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History and Evolution:
By William E. Steinman:
Part 19, The Sophists:
July 28, 2003:
I want to clear up a point that may not be clear. You are sure
to notice some lack of coherent progression in these essays. That
is partly because history itself is not all that orderly. It is
also because, in a sense, I am learning as I go along. I have
studied these things as best I could for a long time, but I am
still investigating and learning. This means, In some cases, I
am sharing what I learn as I learn. I must back track some for
that reason. To be sure, I will also make errors and I will need
to back track to correct them. Correcting errors is necessary
for anyone who presumes to inform others. I may not apologize
for my errors, but I will correct them as I discover them. Enough
of that. On with the study.
I would like to take a brief look at the political situation of Socrates' time. We noticed in Part 17 that Athens suffered a finally defeated at sea in 405 BC when the Persians pitched in to help Sparta. Athens surrendered the following year. The Long Walls were demolished, and the empire ceased to exist. The Spartans imposed a new oligarchy government on Athens. Thus ended the Athenian Empire. It was a rather ignoble end to a magnificent experiment.
The oligarchy rulers were called the thirty tyrants or the terrible thirty. Their rule did not last long. It was imposed by Sparta in 404 BC and saw a democratic revolt in 403 BC led by one Thrasybulus. As often happened, Sparta was not firm in its foreign policy. After sending an army to support the thirty they had a change of mind. Instead, they brokered a deal that allowed the Athenian democracy to be restored.
Now I must take a look at some other Greek philosophers who had an influence of Socrates. These are called sophists. It almost seems like everyone in Greece and especially Athens became a philosopher, as though there were no other calling. They did spawn a few great statesmen, but nothing like their crop of philosophers.
It seems, the Greeks produced philosophers almost as fast as a popper in a bar produces popcorn. Just a list of their names without a summary of their philosophies might fill a small book. And it seems each one, excepting Socrates, founded a school of philosophy. There were as many schools of philosophy coming out of Greece as there are political parties in France. It has been said, if two Americans meet on a corner they will discuss baseball. If two Frenchmen meet on a corner they will form a political party. I would add, if two Athenians met on a corner they would probably found a school of philosophy. Most of these schools were just combinations and variations of the major schools. Those are what we will be looking at later, with occasional side trips.
The most important contribution of the sophist philosophers
was their change of focus. It was they who made the change in
emphasis from the object to the subject. They turned the focus
of philosophy from things to people and ethics. They moved away
from the study of the physical universe (cosmology) toward the
study of the human being and the human condition (ethics etc.
all). They dealt with man, his institutions, and his politics.
That was good.
It had become clear that the earlier philosophies with their complete
focus on things physical were at an impasse. The philosophers
tended to contradict each other and they could not seem to arrive
at any universal truths about the nature of the cosmos. The sophists
with their refocus on the subject managed to get beyond that impasse.
Another contribution of the sophists was the teaching of rhetoric. In a sense, by so doing, they created political winners. They essentially taught people how to win in debate. This got them a bad rap because, of course, unethical people can use their techniques as well as ethical people. Witness the world of attorneys. We might say that most modern attorneys are in practice sophists though they might not know what the word means. Witness our current American political situation. With that, I rest my case. Another thing that got the sophists a bad rap was they got paid for teaching. This was considered bad form for a philosopher. It was just too commercial.
As to ethics, the sophists held that notions of ethics and law are relative to the time and place, not absolute. In the sophist position, there were no absolutes truths, only relative truths. So, these men were cynics and teachers. Basically, they debunked the old philosophies and made way for the new philosophers.
In politics they advocated the unification of all Greek people. That probably did not help them in some corners of the old aristocracy. Although these men were philosophers and teachers they fell into ill repute because of the use made of their methods. In fact, sophism became a synonym for deceptive argument. If you check your dictionary you will find it still is.
Protagoras was one sophist who gained some fame in fifth century BC Greece. He proposed that all truth is relative to the person who holds it. Today, we might call him an agnostic. He believed the gods may be or they may not be. He did not know. There was not enough evidence. As to the stance of Greek religion, it did not deal in theological truths. It was about worship, paying due respect and homage. It was procedural in nature.
This is the world of philosophy in which Socrates found himself
and against which he rebelled. We can begin to look at his philosophy
next time.
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