Plato's Philosophy vs. Sophist Thought: Core Differences

This document compares the philosophical thought of Plato and the Sophists, highlighting their fundamental disagreements on truth, knowledge, and morality.

Who Were the Sophists?

The Sophists were a group of Greek thinkers who flourished around the second half of the 5th century BCE. They were the first teaching professionals, organizing and collecting complete courses to be taught. Their teachings included:

• Rhetoric
• Logic
• Law
• Morality

Shift in Philosophical Focus

With the Sophists, the focus of philosophy shifted, becoming a concern for humanity rather than nature. This marked a significant anthropological turn in Greek thought.

Physis and Nomos: Nature vs. Convention

The Sophists drew a distinction between physis (nature) and nomos (convention). For them, nomos expressed human laws—political and moral—which they considered conventional, in contrast to natural laws.

Plato, however, rejected this view. He believed that human laws and policies should aim at an unchanging moral goodness, and thus should be fixed laws, reflecting eternal Forms.

Universal Truth and the Nature of Knowledge

For the Sophists, there was no universal truth; truth was relative and subjective. In contrast, Plato asserted that truth is unique, objective, capable of clear definition, and attainable through the knowledge of his Forms (Ideas).

For Plato, knowledge was fixed and objective, a recollection of eternal truths. For the Sophists, it was a mere matter of argumentative skill, persuasion, and practical utility.

Plato's Critique of Sophist Relativism

Plato vehemently opposed the relativism of the Sophists, believing that truth is unique and universally applicable to all. To illustrate these differences, let's examine Plato's dialogue, Protagoras.

The Dialogue Protagoras

In this dialogue, Plato presents his teacher Socrates confronting Protagoras, one of the most prominent Sophists. The setting is the home of the wealthy Athenian Callias. Hippocrates, eager to enter politics, asks Socrates to introduce him to Protagoras. Socrates, however, attempts to convince Hippocrates that the education offered by Protagoras is not adequate for a political career, as it lacks a foundation in objective moral truth.

Contrasting Educational Models

The Protagoras dialogue contrasts two distinct models of education:

• Sophist Education: Characterized by relativism, rhetorical skill, and practical success.
• Socratic Education: Rooted in moral intellectualism and the pursuit of objective truth and virtue.

The Socratic model, as explained by Socrates, aligns with the educational philosophy proposed by Plato in The Republic, Book VII. This is famously depicted in the Myth of the Cave, where education is represented as the arduous ascent from the darkness of the cave into the enlightened world of Forms (Ideas).

Socratic Moral Intellectualism

Plato's philosophy clearly reflects Socrates' moral intellectualism, which posits that one who truly knows the good will act well. Consequently, those who possess this knowledge should rule the polis (city-state).

Therefore, Socrates (and Plato) believed that Protagoras could not genuinely teach what is good, precisely because Protagoras considered goodness to be relative and subject to individual or societal convention, rather than an objective, universal truth.