Sophist school of thought (Nature and convention) The distinction between physis (nature)

and nomos (custom, law, convention) was a central theme in Greek thought in the second half of the fifth century B.C.E. and is especially important for understanding the work of the sophists. Before turning to sophistic considerations of these concepts and the distinction between them, it is worth sketching the meaning of the Greek terms. The term nomos refers to a wide range of normative concepts extending from customs and conventions to positive law. It would be misleading to regard the term as referring only to arbitrary human conventions, as Heraclitus appeal to the distinction between human nomoi and the one divine nomos (DK 22B2 and 114) makes clear. Nonetheless, increased travel, as exemplified by the histories of Herodotus, led to a greater understanding of the wide array of customs, conventions and laws among communities in the ancient world. This recognition sets up the possibility of a dichotomy between what is unchanging and according to nature and what is merely a product of arbitrary human convention. The dichotomy between physis and nomos seems to have been something of a commonplace of sophistic thought and was appealed to by Protagoras and Hippias among others. Perhaps the most instructive sophistic account of the distinction, however, is found in Antiphons fragment On Truth. (Relativism) The primary source on sophistic relativism about knowledge and/or truth is Protagoras famous man is the measure statement. Interpretation of Protagoras thesis has always been a matter of controversy. Caution is needed in particular against the temptation to read modern epistemological concerns into Protagoras account and sophistic teaching on the relativity of truth more generally. (Language and Reality) Understandably given their educational program, the sophists placed great emphasis upon the power of speech (logos). Logos is a notoriously difficult term to translate and can refer to thought and that about which we speak and think as well as rational speech or language. The sophists were interested in particular with the role of human discourse in the shaping of reality. Rhetoric was the centre piece of the curriculum, but literary interpretation of the work of poets was also a staple of sophistic education. Some philosophical implications of

the sophistic concern with speech are considered in section 4, but in the current section it is instructive to concentrate on Gorgias account of the power of rhetorical logos. Sophism in the modern definition is a specious argument used for deceiving someone. In ancient Greece, sophists were a category of teachers who specialized in using the techniques of philosophy and rhetoric for the purpose of teaching areteexcellence, or virtuepredominantly to young statesmen and nobility. The practice of charging money for education and providing wisdom only to those who could pay led to the condemnations made by Socrates, through Plato in his dialogues, as well as Xenophon's Memorabilia. Through works such as these, Sophists were portrayed as "specious" or "deceptive", hence the modern meaning of the term. The Greek word sophist (sophists) derives from the words sophia, and sophos, meaning wisdom or wise since the time of Homer and was originally used to describe expertise in a particular knowledge or craft. Gradually, however, the word also came to denote general wisdom and especially wisdom about human affairs. This was the meaning ascribed to the Greek Seven Sages of 7th and 6th century BC (like Solon and Thales), and it was the meaning that appeared in the histories of Herodotus. Richard Martin refers to the seven sages as "performers of political poetry." Sophists were philosopher-teachers who traveled around Greek cities claiming to teach their students everything that was necessary to be successful in life including rhetoric and public speaking. These were useful skills in Athens, where being persuasive could lead to political power and economic wealth. Although there were numerous differences among Sophist teachings, a prominent element in their philosophy was skepticism. Sophists taught their beliefs for a considerable price. Overall, Sophists identified as either agnostic or atheistic. Rhetoric is the art of discourse, an art that aims to improve the capability of writers or speakers that attempt to inform, persuade, or motivate particular audiences in specific situations. As a subject of formal study and a productive civic practice, rhetoric has played a central role in the Western tradition. Its best known definition comes from Aristotle, who considers it a counterpart of both logic and politics, and calls it "the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of

persuasion." Rhetorics typically provide heuristics for understanding, discovering, and developing arguments for particular situations, such as Aristotle's three persuasive audience appeals, logos, pathos, and ethos. The five canons of rhetoric, which trace the traditional tasks in designing a persuasive speech, were first codified in classical Rome: invention, arrangement, style, memory, Capella), and delivery. rhetoric is Along one of with grammar and logic (or dialecticsee Martianus the three ancient arts of discourse. Scholars have debated the scope of rhetoric since ancient times. Although some have limited rhetoric to the specific realm of political discourse, many modern scholars liberate it to encompass every aspect of culture. Contemporary studies of rhetoric address a more diverse range of domains than was the case in ancient times. While classical rhetoric trained speakers to be effective persuaders in public forums and institutions such as courtrooms and assemblies, contemporary rhetoric investigates human discourse writ large. Rhetoricians have studied the discourses of a wide variety of domains, including the natural and social sciences, fine art, religion, journalism, digital media, fiction, history, cartography, and architecture, along with the more traditional domains of politics and the law. Many contemporary approaches treat rhetoric as human communication that includes purposeful and strategic manipulation of symbols. Public relations, lobbying, law, marketing, professional and technical writing, and advertising are modern professions that employ rhetorical practitioners. Rhetoric to the Greeks is a part of their civic art, course study and among their culture. Sources http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sophists/ http://www.iep.utm.edu/sophists/#H3 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhetoric

