He is a sophist. The role of the sophists in the history of philosophical thought. Philosophical views of the sophists
Sophists
Sophists- a philosophical school in ancient Greece that existed in the 5th - first half of the 4th centuries. BC e. Representatives of this philosophical school acted not so much as theoretical philosophers, but as philosopher-teachers who taught citizens philosophy, oratory and other types of knowledge (translated from Greek, "sophists" - sages, teachers of wisdom).
In the 5th century BC. in many cities of Greece, the political power of the ancient aristocracy and tyranny was replaced by the power of a slave-owning democracy. The development of the new elective institutions created by its rule - the people's assembly and the court, which played a large role in the struggle of classes and parties of the free population - gave rise to the need to train people who knew the art of judicial and political eloquence, who knew how to convince by the power of words and prove, who were able to freely navigate in various issues and tasks of law, political life and diplomatic practice. Some of the most advanced people in this field - masters of eloquence, lawyers, diplomats - became teachers of political knowledge and rhetoric. However, the indivisibility of the then knowledge into philosophical and specially scientific areas, as well as the significance that, in the eyes of educated people of the Greek West, had time in the 5th century. BC. to receive philosophy with its questions about the beginnings of things, about the world and its origin, led to the fact that these new teachers usually not only taught the technique of political and legal activity, but also associated this technique with general questions of philosophy and worldview.
As a philosophical trend, the sophists do not represent a completely homogeneous phenomenon. The most characteristic feature common to all sophistry is the affirmation of the relativity of all human concepts, ethical norms and assessments; it is expressed by Protagoras and his famous proposition: "Man is the measure of all things: existing - in that they exist - and non-existent - in that they do not exist." Sophists are objective idealists.
Senior group of sophists. In the development of sophistry, the older and younger groups of sophists differ. The older group includes Protagoras (481-413), Gorgias, Grippius and Prodicus. The teachings of Protagoras were formed on the basis of the teachings of Democritus, Heraclitus, Parmenides and Empedocles reworked in the spirit of relativism. According to the characterization of Sextus Empiricus, Protagoras was a materialist and taught about the fluidity of matter and about the relativity of all perceptions. Developing the position of the atomists about the equal reality of being and non-being, Protagoras argued that every statement can be countered with equal reason by a statement that contradicts it.
Junior group of sophists. In the teachings of the younger sophists (4th century BC), about which extremely scarce data have been preserved, their aesthetic and social ideas stand out in particular. So, Lycophron and Alkidamant came against the partitions between social classes: Lycophron argued that nobility is fiction, and Alkidamant - that nature did not create slaves and that people are born free. Antiphon not only developed a materialistic explanation of the origins of nature and the origin of its bodies and elements, but also tried to criticize the phenomena of culture, defending the advantages of nature over the establishment of culture and over art.
Protagoras (Protagoras, 480–411 BC)
Protagoras came from Abder (the coast of Thrace), like Democritus, and was his listener. Protagoras rose to prominence through his teaching activities in several Greek cities, notably in Sicily and Italy.
Protagoras was the first to openly call himself a sophist.
Protagoras expressed his philosophical credo in the statement: "Man is the measure of all things that exist, that they exist, and non-existent, that they do not exist." This means that as a criterion for assessing the surrounding reality, good and bad, the sophists put forward the subjective opinion of a person:
1) nothing exists outside of human consciousness;
2) nothing is given once and for all;
3) what is good for a person today is good in reality;
4) if tomorrow what is good today becomes bad, then it means that it is harmful and bad in reality;
5) the whole surrounding reality depends on the sensory perception of a person (“What a healthy person will seem sweet, a sick person will seem bitter”);
6) the world around is relative;
7) objective (true) knowledge is unattainable;
8) there is only a world of opinion.
One of the contemporaries of Protagoras is credited with the creation of the work “Double Speeches”, which also leads to the idea of the relativity of being and knowledge (“Illness is evil for the sick, but good for doctors”; “Death is evil for the dying, but good for gravediggers and undertakers” ) and teaches a young person to achieve victory in an argument in any situation.
Original and revolutionary for that time was the attitude of Protagoras to the bors: “About the gods, I cannot know whether they exist, whether they are not, because too much prevents such knowledge - the question is dark, and human life is short.”
Another well-known representative of the sophist school is Gorgias.
Gorgias (c. 483-373 BC)
Gorgias most likely was a student of Empedocles, and also familiar with the teachings of the Eleatics and the views of Democritus. And although he visited Athens several times, he lived most of his life in Larissa and Thessaly.
Tradition has preserved little of the creative heritage of Gorgias. For example, the following advice to the speaker has been preserved: "Refut the serious arguments of the opponent with a joke, jokes with seriousness." Only two speeches attributed to Gorgias have survived in their entirety - “Praise to Helen” and “Justification of Palamedes”, written on the plots of myths about the Trojan War.
He is the most prominent proponent of relativism among the sophists. His relativism borders on skepticism. As Sextus Empiricus testifies, in the work “On the non-existent, or on nature”, Gorgias consistently cites three theses.
First: nothing exists; second: if something exists, it cannot be known; third: if this can be known, then it cannot be transmitted and explained to another. In proving these theses, he uses an argumentation reminiscent of that of the Eleatics. The whole construction of the proof of each of these theses consists, in fact, in the acceptance of a certain premise, from which the consequences leading to the dispute are then deduced.
According to Gorgias, true knowledge does not exist, because even what we personally experienced, we remember and learn with difficulty; we should be content with a plausible opinion. Gorgias owns the treatise "On Nature, or on Non-Existent", which is considered one of the most striking manifestos of agnosticism. The main idea of the treatise is “Nothing exists; but even if something exists, it is not knowable; but even if it is knowable, it is inexplicable for another.
Gorgias substantiates these three positions with the following arguments:
1. If the existent is eternal, then it is infinite, and if it is infinite, then it is nowhere, and if nowhere, then it is not. If the existent is not eternal, then it came either from the existent, which is impossible, since then the existent would have been before itself, or from the non-existent, which is also impossible, since nothing comes from the non-existent. Therefore, the existent is not eternal and not eternal. Therefore, it doesn't exist at all. (Also, Gorgias argues that there is no being, since it is neither one nor many).
2. Even if the existent exists, it is not conceivable, since the conceivable is not identical to the existent, otherwise Scylla and Chimera would exist in reality.
3. If the existent is conceived, then it is inexplicable to another, since we explain by means of words, and the word is not identical to the object it denotes and cannot explain it, since, on the contrary, we explain the word by pointing to the object.
Gorgias was also one of the teachers of Antisthenes, the founder of the Cynic school.
Not a single scientific dispute is complete without clear evidence of the chosen position. But is everything said based on facts? Sophistry in philosophy provides an opportunity for thinkers to convince the opponent that they are right. Philosophers have to think, invent, assume. Does this mean that science is a lie? No, this fact confirms the quote: "truth is born in a dispute."
Where does the concept of sophistry originate?
Sophistics is of ancient Greek origin, literally translated as "wisdom". Initially, it was believed that it was applied to musicians. The emergence of the concept dates back to the 5th century BC in Athens, later it spread throughout the country.
When in Greece the management of an aristocratic country was replaced by a slave-owning democracy, there was an urgent need for sages and orators. They faced a difficult task - to influence the mood of the public with the help of the word: to inspire soldiers going to war; to make interesting a friendly meeting with delegates of other states; enlighten the people; organize holidays. Rhetors had to be able to convince, prove, explain, have diplomacy, knowledge of political subtleties, and a common worldview.
