Sophists: Manipulative Swindlers or True Educational Pioneers?

April 2, 2025- The opening scene of Plato’s "Protagoras" reveals much about the author, the characters involved, and the negative reputation of the sophists. At dawn, Hippocrates (not the renowned father of medicine) visits his friend Socrates. He eagerly shares that the great Protagoras and the famous sophist Hippias of Elis are in town to teach.

Like many young people of his time, Hippocrates is keen to attend their lessons and hopes that Socrates will introduce him to them. Socrates agrees to accompany his friend but first poses some questions.

- Is Hippocrates willing to pay a substantial fee to become Protagoras’s disciple, who charges ten thousand drachmas for a complete three- to four-year training program? (Minois, p. 17, 1) Hippocrates is ready to accept this cost. Protagoras and the sophists were among the first education professionals, also viewing their work as a business (Tremblay, 2). In contrast, the Socratic school saw education as a mission. Nonetheless, Hippocrates is convinced that there will be a return on his investment, as Protagoras teaches students how to be effective speakers—an essential skill for securing a public office and achieving wealth.

- Socrates poses another critical question: While Protagoras may be skilled in rhetoric, what subjects does he truly understand well enough to teach? Would Hippocrates consult a physician without first ensuring that the doctor is competent to diagnose illnesses and recommend appropriate treatments? Ultimately, could the sophists be compared to grocers who boast about the variety of their goods without regard for their quality or impact on health—both physical and moral? According to Socrates, the sophists lack concern for the essence of knowledge, failing to define what is truly beneficial and instead offering potentially harmful ideas.

A clash emerges between the Presocratic sophists and Socratic scholars, representing two distinct approaches to education. The first is theoretical, focusing on morality and the soul, intending to educate all individuals. The second is pragmatic and materialistic, catering primarily to wealthy clients whose goal is to enter politics for personal gain. According to this view, what counts as moral is subjective, as there is no absolute truth. Meanwhile, the Socratic school strives for Truth and invokes the gods, yet they struggle to grasp absolute, irrefutable evidence, as their teachings largely center on philosophy and the ethics of political organization within the City. However, the outcomes of their experimental methods can often be difficult to quantify, leading to valid questions about their efficacy.

Protagoras does not claim to possess absolute truth; instead, he believes that truth aligns with those who know how to persuade. As a result, he is regarded as a relativist and agnostic, ultimately facing expulsion from Athens for asserting in his "Treatise on the Gods" that "Concerning the gods, I am unable to know whether they exist or do not exist, nor can I determine what they are like. Too many factors hinder our understanding: their invisibility and the brevity of human life."

Protagoras engages in discussions across various subjects, including what we now refer to as "sciences." However, during his time, these "naturalistic" areas of knowledge were largely based on unverifiable assumptions, and he often advocated for one position or another.

As   puts "In "Theaetetus," Protagoras seeks to demonstrate that reality consists solely of our representations of it in medicine. He examines the perspectives of both patients and healthy individuals, alongside those of doctors and sophists. This places us in a reflective space at the intersection of medicine and philosophy. The authors of "Ancient Medicine" and Aristophanes in "The Clouds" provide evidence by intertwining the roles of physicians and sophists."

However, this philosophical approach faces limitations in contemporary contexts. For instance, while negotiated definitions among specialists can establish standards—such as blood sugar levels indicating a long-term risk for type II diabetes—these standards ultimately relate to public health and society's responses, including prevention and treatment strategies for this 21st-century disease and not philosophical debates.

The pedagogy employed by sophists involves teaching students to defend both sides of a thesis through structured argumentation (dialectics) while also focusing on the form and style of their discourse (rhetoric). This enables students to choose which thesis to support based on their interests.

This methodology reflects an architecture of knowledge theory rooted in the thesis-antithesis-synthesis framework, as articulated by Heraclitus, a pre-Socratic philosopher from around 500 BC, and later adopted by Kant and Hegel. It is evident why, even today, characterized by post-truth and relativism, there is a resurgence of interest in the sophists. As Tremblay notes, "Paradoxically, while Plato (as well as Socrates) is more widely read and commented upon today, the sophists' ideas resonate more with the values and ideals of our time. Therefore, it is essential to acknowledge their rightful place in the history of ancient Greece and, more broadly, in Western thought."

Ph.W. 

(1) Finding an equivalence in 21st-century currency isn't easy.  One drachma could be the daily wage of a skilled worker in Athens.  It represented about 4.3 grams of silver in the 5th century BC. An old currency converter, testamentpress.com, takes the risk of putting the equivalent at $435,000

(2) " According to Cicero, the sophist is a man who pursues philosophy for the sake of ostentation or gain, a definition which, if one must take it as a reproach, will strongly affect the great body of modern masters, who are determined to embrace their profession, either through the prospect of earning an income, or by making a figure in it, or both – whether or not they have a particular taste for this occupation" (Tremblay ), read