Abstract:

Socrates used to be regarded as the starting point of authentic philosophy, and on this view the natural philosophers and the sophists are called Presocratics. However, recent scholarship revises this historical prejudice and the new source books of Laks & Most 2016 locate Socrates in the third chapter of the Sophists (Early Greek Philosophy, vol. 8, Loeb Classical Library). I appreciate this new treatment and would like to reexamine the relation between Socrates and his contemporary sophists on this basis.

We must note first that the sharp distinction and contrast between the philosopher (Socrates) and sophists was invented by Plato in the first half of the fourth century BC. Socrates was not clearly distinguished from the other sophists in his life time, and people treated them together as intellectuals. While Plato tried to defend Socrates as the ‘philosopher’ and severely criticized the other intellectuals as ‘sophists’ i.e. non-philosophers, his contemporary thinkers, including other pupils of Socrates (Aristippus, Antisthenes, Aeschines) and teachers of rhetoric (Alcidamas, Isocrates), never cared about this distinction and were proud of their being both philosophers and sophists. Plato’s dissociation of philosophers from sophists was projected anachronistically upon the intellectual situation of the previous century. (cf. N. Notomi, ‘Socrates versus Sophists: Plato’s Invention?’, Socratica 2008, Livio Rossetti & Alessandro Stavru (eds.), Levante Editori, 2010, pp. 71-88).

By keeping distance from Plato’s view (which eventually became our modern conception), we can see Socrates as one of the representative intellectuals in the late fifth century BC, who shared many activities and thoughts with the other sophists. Rivalry between them advanced philosophical thoughts in many respects. Here, Antiphon is a key figure to reconsider Socrates, since he was a senior Athenian who taught rhetoric and was sentenced to death. I will discuss both common and different features of the sophists and Socrates, and finally observe some characteristics which led Plato to believe that Socrates was special.