That period was marked by the flowering of eloquence. The speaker had to attract attention to himself with the ability to beautifully express his thoughts, beliefs in order to win a lawsuit, to solve a political dilemma.
Sophistry, or sophism, is a method of constructing conclusions that go against the laws of logic, that do not have scientific justification, provability, but are given out as true. Sophistics uses a deliberate violation of logical chains, substitution, ambiguity of concepts, verbal tricks to mislead the enemy, to take superiority over him.
Sophism - a direction of philosophical thought
Sophistry, as a versatility of the way of thinking, acquired a finished form at the end of the 5th century BC, becoming a subjective-idealistic philosophical direction - sophism. Now sophism has a completely different concept - intellectual fraud. In antiquity, it was associated with special wisdom, the ability to transfer scientific knowledge for money. Representatives of the current were excellent teachers, the first scientists, professors. Philosophers called themselves sophists. Their appearance led to the birth of the Sophian school.
Type of activity of the Sofia school
For the first time, schools of oratory were mentioned in the 5th century in Sicily. But it was Athens that became the public arena of the educational activities of the sophists. The doctrine touched upon the epistemological problem of philosophy. The adherents of the ancient school tried to teach their followers to refute the conclusions of political opponents with the help of evidence and reasoning. In this endeavor, they encountered socio-political problems, for the solution of which they dealt with the general questions of truth and falsity. From this it follows that philosophy, represented by the teachings of the sophists, is an important direction in mental science as a whole.
Leading a traveling lifestyle, the sophists spoke to everyone who wanted to learn eloquence. They "toured" around the cities, with the help of pedagogical rhetoric, they united groups of people differing in age, gender, and social status. The sages made a huge contribution to the development of society - they raised an understanding of the importance of not only physical, spiritual education, but also mental. Education has acquired the highest value, received subsequent distribution. “An educated person is self-confident, able to resist the crowd, strong in thought, his weapon is the word” thinkers were guided by such a motto.
Because of their "wandering" lifestyle, the Sophists did not have a well-formed system of knowledge. Manuscripts have not survived to our time, we can study sophiology only on the basis of the works of philosophers of the later period.
The peculiarity of the thinking of the "senior sophists"
Sophists of the older group studied languages, dealt with ethical, political, legal, state problems, absolutized the relativity of knowledge, as they questioned all previously existing truths.
The idea of studying the problem of being among the "senior" was opened in a new perspective - not in oneself, but for oneself.
They doubted the existence of the gods, believing that the latter are an object of human imagination, they criticized religious belief. The Sophists did not deny the inhabitants of Olympus, they only looked for arguments "for" and "against".
"Senior Sophists" are divided into three categories:
- the first speakers who respect the rules of morality, ethics;
- debaters ("erists") who defend the formal aspect of the method. They exaggerated the content of concepts, erased the moral context, which caused public outrage;
- politicians in sophism, who reduced the ideology of the doctrine to the theorizing of immoralism.
The ancient philosopher Protagoras was a notable representative of the senior sophists. Among like-minded people, the sage had a bright philosophical thinking. Being a materialist, he talked about matter, the equivalence of being and non-being. Protagoras believed:
- a person is a person, as he has a character, positions his own "I";
- being has essence;
- truth is a phenomenon of consciousness;
- a person positions meaning as a measure of being.
- man is the measure of all things, as he sees the world as he is.
Protagoras denies absolute truths, emphasizing relativity. From the point of view of the thinker, there is something more appropriate, more useful. A sage is one who recognizes relative usefulness, acceptability; he is able to convince others of this, to bring relevance to life.
The philosopher put forward the idea of a democratic society in which free people will be equal.
Protagoras argued that every opinion is opposed to a contrary opinion. The opposition of the statements opened up the notion of "philosophical dialogue".
The “Senior Sophist” taught how to beat a strong argument with a weak argument, using noble methods, utilizing lawlessness, wrongness; showed how methodically with a weak argument to win.
He was a student of Protagoras. The philosophy of the master seemed to be erroneous, so Socrates and the rest of the sophists became opponents in the knowledge of being. The Sophists insisted on the advantage of a person to evaluate the truth with his own feelings, they rejected absolute truth. Socrates argued that the foundation of being is the divine essence, since this is the only way to study the purpose of man in the world. The Socratic principle intelligibly argues the unrealized Sophian denial of truth, its objective, significant qualities.
The next sophist of the older group was Gorgias. He is considered the creator of rhetoric, the ethics of situations. In his opinion, the same act is both good and bad at the same time, depending on which moment it refers to. Gorgias identified three paradoxical rules:
- nothing exists;
- even if something existed, people could not know it;
- but even if they knew, they would not be able to describe in words, to explain to others.
The most erudite, versatile sophist was a contemporary of Protagoras - Hippias. The power of his words was in naturalness, he knew how to captivate listeners. The thinker spread among the masses information about history, politics, genealogy, mathematics, and poetry. He wrote poetry, prose, was fond of music, was a versatile personality. Hippias made positive conclusions, got rich in his favorite business.
Another sophist philosopher Prodik was engaged in verbal semantics, delved into the correctness of speech. The sage contrasted virtue with vice, urging him to choose good between them as a real benefit, a true benefit.
The calling of the "junior sophists"
Little reliable information has been preserved about the "junior sophists". They represent the teachings of Lycophron, Alkidamantes. Speaking briefly about the main ideas of philosophers, we can distinguish ethical and social areas:
- destruction of the barrier between social classes;
- the elite is an invention of an interested group of people;
- nature created everyone free, without slavery.
Thrasymachus talked about usefulness for the mighty world of this. He believed that each government creates its own set of laws: democracy - free, tyranny - oppressive. The philosopher criticizes religion, justifies atheism. He says: “If the deities watched the actions of people, they would see a treasure - justice. And people notice that they themselves hardly use it.”
Methodological principle of the sophists
Syllogism considers the principle of three methods. Sophia goes against this statement, practicing the methodological principle of sophism "fourthing", that is, the use of four terms. Logically, this is a play on words. The non-identity of similar concepts is used: “Men are people. Many people are women. Then the assertion is admitted that many men are women.” Is there any truth in this statement? Doubtful, but hard to argue.
"Sophists and sophistry"
Introduction
In the 5th century BC e. slave-owning democracy was established in many Greek cities, replacing the ancient aristocracy in power. New elective institutions arose: people's assemblies and the courts, which are of great importance in the struggle of classes and parties of the free population. There was a need for people who knew the art of the word to participate in judicial and political cases. They had to be able to convince, prove, understand legal issues, know the intricacies of political life, and master diplomatic practice. Some of them, who successfully coped with their tasks (lawyers, diplomats, masters of eloquence), became teachers of rhetoric and political knowledge. Their training in the technique of legal and political activity was closely connected with questions of a general nature in philosophy and worldview.
Special prerequisites were created for the flourishing of eloquence. The speaker needed to draw attention to himself, to present his ideas and beliefs in an attractive way. When publicly solving political and judicial issues, the one who possessed the gift of eloquence, the ability to win over listeners, often won. It was necessary to speak beautifully and convincingly at the People's Assembly, in front of the soldiers, as well as at crowded festivities, friendly meetings. Therefore, there was a need for people who taught eloquence, composed the texts of speeches. They were sophists - philosophers-enlighteners, who are excellent at oratory, the laws of logic and who know how to influence the audience with words.
Sophists - a conventional designation for a group of ancient Greek thinkers ser. V - 1st floor. 4th century BC e. The time of their activity is often called the age of the Greek Enlightenment. Initially, the word was synonymous with the word (“wise”) and denoted a person who was authoritative in various matters of private and public life. From the middle of the 5th c. sophists began to be called the then paid teachers of eloquence and all kinds of knowledge that were considered necessary for active participation in civil life, who themselves often actively participated in political life.
