To examine the Sophists and their legacy, it is necessary to reconsider the relation between Socrates and the Sophists. The trial of Socrates in 399 BCE seems to have changed people’s attitudes towards and conceptions of the sophists drastically because Socrates was the first and only “sophist” executed for being a sophist. In the fifth century BCE, people treated natural philosophy, sophistic rhetoric, and Socratic dialogue without clear distinctions, often viewing them as dangerous, impious, and damaging to society. After the trial of Socrates, however, Plato sharply dissociated Socrates from the sophists and treated his teacher as a model philosopher and the latter as fakes, despite many common features and shared interests between them. While Plato’s distinction was gradually accepted by his contemporaries and by subsequent thinkers through the fourth century BCE, some disciples of Socrates and the second generation of sophists continued to pride themselves on being sophists and philosophers at the same time. Thus, this paper argues that Socrates belonged to the sophistic movement before Plato dissociated him from the other sophists, although the trial of Socrates did not immediately eliminate confusion between the sophist and the philosopher.Notomi, Noburu. 2022. Socrates and the Sophists: Reconsidering the History of Criticisms of the Sophists. Humanities 11: 153. https://doi.org/10.3390/ h11060153
Xenophon was closer to Plato in that he criticized sophists in the Cynegyticus, perhaps with Aristippus in mind, but Plato was the only thinker who continued to criticize sophists. Plato tried to show the crucial difference between a sophist and a philosopher in his early and middle dialogues, but his nal attempt in the Sophist deepened the examination. Not only does he try to give a denition of sophists in general, but he also casts fundamental doubt on the treatment of Socrates as a philosopher. The visitor from Elea and his interlocutor, Theaetetus, offer several denitions of sophist, but the sixth denition, called noble sophistry (gennaia sophistike), reects Socrates as this type of sophist, as being adept at purifying others souls by refuting their beliefs and removing their stubborn self-conceit (Plato, Sophist 230A231A).18 Whether Socrates is indeed this type of sophist is hotly debated by commentators, but it is interesting and important to note that that Plato even raised
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In addition, it should be kept in mind that Platos criticism of the sophists was directed not only at sophists who were contemporaries of Socrates, such as Protagoras and Gorgias, but also at his own rivals, constituting two kinds, namely, his own sophistic contemporaries and other pupils of Socrates. After Plato, sophists of the second generation, such as Isocrates and Alcidamas, were active in the rst half of the fourth century BCE, and many pupils of Socrates worked as sophists. Both kinds refused the Platonic distinction and instead believed that sophistry and philosophy were compatible pursuits. For these reasons, we cannot assume that Socrates was regarded as a philosopher, clearly different from sophists, even after his death.
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4. Socrates in the Fifth Century BCE By keeping our distance from Platos distinction, which eventually became the traditional view of the history, we can see Socrates as one of the representative intellectuals (that is, the sophists) of the late fth century BCE. By sharing activities and thought, rivalry and debate between Socrates and the sophists advanced philosophical thought in many respects. We can observe both common and distinct features between them and can consider some factors that led Plato to believe that Socrates was special.
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To begin with, a common feature between Socrates and his contemporary thinkers, particularly the sophists, include, above all, the time and place in which they were active. In the latter half of the fth century BCE, Athens was the centre of Greek culture, economy and politics. Plato had Hippias praise the city where he was staying as the very shrine of wisdom in all Greece (Plato, Protagoras 337D). Athenian democracy was established under Pericless leadership, and intellectuals from different parts of Greece and from colonized 7 of 13 Humanities 2022, 11, 153
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