Protagoras

Protagoras of Abdera was one of several fifth century Greek thinkers (including also Gorgias, Hippias, and Prodicus) collectively known as the Older Sophists, a group of traveling teachers or intellectuals who were experts in rhetoric (the science of oratory) and related subjects. Protagoras is known primarily for three claims (1) that man is the measure of all things (which is often interpreted as a sort of radical relativism) (2) that he could make the worse (or weaker) argument appear the better (or stronger) and (3) that one could not tell if the gods existed or not. While some ancient sources claim that these positions led to his having been tried for impiety in Athens and his books burned, these stories may well have been later legends. Protagoras notion that judgments and knowledge are in some way relative to the person judging or knowing has been very influential, and is still widely discussed in contemporary philosophy. Protagoras influence on the history of philosophy has been significant. Historically, it was in response to Protagoras and his fellow sophists that Plato began the search for transcendent forms or knowledge which could somehow anchor moral judgment. Along with the other Older Sophists and Socrates, Protagoras was part of a shift in philosophical focus from the earlier Presocratic tradition of natural philosophy to an interest in human philosophy. He emphasized how human subjectivity determines the way we understand, or even construct, our world, a position which is still an essential part of the modern philosophic tradition. Perhaps because the practical side of his teaching was concerned with helping students learn to speak well in the courtroom, Protagoras was interested in orthoepeia (the correct use of words). Later sources describe him as one of the first to write on grammar (in the modern sense of syntax) and he seems interested in the correct meaning of words, a specialty often associated with another sophist, Prodicus, as well. In the Protagoras, the Platonic dialogue named after the famous sophist which has both Protagoras and Prodicus as participants, Protagoras is shown interpreting a poem of Simonides, with special concern for the issue of the relationship between the writers intent and the literal meanings of the words. This method of interpretation was one which would be especially useful in interpreting laws and other written witnesses (contracts, wills, and so forth) in the courtroom. Unfortunately, we dont have any actual writings by Protagoras on the topic.

Of the book titles we have attributed to Protagoras, only two, Truth (or Refutations) and On the Gods are probably accurate. Of Protagoras works, only a few brief quotations embedded in the works of later authors have survived. (The quotations of and reports about Protagoras below are referred to by their Diels-Kranz, or DK number, the usual way of referring to such fragments and testimonia. The Diels-Kranz numbering system is explained here.) Of Protagoras ipsissima verba (actual words, as opposed to paraphrases), the most famous is the homo-mensura (man-measure) statement (DK80b1): Of all things the measure is man, of the things that are, that [or "how"] they are, and of things that are not, that [or "how"] they are not. This precise meaning of this statement, like that of any short extract taken out of context, is far from obvious, although the long discussion of it in Platos Theaetetus gives us some sense of how ancient Greek audiences interpreted it. The test case normally used is temperature. If Ms. X. says it is hot, then the statement (unless she is lying) is true for her. Another person, Ms. Y, may simultaneously claim it is cold. This statement could also be true for her. If Ms. X normally lives in Alaska and Ms. Y in Florida, the same temperature (e. g. 25 Celsius) may seem hot to one and cool to the other. The measure of hotness or coldness is fairly obviously the individual person. One cannot legitimately tell Ms. X she does not feel hot she is the only person who can accurately report her own perceptions or sensations. In this case, it is indeed impossible to contradict as Protagoras is held to have said. But what if Ms. Y, in claiming it feels cold, suggests that unless the heat is turned on the pipes will freeze? One might suspect that she has a fever and her judgment is unreliable; the measure may still be the individual person, but it is an unreliable one, like a broken ruler or unbalanced scale. In a modern scientific culture, with a predilection for scientific solutions, we would think of consulting a thermometer to determine the objective truth. The Greek response was to look at the more profound philosophical implications. While the pious might wish to look to the gods to provide absolute moral guidance in the relativistic universe of the Sophistic Enlightenment, that certainty also was cast into doubt by philosophic and sophistic thinkers, who pointed out the absurdity and immorality of the conventional epic accounts of the gods. Protagoras prose treatise about the gods began Concerning the gods, I have no means of knowing whether they exist or not or of what sort they may be. Many things

