Sophistry is often called the Greek enlightenment. The influence of the Sophists is manifested in the philosophy of Socrates (and therefore Plato), whom his contemporaries often classified as a Sophist, so Aristophanes ridiculed Socrates as a typical sophist in the comedy “Clouds”. Stoics and skeptics also turned to the teachings of the Sophists.

About a human

Protagoras also declared that people are the measure of everything. What exists and what does not. Because everything we say about the truth is just someone’s opinion. The problem of man in the philosophy of the Sophists appeared precisely as the discovery of subjectivity. Gorgias also developed similar theses. This sage was a student of Empedocles. According to the ancient author Sextus Empiricus, Gorgias put forward three propositions. The first of them was dedicated to the fact that nothing really exists. The second said that if something exists in reality, then it is impossible to know it. And the third was the result of the first two. If we were able to prove that something exists and can be known, then it is absolutely impossible to convey our idea of it exactly. The “Teachers of Wisdom” declared themselves cosmopolitans, because they believed that a person’s homeland is where he is best. Therefore, they were often accused of lacking local polis patriotism.

Features of the thinking of the “senior sophists”

The older group of sophists studied languages, dealt with ethical, political, legal, and state issues, and absolutized the relativity of knowledge, as they questioned all previously existing truths.

The idea of studying the problem of being with the “elders” was revealed from a new perspective - being not in oneself, but for oneself.

They doubted the existence of gods, believing that the latter were an object of human imagination, and criticized religious belief. The sophists did not deny the inhabitants of Olympus, they only looked for arguments for and against.

The "Senior Sophists" are divided into three categories:

the first speakers who respect the rules of morality and ethics;
debaters (“erists”) who defend the formal aspect of the method. They exaggerated the content of concepts, erased the moral context, which aroused the anger of the public;
politicians in sophistry, reducing the ideology of the doctrine to the theorization of immorality.

A notable representative of the senior sophists was the ancient philosopher Protagoras. Among like-minded people, the sage had bright philosophical thinking. Being a materialist, he talked about matter, the equivalence of existence and non-existence. Protagoras believed:

a person is a person because he has character, positions his own “I”;
being has essence;
truth is a phenomenon of consciousness;
a person positions meaning as a measure of being.
man is the measure of all things, as he sees the world as he is.

Protagoras denies absolute truths, emphasizing relativity. In the thinker's opinion, there is something more appropriate and useful. A sage is one who recognizes relative usefulness, acceptability; he is able to convince others of this, to bring the appropriateness to life.

The philosopher put forward the idea of a democratic society in which free people would be equal.

Protagoras argued that every opinion is opposed by a contradictory opinion. The contrast of statements opened the concept of “philosophical dialogue”.

The “Senior Sophist” taught how to defeat a strong argument with a weak argument, using noble methods, utilizing lawlessness and wrongness; showed how to methodically win a victory with a weak argument.

Socrates was a student of Protagoras. The master's philosophy seemed erroneous, so Socrates and the other sophists became opponents in the knowledge of existence. The sophists insisted on the advantage of a person to evaluate the truth by his own feelings, and rejected absolute truth. Socrates argued that the foundation of existence is the divine essence, since this is the only way to study the purpose of man in the world. The Socratic principle clearly argues for the unrealization of Sophia's denial of truth, its objective, significant qualities.

The next sophist of the senior group was Gorgias. He is considered the creator of rhetoric and situation ethics. In his opinion, one and the same action is both good and bad, depending on what moment it relates to. Gorgias identified three paradoxical rules:

nothing exists;
even if something existed, people could not know it;
but even if they knew it, they could not describe it in words, explain it to others.

The most erudite, versatile sophist was Protagoras's contemporary, Hippias. The power of his words lay in naturalness; he knew how to captivate his listeners. The thinker disseminated information about history, politics, genealogy, mathematics, and poetry among the masses. He wrote poetry and prose, was fond of music, and was a versatile personality. Hippias drew positive conclusions and became rich doing what he loved.

Another sophist philosopher, Prodicus, studied verbal semantics and delved into the correctness of speech. The sage contrasted virtue with vice, pushing people to choose good between them, as a real benefit, a true benefit.

