Philosophy
About the reading2 none of the following selections are the actual writings of the Sophists themselves. Aside from a few fragments, most of the Sophists treatises did not survive to the present. Their thoughts are well preserved, however, in numerous sources that have survived. The snippets we will be reading are all from Plato's dialogues, wherein Plato depicts Socrates engaged in public discussions with these famous and notorious figures.
Protagoras was a very famous Sophist and public figure. He wrote a few books, all of which have been lost to time.
The first segment in this pdf is from Plato's dialogueo Theaetetus, where Socrates and Theaetetus refer to Protagoras' famous doctrine, *Man is the measure of all things."
(pdf made fromThe Greek Sophisfs, Trans. John Dillon. Penguin 2003).
Thrasymachus was another famous Sophist. We know of him through various accounts, but primarily through the depiction of his views in Plato's Republic.
The second segment of this pdf is from Republic,wherein Thrasymachus is making several arguments concerning the nature ofjustice and being just.
(pdfmade fromPlato: Republic, Trans. G.M.A. Grube. Hackett 1992).
Callicles was a student of the sophist Gorgias. He was a political thinker in Ancient Athens. Few fragments of his ideas survive, but the gist of his politics is well preserved in Plato's dialogue Gorgias, a dialogue about the art of persuasion and its relationship to being just.
(pdf made from Plato: Complete ll'orks Ed. John Cooper. Hackett 1997).
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828 Gorgias
out of getting a greater share than they, they say that getting more than one's share is "shameful" and "unjust," and that doing what's unjust is nothing but trying to get more than one's share. I think they like getting an equal share, since they are inferior.
These are the reasons why trying to get a greater share than most is said to be unjust and shameful by law and why they call it doing what's unjust. But I believe that nature itself reveals that it's a just thing for the better man and the more capable man to have a greater share than th-e worse man and the less capable man. Nature shows that this is so in many places; both among the other animals and in whole cities and ru."s of men, it shows that this is what justice has been decided to be: that the superior rule the inferior and have a greater share than they. For what sort of justice did Xerxes go by when he campaigned against Greece, or his father when he campaigned against Scythia? Countless other such examples could be mentioned. I believe that these men do these things in accordance with the nature of what's just-yes, by Zeus, in accordance with the law of nature, and presumably not with the one we institute. We mold the best and the most powerful among us, taking them while they're still young, like lion cubs, and with charms and incantations we subdue them into slavery, telling them that one is supposed to get no more than his fair share, and that that's what's admirable and just. But surely, if a man whose nature is equal to it arises, he will shake off, tear apart, and escape all this, he will trample underfoot our documents, our tricks and charms, and all our laws that violate nature. He, the slave, will rise up and be revealed as our master, and here the justice of nature will shine forth. I think Pindar, too, refers to what I'm saying in that song in which he says that
LND
Gorgias
he should, it's a man's undoing. For ever but engages in philosophy faibeyond r can't help but turn out to be inexperiencr be admirable and good and well t-hought in. Such people turn out to be inexpJrie in the kind of speech one must use to business, whether in public or private, in, sures and appetites and, in short, inexp beings altogether. So, when they ventui activity, they become a laughingstock, a rvhen they venture into your pirrsuits a results is Euripides' saying, where he say and "presses on to this,
allotting the greatest part o where he finds himsetf at ht
-\nd whatever a man's inferior in, he avr :raises the other thing, thinking well of hi: -,ray he's praising himself. I believe, how :o have a share of both. To partake of as mu, :equires is an admirable thing, and it,s not _,.,'hile
you're a boy, but when you still do :ecome a man, the thing gets to be ridicul :c men who philosophize is very much like :nd play like children. When I see a child, :-- make conversation this way, haltine ir 51d, I'm delighted. I find it u a"hgntf"rt =d appropriate for the child,s age. And wt :-early, I think it's a harsh thing it hurts r =: for a slave. But when one heirs a man :-aving like a child, it strikes me as ridic :: a flogging. Now, I react in the same way ;:1', too. When I see philosophy in a you: -: s appropriate and consider such a persor ,.. ylg doesn't engage in philosophy ill --::nself deserving of any admirable or nobl, =:n. still.engaging in philosophy and not g :-; this time needs a flogginf. For, as I w] --:.t such a man, even if he,s niturally very r :-:,1 avoids the centers of his city and the m :l to the poet,ll men attain ,,preeminence
Homer, lliad ix.447.
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