prevent knowledge including the obscurity of the subject and the brevity of human life. (Agnosticism) (Protagoras Poem) "I've always felt that discussions about poetry are exactly like those parties thrown by low-class, vulgar people-they do the same: they aren't capable of entertaining each other over their drinks just with their own company, with the sound of their own voices and their own ideas-because of their lack of sophistication-so they drive up the price of flute-girls by paying a lot of money to get a "voice" in from somewhere else-the sound of the flute-and then rely on that "voice" for entertaining one another. But at parties where decent, classy people are drinking together, educated people, you won't find any flute-girls, or dancing girls, or harp-girls. No. You'll find they're quite capable of entertaining one another just with their own company, without any of that kind of silly, adolescent nonsense, relying on the sound of their own voices, taking turns to speak and to listen to one another in an orderly fashion- even if they drink a whole lot of wine. The same applies to meetings like this one here: as long as the people taking part are the sort of people most of us claim to be, then they shouldn't need any outside voice, not even the voice of poets and songwriters- who can't be asked anything about what they're saying, and usually when people bring them into a discussion you get some people saying the poet means one thing and discussing something they have no way of proving one way or the other. No, they don't bother with those sorts of discussions; they just engage with one another through their own ideas making their own claims, and testing and defending them in turn" (337b-348a). The initial reading of this quote might be understood as a criticism of the use of poetry itself. Yet, this understanding is complicated by the fact that a few lines later Socrates quotes the poet Homer (348d). Perhaps this is just a contradiction, but there seems to be more to the issue than this. If we take seriously that there is more to be taken from Socrates' quote than a mere disdain for poetry, one might find that it makes sense to consider Socrates concern to be an issue of the misuse of poetry rather than poetry itself. Thus, Socrates' problem lies in what he considers to be the difference between educated and uneducated uses of poetry. Socrates is critiquing Protagoras methodological use of poetry. Protagoras, according to Socrates, has fruitless methods insofar as

he attempts to provide Socrates with an account of what was meant by the poet. This approach ends all chances for dialogue since one person cannot be more prepared to express what the poet meant than any other person since there is no way to confirm this (specifically if the poet him/herself is not there for confirmation). A point to be added to this is that one can never fully come to terms with the implications of one's words even if one is careful to attempt to establish certain goals for those words. Therefore even the poet may not know all that is to be understood from his/her poem. This method is juxtaposed to the ways in which educated persons use poetry. For the educated the focus is not on the truth of the poet or the poem, but rather a truth that comes as the result of dialogue. Dialogue not about what the poem was intended to mean, or truly means, but about one's ideas of the poem. The final line of the quote suggests that dialogue about poetry is not pointless conversation, but dialogue aimed at testing and defending ideas. But the question remains as to the purpose of testing and defending one's ideas about poetry. Charles L. Griswold Jr. provides some insight into an answer to this question in his essay "Relying on Your Own Voice: An Unsettled Rivalry of Moral Ideals in Plato's Protagoras." Griswold begins by turning the readers' attention to the breakdown in conversation between Protagoras and Socrates at 336a-b. Here we find that Socrates threatens to end the conversation if Protagoras does not agree to answer Socrates' questions with more precise answers. On a superficial level this seems to be a clash between sophistical and philosophical techniques, but Griswold argues that this clashing suggests something far deeper. It suggests a difference in Protagoras' and Socrates' moral ideals. Put differently, the potential end of dialogue between Socrates and Protagoras sheds light on the difference between each speaker's stake in the conversation and thus their differential idea of relying on one's own voice. Sources http://www.iep.utm.edu/protagor/ http://www.personal.psu.edu/cpl2/blogs/digitaldialogue/protagoras/ http://academia.edu/331356/The_Story_in_the_Protagoras http://ancienthistory.about.com/library/bl/bl_text_plato_protag_intro.htm

Socrates was a classical Greek Athenian philosopher (c. 469 BC 399 BC). Credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy, he is an enigmatic figure known chiefly through the accounts of later classical writers, especially the writings of his students Plato and Xenophon and the plays of his contemporary Aristophanes. Many would claim that Plato's dialogues are the most comprehensive accounts of Socrates to survive from antiquity. One of the most famous philosophers of all time, Socrates has sometimes been referred to as one of the wisest men to have ever lived. He was deemed such because of his professed ignorance, which may seem contradictory to being wise. However, Socrates was termed such because he realized that he knew nothing and was aware of his ignorance, which in fact made him wise, as many people who professed to be wise were, in fact, not. Socrates's teachings have been followed for centuries and are based upon three major key points. Socrates was mostly concerned with the practical use of philosophy by way of ethics. He sought to use philosophy as a way to discover how we should live if we were to be truly fulfilled and successful human beings. The first thing that Socrates believed was that the unexamined life was not worth living. Socrates thought it extremely important to know who we were and what we were trying to become. He deemed this necessary to lead a responsible and fully awake life for if you did not try to figure out who you were and what you believed then it would be as if you were content to just exist and what would be the point in that? Were would be the worth in your existence? Second, Socrates stated that the most important task in life was caring for the soul. Socrates believed that a person's soul was the real person, who he really was. It was the center of his character and what made him who he was. It was the basis of his thoughts, feelings, values, and decisions and the state of the soul made a person either foolish or wise. Just like the body, the soul should be kept healthy, and Socrates's proposed way of keeping the soul healthy was by introspection and ridding oneself of ignorance. The unhealthy soul was considered one that was ignorant of the true priorities in life. Socrates believed that the most important task people faced was realizing their potential as persons, who they were.

