According to Plato, the sophists were not serious in their philosophical endeavors. They had given up on the search for truth in order to play rhetorical games, using their persuasive powers on behalf of any case—however unworthy the cause or perverse the logic—in return for payment. Based largely on his own testimony, Plato bequeathed an enduring and demeaning image of the sophists as the “spin-doctors” of their day, rhetorical strategists, relativist in their morality, disinterested in truth, suggesting that all that really mattered was power. They were hired hands, traveling wordsmiths who
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