The Greek Sophists

by John M. Dillon (Translator), Tania Gergel (Translator)

By mid-5th century BC, Athens was governed by democratic rule and power turned upon the ability of the citizen to command the attention of the people, and to sway the crowds of the assembly. It was the Sophists who understood the art of rhetoric and the importance of transforming effective reasoning into persuasive public speaking. Their enquiries - into the status of women, slavery, the distinction between Greeks and barbarians, the existence of the gods, the origins of religion, and whether virtue can be taught - laid the groundwork for the insights of the next generation of thinkers such as Plato and Aristotle.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Genres: Philosophy, Classics, Ancient, Anthologies, Nonfiction, History, Classical Studies

419 pages, Paperback

First published July 29, 2003

About the author

John Myles Dillon (/ˈdɪlən/; born 15 September 1939) is an Irish classicist and philosopher who was Regius Professor of Greek in Trinity College, Dublin between 1980 and 2006. Prior to that he taught at the University of California, Berkeley. He was elected a corresponding member of the Academy of Athens on 15 June 2010. Dillon's area of research lies in the history of Platonism from the Old Academy to the Renaissance, and also Early Christianity.

Reviews

[Erick · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have to say that I did find this book interesting. I wasn't certain that it was going to keep me engaged, but it did.

Having Platonist sympathies, I have had a tendency to see the Sophists as hacks and con men. But reading this has at least helped in appreciating the ways they utilized language. Also, they did lay bare the ambiguities of language in some cases--even if one recognizes how ridiculous some of their semantical arguments really are. Plato gets this across to some degree in his dialogues that portray the sophists, but it is indeed often ironical there. Seneca noted a sophistical argument (originally attributed to Eubulides and not included in this book) that went something like this: "That which you have not lost, you have. You have not lost horns. Therefore, you have horns." These kinds of language conundrums are pretty silly on the surface, but if they help one to recognize the ambiguities of language, they may be of some utility. It was this kind of language trickery that the Sophists were known for. Whether Euthydemus and Dionysodorus took seriously their suppositional false dichotomy that one either knows nothing or knows everything is not entirely clear, but one can at least appreciate their demonstration of conundrums that occasionally accompany language when it comes to sense and context. They can be given credit for that at least. Although, one must admit that the Sophists often made money off of simple word chicanery.

Along with the above, the Sophists were the earliest Western thinkers that recognized the power of language in and upon society. Language really is capable of incredible influence when it is formulated and constructed in particular ways. The Sophists should be appreciated for being among the first to recognize this and the first to teach wordcraft. We take this for granted in this day in age, where advertisers and politicians have been manipulating people with constructed language for generations.

As I've stated before in other reviews, when it comes to the early Stoics, the Pre-Socratics and also the Sophists, our knowledge is rather paltry in terms of textual evidence because the original works mostly only exist in fragments (a notable exception is Gorgias) and in treatments by other writers. Be that as it may, when one sees all the fragments and references collected in one source as this book seeks to do, one can get a pretty good idea of what these thinkers were working with.

I give the book around three-and-a-half stars. It kept my attention and I found the accompanying commentary quite engaging.

[path · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sophistry has acquired a bit of a bad reputation over the millennia. The term is commonly used to characterize fallacious, shallow, or otherwise poor reasoning that has been gussied up with flowery, rhetorical ornamentation, often with the intent to deceive. Despite what Plato and Aristotle (to a lesser extent) might believe, however, that characterization is not warranted. Yes, there is a bit of verbal trickery and a bit of word play and maybe a bit of pandering to the audience, but considering that the sophists were teaching people how to publicly disclaim on matters of law and politics, there is no denying that speaking in a way that 1) grabs attention, 2) amplifies one character, 3) moves people to actions or beliefs, and 4) keeps people engaged is of paramount importance. There is little denying the utility of of what the sophists taught.

There are so many interesting figures profiled in this book. Among my favorites are Protagoras of Abdera ("Man is the measure of all things" and "No statement can be contradicted"), Prodicus of Ceos, Alcidamas of Elaea, and Gorgias of Leontini. Gorgias was particularly interesting as someone who cultivated a manner of speaking that incorporated elements of poetry into his speeches. The poetry made the speeches more engaging and enjoyable, often making the audiences happier and more agreeable, no matter the content. Poetry does not hold quite the same sway today, but this insight is no less valuable -- consider how many people get their news from comedy shows and how dressing up public information in the form of comedy does all the things sophists taught. More insidiously, consider how dressing up information in the form of inflammatory political and conspiratorial rhetoric achieves the same thing. Certainly there is value to seeing into the art by which people are made to listen and act.

The collection itself is nicely done. Because much of what is handed down to us about the sophists comes from text fragments, it is incumbent on an editor to stitch the fragments together in a coherent way John Dillon and Tania Gergel do a very good job of linking the primary fragments together and contextualizing (and sometimes editorializing) on secondary materials that help illuminate the primary.

- a proud sophist

[Illiterate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not as bad as Plato would have us believe.

[CivilWar · Rating 4 out of 5]

The name "sophist" holds negative connotations to this very day, largely due to the efforts of Plato, but let us not forget that these philosophers were the first thinkers in Western philosophy to realize how truly important language really is. Every philosopher in the area of language today, up to and including Wittgenstein himself, has the DNA, so to speak, of the sophists in them, even if they did not share their business model. Rather than seeing them as hacks and con men who charge absurd amounts of money from naive young men, one should study these thinkers as though they were any other ancient philosopher.

This excellent little collection here by the great classicist John M. Dillon who also did work on a fantastic anthology of Neoplatonist texts, is excellently translated and researched, with frequent and relevant endnotes giving a reader who may not be familiar with the texts and customs being discussed here full context. To my knowledge, this is the best book on the Sophists to date.

[James Carrigy · Rating 4 out of 5]

8/10

All to see on Sophistry.

[Timothy · Rating 2 out of 5]

No fault of the translators, but many of the overall texts are somewhat tedious.

[Michael Anderson · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very Thorough review of these important philosophers.