2. Sophistry as a phenomenon of ancient Greek culture and philosophy
.1 Interpretation of the concept of "sophistry"
The terms sophistry and sophists are derived from the ancient Greek word for wisdom. In a literal translation, the word "sophist" means "sage, master, expert."
sophistry -
) the teaching of representatives of the prevailing in Athens in the second half of the 5th century. BC. schools of sophists - philosophers-enlighteners who gravitated towards relativism, the first professional teachers in general education.
) (Greek sophisma - fabrication, cunning) - the deliberate use in a dispute and in evidence of false arguments based on a deliberate violation of logical rules (sophisms); misleading verbal tricks.
The first schools of oratory arose in the cities of Sicily, and development in the 5th century. BC e. Democracy in Athens and connections with other Greek cities made Athens a public arena for speaking and teaching sophists.
Sophist teachers were very popular in ancient Greece. They went on trips throughout the country with diplomatic missions, engaged in government activities, speaking to people and teaching those who wished the basics of eloquence.
“Wandering teachers of eloquence”, “the first European intellectuals”, as A.F. called the sophists. Losev, were engaged in rhetorical pedagogy - the practice of mastering speech skills. Their didactic activity united heterogeneous groups of people both by age and by social status. In the process of education, it was now important not only physical and spiritual perfection, but also education, which led to its widespread distribution. The gift of the word began to be perceived as a sign and an indispensable condition for a full-fledged, good education. A truly educated person, "best educated for philosophy and literature", "suddenly, in any place of speech, he will throw ..., like a mighty shooter, some wonderful saying, short and concise, and the interlocutor will turn out to be no better than a child," in Plato's famous dialogue Protagoras.
The Sophists first spoke in Greece about the power of the word and built a theory of this power. Many of them were virtuosos in using the theory of the word in life, they wrote treatises on this topic. Plato, in his treatise "Gorgias", argued that the art of the sophists is a greater good than all other arts; believing that the sophist is “a master of persuasion: this is his whole essence and all his concern”, who ... “possesses the ability to convince the word and judges in court ... and in any other meeting of citizens ... and as for our businessman, it turns out that he is not making money for himself, but for another and for you, who owns the word and the ability to convince the crowd.
It is believed that the sophists did not have an integral definite system of knowledge. Sophistics did not represent a single circle of thinkers. Sophistry of the 5th century - "a set of independent efforts that satisfy identical needs by appropriate means." Their writings are practically not preserved, most of the information about the works of the sophists is contained in the works of philosophers of a later time.
2.2 Philosophical views of the sophists
To substantiate their practical activities, the sophists relied on philosophy. A characteristic feature of their philosophy is the assertion of the relativity of all human concepts, ethical norms and assessments. They introduced relativism into the theory of knowledge, which led the sophists to deny objective truth. Therefore, objective truth, common to all, is impossible. There is also no objective criterion of good and evil: what is beneficial to someone is good for him: “Illness is evil for the sick, but good for doctors. Death is an evil for the dying, but for the sellers of things necessary for the funeral, and for the gravediggers, it is a blessing.
The Sophists were well aware that everything could be proved purely formally. The main goal of the sophists in didactic activity was to teach students how to argue. Therefore, in the preparation process, much attention was paid to rhetoric. Students learned the techniques of proof and refutation, got acquainted with the rules of logical thinking.
The philosophy of the Sophists was humanistic. It is important to emphasize that the sophists paid much attention to social issues, the person and the problems of communication, teaching eloquence and political activity, as well as scientific and philosophical knowledge. Some sophists used techniques and forms of persuasion and proof, regardless of the question of the truth of the provisions being proved. But in their desire to convince the interlocutor, the sophists came to the idea that it is possible to prove and disprove anything, depending on interest and circumstances, which sometimes led to a distortion of the truth in proofs and refutations. Gradually, methods of thinking developed, which became known as sophistry.
Sophists paid almost no attention to the study of nature. But they were the first to distinguish between the laws of nature, as something unshakable, and the laws of society, arising from human establishment.
The Sophists found beauty in the infinitely varied phenomena of human life. But these phenomena were contradictory. To use a red word, to amaze the listener with unexpected metaphors and oratory in general, to arouse anger and indignation, both in an individual and in a crowd, and at the same time, with the help of convincing artistry, to calm human suffering and free from vain complaints - these are the new ways on which the aesthetics of the sophists went.
2.3 "Senior" sophists as teachers and researchers of the art of the word
Some researchers of the activities of ancient Greek philosophers distinguish three groups of sophists:
) major well-known masters of the first generation, not at all devoid of moral restrictions;
) the so-called "erists", i.e. disputants who insisted on the formal aspect of the method, which aroused indignation, because, losing interest in the content of concepts, they inevitably lost their moral context;
) “sophist-politicians”, who utilized sophistic ideas, in modern terms, into an ideological complex, and therefore fell into various kinds of excesses, which often ended in direct theorization of immoralism.
Taking into account the historical sequence in the history of Russian philosophical thought, two groups of sophists are distinguished: "senior" and "junior".
"Senior Sophists" investigated political, ethical, state, legal problems, studied linguistics. They questioned all the principles that existed before their time, and declared truths to be relative. In the concept of the "senior" sophists, the subjective nature and relativity of knowledge are absolutized.
The Sophists investigated the problem of being not as a problem of matter: they started talking about being for themselves, while being was developed earlier - in itself. In the sophists, the ancient spirit for the first time turns to itself, to itself.
Many sophists doubted the existence of the gods or even denied them, considering them to be human inventions. Sophistry is by its nature anti-dogmatic, and any religion is built on dogmas. The Sophists played an important role in the destruction of traditional religious dogmas.
Sophists of the older group tried to critically examine religious beliefs. It is known that Protagoras said: "About the Gods, I do not have the opportunity to assert either that they exist or that they do not exist." At the heart of his method was the ability to demonstrate both arguments in favor of the existence of the Gods, and against it. This does not yet mean that he is an atheist, as was already concluded about him in antiquity, but only that he was an agnostic.
The work of Protagoras on the gods, despite the extremely cautious formulation of religious skepticism, was publicly burned and became the reason for the expulsion of the philosopher from Athens.
Prodik, developing the views of Anaxagoras and Democritus, began to interpret religious myths as the personification of the forces of nature.
Common features in the philosophy of the "senior" sophists:
· moving philosophical interests from the sphere of natural philosophy to the field of ethics, politics, theory of knowledge;
· the study of the person himself and his subjective characteristics.
2.3.1 Protagoras as "teacher of wisdom"
The “older” group includes the ancient Greek philosopher-sophist Protagoras from Abdera in Thrace (c. 481 - c. 411 BC), whose teaching was formed on the basis of the teachings of Democritus, Heraclitus, Parmenides and Empedocles, reworked in the spirit of relativism. He was the first to call himself a "sophist" - "teacher of the science of virtue." It is known that Protagoras wrote the books “On the Gods”, “On Truth”, “The Science of the Dispute”, “On the Original Order of Things”, “On the State”, “On the Virtues”, “On Being”.
