Early Greek Philosophy, Volume VIII: Sophists, Part 1

by André Laks (Translator), Glenn W. Most (Translation)

A major new edition of the so-called Presocratics.

The fragments and testimonia of the early Greek philosophers (often labeled the ‘Presocratics’) have always been not only a fundamental source for understanding archaic Greek culture and ancient philosophy but also a perennially fresh resource that has stimulated Western thought until the present day. This new systematic conception and presentation of the evidence differs in three ways from Hermann Diels’s groundbreaking work, as well as from later it renders explicit the material’s thematic organization; it includes a selection from such related bodies of evidence as archaic poetry, classical drama, and the Hippocratic corpus; and it presents an overview of the reception of these thinkers until the end of antiquity.

Volume I contains introductory and reference materials essential for using all other parts of the edition.
Volume II presents preliminary chapters on ancient doxography, the cosmological and moral background, and includes the early Ionian thinkers Pherecydes, Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes.
Volume III includes the early Ionian thinkers Xenophanes and Heraclitus.
Volume IV presents Pythagoras and the Pythagorean School, including Hippasus, Philolaus, Eurytus, Archytas, Hicetas, and Ecphantus, along with chapters on doctrines not attributed by name and reception.
Volume V includes the western Greek thinkers Parmenides, Zeno, Melissus, Empedocles, Alcmaeon, and Hippo.
Volume Vi includes the later Ionian and Athenian thinkers Anaxagoras, Archelaus, and Diogenes of Apollonia, along with chapters on early Greek medicine and the Derveni Papyrus.
Volume VII includes the atomists Leucippus and Democritus.
Volume VIII includes the so-called sophists Protagoras, Gorgias, Prodicus, Thrasymachus, and Hippias, along with testimonia relating to the life, views, and argumentative style of Socrates.
Volume IX includes the so-called sophists Antiphon, Lycophron, and Xeniades, along with the Anonymous of Iamblichus, the Dissoi Logoi, a chapter on characterizations of the ‘sophists’ as a group, and an appendix on philosophy and philosophers in Greek drama.

Genres: Philosophy, Classics

576 pages, Hardcover

Published October 31, 2016

Reviews

[Ali Ahmadi]

«هیچ چیز وجود ندارد. یا اگر هم هست، قادر به دانستن آن نیستیم و دست آخر حتا اگر چیزی را بفهمیم، نمی‌توانم آن را به دیگران نشان دهیم.»


– گرگیاس


سوفیست‌ها یا سوفسطائیان که بودند؟ یک گروه نه‌چندان یک‌دست از سیاست‌مداران، سخنرانان، آموزگاران و زبان‌شناسان سال‌های ۵۰۰ تا ۴۰۰ قبل از میلاد، که وجه اشتراکشان دوری از فلسفیدن درباره‌ی سرشت جهان و نظام حاکم بر آن بود و به‌جای آن تاکید بر اصالت کلام بلیغ و فصیح. چیزی دیگری که سوفسطائیان را به‌هم وصل می‌کرد، پول‌دوستی‌شان بود و اینکه قرار نبود هیچ کدام از این آموزش‌ها در باب فن بیان و دستور زبان مفت‌فروشی شود!


نقل قول بالا از گرگیاس نشان می‌دهد که نسبی‌گرایی در معرفت‌شناسی سوفیست‌ها تا چه اندازه برجسته بود. پروتاگوراس اعتقاد داشت که انسان معیار همه چیز است و این قدرت بیان است که می‌تواند راست را دروغ و دروغ را راست جلوه دهد. ایمان آوردن دیگران به شما به نحوه‌ی ارائه کلام وابسته است، نه نه به میزان حقیقتی که در کلام شما نهفته – که چنین حقیقتی از اساس نسبی‌ست. به عبارت امروزی، لازم نیست حرف خوب بزنی، فقط خوب حرف بزن.


این نگاه کمابیش تحقیرآمیز نسبت به سوفیست‌ها (پروتاگوراس، گرگیاس، هیپیاس، تراسی‌ماخوس و بقیه) و اندیشه‌هایشان تا حد زیادی از گفت‌وگوهای افلاطونی برآمده. افلاطون چشم دیدن بیشترشان را نداشت، چون سوفیست‌ها را فرصت‌طلبانی عوام‌گرا می‌دید که چشم‌شان را به‌روی حقیقت ناب‌ بسته‌اند و تنها با لفاظی از پرداختن به مسائل جدی فرار می‌کنند. و برای همین بود که سقراط را به عنوان کنترپوآن یا خنثاکننده‌ی حیله‌ی سوفیست‌ها در مکالماتش قرار می‌داد. با وجود این، شباهت‌های سقراط به سوفسطائیان اگر بیشتر از تفاوت‌هایش نباشد کمتر هم نبود. سقراط هیچ تمایلی به مادیات نداشت و با تمام وجود از سیاست پرهیز می‌کرد. اما تاکید همیشگی‌اش بر جدل و مباحثه بود و نه تفکر فردی درباره‌ی حقیقت. او نه به دیگران جواب می‌داد و نه انتظار جواب قطعی از آنها داشت. برای او شناختن دنیای بیرون در اولویت نبود و هدف این بود که به این مرحله برسیم:


تا بدانجا رسید دانش من، که بدانم همی که نادانم


و از اینجاست که نویسندگان و بسیار از مورخین فلسفه‌ی امروزی سقراط را هم یکی از سوفیست‌ها می‌دانند (گرچه یک عضو منحصربه‌فرد) و نه دشمن آن‌ها.

[Nathan Casebolt · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the final two volumes of Laks's and Most's fine collection of Presocratic fragments and testimonia, they cover the sprawling set of thinkers collectively known as the Sophists. Thanks largely to Plato, these expensive itinerant teachers still have a bad reputation today, to the point that we label it 'sophistry' when someone argues in a way we find skillful but disingenuous. I leave it to the reader to decide if Plato's disgust for their fluid morality is justified or not, but these are the first Greek thinkers to devote lengthy treatises not to speculation on the natural world, but to subjects we would recognize today as philosophy: truth, morality, and the power of language.

This first volume includes selections of Protagoras and Gorgias, the two most well-known sophists with the largest extant collection of surviving texts and summaries. Protagoras as transmitted by Plato is an early proponent of relativism, arguing that truth is a matter of perception, and therefore that an individual's perception of truth is objectively correct for that person. Gorgias's interests lay more in rhetoric as represented by his surviving works, including a parody of Eleatic argumentation in which he uses their methods to prove that nothing exists; and a defense of Helen of Troy, in which he displays the power of rhetoric by arguing that regardless of why Helen went to Troy with Paris, she can't be held morally accountable for her action or its destructive results.

This volume also includes selections of the lesser-known but influential sophists Prodicus, Thrasymachus, and Hippias. Interestingly, Laks and Most also made the decision to include Socrates in this collection of "Presocratic" sophists. Their argument makes sense, since despite significant differences from the sophists — especially his disinterest in money and his devotion to discovering absolute and concrete righteousness rather than displaying and profiting from his skill — Socrates used many of the same rhetorical devices and shared many of the same interests. Socrates usually gets left out of accounts of the sophists, but I agree with Laks and Most that it makes sense to include him; and the reader's understanding of the Father of Western Philosophy is enriched when set against the background of the sophists with whom he sparred in his all-consuming quest for the truth about everything.