What is the difference between a philosopher and a sophist

Consider the following:. Finally, having informed beliefs are better than uninformed ones. We often form beliefs for the wrong reasons and being informed gives us an opportunity to realize which beliefs are the best supported by arguments. Experts can persuade others using language. Finally, we also have a good reason to think that some philosophers are experts.

Great post; indeed the distinction between philosophy sincere sceptical search for truth, aka a love of wisdom and sophistry insincere presentation of falsehood, aka a love of wordplay is of great importance.

The application of philosophy is subtle…yet so deeply engrained in modern society. Those who ridicule philosophy and its nature ironically do so from the edifices which philosophy helped build. Keep up your great work; I enjoy reading your blog posts. Comment by Phil — September 24, pm Reply.

So few are willing to understand this difference. One could very well be using rhetoric to endorse a truthful claim. Genuine philosophers have all been false at some point or there would have been no need for new ones to emerge. Comment by mma4cmt — September 26, am Reply. You comment was well stated. Comment by Phil — September 26, pm Reply. The most common reason is that they are truly an expert of philosophy — they have certain qualifications and training.

They are qualified to teach classes and either do that or write philosophy. They have a philosophy degree or they have the same expertise as someone who does. A sophist is not qualified to teach classes and does not write philosophy of a high qualities, and probably does not contribute to the philosophical field on a regular basis.

Someone who does not value their own opinion enough to be dogmatic. I hope the above piece could imply either of these, but the focus was on the first. Sophists are not experts, but philosophers are a kind of expert. Thanks, this was helpful and concise! You cleared-up a lingering mis-definition, and therefore a fallacy. Comment by Hudi — May 5, pm Reply. Reblogged this on Bitratchet and commented: Good distinctions here. Comment by jedreynolds — July 30, pm Reply.

I am satisfied reading your article. I googled to find out the difference between rhetoric and sophism regarding the thinking and language used by Kenyan politicians in their main political parties NASA and Jubilee. With your explanation, I have realized that both political parties are using sophism in their manifestos to sway the Kenyan people without giving real solutions to Kenyan problems in their manifestos.

The content ofthought and its discovery and formal expression in speech areintertwined. Third, I argue that Plato differentiates thephilosopher from the sophist primarily through the virtues of thephilosopher's soul.

One consistent thread in Plato's differentiation ofSocrates from the sophists is how Socrates embodies moral virtues. Thedifference between the philosopher and the rhetorician is not to befound in a distinctive technique or method, in the absence or presenceof rhetoric, or in some sort of foundational knowledge. Instead,Plato's ultimate defense of philosophy is to be found in thephilosopher's person — that is, in his character and the orientation ofhis soul to the forms.

Dialogues such as the Gorgias , Republic , and Phaedrus contain extensive descriptions of the virtues of the philosopher, butthese accounts have too often been ignored as secondary to questions ofmethod. However, for Plato, these virtues are closely connected to theproper expression of ideas in speech. For example, the Gorgias focuses on not only knowledge but also goodwill eunoia and frankness parrhesia as central to the evaluation of what constitutes good logos. The Phaedrus distinguishes between different types of souls, each oriented towarddifferent goods, some of which are higher than others; good rhetoric isconnected to loving the forms and one's partner in conversation.

Themiddle books of the Republic focus overwhelmingly on the soulof the philosopher and the characteristics that both separate and makehim apparently close to the sophist. Above all, Socrates' questioningis guided by his love of and his desire to care for the souls of thoseto whom he speaks.

A central defining characteristic of thephilosopher is his desire for the forms. However, this theoreticalcommitment to the forms should not be understood primarily as a matterof having the correct metaphysics or as a positive epistemologicalstate. That is, it would be a mistake simply to say that thephilosopher knows the forms while the sophist does not.

Instead, thesedialogues emphasize the philosopher's desire for the forms as hisprimary connection to them; his quest for better knowledge of themstems from his love.