Protagoras possessed the most pronounced philosophical thinking among the sophists. It is believed that Protagoras was a materialist, arguing about the fluidity of matter, about the relativity of perception, about the equal reality of being and non-being. According to Protagoras, matter flows and changes, and with its variability and fluidity, something comes to the place of the departed, while being accordingly transformed according to the age or state of the bodies of perception. The essence of all phenomena is hidden in matter, and matter can be everything that it is to everyone. According to Protagoras, it is possible to single out the initial metaphysical attitudes:
· by determining the nature and method, what "self"
(man) is a man;
· the essential interpretation of the being of beings;
· the project of truth as a phenomenon of knowledge;
· the sense in which man is a measure in relation to being and in relation to truth.
According to Protagoras, everything is relative: there is no absolute truth and no absolute moral values, goodness. However, there is something that is more useful, more acceptable, and therefore more appropriate. A sage is one who understands the usefulness of the relative, acceptable and appropriate, knows how to convince others of this and actualize this useful.
The philosopher-sophist Protagoras argued: “Man is the measure of all things: existing - in that they exist, and non-existent - in that they do not exist”, believing that every person existing on earth has his own special truth (the principle of man -measures). By measure, Protagoras understood a certain “norm of judgment”, by things - facts and experience in general. With this famous axiom, Protagoras negated the absolute criterion that distinguished being from non-being, truth from falsehood. The criterion is only a person, an individual: "what separate things appear before me, such they are for me, as they are before you, such they are for you." The wind that blows, for example, warm or cold? The answer in the spirit of Protagoras should be: "To whom it is cold, he is cold, to whom not, he is warm." And if so, then neither one nor the other is false, everything is true, i.e. correct in its own way.
Protagoras talked about the democratic system of government and substantiated the idea of equality of free people. In 444 or 443 BC. e. Protagoras visited Athens and, at the request of Pericles, wrote a code of laws for a new Greek colony called Thurii in southern Italy. Interestingly, these laws did not change for a long time, because Protagoras introduced a trick: if a person wants to change, or cancel the old law, or come up with a new one, he must state his arguments and, putting a noose around his neck, wait for the decision of the citizens. The proposal is accepted - everything is in order, if the changes are rejected, then ... Well .... He himself chose fate by wearing a rope with a noose around his neck.
Protagoras argued that every statement is opposed by a statement that contradicts it (about every thing, every subject “there are two opinions that are opposite to each other”). Using such opposing opinions, the sophist philosopher created the art of philosophical dialogue, which was later given a special brilliance by Socrates and Plato. The idea of Protagoras about the deep origin of the dialogue is interesting. “He was the first to say that about every thing there are two opinions that are opposite to each other. Of these, he composed a dialogue, the first to use this method of presentation. According to Protagoras, it is clear that the dialogical artistic form follows from the contradictions that lie in the depths of things themselves.
The skill that Protagoras taught consisted precisely in this ability to give weight and significance to any point of view, as well as to its opposition. And his success is due to the fact that his students, trained in this ability, mastered all new opportunities in public tribunals, assemblies and political life in general.
It is believed that Protagoras taught how "weaker arguments can beat stronger ones." But this does not mean that the goal was to crush justice and rightness with lawlessness and wrongness. He demonstrated how technically and methodologically it is possible to strengthen positions and come to victory, using an initially weak argument.
According to Diogenes Laertes (3rd century BC), Protagoras “was the first to use arguments in disputes”, “began to arrange competitions in a dispute and came up with tricks for litigants; he did not care about thought, he argued about words. Eloquence requires a lot of work. This is perfectly explained by Protagoras: “Work, work, training, education and wisdom form a crown of glory, which is woven from the flowers of eloquence and placed on the head of those who love it. It is true that language is difficult, but its flowers are rich and always new, and spectators applaud and teachers rejoice when students make progress, and fools get angry - or maybe sometimes they are not angry, because they are not insightful enough.
In the word, Protagoras saw the main basis for the power of man, believing that it is possible "by the power of words to turn a bad deed into a valiant one."
In Protagoras, every speech is divided into four separate parts: a request, a question, an answer, and an order. These are attempts at a separate aesthetic assessment of human speech, which in the future will play a large role in ancient rhetoric, and then in world grammar and style.
2.3.2 "Father of sophistry" Gorgias
Gorgias of Leontina (presumably 485-380 BC) is considered the creator of rhetoric. The sophist philosopher defined rhetoric as the art of speech and worked hard on the theory of judicial and political eloquence. A true orator, according to Gorgias, must be able to praise and blame one and the same thing.
Gorgias himself became famous for a speech delivered before the National Assembly of Athens in 427 BC. e. Warning the Athenians about the danger looming over their homeland, he surprised the citizens with a skillfully spoken word, skillfully selected examples.
Gorgias in his essay “On the Non-Existent, or On Nature” declared that “nothing exists at all”, including nature itself. He argued that being does not exist, that even if one assumes being to exist, it still cannot be known, that even if one recognizes being as existing and knowable, it is still impossible to communicate what is known to other people. In this philosophical work, Gorgias substantiated three paradoxical theses:
· nothing exists;
· if something existed, then man could not know it;
· even if he could know, he would not be able to express it in words and prove it to other people.
Having destroyed the very possibility of achieving absolute truth, Gorgias was in search of the path of reason, limited to the coverage of facts, circumstances, situations in the life of people and the city. According to the sophist, this is “not a science that gives definitions and absolute rules, and not wandering individualism ... This is an analysis of situations, a description of what should and should not be done ... Gorgias is one of the first representatives of the ethics of situations, the essence of which in the fact that duties depend on the moment, era, social characteristics; the same act is both good and bad, depending on what it refers to.
Separately, there is a curious judgment of Gorgias about beauty and art: “The outstanding beauty of something hidden is revealed when wise artists cannot draw it with their tried and tested colors. For their great work and great untiring labor gives satisfactory proof of how beautiful it is in its mystery. And if the individual stages of their work have reached the end, then they silently give him again the wreath of victory. And that which no hand grasps, and no eye sees, how can the tongue express it, or the ear of the listener perceive it? Gorgias wants to say here that true beauty is inexpressible by any means, even if it be artistic, but always remains something mysterious; its artistic expression, however perfect, only confirms its mysterious nature. The possibility of such reasoning for Gorgias follows from the very great sensitivity of the sophists to the phenomenon of any beauty in general (According to Losev).
The position of Gorgias in relation to rhetoric was also new. If there is no absolute truth and everything is false, the word has an almost unlimited power, as long as it is not connected with being. The theoretical discovery of Gorgias is to discover the word as a carrier of belief, belief and suggestion, regardless of its truth. Rhetoric is the art of persuasion; that uses the possibilities of the word. This art in Greece of the 5th century was a true "steering wheel in the hands of a statesman." Politics has therefore been called a rhetorician capable of persuading the judges in the tribunals, the advisers in the Council, the members of the popular assembly, his citizens in any community. The significance of rhetoric is obvious, just as the unprecedented success of Gorgias is clear to us. So, Gorgias in his speech “Praise to Helen” writes: “The Word is a great ruler, who, having a very small and completely imperceptible body, performs wonderful deeds. For it can overtake fear, and destroy sadness, and inspire joy, and awaken compassion.
Gorgias was the first philosopher who sought the theoretical meaning of what is now called the aesthetic value of the word and the essence of poetry. “Poetry in its various forms,” he said, “I call a certain dimensional judgment, and the one who listens is captured, trembling with fear, compassionate, sheds tears, trembles with grief, his soul suffers from the action of words, happiness and the misfortunes of others become his own."
