Sophists in Fifth-Century Athens
The Greek Enlightenment
Athenian Empire and Athenian Culture
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Athens and Imperial Infrastructure
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Naval Empire and Its Industries
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Shipwrights
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Docks and Dock-workers
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Pitch and Rope Manufactures
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Training of Crews
Athens and Its Subjects
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Service Industries in Metropole
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Metropolitan Commercial Centers
Imperial Economies and Generation of Culture
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Imperial Tribute and Athenian Tragedy and Comedy
Pericles’ Building Program (Parthenon)
Athenian Elite Citizens: Wealth, Leisure, Cultural Appetites
Culture as Child of Empire
Thucydides (2.38) on Athens and Culture
When our work is over, we are in a position to enjoy all
kinds of recreation for our spirits. There are various
kinds of contests and sacrifices regularly throughout the
year; in our own homes we find a beauty and a good
taste which delight us every day and which drive away
our cares. Then the greatness of our city brings it about
that all the good things from all over the world flow in to
us, so that to us it seems just as natural to enjoy foreign
goods as our own local products.
Sophists as Socio-Cultural Phenomenon
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Sophia: “Wisdom”
Sophistes: “Wise Man”
Itinerant Professors
 Teach for Pay
 Attract Large Followings
Wide Range of Expertise
 Astronomy, Geometry, Language, Rhetoric
 Arete
Athenian Agora
Fifth-Century Athens as the Center
of Sophistic Movement
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Second Half of Century: Sophists Gravitate to
Athens
Oratory and Athenian Democratic Politics
(Market Forces of Democracy)
 Gorgias of Leontini and the Rhetorical
Education of the Public Speaker
 Metic Lysias and the Business of SpeechWriting
 W.R. Connor’s “New Politicians”
Patronage of Pericles (Damon, Anaxagoras,
Protagoras)
Plato, Protagoras 310a-b
Last night, in the small hours, Hippocrates, son of Apollodorus
and brother of Phason, knocked violently at my door with his
stick, and when they opened to him he came hurrying in at once
and calling to me in a loud voice: “Socrates, are you awake or
sleeping?” Then I, recognizing his voice, said, “Hippocrates,
hello! Some news to break to me?” “Only good news,” he
replied. “Tell it, and welcome,” I said, “and what business
brings you here at such an hour?” “Protagoras has come,” he
said.
Protagoras of Abdera
(ca. 485-420 BCE)
“Man is the measure of all
things.”
Agnosticism regarding the gods
Skepticism regarding
knowledge
Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism, 1.216
Protagoras also holds that “Man is the measure of all
things, of existing things that they exist, and of nonexisting things that they do not exist”; and by “measure”
he means the criterion, and by “things” the objects, so that
he is virtually asserting that “Man is the criterion of all
objects, of those which exist that they exist, and of those
which do not exist that they do not.” And consequently he
posits only what appears to each individual, and thus he
introduces relativity.
Gorgias of Leontini, On Non-Existence
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Nothing exists
Even if something exists, it cannot be
known
If it could be known, it could not be
communicated
Gorgias of Leontini on Rhetoric
I call it the ability to persuade with speeches either judges
in the law courts or statesmen in the council-chamber or
the commons in the assembly or an audience at any other
meeting that may be held on public affairs. And I tell you
that by virtue of this power you will have the doctor as
your slave, and the trainer as your slave; your moneygetter will turn out not to be making money for himself,
but for another—in fact for you, who are able to speak
and persuade the multitude.
~Plato, Gorgias 452e
Plato, Republic, 338e-339a (Thrasymachus)
And each makes laws to his own advantage. Democracy
makes democratic laws, tyranny makes tyrannical laws,
and so on with the others. And they declare what they
have made—what is to their own advantage—to be just
for their subjects, and they punish anyone who goes
against this as lawless and unjust. This, then, is what I
say justice is, the same in all cities, the advantage of the
established rule. Since the established rule is surely
stronger, anyone who reasons correctly will conclude
that the just is the same everywhere, namely, the
advantage of the stronger.
Compare Thucydides (5.89)
Athenians to Melians (416 BCE)
You know as well as we do that, when these matters are
discussed by practical people, the standard of justice
depends on the equality of power to compel and that in fact
the strong do what they have the power to do and the weak
accept what they have to accept.
Tragedy, Comedy, and Sophists
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Nomos and Physis Controversy (Sophocles’
Antigone)
Irreverence towards Traditional Religion
(Euripides)
Theater as Public Institution; Sophists as
(often non-Athenian) outsiders
Sophists and the Radical Fringe
Diogenes of Sinope
400-325 BCE
Founder of Cynic School
Diogenes of Sinope and Cynicism
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Happiness is attained by satisfying only
one’s natural needs and by satisfying them
in the cheapest and easiest way
What is natural (physis) cannot be
dishonorable or indecent and should be
done in public
Conventions (nomoi) contrary to these
principles are unnatural and should not be
followed
Practical Life of the Cynic
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Self-Sufficiency (autarkeia)
Training of body to have as few needs as
possible (askēsis)
Shamelessness (anaideia)
Diogenes of Sinope and
Breaking Down Nomos
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“When masturbating in the marketplace (agora),
he wished it were as easy to relieve hunger by
rubbing an empty stomach.” (Diogenes Laertius,
Lives of Eminent Philosophers, 6.46; cf. 6.69)
“Then a little further on he [the Stoic philosopher
Chrysippus] praises Diogenes for saying to the
bystanders as he masturbated in public (en
phanerōi), “Would that I could in this way rub
the hunger too out of my belly.” (Plutarch,
Moralia, 1044b)
Sophistic Relativism
Dangers to the Established Order?
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Nomos vs. Physis (Culture vs. Nature)
Thrasymachus’ Justice: Right of the
Stronger (cf. Alcibiades)
Moral Ambiguity and the Dissoi Logoi
Form over Substance (Gorgianic simile and
antithesis)
Plato, Socrates, and the Sophists
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Plato a student of Socrates
Trial and Execution of Socrates in 399 BCE
Plato strives to dissociate Socrates from the
Sophists
Plato’s Hostility to Athenian Democracy (and
Hostility to Art and Drama as mimesis)
Philosophy and Rhetoric (Reality and the Forms)
Celebrity Status of Famous Sophists
Plato and Censorship
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Myth of Metals (Republic)
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Few, wise Philosopher-Kings should rule
Guardian Class
Worker Class
Rulers determine education, music, poetry,
clothing, foods
Censorship: the many, being ignorant, do not
know what is good for them
Current Cultural Debates about Internet,
Television, Hip-Hop, etc.
Plato’s Complaints against Rhetorikē:
Relativism, Persuasion, and Democracy
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Philosopher-Kings and Ignorant Multitude
Rhetorical Skill without Philosophical
Knowledge highly dangerous
Democracy and Public Speakers:
Rhetorical Training panders to the
appetites, emotions, greed, and
vindictiveness of the mob