The Sophists

Overview

Each person is a measure, every question has two sides and speech is a power that can serve truth or override it.

The Sophists were traveling teachers who came to Athens in the fifth century BCE and charged fees for teaching. Their subject was excellence in public life, above all the skill of speaking in assemblies and law courts. In a city run by debate and votes, that skill was power, and many families were willing to pay for it.

Where it answers

Key terms

Man the measure

Protagoras’s claim that “man is the measure of all things,” often read as saying that truth depends on the knower.

Two arguments on every question

Protagoras’s claim that every issue can be argued from both sides.

Nomos and physis

The contrast between custom or law and nature.

The weaker and stronger argument

Making the weaker argument the stronger: what Protagoras was said to teach, and what critics held against him.