How a single Greek word can explain why we don’t like the Sophists, why Socrates was accused of being one of them, and what makes rhetoric successful.
Were the Sophists Really All That Bad?
Were Sophists really the immoral truth-benders that Plato portrayed them to be? Classical scholars don’t seem to think so.
Episode 143: Plato’s “Sophist” on Lies, Categorization, and Non-Being
On the later Platonic dialogue. What is a sophist? These were guys in Ancient Greece who taught young people the tools of philosophy and rhetoric. They claimed to teach virtue. In Sophist, “the Eleatic Stranger” (i.e., not Socrates) tries to figure out what a sophist really is, using a new “method of division.” This Plato era provides a nice transition to the category man Aristotle, and the whole concern with sophistry is certainly still relevant today!
End song: “Dumb,” by Mark Lint and the Fake from the album So Whaddaya Think? (2000).
Episode 143: Plato’s “Sophist” on Lies, Categorization, and Non-Being (Citizen Edition)
On the later Platonic dialogue. What is a sophist? These were guys in Ancient Greece who taught young people the tools of philosophy and rhetoric. They claimed to teach virtue. In Sophist, “the Eleatic Stranger” (i.e. not Socrates) tries to figure out what a sophist really is, using a new “method of division.” This leads to a long digression on the nature of “not-being” as a necessary component of false beliefs, which is what the Stranger claims that sophists provide.
End song: “Dumb,” by Mark Lint and the Fake from the album So Whaddaya Think? (2000).
Topic for #69: Plato’s “Gorgias” on Rhetoric vs. Philosophy
Listen to the episode. Back in ancient Athens, the big-name intellectuals were not the philosophers and proto-scientists we remember today, but the sophists, who taught people how to argue and make speeches in front of courts of law and groups of people. Plato (speaking as usual through his teacher Socrates) thought this to be a vastly overrated skill, because it’s Continue Reading …
Is Philosophy Better Than Art?
If you believe Plato, then the answer is “yes”. If all of philosophy is a footnote to Plato, then the artists have been subordinated to the philosophers for about 25 centuries. According to Plato’s Republic, especially the last section, the artists present a danger to society and to your soul. Two of my favorite thinkers disagree with Plato and Socrates Continue Reading …