What new delusion," says the heathen magistrate concerning St. Romanus, "has brought in these sophists to deny the worship of the gods?
This Justice may well be called another man's good: though not in the sense of the sophists of old, and the altruists of our time, that virtue is a very good thing for everyone else than its possessor.
This theory is the resuscitation of one current among the Sophists at Athens, and described by Plato thus.
And this, I think, was the error into which the Sophists were betrayed.
He considers that the Sophists first distinctly broached the question--What is man by nature, and what is he by convention or fashion?
Paid teachers or sophists of the Sokratic age—Protagoras, Gorgias, etc.
The very passages to which these writers refer, as far as they prove anything, prove the contrary of what they assert; and Preller actually imputes the contrary tenet to the sophists (Histor.
Such sophists had nothing to recommend them except superior knowledge and intellectual force, combined with an imposing personality, making itself felt in their lectures and conversation.
Least of all would he have done this, if it be true of him, as Plato asserts of the rhetors and sophists generally, that they thought about nothing but courting popularity, without any sincerity of conviction.
In the general point of view here described, the sophists are presented by Ritter, Geschichte der Griech.
What makes the case worse is, that he fastens it not only on Protagoras, but on the sophists collectively, by that monstrous fiction which treats them as a doctrinal sect.
If Plato despised the sophists and the rhetors, Isokratês thinks himself not less entitled to disparage those who employed their time in debating upon the unity or plurality of virtue.
The same unfairness, in making this point tell against the sophists exclusively, is to be found in Westermann, Geschichte der Griech.
Accepting the Sophists' dictum that "man is the measure of all things," he tried to turn youths from the baser individualism of the Sophists of his day to the larger general truths which measure the life of a true man.
Were the Sophists a good addition to the Athenian instructing force, or not?
Compare the individualism of the Greek Sophists with that of the Protestant reformers.
In the schools of the Sophists boys now spent their time in forming phrases, choosing words, examining grammatical structure, and learning how to secure rhetorical effect.
Such very much appears the position of inquirers in the first period of Greek philosophy, which is generally made to extend from its rise under Thales to the time of the Sophists and Socrates.
Though the creeds and realms are reeling, though the sophists roar, Though we weep and pawn our watches, Two and Two are Four.
I knew what he was thinking, because I was thinking the same, because all modern sophists are only sophists, and there is such a thing as mankind.
For about this time the sophists introduced a practice as erroneous as their doctrine was false.
Among the Greeks, the Sophists alone derived their name from a pretension to perfect wisdom and science.
He says not a word about any intention on the part of Plato to deride the Sophists or any other Etymologists.
He asserts as broadly as Stallbaum that it was Protagoras and the other Sophists who grossly abused the doctrine of Herakleitus, for the purpose of confusing and perverting truth by arbitrary etymologies.
He then states that this doctrine of the Sophistswas founded on the Parmenidean dictum--That Non-Ens was an impossible supposition.
To me this reason is utterly insufficient; and I contend, moreover, that sneers at the Sophists would be quite out of place in a speech, such as the palinode of Sokrates about Eros.
This is the more remarkable, because we find Plato multiplying opportunities, even on unsuitable occasions, of taunting the Sophists with the fact that they took money.
Platonic etymologies in the Kratylus are caricatured to deride the boastful and arbitrary etymologies of the Sophists about language.
On all these miscellaneous topics, according to Plato, the Sophists pretended to be themselves instructed, and to qualify their disciples for arguing on all of them.
Plato here accuses theSophists of talking upon a great many subjects which they did not know, and teaching their pupils to do the same.
Plato is here puzzled to make out a clear line of distinction between the Elenchus of Sokrates, and the disputatious arguments of those Sophists whom he calls Eristic--name deserved quite as much by Sokrates as by any of them.
The dialogues of Plato embrace all that wide range of topics which he tells us that the Sophists argued about, and pretended to teach.
I cannot therefore accept as well-founded this "discovery of modern times," which represents the Platonic etymologies in the Kratylus as intentionally extravagant and knowingly caricatured, for the purpose of ridiculing the Sophists or others.
One of the most learned among the modern Platonic commentators informs us that the purpose of Plato in this dialogue was, "to rub over Protagoras and other Sophists with the bitterest salt of sarcasm".
Dissent from the opinion of Stallbaum and others, that it is intended to deride Protagoras and other Sophists ib.
The necessities of rhetoric obliged the Sophists to investigate the structure of the Greek language, and to them was accordingly due the first analysis of Greek grammar.
Agesilaus was not the man to set much value on sophists or their compositions; nor is it easy to believe that he remained so long ignorant of those projects which Lysander had once entertained but subsequently dropped.
Power of Lysander—his arrogance and ambitious projects—flattery lavished upon him by sophists and poets.
True, Socrates refused to take money from his pupils, and made it his chief reproach against the lecturing Sophists that they received fees; but what of that?
From the age of the Sophists to the final disappearance of paganism nearly a thousand years elapsed.
Nor, it was said, had the speculations of this odious school of sophists been barren of results.
From the Sophist and Statesman we know that his hostility towards the sophists and rhetoricians was not mitigated in later life; although both in the Statesman and Laws he admits of a higher use of rhetoric.
With joy themselves they yielded quite, With singing and God-praising: The sophists had small appetite For these new things so dazing Which God was thus revealing.
There is nothing improbable in supposing that Plato may have extended and envenomed the meaning, or that he may have done the Sophists the same kind of disservice with posterity which Pascal did to the Jesuits.
The Athenian youth were not corrupted in this sense, and therefore the Sophists could not have corrupted them.
A milder tone is adopted towards theSophists in a well-known passage of the Republic, where they are described as the followers rather than the leaders of the rest of mankind.
Of late years theSophists have found an enthusiastic defender in the distinguished historian of Greece.
Poets as well as philosophers were called Sophists in the fifth century before Christ.
There is nothing surprising in the Sophists having an evil name; that, whether deserved or not, was a natural consequence of their vocation.
Yet they bear about the same likeness to Sophists as the dog, who is the gentlest of animals, does to the wolf, who is the fiercest.
Plato, Xenophon, Isocrates, Aristotle, all give a bad import to the word; and the Sophists are regarded as a separate class in all of them.
For Plato is not justifying the Sophists in the passage just quoted, but only representing their power to be contemptible; they are to be despised rather than feared, and are no worse than the rest of mankind.
A Song of the Two Christian Martyrs, burnt at Brussels by the Sophists of Louvain.
From Louvain many Sophists came, Deep versed in human learning, God's Spirit foiled them at their game Their pride to folly turning.
Faith in human goodness, irrespective of reward and punishment, either here or hereafter, sophists of this bigotted class have literally none.
If Pantheists of this reverend gentleman's school are neither sophists nor simpletons, Materialism is neither true nor false.
When Pericles died a certain Socrates was becoming prominent as an able and destructive critic of bad argument--and much of the teaching of the Sophists was bad argument.
The activities and rivalries of these Sophists led very naturally to an acute examination of style, of methods of thought and of the validity of arguments.
He enjoyed the society of Sophists and distinguished rhetoricians, and so far affected authorship as to win the unenviable title of Græculus in his own lifetime: yet he never neglected state affairs.
Though the Sophists scoffed at his real grief and honourable tears, they consecrated his lost favourite, found out a star for him, carved him in breathing brass, and told tales about his sacred flower.
Nor can we--until the recent age of sophists and refiners--clearly ascertain any period in which did not exist the indelible distinction between the Grecian and Egyptian mythology: viz.
The Sophists were not, therefore, as is commonly asserted, the first who brought philosophy to bear upon politics.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "sophists" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
