I have only 4 philosophy questions! ASAP
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TheSophists.pptxThe Sophists
-A mood of Skepticism took hold in the Greek City-States(Athens) about the ability of human reason to discover truth about nature: the Pre-Socratics could not agree on the fundamental nature of reality(Fire, Water, Numbers…)
-In this vacuum, the Sophists would turn philosophy away from the study of ontology and turn towards the study of humanity and human behavior.
-The Sophist were traveling educators and in their travels noticed that cultures were different in there customs, moral thought and governments. They specialized in the teaching of rhetoric, the ability to win arguments, and prepared students in the areas of Law and politics.
The Sophists
*This lead them to claim that it is impossible to discover truth(the only difference between a good and bad argument is individual preference).
The notion that truth, moral/epistemic, is relative to the culture, time or place is known as Relativism.
That is , there are no objective or universal standards, something independent of a particular culture and applying to all, that morality can be founded upon.
Subjectivism is the notion that all truth is ultimately determined by the individual. Again, there is no objective or universal truth that can anchor moral and epistemic claims.
Protagoras
Protagoras was a sophist that made the claim that “Man is the measure of all things, of things that are, that they are, and of things that are not, that they are not.”
-What Protagoras is claiming that whatever knowledge one could achieve about anything would be limited to one’s human capacities. He can also be interrupted as saying that knowledge is measured by what we perceive and each of us perceives things in different ways.(Think about the in class discussion about two artists sketching the same table from two different vantage points.)
This gives rise to the philosophical problem:
*Appearance v. Reality.
Thrasymachus
Thrasymachus is a sophist that is found in Plato’s Republic.
In the dialogue, Thrasy. Claims that the unjust individual is superior to that of the just. The unjust person unconstrained by the law or morality is able to out do the just in the acquisition of wealth and power “Unjust person is superior in character and intelligence”. Later he claims that justice is in the interest of the strong: Might makes right.
After Socrates unravels, finds a flaw, in Thrasy. argument , Glaucon, a character in the dialogue, will give us the myth of Gyges ring.
