Sophist
- Language:
- English
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- No scanning noise detected (automatic measure over the whole text, not checked by hand)
- Extent:
- ~46,700 words · 222 passages
Cite this work
- APAPlato. (n.d.). Sophist. Digital reproduction: SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/plato/sophist
- MLAPlato. Sophist. Digital reproduction, SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/plato/sophist.
- ChicagoPlato. Sophist. Digital reproduction, SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/plato/sophist.
Reference to the edition that SigPhi reproduces: SigPhi is its digital reproduction, not its publisher. The edition's year is not in the metadata (hence "n.d."), and the translator appears only when recorded.
What it is about
What exactly is a sophist? Chasing the definition, the dialogue runs into a much larger problem: to speak of falsehood you must be able to say that something *is not*, and Parmenides had forbidden it.
Context and history
Here Plato breaks with Parmenides — the text itself calls it parricide — and opens the way to speaking of non-being without contradiction. One of the densest technical texts in the corpus, and one of the most consequential for later logic.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
deserved or not, was a natural consequence of their vocation. That they were foreigners, that they made fortunes, that they taught novelties, that they excited the minds of youth, are quite sufficient reasons to account for the opprobrium which attached to them. The genius of Plato could not have stamped the word anew, or have imparted the associations which occur in contemporary writers, such as Xenophon and Isocrates. Changes in the meaning of words can only be made with great difficulty, and not unless they are supported by a strong current of popular feeling. 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. But the bad sense of the word was not and could not have been invented by him, and is found in his earlier dialogues, e.g. the Protagoras, as well as in the later. 3. There is no ground for disbelieving that the principal Sophists, Gorgias, Protagoras, Prodicus, Hippias, were good and honourable men. The notion that they were corrupters of the Athenian youth has no real foundation, and partly arises out of the use of the term 'Sophist' in modern times. The truth is, that we know little about them; and the witness of Plato in their favour is probably not much more historical than his witness against them. Of that national decline of genius, unity, political force, which has been sometimes described as the corruption of youth, the Sophists were one among many signs;--in these respects Athens may have degenerated; but, as Mr. Grote remarks, there is no reason to suspect any greater moral corruption in the age of Demosthenes than in the age of Pericles. The Athenian youth were not corrupted in this sense, and therefore the Sophists could not have corrupted them.…