This love of the forms has consequences for thephilosopher's character. Plato closely connects moral virtues such aswisdom, courage, openness to criticism, and self-knowledge to the loveof a transcendent good outside of oneself. Moreover, the philosopher'slove of the forms affects how he speaks to others — ultimately, inorder to guide others to love and to seek the forms as well. In thissense, the philosopher's theoretical stance ought to be understood interms of the more primary meaning of the Greek term theoria asa kind of a vision of the world and oneself in relation to that world.

His theoretical commitments are part of his character and identity as aperson. However paradoxical it may seem, the philosopher ischaracterized by a love of the forms that precedes his knowledge ofthem. Such a position helps to explain theinseparability of rhetoric and philosophy, moral virtue andintellectual virtue. Plato suggests that the understanding of our owndesires grounds our theoretical outlook on the world and, in turn, ourrhetoric is guided by our moral-theoretical vision.

While Plato evaluates rhetorical practice on thebasis of these virtues of character, character is difficult to discernfrom the outside. To put it simply, who we are determines how we speak,but it is difficult to discern the character and motive of a speakerfrom his words alone.

For example, Socrates might be genuinelyconcerned with improving his interlocutor but seem to others only to beinterested in winning the argument. Before it, things had gone relatively smoothly, with McCoy showing how fruitful it is to read the dialogues in terms of Socrates the exemplar of philosophical character, and the uses of rhetoric to develop his character. But in her chapter on the Sophist all that is called into question. Once there are two contrasting representations of the character of the philosopher -- and the two couldn't be more different -- I wonder what happens to such things as the contrasts between the two ways of life in Socrates' discussion with Callicles.

The Stranger seems even more ill-equipped than Socrates to fit the role of the philosopher-king in the Republic. Maybe a further exploration of the Statesman could be helpful here. Civic allegiances seem part of Socrates' philosophical character, but absent from the Stranger. It's hard to picture the Stranger being accused of corrupting the young; Meletus wouldn't have found him threatening, or thought he could make his name by prosecuting him.

Such questions result from taking seriously McCoy's chapter on the Sophist. However, the book has one more chapter, on the Phaedrus. As the Protagoras showed that in philosophy, unlike sophistic, the speaker and the audience can exchange positions, so the Phaedrus shows the same for the lover and the beloved:.

While Phaedrus may have viewed Socrates only as an audience for Lysias' speech, the speech of the non-lover opens up the possibility of becoming Socrates' audience. Socrates puts himself in the position of Lysias as both an orator and a lover to Phaedrus, allowing Phaedrus to become receptive to listening to Socrates. Throughout the dialogue, McCoy sees Socratic speech as neither non-rhetorical demonstration nor mere persuasion: "Socrates' rhetoric is in between the presentation of secure and complete knowledge and the presentation of ideas that do not even intend to reveal a truth outside of the speaker" This situation of philosophic discourse makes it "erotic rhetoric": "It is erotic not only in how it leads the soul of the audience toward the forms but also erotic insofar as the rhetorician himself admits to being in motion, in love with -- but not in total possession of -- knowledge of the forms" Once again McCoy uses the ethical nature of the philosopher to criticize attempts to delineate philosophy as a kind of method:.

If we take Socrates' idea in the Palinode that the distinctive essence of the philosophical soul is that it seeks the forms, then division and collection cannot be the only way in which good philosophy is practiced. Instead, any way of speaking that leads the soul to seek the forms and increases its desire to pursue them rather than other, lower goods, counts as philosophical rhetoric. While of course one can quarrel with some of the details of McCoy's readings, I want instead to invite her to pursue her research project further by raising two questions.

First, it isn't only that commentators have wrongly seen the difference between philosophy and sophistic in terms of method; the dialogues themselves make just such distinctions, as we just saw for the Phaedrus. Socrates claims in the Protagoras that the sophist makes long speeches while he engages in question and answer and then of course goes on to give the longest speech in the dialogue.

The Phaedrus has philosophers cutting at the joints in their divisions, and the Stranger in the Sophist advocates a different sort of method of division as the method of philosophy, and there is something called dialectic supposedly at work in the Republic.