Gorgias is famous for creating artistic means of expression - tropes and figures of speech as exquisite decorations for what has been said. He used all sorts of artificial, pretentious and subtle expressions, which later became known as the "Gorgian style". Gorgiam invented the colon - a rhythmic-intonational unit of speech: the number of words pronounced in one breath. He is considered the creator of artistic prose: he combined the poetic style with the prose. The golden statue of Gorgias, which was placed in Delphi, confirms the merits of this sophist to Greek culture, as well as the prominent role that Gorgias played in the historical fate of Athens. Here is how Gorgia A.F. Losev writes about the rhetorical activity, relying on ancient sources: “He was the first to introduce the type of education that prepares orators, special training in the ability and art of speaking, and he was the first to use tropes, metaphors, allegories, the misuse of words in improper sense, inversions, secondary doublings, repetitions, apostrophes...”. Being himself a virtuoso of brevity, Gorgias taught everyone who wanted to speak beautifully so that they could conquer people, “make them their slaves of their own free will, and not under duress. By the strength of his conviction, he forced the sick to drink such bitter medicines and undergo such operations that even doctors could not force them to do.
2.3.3 Hippias as one of the representatives of the Greek Enlightenment
Hippias (?????)from Elis (470s - after 399 BC), Greek sophist, younger contemporary of Protagoras. Considered one of the most erudite and versatile representatives of the Greek Enlightenment.
Hippias paid much attention to rhetoric. The naturalness and entertaining nature of the story were his main strength, he often went to different cities with large political assignments and always performed successfully. He traveled throughout Greece as a teacher and orator, thus amassing a large fortune. He took an active part in public affairs, traveled with embassies to Athens, Sparta and other cities, gave public lectures on the genealogies of heroes and local noble families, on the founding of cities in antiquity. Hippias wrote on mathematics, astronomy, meteorology, grammar, poetry, music, mythology, and history. He worked on the creation of epics, tragedies and dithyrambs. He wrote poems, songs, various prose and was an expert on rhythm, harmony, spelling and mnemonics. Despite the diversity of his interests, Hippias basically remained a sophist, since he sharply contrasted the tyrannical law with supposedly free nature. He taught the science of the nature of legislation, believing that knowledge of nature is indispensable for prosperity in life, that in life one should be guided by the laws of nature, and not by human institutions. Nature unites people, but rather the law separates them. The law is devalued to the extent that it is opposed to nature. A distinction is born between law and the law of nature, natural and positive law. The natural is eternal, the second is accidental. Thus, there is a beginning for the subsequent desacralization of human laws that need expertise. However, Hippias draws more positive conclusions than negative ones. He finds, for example, that, based on natural law, there is no point in separating the citizens of one city from the citizens of another, nor in discriminating against citizens within the same city.
2.3.4 Prodic's interest in language
The Sophists did a lot of word theory, so they can be considered the first Greek philologists. Prodik especially delved into verbal semantics.
Prodik from the island of Keos (c. 470-after 400 BC) - Greek sophist. In 431 or 421 BC. e. received great acclaim in Athens. He developed the teachings of Protagoras on correct speech. Prodik was engaged in synonymy, emphasizing the differences between words with similar lexical meaning. The only work of Prodicus that is known for certain is The Four Seasons, the title of which he associated with the goddesses of the seasons revered on Ceos.
The philosopher-sophist argued that the emergence of agriculture led to the development of human culture. He presented the theory of the origin of religion. Protagoras proclaimed the theory of divine honors for things useful to people (a kind of fetishism) and their inventors (a theory later called euphemism). He was the first to explain the origin of religion in psychological terms (the feeling of gratitude). His understanding of the gods is original. According to Prodicus, the gods are nothing more than a “hypostatization of the useful and beneficial”: “The ancients invented the gods by virtue of the superiority, redundancy that flowed from them: the sun, the moon, the sources of all the forces that affect our lives, such as the Nile on the life of the Egyptians.
In ethics, he became famous for his interpretation of the sophistical doctrine in the familiar myth of Hercules choosing between virtue and vice at the crossroads, where virtue was interpreted as the appropriate means of achieving true gain and real good.
2.3.5 Proclamation of the idea of human equality in the writings of Antiphon
Antiphon from Athens (2nd half of the 5th century BC) is an ancient Greek philosopher-sophist of the older generation who wrote the works: “Truth”, “On Consent”, “Speech on the State”, “Interpretation of Dreams”.
The main philosophical work "Truth" consisted of two books: 1 - general principles and theory of knowledge; 2- physics, anthropology, ethics. He argued that the antithesis of truth-opinion correlates with the antithesis of nature-law. As a result, all socio-legal “establishments”, laws and “generally accepted norms” of morality turn out to be a conventional fiction, “hostile” to human nature. Nature is understood as natural inclinations, biological instincts and declares itself in the well-known hedonistic postulate: maximum pleasure, minimum suffering. "Justice" - hypocritical and forced observance of laws; therefore, “for a person, the most beneficial way to use justice is this: in the presence of witnesses, respect the laws, and without witnesses, the requirements of nature. The superiority of “nature over “law” leads Antiphon to the idea of the equality of all people and the untruth of estate and racial privileges: “By nature, we are all and in everything the same way - both barbarians and Hellenes”, “we all breathe air through our mouths and noses and eat with our hands ".
Antiphon put nature above the law and opposed it to state power and social institutions. He not only developed a materialistic explanation of the origins of nature and the origin of its bodies and elements, but also tried to criticize the phenomena of culture, defending the advantages of nature over the establishment of culture and over art.
In the essay "Truth" Antiphon expounded astronomical and meteorological views (the doctrine of the origin of the world from a whirlwind) and argued that "everything is one." He denied the objective existence of individual things and time. Ethics was understood as "the art of being carefree."
2.4 General characteristics of the "junior" sophists
In the teachings of the younger sophists (fourth century BC), about which extremely scarce information has been preserved, their ethical and social ideas stand out in particular.
· Lycophron and Alkidamant opposed the partitions between social classes: Lycophron argued that nobility is fiction, and Alkidamant - that nature did not create slaves and that people are born free. Lycophron, opposing the aristocracy, put forward the thesis that "nobility" is only a fiction, it by nature does not betray itself, but is based only on opinion; “In truth, the ignoble and the noble are no different from each other.”
· Thrasymachus extended the doctrine of relativity to social and ethical norms and reduced justice to what is useful for the strong, arguing that each government establishes laws that are useful to itself: democracy is democratic, and tyranny is tyrannical, etc. Following Prodicus, who is natural way tried to explain the emergence of religion ("the sun, moon, rivers, springs, and in general everything that is useful to our life, the ancestors considered deities, like the Egyptians - the Nile"), Thrasymachus frankly supports atheism. He says “that the gods do not see human affairs: for they could not fail to notice the greatest asset of people - justice; we see that people do not resort to it.”
2.5 Evaluation of the activities of the sophists
The Sophists paid great attention not only to the practice, but also to the theory of eloquence. They taught that "speech should be neither long nor short, but respecting the measure", used antithesis and consonance of endings; paid attention to the conciseness and roundness of thought, the rhythm of speech, studied oratorical vocabulary, as well as the impact of speech on feelings. The Sophists knew how to ridicule the argument of the enemy, and to answer his ridicule with dignity.
Initially, the word "sophist" was used to refer to people skilled in any business - poets, musicians, legislators, sages. Subsequently, those who, in speeches addressed to listeners, strove not to clarify the truth, but to pass off lies as truth, opinion as reliable truth, superficiality as knowledge.
The Sophists laid the foundations of rhetoric as a science of oratory. To master eloquence, certain techniques were proposed. According to the sophists, the goal of the orator is not to reveal the truth, but to be persuasive. The task of the sophist is to teach "to make a weak opinion strong." Hence the meaning of the word sophism is a deliberately false conclusion. The speaker, by the power of his word, must make "small seem big, and big seem small, present the new to the ancient, and the ancient to the new", he can make people "his slaves of good will, and not by compulsion."
