Sign Up Now
Get instant access to over 1 million+ study documents
OR
Already registered? click here to login
By creating your account, you agree to our terms of service, privacy policy and student honor code.
Greek Studies
Socrates and the Sophists
Socrates and the Sophists held many of their philosophical beliefs in common, and this was the very beginning of philosophical thought, debate, and education. However, a major difference between Socrates ideas and the ideas of the Sophists was Socrates belief that the Sophists idea of relativism was based in skill but had no real insight into the real questions of the universe that mattered. He felt the Sophists taught the basics of good politics, which of course were of extreme importance in Athens, but they did not teach the basics of life and living. He also believed that the Sophists were very successful at attacking and changing the old "system of beliefs" but they had not created a workable and successful substitute for the people.
Socrates also believed that morals came directly from how the person lived their life through objective standards and rational thought, rather than religious or mythical traditions. Therefore, people were in charge of their own morals and their own souls. He created the foundations of education with these beliefs, because he felt that real education molded the character with certain values found through reasoning, rather than concentrating simply on the mind.
Socrates central point of his argument was reason as opposed to regulation, and he consistently argued against the Sophist use of theoretical reason in their beliefs. He felt that truly reasonable people had minds that questioned rather than accepted, and that people with reasonable minds could never fully believe in Sophist beliefs; they simply were not truly reasonable or believable when they were dissected. The Sophists and Socrates both believed the old myths and religions were outdated, but Socrates felt they should be replaced with reasonable alternatives, such as education. So did the Sophists, but they really had no method to replace the old beliefs with new. Ultimately, they talked a good talk but did not have all the answers Socrates felt they should have to truly alter society and culture.
Berkley stated that because the senses were potentially faulty, everyone's sense perceptions and thus everyone's 'truth' was unique and variable. However, most empiricists like Locke believed that some (few) things could be known with certainty, like shape and color, even if other properties of things could not be known. The empiricists come from the Aristotelian rather than the Platonic tradition of philosophy, and had rigorous standards of truth based upon
Plato's theory of Being and Becoming, and its relations to the forms, is rooted in the dichotomy between being and not-being. Prior to Socrates the Sophists, from Parminedes to Gorgias, had argued that because it was impossible by definition for Nothing to exist, it was impossible to describe or vocalize a negative state, and therefore also impossible to utter falsehood. "And now arises the greatest difficulty of all. If
Nature of Truth We exist in an age swanked by an intense opposition to assertive truth. Truth can supposed to be either a "bond" or an "individual meet." Truth is compared to opinion, discernment, and viewpoint. Truth is compared to personal viewpoint as a person, family, faction, city, country, civilization, and humankind. The doctrines of viewpoint are identical on every social range, but their comparative particulars vary due to their comparative
Gorgias, Plato addresses the Sophists and shows Socrates facing off against several of them in a discussion of justice. As can be seen from this dialogue, different Sophists taught somewhat different doctrines. In general, though, the Sophists considered the nature of law and whether law could be viewed as something objective, a scientific certainty to be applied to the world. Essentially, the Sophists found that there was no way
Epistemological Beliefs and Organizational Leadership Epistemological Philosophies: Comparing Plato and Protagoras To understand our quest for knowledge, we often have to go back to some of the classical theories in order to get a full view of how modern theories have developed. Understanding classical philosophy is not blindly reading one philosopher and then assuming you have the knowledge of thousands of years of Greco-Roman thought. There were major differences within the philosophers
Plato -- Life and Works Plato was born in Athens circa 425 BC, just after the onset of the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta. He lost his father at an early age, but through his mother's marriage to a friend of the leading statesman and general of Athens at the time, Plato became affiliated with some of the most influential circles of a city enjoying a Golden Age. The early