If those distinctions ultimately fail, McCoy owes us an explanation of why Plato should dramatize people, not excluding Socrates himself, offering them. Where the philosopher differs from the sophist is in terms of the choice for a way of life that is oriented by the pursuit of knowledge as a good in itself while remaining cognisant of the necessarily provisional nature of this pursuit. Translations are from the Cooper collected works edition of Plato and the Sprague edition of the sophists unless otherwise indicated.

The reference list below is restricted to a few basic sources; readers interested to learn more about the sophists are advised to consult the excellent overviews by Barney and Kerferd a for a more comprehensive list of secondary literature. George Duke Email: george.

The Sophists Ancient Greek The sophists were itinerant professional teachers and intellectuals who frequented Athens and other Greek cities in the second half of the fifth century B.

The Sophists a. Protagoras Protagoras of Abdera c. Gorgias Gorgias of Leontini c. Antiphon The biographical details surrounding Antiphon the sophist c. On Truth , which features a range of positions and counterpositions on the relationship between nature and convention see section 3a below , is sometimes considered an important text in the history of political thought because of its alleged advocacy of egalitarianism: Those born of illustrious fathers we respect and honour, whereas those who come from an undistinguished house we neither respect nor honour.

Hippias The exact dates for Hippias of Elis are unknown, but scholars generally assume that he lived during the same period as Protagoras. Prodicus Prodicus of Ceos , who lived during roughly the same period as Protagoras and Hippias, is best known for his subtle distinctions between the meanings of words.

Thrasymachus Thrasymachus was a well-known rhetorician in Athens in the latter part of the fifth century B. Major Themes of Sophistic Thought a. Nature and Convention The distinction between physis nature and nomos custom, law, convention was a central theme in Greek thought in the second half of the fifth century B.

Protagoras measure thesis is as follows: A human being is the measure of all things, of those things that are, that they are, and of those things that are not, that they are not DK, 80B1. Language and Reality Understandably given their educational program, the sophists placed great emphasis upon the power of speech logos.

The elaborate parody displays the paradoxical character of attempts to disclose the true nature of beings through logos : For that by which we reveal is logos , but logos is not substances and existing things. Therefore we do not reveal existing things to our comrades, but logos , which is something other than substances DK, 82B3 Even if knowledge of beings was possible, its transmission in logos would always be distorted by the rift between substances and our apprehension and communication of them.

Human ignorance about non-existent truth can thus be exploited by rhetorical persuasion insofar as humans desire the illusion of certainty imparted by the spoken word: The effect of logos upon the condition of the soul is comparable to the power of drugs over the nature of bodies.

The Distinction Between Philosophy and Sophistry The distinction between philosophy and sophistry is in itself a difficult philosophical problem.

References and Further Reading Translations are from the Cooper collected works edition of Plato and the Sprague edition of the sophists unless otherwise indicated. Primary Sources Aristophanes, Clouds, K. Dover ed. Barnes, J. Diels, H. Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker. Berlin: Weidman. Cooper, J.

Plato: Complete Works. Indianopolis: Hackett. Theognis: Elegies and other elegies included in the Theognideansylloge. London: G. Phillips, A. M eds. Sprague, R. The Older Sophists. Xenophon, Memorabilia , trans. Bonnette, Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Secondary Sources Barney, R. Gill and P. Pellegrin eds. Oxford: Blackwell. Gibert, J. Shields ed. Oxford, Blackwell. Guthrie, W. The Sophists. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kerferd, G. The Sophistic Movement. The Sophists and their Legacy.

Wiesbaden: Steiner. Sidgwick, H. Journal of Philology 4, Untersteiner, M. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Other Reading Adkins, A. Merit and Responsibility. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Benardete, S. The Rhetoric of Morality and Philosophy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Bett, R. Derrida, J. Dissemination , trans.

Grote, G. A History of Greece vol. London: John Murray. Hadot, P. What is Ancient Philosophy? Harrison, E.