Sophism (from Greek s ó phisma - trick, trick, invention, puzzle) is a conclusion or reasoning that justifies some deliberate absurdity, absurdity or paradoxical statement that contradicts generally accepted ideas. Aristotle called sophisms "imaginary evidence", in which the validity of the conclusion is apparent and is due to a purely subjective impression caused by a lack of logical or semantic analysis.
Here is one example of the sophism of the ancients, attributed to Eubulides: “What you did not lose, you have. You didn't lose your horn. So you have horns." This is where the ambiguity comes into play. If it is conceived as universal: "Everything that you did not lose ...", then the conclusion is logically flawless; if it is conceived as private, then the conclusion does not follow logically. And here is a modern sophism, justifying that with age, “years of life” not only seem, but actually are shorter: “Each year of your life is 1/n part of it, where n is the number of years you have lived. But n + 1>n. Therefore, 1/(n + 1)<1/ n».
It is impossible to speak about the unambiguity of the characteristics of the activities of the sophists. Giving an assessment to the sophists as philosophers, modern researchers determine the negative and positive sides of their deeds:
Accusations against the sophists “Protection” (a positive result of the activities of the sophists) 1. They pursued purely practical goals, and it was essential for them to look for students for “profit” They brought to the fore the problem of education, and pedagogical activity acquired a new meaning They argued that virtue is not given from birth and does not depend on the nobility of blood, but is based only on knowledge For the sophists, the study of truth was tantamount to its dissemination2. They charged for teaching, because knowledge was understood as a product of disinterested spiritual communication, the occupation of rich and noble people who had already solved their life problems , which made culture accessible only to selected strata, opening up opportunities for cultural penetration into other layers of society. The Sophists were engaged in knowledge as a craft and therefore had to demand payment in order to live in order to travel3. The Sophists were reproached for vagrancy, disrespect for their native city, affection to which was for the Greeks until that time a kind of ethical dogma. The Sophists were aware of the narrowness of the borders of the policy; pushing them apart, they became carriers of the pan-Hellenistic principle, they felt themselves not only citizens of their city, but also of Hellas. 4. They violated traditions, norms and codifications. Deserved the name of the Greek "enlighteners"
"Sophist" - this term, in itself positive, meaning "wise", sophisticated, expert in knowledge, later came to be used as a negative one, especially in the context of the controversy between Plato and Aristotle.
For in the beginning the sophists
· taught the correct methods of proof and refutation,
· discovered a number of rules of logical thinking,
· but soon they moved away from the logical principles of its organization and focused all their attention on the development of logical tricks based on the external similarity of phenomena, on the fact that an event is extracted from the general connection of events, on the ambiguity of words, on the substitution of concepts, etc.
Some, like Socrates, considered the knowledge of the sophists to be superficial and ineffective, since they lacked the disinterested goal of searching for truth as such, but in modern conditions their true historical significance was determined.
Conclusion
The historical significance of sophistry for the development of philosophy and culture.
Most importantly, the sophists shifted the axis of philosophical research from space to man. The grandeur of the cosmos receded into the background. Human life and human personality, with their endless chaos and diversity, with their inconstancy, far from cosmic grandeur, came to the fore.
The old image of a man of the pre-philosophical poetic tradition was destroyed by the sophists, but the new one has not yet appeared:
· Protagoras associated man mainly with sensuality,
· Gorgias conceived of man as a subject of mobile emotions, moved in any direction.
The sophists spoke about nature, about man as a biological animal nature, keeping silent about his spiritual nature. Man, in order to find himself again, had to find a stronger foundation.
The Sophists rejected the old Gods, but, abandoning the search for the beginning, they went to the denial of the divine in general:
· Protagoras settled on agnosticism,
· Prodik already sees the Gods as an exaggeration of profit,
· Critias - as an ideological image of politicians.
It is clear: in order to think the divine, it was necessary to look for a different, higher sphere.
The same must be said of truth:
· Protagoras divided logos into "two arguments" and revealed that logos posits and opposes.
· Gorgias rejected the logos as thinking, and retained it only as a magic word, but he also found that the word, with the help of which everything can be said and also everything can be refuted, does not truly express anything. Thought and word lost their subject and their order, being and truth were lost. Word and thought had to restore themselves to a higher level.
The significance of sophistry for the history of philosophical thought lies in the opening up for critical discussion of new topics in epistemology, philosophy of language, ethics, sociology and political theory:
· the reliability of sensory representations and judgments of the mind, as well as their expression in language,
· the relativity of truth in relation to various subjects, circumstances of place and time, ethnic characteristics,
· the ratio of universal principles and norms established by people in the field of ethics, language, public institutions,
· selection criteria in the moral field (the influence of pleasure on behavior, the nature of utilitarian calculation in the choice of actions),
· the principles on which social life is based,
· the motives that led to the emergence of society, the essence of the gods and the origin of religion.
Thus, the Greek sophists are "deep thinkers" who contributed to the change in the philosophy of the doctrine of nature to the field of ethics and the theory of knowledge. Denying absolute truth, they for the first time paid considerable attention to the study of the subjective world of man.
List of used literature
oratory philosophical
1.Ancient Philosophy: Encyclopedic Dictionary. - M.: Progress-Tradition. P. P. Gaidenko, M. A. Solopova, S. V. Mesyats, A. V. Seregin, A. A. Stolyarov, Yu. A. Shichalin. 2008
2.Asmus V.F. Ancient philosophy (history of philosophy). - M.: Higher. School, 2003
3.Akhmanov A. S., The logical doctrine of Aristotle, M., 1960.
4.Akhmanov A.S. The logical doctrine of Aristotle. - M., 1960
5.Belkin M.V., O. Plakhotskaya. Dictionary "Ancient writers". St. Petersburg: Publishing house "Lan", 1998
6.Bogomolov A.S. ancient philosophy. - M., 1985
7.Great Soviet Encyclopedia. - M.: Soviet Encyclopedia, 1969 -1978
8.Bradis V.M., Minkovsky V.L., Kharcheva L.K. Errors in mathematical reasoning. - M., 1967
V. S. Stepin. 2001
9.Grinenko G.V. History of Philosophy. - M.: 2004. - 688 p.
10.Grinenko G.V. History of Philosophy. 3rd edition. - M., 2011
.J. Reale and D. Antiseri. Western philosophy from its origins to the present day. I Antiquity. - LLP TK "Petropolis", 1997
.Losev A.F. History of ancient aesthetics in 8 volumes. T 2: Sophists. Socrates. Platon.- M., 1969.
.Small academic dictionary. - M.: Institute of the Russian language of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. Evgenyeva A.P., 1957-1984
.Minkovsky V. L., Kharcheva L. K., Errors in mathematical reasoning, 3rd ed., M., 1967
.Mikhalskaya A.K. Russian Socrates: Lectures on comparative historical rhetoric. M., 1996
.New Philosophical Encyclopedia: In 4 vols. M.: Thought. Edited by
.Plato. - Folio, AST, 2000
.Plato. Collected works in 4 volumes. T. 1. - M.: Thought. - 1990.
.Spirkin A.G. Philosophy: textbook / A.G. Spirkin. - 2nd ed. M.: Gardariki, 2008
.Philosophy: Encyclopedic Dictionary / Ed. A.A. Ivin. - M.: Gardariki, 2004.
.Philosophical Encyclopedia. In 5 volumes - M .: Soviet Encyclopedia. Edited by F. V. Konstantinov. 1960-1970.