About religion

The Sophists were known for ridiculing and criticizing belief in the gods. Protagoras, as mentioned above, did not know whether higher powers really existed. “This question is unclear to me,” he wrote, “and human life is not enough to fully investigate it.” And the representative of the “younger” generation of sophists, Critias, received the nickname of the atheist. In his work “Sisyphus,” he declares every religion a fiction, which is used by cunning people to impose their laws on fools. Morality is not at all established by the gods, but is fixed by people. If a person knows that no one is watching him, he easily violates all established norms. The philosophy of the Sophists and Socrates, who also criticized social mores and religion, was often perceived by the less educated public as one and the same. No wonder Aristophanes wrote a comedy in which he ridiculed the teacher Plato, attributing to him unusual views.

How to spot sophistry

To find sophistry in a problem, you must follow certain rules and recommendations:

Please read the terms and conditions carefully. Sometimes sophistry arises due to an error in the source data. They may be contradictory and incomplete. Moreover, the initial assumption also sometimes contains a false statement. Basically, people are conditioned to think that if the result is wrong, then the problem lies in the reasoning. Sometimes, however, it is necessary to carefully read the contents of the task again, perhaps the error lies there;
Determine which theorems, formulas, or rules apply to a given situation. Then check if they are all correct and if the logic is followed. Often people do not remember wording very accurately, paying attention only to basic phrases and sentences. You may miss important, significant details, without which the essence of the theorem is lost, which in turn leads to an incorrect solution to the problem;
Sometimes it is useful to divide a large task into smaller blocks and then test each block. It is important to determine whether all premises are true, as well as whether the judgments are logical.

Ancient philosophy, sophists and Socrates

These sages became the object of ridicule and criticism from their contemporaries. One of the most strident opponents of the Sophists was Socrates. He differed with them on questions about faith in God and virtues. He believed that discussion exists to search for truth, and not to demonstrate the beauty of arguments, that terms should define the essence of things, and not just be beautiful words that mean one thing or another. In addition, Socrates was a supporter of the absoluteness of good and evil. The latter, in his opinion, stems solely from ignorance. The philosophy of the Sophists and Socrates thus has both similarities and differences. They were opponents, but in some ways allies. If Hegel believed that the “teachers of wisdom” did a lot to found dialectics, then Socrates is recognized as its “father.” The Sophists drew attention to the subjectivity of truth. Socrates believed that the latter is born in disputes.

Ethics of Socrates

The most important part of Socrates' philosophy was ethics - the doctrine of moral standards.

Unlike the Sophists, Socrates decided - in word and deed - to teach people “virtue as such,” regardless of sophistic details and conventions.

At the center of his philosophy, Socrates placed the theme of man, the problems of good and evil, life and death, virtues and vices, law and duty, freedom and responsibility, the individual and society.

In his ethics, virtue is closely related to knowledge. Socrates taught that human activity is entirely determined by his concepts of goodness, valor, justice and the goals that follow from these concepts. Socrates saw the essence of a person in his soul.

The human soul, according to Socrates, is, first of all, reason combined with morality. If a person knows what good is, then he cannot commit evil, since morality is presupposed by knowledge.

Freeing oneself from ignorance and ignorance with the help of philosophy, a person is freed from evil.

Socrates's lifestyle, the political and moral conflicts of his fate, the popular style of philosophizing, civic courage and valor, and the tragic end - surrounded his name with an attractive aura of legend. Under the influence of his teachings, several “Socratic” schools emerged, among which was the famous Plato Academy.

What have the Sophists become?

We can say that all these diverse trends created the preconditions for the development of many subsequent phenomena in the human worldview. For example, from the above reflections on subjectivity and the influence of individual opinion on the perception of truth, anthropological philosophy was born. The Sophists and Socrates stood at its origins. As a matter of fact, even the public rejection that hit them was of the same nature. The Athenian public of that time was not very well disposed towards intellectuals and tried to equalize everything to the taste of the crowd. However, gradually wisdom itself began to disappear from the teachings of the sophists. They increasingly practiced not philosophy, but the ability to argue equally well for different points of view. Their schools became literary circles, where writers, not politicians, honed their eloquence. Sophistry as a phenomenon died out completely after the era of Aristotle, although there were attempts to revive it in history, including in ancient Rome. But these attempts turned into purely intellectual games of rich people and had neither popularity nor future. Our modern understanding of the word “sophism” comes precisely from this late phenomenon, which was actually emasculated and lost the attractiveness characteristic of its founders.