Last, Socrates believed that a good person could not be harmed by other people. Of course, people can physically hurt one another, but what Socrates was referring to is that if the real person, the soul, is good, then outside forces could not harm it. Namely, if the most important part of a person is the soul and the soul is not physical but inward then the soul cannot be harmed. The body may be harmed by another person, but the soul cannot unless one allowed oneself to become susceptible to others and change their beliefs, values, and perceptions on life. However, Socrates believed that if we were constantly searching for wisdom by way of practicing selfevaluation often that we would be liberated from outside harm (our soul, that is, not our bodies). These three things are the basis of all of Socrates's teachings and what he hoped to convey by them. He advocated self-understanding and felt so strongly about it that he deemed it more important than any other pursuit in life. These principles are what Socrates thought were the most important goals of philosophy. The Socratic method is a negative method of hypothesis elimination, in that better hypotheses are found by steadily identifying and eliminating those that lead to contradictions. The Socratic method searches for general, commonly held truths that shape opinion, and scrutinizes them to determine their consistency with other beliefs. The basic form is a series of questions formulated as tests of logic and fact intended to help a person or group discover their beliefs about some topic, exploring the definitions or logoi (singular logos), seeking to characterize the general characteristics shared by various particular instances. The extent to which this method is employed to bring out definitions implicit in the interlocutors' beliefs, or to help them further their understanding, is called the method of maieutics. Aristotle attributed to Socrates the discovery of the method of definition and induction, which he regarded as the essence of the scientific method. In the second half of the 5th century BC, sophists were teachers who specialized in using the tools of philosophy and rhetoric to entertain or impress or persuade an audience to accept the speaker's point of view. Socrates promoted an alternative method of teaching which came to be called the Socratic method. Socrates began to engage in such discussions with his fellow Athenians after his friend from youth, Chaerephon, visited the Oracle of Delphi, which confirmed that

no man in Greece was wiser than Socrates. Socrates saw this as a paradox, and began using the Socratic method to answer his conundrum. Diogenes Lartius, however, wrote that Protagoras invented the Socratic method. The phrase Socratic questioning is used to describe a kind of questioning in which an original question is responded to as though it were an answer. This in turn forces the first questioner to reformulate a new question in light of the progress of the discourse. The dialogue is a conversation between Socrates (S) and Euthyphro (E) on the subject of piety. At the start of the dialogue, E sees S next to the courthouse and asks him why hes there. S answers that he has been indicted by Meletus, accused of corrupting young men and creating new gods (this is a reference to Ss divine sign) while not believing in the old gods (see Apology). S then asks E why he has come to court. E answers that he has come to prosecute his own father for murder. The facts of the case are complicated, and make it difficult to see where piety and justice lie (4c-d). On the one hand, Es father (call him F) caused another mans death, and it is generally considered pious to prosecute murderers. On the other hand, (i) the man F killed was himself a killer, (ii) F did not cause the victims death directly (he bound the victim hand and foot and threw him in a ditch, as a result of which the victim died of hunger and cold), and (iii) it is considered impious to prosecute (or otherwise shame) ones own father. S asks E whether he has no fear of having acted impiously in bringing his own father to trial. Eanswers that he has accurate knowledge of piety and impiety, and so does not fear having acted impiously. S asks E (facetiously, as quickly becomes clear) to teach him what piety and impiety are, for S realizes that such knowledge might enable him to answer Meletuss accusations. Es first attempt at defining piety is to say that it is to do what I am doing now, to prosecute the wrongdoer (5d). But S points out that there are many other pious actions (6d), and wants to know what (form) it is that makes all pious actions (including actions that do not involve prosecution) pious, so that he may look upon it as a model to determine, of any given action, whether or not it is pious (6d-e)

Sources http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socrates http://voices.yahoo.com/socratess-teachings-three-socratic-principles-2884740.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socratic_method http://philosophyfaculty.ucsd.edu/faculty/rickless/Rickless/PHIL100_files/Euthyphr o.pdf