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Briefly about philosophy: the most important and basic about philosophy in brief
The emergence of sophistry
In ancient Greece, thinkers devoted their lives to the search for truth for its own sake, locking themselves in a close circle of friends who were united by spiritual interests. In disputes, they shared their ideas, defended their positions, did not seek public recognition, did not create an audience of listeners. In the 5th century BC e. the situation has changed. In many cities of Greece, the political power of the ancient aristocracy and tyranny was replaced by the power of a slave-owning democracy. New elective institutions arose - people's assemblies and courts, which gave rise to the need to train people who mastered the art of political and judicial eloquence with the power of a persuasive oral word and the logical evidence of their judgments. In these new conditions, paid professional teachers began to replace philosophers and poets - at first just letters, music and gymnastics, then literature, rhetoric, philosophy, eloquence and diplomacy.
A sophist was first called a person who devoted himself to mental activity or was skilled in some kind of wisdom, including learning.
Sophists - "teachers of wisdom" - taught not only the technique of political and legal activity, but at the same time taught questions of philosophy. The Sophists focused their attention on social issues, on the person and on the problems of communication, teaching oratory and political activity, as well as concrete scientific and philosophical knowledge. In their striving for persuasiveness, the sophists came to the idea that it is possible, and often necessary, to prove anything and also to refute anything, depending on interest and circumstances, which led to an indifferent attitude towards truth in proofs and refutations. This is how the methods of thinking developed, which became known as sophistry. Sophists, being educated people, understood perfectly well that everything can be proved purely formally.
Plato in the treatise "Gorgias" argued that the art of the sophists is a greater good than all other arts; it is the "master of persuasion."
Sophists: Protagoras, Gorgias and Prodicus
Protagoras (c. 480-c. 410 BC) most fully expressed the essence of the views of the sophists. He owns the famous position: "Man is the measure of all things: those that exist, that they exist, and those that do not exist, that they do not exist." He spoke of the relativity of all knowledge, proving that every statement can be countered with an equal basis by a statement that contradicts it. Protagoras wrote the laws that determined the democratic form of government, and justified the equality of free people.
Gorgias (c. 483-375 BC), deriving their specific definitions from general concepts and pointing out the contradictions of these definitions, comes to the proof of the failure of the general concept itself. In his work On Nature, Gorgias proves three propositions: that nothing exists, and if something exists, then it is unknowable, and if it exists and is knowable, then it is inexpressible and inexplicable. As a result, he came to the conclusion that nothing can be said with certainty. For example, we considered a person to be good, but when we talk about him, he may have already done something bad or even very bad: after all, everything changes quickly! If you are asked about something, it would be more correct to remain silent and only point your finger at what they are asking about: you can’t go wrong here.
Prodik (470-460 BC) showed exceptional interest in the language, in the nominative (nominative) function of words, the problems of semantics and synonymy. He compiled etymological clusters of words related in meaning, and also analyzed the problem of homonymy, that is, distinguishing the meaning of graphically coinciding verbal constructions with the help of appropriate contexts, and paid great attention to the rules of the dispute, approaching the analysis of the problem of refutation techniques, which was of great importance in discussions. Socrates considered Prodica his teacher, especially heeding the subtleties of his linguistic views.
The Sophists were the first teachers and researchers of the art of the word. We can say that it is with them that philosophical linguistics begins. .....................................
3. Philosophical views of the Sophists and Socrates
The appearance of the sophists on the philosophical horizon was accompanied by a clear statement of the question of the role of the subject (man) in the process of cognition. Thus, the sophists for the first time put forward the epistemological problem of the reliability of human knowledge and the possibility of objective truths. It cannot be said that this problem was completely alien to previous thinkers, say, Heraclitus, Parmenides or Democritus. Although Heraclitus and Parmenides emphasized the fundamental difference between “truth” and “opinion”, and Democritus - “bright” knowledge from “dark”, nevertheless, none of them doubted that objective knowledge, reliable truth is available to a person. Sophists, for the first time, subjected to strong criticism the widespread belief in the possibility of reliable knowledge and put forward ideas about the subjective nature of human ideas and assessments, the idea that truth (good, beautiful, etc.) exists only for us, people. From this point of view, there is and cannot be anything true, fair or beautiful outside and independently of a person and society. But since different people, peoples and groups of society have different ideas about the true, fair and beautiful, it follows that there are so many people, so many truths, so many assessments and opinions about the fair and beautiful.
This scheme of thought is also characteristic of Protagoras. In his reasoning, he proceeds from the thesis of the Heraclitean Cratylus, who asserted that nothing definite can be said about the things involved in the general process of movement and change. And if we nevertheless affirm something about things, then it does not yet follow from this fact that our judgments have an objective value and are not subjective: it must be remembered that the properties and qualities of things are relations and they arise as a result of the interaction of things, their movement. and changes. Therefore, one cannot speak of the existence of properties of things in themselves. This also means that the sensations themselves, appearing as a result of the interaction of the perceived object and the perceiving organ of feeling, exist as long as there is a named interaction. And therefore, if there is no simultaneous interaction between the object and the subject, then there is no object itself and its sensually perceived properties (Plato. Theaetetus. 157 a -d). The subjective nature of our knowledge about things and the world is also determined by the psychological organization of the perceiving subject, his condition and his attitude to the environment.
It follows from what has been said that there is no objective knowledge, there are only "opinions". Any opinion is equally true and false: different and, moreover, contradictory judgments can be made about each thing at the same time, and they will be equally convincing. For “as each person feels something, it will most likely be for everyone (152 s), that is, everything that, as it seems to someone, is the way it is. Hence the principle: “The measure of all things is man ...” (152 a). That is, the world of things is as it appears in our sensations; knowledge about the world does not go beyond the limits of sensations and experiences of the subject. The final conclusion is that objective truth, in the strict sense of the word, is impossible.
But if there is no objective truth, and a person is a measure (criterion) of all things in his mind, then he is a measure of all norms in his behavior. And if for everyone the true (moral, legal, etc.) is what he thinks so, then we are not guaranteed from the conclusion that follows from this, that everyone, in the words of F. M. Dostoevsky, "everything is allowed."
Further, if there is no truth, but only opinions as descriptions of the psychological experiences of the subject, then how can one distinguish an enlightened person from an ignorant one and an intelligent one from a stupid one? And what about generally binding judgments, if any, as well as legal and moral norms adopted in this or that state? Given the possibility of such questions, Protagoras established a difference in the value of certain opinions: “true” are those opinions that are useful to people. For example, medicine is true because it is useful to people. The same can be said about agriculture and any useful trade. The task of the sophist, as a teacher, is, according to Protagoras, to help the student make the right choice, choose an opinion that is beneficial, and avoid an opinion that is harmful. In the field of generally binding legal and moral norms, Protagoras, avoiding the extremes of individualism and utilitarianism, tried to limit his relativism: he replaced the subjective judgments of individuals with the collective subjective opinion of the majority of people on the principle of democratic voting. In other words, Protagoras proposed to consider as a criterion of the "truth" of an opinion the opinion (judgment) that is currently shared by the majority of citizens (Plato. Theaetetus. 167 p.).
But in this case, the question of the gods, of their objective existence, clearly arose. From the arguments of Protagoras it followed that "the gods do not exist by nature, but as a result of art and by virtue of certain laws" (Plato. Laws. X. 889 p.).
