The Sophists

THE SOPHISTS

PROTAGORAS (ca. 490-ca. 420 B.C.)

Protagoras, like Democritus, came from Abdera, on the Thracian coast. An ancient story relates that he was at first a porter and that Democritus of Abdera saw him, admired his poise, and decided to instruct him; but this story's truth is doubtful. Protagoras reflected on language and developed a system of grammar. Having settled in Athens, where he taught the youth, he won the respect of Pericles, who commissioned him to frame laws for the new colony of Thurii, in Italy. At age seventy he was accused and convicted of atheism and is said to have left for Sicily and to have drowned at sea.

Protagoras is primarily known for his claim that "of all things the measure is Man . . ." In the dialogues Protagoras and Theaetetus, Plato takes Protagoras to mean that each person, not humanity as a whole, is the measure of all things and so attacks Protagoras' relativism.

Protagoras was the first of those travelling teachers of philosophy and rhetoric who became known as "Sophists." Sophists were not as interested in metaphysical theories as they were in the skill of arete, or "excellence," in the sense of bettering oneself. Many conservative Greeks, such as Aristophanes, considered proper speech and good manners the inherited characteristics of the upper classes. The Sophists, however, taught such skills for a fee--to the consternation of the aristocracy.

Plato considered it his task to oppose these men, and since his dialogues survived and most of their writings did not, his highly polemical pictures of the Sophists have been widely accepted as fair portraits. The very name "Sophist" has become a reproach. Yet one should not uncritically accept Plato's image of Sophists. While many disagree with Sophist conclusions, nevertheless their questioning of conventions, especially in ethics, and their critique of the limits of knowledge represent a milestone in the history of thought.

Some Famous Quotations:

1. Of all things the measure is Man, of the things that are, that they are, and of the things that are not, that they are not.

2. About the gods, I am not able to know whether they exist or do not exist, nor what they are like in form; for the factors preventing knowledge are many: the obscurity of the subject, and the shortness of human life.

GORGIAS (flourished around 427 B.C.)

After Protagoras, Gorgias was probably the most renowned Sophist. Gorgias came from Leontini, in southern Sicily. His dates are uncertain, but he is said to have died at the age of 108, possibly as late as 375 B.C. He first came to Athens on a mission from his Sicilian countrymen, enlisting (successfully) Athenian help against Syracuse. While in Athens he taught the art of persuasion to Isocrates, the famous rhetorician.

Like Protagoras, Gorgias is a character in Plato's dialogue bearing his name. Also like Protagoras, Gorgias held views--in this case on the impossibility of knowledge--that Plato found unacceptable. The following selections comprise the single philosophic fragment that has come down to us (a long quotation in Sextus Empiricus) and three very short pieces that may help to fill out the picture of Gorgias.

Some Famous Quotations:

I. Nothing exists.

(a) Not-Being does not exist.
(b) Being does not exist.

i. as everlasting.

ii. as created.

iii. as both.

iv. as One.

v. as Many.
(c) A mixture of Being and Not-Being does not exist.

II. If anything exists, it is incomprehensible.

III. If it is comprehensible, it is incommunicable.

Proof of the Above
I. Nothing exists. If anything exists, it must be either Being or Not-Being, or both Being and Not-Being.

(a) It cannot be Not-Being, for Not-Being does not exist; if it did, it would be at the same time Being and Not- Being, which is impossible.

(b) It cannot be Being, for Being does not exist. If Being exists, it must be either everlasting, or created, or both.

i. It cannot be everlasting; if it were, it would have no beginning, and therefore would be boundless; if it is boundless, then it has no position, for if it had position it would be contained in something, and so it would no longer be boundless, for that which contains is greater than that which is contained, and nothing is greater than the boundless. It cannot be contained by itself, for then the thing containing and the thing contained would be the same, and Being would become two things--both position and body--which is absurd. Hence if Being is everlasting, it is boundless; if boundless, it has no position ("is nowhere"); if without position, it does not exist.

ii. Similarly, Being cannot be created; if it were, it must come from something, either Being or Not-Being, both of which are impossible.

iii. Similarly, Being cannot be both everlasting and created, since they are opposite. Therefore Being does not exist.

iv. Being cannot be one, because if it exists it has size, and is therefore infinitely divisible; at least it is threefold, having length, breadth and depth.

v. It cannot be many, because the many is made up of an addition of ones, so that since the one does not exist, the many do not exist either.

(c) A mixture of Being and Not-Being is impossible. Therefore since Being does not exist, nothing exists.

II. If anything exists, it is incomprehensible. If the concepts of the mind are not realities, reality cannot be thought; if the thing thought is white, then white is thought about; if the thing thought is non-existent, then non-existence is thought about; this is equivalent to saying that "existence, reality, is not thought about, cannot be thought." Many things thought about are not realities: we can conceive of a chariot running on the sea, or a winged man. Also, since things seen are the objects of sight, and things heard are the objects of hearing, and we accept as real things seen without their being heard, and vice versa; so we would have to accept things thought without their being seen or heard; but this would mean believing in things like the chariot racing on the sea. Therefore reality is not the object of thought, and cannot be comprehended by it. Pure mind, as opposed to sense-perception, or even as an equally valid criterion, is a myth.

III. If anything is comprehensible, it is incommunicable. The things which exist are perceptibles; the objects of sight are apprehended by sight, the objects of hearing by hearing, and there is no interchange; so that these sense- perceptions cannot communicate with one another. Further, that with which we communicate is speech, and speech is not the same thing as the things that exist, the perceptibles; so that we communicate not the things which exist, but only speech; just as that which is seen cannot become that which is heard, so our speech cannot be equated with that which exists, since it is outside us. Further, speech is composed from the percepts which we receive from without, that is, from perceptibles; so that it is not speech which communicates perceptibles, but perceptibles which create speech. Further, speech can never exactly represent perceptibles, since it is different from them, and perceptibles are apprehended each by the one kind of organ, speech by another. Hence, since the objects of sight cannot be presented to any other organ but sight, and the different sense-organs cannot give their information to one another, similarly speech cannot give any information about perceptibles. Therefore, if anything exists and is comprehended, it is incommunicable.