Genuine philosophical thoughts from great individuals have evolved through time. Whereas the accepted philosophies of today’s generation are great, these thoughts are rooted from the minds of early philosophers where their insights have been corrected through time. The Sophists views and the perspectives of Socrates were one of the first genuine philosophies from the early civilization of humanity. Although these concepts are vague and illusionary nowadays, they have been an integral part of the evolution of the human philosophy.
The views of the sophists are the first philosophies that flourished in the early part of the civilization around the 5th century BC. The Sophists claimed that they are teachers of wisdom. Protogoras was one of the philosophers that claim to be a Sophist openly divulges that he properly care for his personal affair, manage his own household and the affairs of the state as well for him to be considered as real power as a man of action and speaker of the city. The Sophists are linguistics and they live in accordance to their wisdom. They practice their power in the politics through their expertise in rhetorics and they charge high fees for their skills in oration. They are able to persuade juries through their words that charm like spells. Most of the intellectuals that disagree with them connect their skills akin to sorcery (Crome).
The Sophists greatly believe that the way to gain power and rule over the world, one must gain knowledge and wisdom. They value education as it is the primary source for wisdom in the civilization. The primary similarities between the Sophists and Socrates is that they both believe in the power of knowledge and that the individual’s acquisition of knowledge makes one powerful and influential bringing others to believe in their truths. Socrates and the sophists gave high regard to matters about aesthetics, morality, and reality and that these subjects were determined only by the powerful factions of the society. Socrates even made attempts to prove these points with focus about justice and beauty. Remarkably, Socrates was very familiar with the methods and arguments used by the Sophists at that time (Crome).
There are differences between the beliefs of the Sophists and Socrates. Primarily, they disagree about the absoluteness of truth or knowledge. Socrates searched for the rationality of the real philosophical absolutes. Being a student of Plato, they argue about the concept of perfection or ideality of the universe, of whether these ideas possess the entire truth. However, the Sophists stood their ground that the issue between morality and truth is relative. Even at the start the dogmas embedded in their beliefs are immediately tagged with bad reputation, which is, their arguments are fragmented just for the sake of argument (Crome). In the book of “The Great Conversation”, David Hume, one of the modern day philosophers likened the sophists view to illusion. In his essay, Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, he stated that “When we run over libraries, persuaded of these principlesDoes it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion” (Hutchins, 61).
There are many intellectuals that disagree with the Sophists. Socrates was one of the great philosophers that stood out for his convictions and was able to convince the youth of Athens to follow his wisdom. There was hostility between the Socrates and the Sophists followers, where this conflict peaked at the time of the trial of Socrates in 399BC. Socrates was accused by Sophists that Socrates is making himself a new god and corrupt the minds of the youth. The belief of the Sophists was likened to illusions as stated in the Great Conversation that “Those books, written after as well as before Hume, argue the case against the kind of positivism that asserts that everything except mathematics and experimental science is sophistry and illusion. They state and defend propositions quite opposite to those of Hume” (Hutchkins, 61). Socrates was among the first philosophers to challenge the Sophists point of view. Socrates attacked the Sophists views about various serious matters.
References:
Crome, K. “Socrates and Sophistry”. Richmond Journal of Philosophy 9. (2005). Web.
Accessible through http://www.richmond-philosophy.net/rjp/back_issues/rjp9_crome.pdf.
Hutchins, R. “The Great Conversation”. (nd). Web. Accessed through
http://blogs.britannica.com/wp-content/pdf/The_Great_Conversation.pdf 23 February 2016
