Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1999 10:38:45 -0700 (PDT)
From: Michael Rooney <rooney-AT-tiger.cc.oxy.edu>
Subject: Re:  Re: Sophists




On Wed, 30 Jun 1999, Dan Smith wrote:

> 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. 

But isn't this the traditional view of the sophists,
i.e., that they were conventionalists?  The only new
twist is the business about language, and I think that's
an overly generous assessment of the likes of Euthydemos 
or Cratylus.  (They lacked any Kantian-derived notions
of constitution, for one thing.)


> 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.)

I'd argue differently: it was the practical and moral
implications of their teachings and their effects on
Athenian society that motivates Plato's derision.  The
mere epistemological relativism of Protagoras does not
move Plato to vilify him; in fact, the portrait in the
eponymous dialogue is relatively benign.


Cordially,

M.