To the question of whether the gods exist on their own (“by nature”) and regardless of the agreed “opinion” of the majority of people, Protagoras gave a somewhat evasive answer: not daring to open atheism, he put forward a skeptical thesis: “I don’t know how to say whether they exist or not, and what they look like. After all, there are many obstacles to knowledge - the vagueness of the matter and the brevity of human life ”(80, B 4 DK). It is known that the skepticism of Protagoras regarding the objective existence of the gods was qualified by the public opinion of Athens as "impiety". Moreover, the philosopher was prosecuted; he was sentenced to death, but escaped by fleeing Athens. His book On the Gods was publicly burned.
Starting from the idea of the conditional (contractual) nature of legal and moral norms, as well as religious ideas, the sophist Critias came to the conclusion that religion is an invention of an intelligent legislator (88, B 25 DK). According to Critias, religion was introduced as an additional measure to the laws. Since the law is able to prevent only the commission of obvious injustices, the wise legislator replaces the truth with a useful lie and convinces people of the existence of an all-seeing and all-hearing being, punishing unjust deeds and deeds; having instilled fear of the deity, the wise legislator places the fictitious being of the god in heaven, where the sparkle of lightning, thunder, rain, stars, sunrise and sunset captivate the imagination of people and instill in their hearts a constant trembling.
Although the theory of knowledge of Protagoras suffered from one-sidedness (it did not go beyond the scope of psychology and psychologism, that is, it was limited to describing the sensations and perception of the subject, his experience), nevertheless, it was a significant achievement of theoretical thought. Protagoras' thesis about man as the "measure" of things was the discovery of the human individual, a concrete and indivisible individuality (personality). It will not be an exaggeration if we say that, just as Leucippus and Democritus in the field of cosmogony proclaimed atoms to be those further indivisible particles from which all things consist, Protagoras in the field of anthropology recognized individual individuals as those "atoms" from the totality of which society is formed. , human team.
The attention of Protagoras and the Sophists was directed to individual individuals and to the variety of forms of social life - to the motley variety of customs, mores and ways of life of people, to the mobile and changeable nature of social phenomena. Everything immutable and permanent was declared a fiction. They declared fictitious and all sorts of general definitions and concepts. From this point of view it is impossible to speak, for example, about the essence of man in general. The search for "man in general" (the "universal" man of philosophers) was recognized as a futile exercise. In the same occupation, they proclaimed the search for "truth in general", "justice in general" and anything "in general". According to the logic of reasoning of Protagoras and his followers, it is senseless to assume the existence of abstract truth, truth as such, as an abstraction (i.e., regardless of a living person and specific peoples, regardless of their aspirations, interests, needs at a given time and in given circumstances). In terms of modern philosophy, what has been said means: there is no abstract truth, truth is always concrete. What has been said about truth is fully applicable to people's ideas (assessments) of what is fair, beautiful, and the like.
The Sophists quite convincingly substantiated their relativism and subjectivism in the striking divergence of moral (aesthetic, etc.) assessments and legal norms of different societies, countries and peoples, arguing that it is pointless to talk about good and evil, justice and injustice, about laudable and shameful and etc. regardless of people, peoples and states. Thus, the legitimacy of the search for any kind of moral (legal, aesthetic, etc.) definition was questioned, the futility of any distinction between opposites (truth and falsehood, good and evil, etc.) was declared.
Obviously, the logic of reasoning of Protagoras and the Sophists led them to complete relativism in all areas of knowledge and culture, because their individualistic attitude in understanding society and social life split society into separate “atoms”, brought to the fore the individual, specific and special, while the general (universal), declared a fiction, was forgotten.
Socrates spoke out against the individualism, subjectivism and relativism of the sophists with all determination, but from positions that differed significantly from those of a wide range of his fellow citizens. The deep abyss that separated the Sophists and Socrates seemed to exclude the presence of common elements in their views. However, this is not quite true. Suffice it to say that for both the Sophists and Socrates, the fundamental problem of philosophy was not a cosmological one, as with their predecessors, but an anthropological problem, not the world and the world order, but man and his life. All natural-philosophical (cosmological and ontological) problems were declared by them to be secondary and insignificant. What can be learned from trees? asks Socrates (Plato. Phaedrus 230 s). The Sophists and Socrates did not share the ideas of their predecessors about man only as a part of the cosmos; they proclaimed man the center of the universe. It can be said that Protagoras' thesis about man as the "measure" of all things is in a certain sense shared by Socrates. Ultimately, what the Sophists and Socrates have in common is that they oriented philosophy towards posing the question of the essence of man, his place and purpose in the world. In this way, they “humanized” philosophy, as it were, set humanistic goals and tasks for it. But behind this common understanding of the main goals and objectives of philosophy lie fundamental disagreements. First of all, they relate to the interpretation of the concept of "man". It is clear that the merit of the sophists in the history of philosophical thought lies in their discovery of the role of the subject and the subjective moment in cognition. However, the priority given by them to the subject over the object (and the associated absolutization of the subjective moment) led them to deny the possibility of any kind of objective knowledge, a more or less unified understanding of the objectively given, really existing.
Sophists, referring to the individual, pointed to the differences between people. Sophist Gorgias went so far in this respect that he spoke of the impossibility of a unified understanding of any subject by different persons in different conditions. He believed that a single object expressed by this term, constituting a single content of thought, in the process of its perception by people, breaks up into many contents of thought and loses its unity. From this point of view, the object will not be identical to itself and for the same person, because at different times and under different conditions, its capabilities and abilities of perception will be different.
Unlike the sophists, Socrates was convinced that with all the diversity of people, with all the difference in their way of life, behavior and experiences, there is always something that unites them and can be expressed by a single concept or idea. Therefore, different people can have a common understanding of something. So, if, say, we are talking about virtue and its many manifestations, then it is quite possible to talk about a single virtue in itself, regardless of its parts (manifestations). In Plato's dialogue "Protagoras" (329 d et seq.), Socrates says that the existence of virtue as a whole is analogous to the existence of a human face, which binds its parts into a single whole: mouth, nose, eyes and ears. No matter how different in appearance and function of the parts of the face and no matter how similar they may be, taken separately, they will not make up the whole face. The face is something common, unified and whole; it is indivisible into parts, although it consists of parts. It unites the parts, embraces them all and forms a whole out of them.
According to Socrates, the same can be said about virtue. It has many manifestations: courage, justice, piety, restraint, etc. But this still does not give the right to divide a single virtue into many pieces (into its many manifestations) and deny the existence of virtue as an integrity or structure, in modern terms. The unity of virtue as a whole constitutes a single content of thought, identical to the content of the concept in the process of reasoning of different persons in different conditions about virtue. What has been said can also be applied to such concepts as truth, beauty, justice, etc.
There were also significant differences in the attitude of Socrates and the Sophists to myth, to mythological images and legends. The Sophists strove for an allegorical interpretation of myths, they tried to find a reasonable meaning in mythical representations. So, according to Prodicus, the religious and mythological images of the gods arose as a result of the deification of everything that is useful to man: ancient people deified the sun, moon, rivers, springs, and in general everything that supports human life; for this reason, the goddess of agriculture was Demeter, the god of wine - Dionysus, water - Poseidon, fire was identified with Hephaestus.
Considering attempts to interpret myths about gods and heroes as a useless exercise, Socrates called for turning to the study of ourselves in order to find out what people are by their nature and purpose, what a person is in essence and what he is worth in general (Plato. Fedr. 230 a) . Socrates considered this question the only important and serious one, in comparison with which all the others lose their value. The method proposed by Socrates for solving this fundamental problem is the method of self-knowledge. So understood and interpreted one of the important moments of the teachings of Socrates, his brilliant student - Plato.
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