Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1999 06:07:51 -0400
From: dls216-AT-psu.edu (Dan Smith)
Subject: Re:  Re: Sophists


Unleesh-AT-aol.com writes:
>
>I'm curious whether it is a case of not being interested in "the truth", or 
>is there the possibility that they saw that different truths apply in 
>different cases? Perhaps they were sensitive to the relativity of truth? I 
>can't say because I don't know the fellas.

neither do i, but i think you raise an important point;
namely that it might be productive to view "the sophists" (leaving
aside for the moment whether they can lumped together in this manner*)
as pluralists who privileged nomos over physis, and who were
aware of the the constitutive functions of language. again, this
says nothing about an individual sophist's moral status
(e.g., was gorgias a con man). however, given their ontological-
epistemological assumptions, it stands to reason that plato
wouldn't have had good things to say about them. (not to mention
that he was competing with them for students.)

dan s.

*isocrates is often understood to have been a sophist,
but one could not ascribe to him the "radical"
philosophy associated w/ most sophists.
           "One must have chaos in oneself to give
            birth to dancing star." - Nietzsche