Sophists And Socrates Essay Examples

Arguably, many Athenians mostly mistook Socrates for a sophist. Socrates was one of the keenest critic of sophists. Socrates was among the first great philosophers in Athens, together with Aristotle and Plato. As a philosopher, Socrates developed many philosophies and changed the thinking of people on various aspects of life. In fact, Socrates taught the youth and never charged them any money. On the other hand, Sophists were public speakers, orators, as well as hired mouths. Perhaps, they were gifted with qualities of speech. Their skills on various fields were high and, were known as Rhetoric. They were hated, respected and feared by the community.
Undeniably, there were fundamental differences between Socrates and Sophists. Sophists, just like Socrates presented good arguments that advanced to analyzing both sides of issues. As a matter of fact, Sophists were skeptics and doubted if there existed a reliable knowledge. Remarkably, Socrates was far much committed in pursuing the truth, and despite the challenges, he faced, his main mission way to search out for certain knowledge. Sophists believed that they would teach everything only if they were paid for the service. They travelled to various palaces and made many discoveries on how to do things. In fact, they believed that there was no universal way of doing things; it depended mostly on individual perspective. On the other hand, Socrates was focused on imparting knowledge to his young followers and did not request for any fee.
Socrates and Sophists were connected to the birth of social and moral philosophy in the Athenians community. Sophists and Socrates destroyed, challenged and criticized the basis of traditional moral and social order. Their differences came in the way they observed issues. Socrates was always focusing on eternal and objective truth; sophists, on the other hand, were objectively focused on subjective and relativism ideas. They gave people individual power to decide what is right or wrong; this implied that in Sophists world, there were no absolutes. The Athenians, required more wisdom than what sophists could offer, they always held that might was the ultimate thing that made everything right.
In terms of debating, both Socrates and sophists could argue quite well. Their differences came in the dialect approaches to issues. Socrates believed in question and, answer approach in tackling problems of society. Sophists believed in their wisdom, which could not offer much. Socrates was believed to be with tremendous skills in reasoning; in their exchanges, Socrates developed and nurtured his capability to reason using dialectical process.
The interest of Socrates and sophists were similar in aspects of virtue and education. In fact, in terms of virtues, Socrates held absolute belief in moral standards, while Socrates believed in moral relativism. Sophists and Socrates notoriously believed in education as a way of gaining wisdom and knowledge to undertake challenges. Their influence in education had incredible impacts in development of democracy and medical skills.
In comparison, Socrates and sophists held various views on the theory of knowledge. Regardless, of their believes, they valued knowledge. According to Socrates, theory of knowledge asserts that wealthy is knowledge. Certainly, this is retrieved from his Prayer to Pan; therefore, he deems that the best way to obtain knowledge is through a dialect method. In this case, Socrates asserts that knowledge is gained through strategic and structured conversation. Nevertheless, sophists had no finite and specific definition of knowledge, and always believed that there is no absolute way of gaining knowledge. Sophists and Socrates did not teach the same things, but each one of them criticized the teachings and philosophical thoughts of the other.
Sophists excelled in political forums because of their remarkable skills in writing, grammar, as well as public speaking. Socrates, on the other hand, was a critic on political issues; in fact, he was accused of mobilizing the youth in society. Socrates in his teaching asserts that information and gaining of knowledge was crucial in discovering the truth. According to sophists, truth was a peculiar thing because individuals in society have the power to rhetorically interpret the wrong or right.
Socrates taught that the best way for people to live is to value information and self-development, rather than focusing on material wealth. In fact, he invited many people to exercise truth and develop a sense of friendship. Sophists, on the other hand, believed they could only teach everything after receiving a fee. During his trial, he accepted to die rather than going against the will of the community. Philosophically, Socrates means a lover of wisdom, of which it clearly demonstrates the teaching of Socrates. Moreover, the meaning of sophists is somehow ironic, this is because it means “one who is wise”, yet some of their teachings did not demonstrate wisdom.
Sophists believed that they were wise and rarely focused in exchanging knowledge. In fact, they did not welcome challenges and critics among their student. On the other hand, the method of Socrates was based on teacher-student dialogue through question and answer forum. This method, targeted challenges based on assumptions and premises to ascertain information. Generally, sophists and Socrates have their similarities and differences, but they made incredible impacts in Athenians community.