Sophists Essay -- Philosophy, Socrates, Plato, Gorgias, Aristotles

Sophists have been perpetuated in the history of philosophy primarily due to their most fierce critic Plato and his Gorgias, where Socrates brings profound accusations against the practice of sophists and declares notoriously rhetoric to be a part of flattery (ÃŽ ºÃŽ ¿ÃŽ »ÃŽ ±ÃŽ ºÃŽ µÃŽ ¯ÃŽ ±, 463c). This paper focuses on the responses to sophists’ practices by Plato and Aristotle, analysing on the one hand criticism made on their practice, on the other, however, trying to evaluate in which respect the responses of the two philosophers differ. Thus, taking the polemic of sophists as a starting point, the paper moves forward into discussing the fundamental differences in the treatment of rhetoric as perceived by Plato and Aristotle. For this reason (and in order to present a fuller account of Plato’s theory of rhetoric) not only Plato’s Gorgias, but also his Phaedrus is incorporated to the following analysis. Plato on sophists and rhetoric In Gorgias Plato claims that rhetoric is not a Ï„Î ­Ãâ€¡ÃŽ ½ÃŽ · (462b) and his accusations against sophists or rhetoricians seem to be reducible to three closely related arguments: first, that rhetoric doesn’t have its own subject (that would make it a Ï„Î ­Ãâ€¡ÃŽ ½ÃŽ ·); second (and most importantly) that it lacks the theoretical basis that is necessary for a Ï„Î ­Ãâ€¡ÃŽ ½ÃŽ ·, and thirdly that rhetoric is used for morally base intentions and pursuits, which corrupt the souls of the citizenship (503a). And, as will be apparent below, a discussion of these problems is offered both in Plato’s theory of true rhetoric in Phaedrus as well as in Aristotle’s treatment of rhetoric in his Rhetoric. Thus, the above presented accusations are latently put forward also in Phaedrus, where Plato presents his positive concept of rhetoric, yet which obviously sta... ...or Plato actually) rhetoric ‘happens’ (McCabe 1994: 152), the sophistic practice has an impact on its audience and thus it must be possible to find out the underlying system of this practice (1.1.1) that would enable one to call it an art. Further, it seems that Aristotle’s response is in some sense more fundamentally a response to Plato, at least in terms of taking the problems Plato articulates in his Gorgias as well as in his Phaedrus into serious consideration, and building up his own theory that would not suffer of the problems demonstrated in Plato’s works. Thus, Aristotle is very profoundly in a dialogue with Plato, accepting some of his criticism against the sophists (rhetoric should be basically a rational practice, with morally-neutral pursuits), while rejecting others (the appeal to emotions plays an important part in Aristotle’s theory, for example).