The Stigma of Being a Sophist

[alliop]

I have read four history of philosophy books so far and only two books written by philosophers. While reading the books I hear a lot of condemnation of the sohpists but most of the critism seem to be more targeted at the sophists themselves and not their positions.

Plato hated the sophists because they asked for payment for their services like teaching law and philosophy. Plato was the son of upper class citizens and I doubt he understood that some poeple need to feed themselves.

In two of those history books the authors, who were philosophy proffesors, said they personaly agreed with Plato's critism in the footnotes. I just took a double take and was freaking. Don't these proffesors get a paycheck for teaching philosophy that is taken out of their students pockets?  

[aaaaafkp]

It probably came easy to Plato. He was a philosopher. IE, man who loves wisdom. He wanted to do it for the sake of it, not to gain a paycheck. (And like you said, he didn't really need one.)

I don't think many would even consider teaching people without a paycheck these days, even if they were a billionaire. The concept's foreign. =P  

[alliop]

Paracket

It probably came easy to Plato. He was a philosopher. IE, man who loves wisdom. He wanted to do it for the sake of it, not to gain a paycheck. (And like you said, he didn't really need one.)

I don't think many would even consider teaching people without a paycheck these days, even if they were a billionaire. The concept's foreign. =P

When has a love for philosophy been a requirement for being a philosopher?  

[aaaaafkp]

alliop

Paracket

It probably came easy to Plato. He was a philosopher. IE, man who loves wisdom. He wanted to do it for the sake of it, not to gain a paycheck. (And like you said, he didn't really need one.)

I don't think many would even consider teaching people without a paycheck these days, even if they were a billionaire. The concept's foreign. =P

When has a love for philosophy been a requirement for being a philosopher?

Never said it was a requirement. That's the meaning of the word.  

[germanicus2]

It's not just about sophists charging exorbitant amounts of money - it's the fact that they teach rhetoric without a view towards investigating the nature of things. Many dialogues by Plato show this - for example Lysias, Protagoras and even the beginning of the Republic. In this regard, Socrates' struggle with them is surprisingly relevant.

Most of the sophistically trained people don't believe in anything (since anything can be disproved or proved with their sophistry). They represent a kind of decadent skepticism or even relativism. Socrates' challenge to the sophist is that reasoning can be used to investigate the truth through his dialectics.  

[Severus-snape-the-second]

alliop

Paracket

It probably came easy to Plato. He was a philosopher. IE, man who loves wisdom. He wanted to do it for the sake of it, not to gain a paycheck. (And like you said, he didn't really need one.)

I don't think many would even consider teaching people without a paycheck these days, even if they were a billionaire. The concept's foreign. =P

When has a love for philosophy been a requirement for being a philosopher?

A lesson in roots of words

Philo-Love
Sophie-Wisdom
Er-a suffix for someone who does.  

[MegaTherion777]

the reason why sophists are so disliked among philosophers is, as germanicus2 suggested, that they teach rhetoric without looking into the nature of things. they teach people to make logically inferior arguments that should not hold up appear to actually be strong enough to defeat the superior argument. they use trick arguments to spread misinformation, and use these logical fallacies to support immoralism, decadence, and hedonism.

on the other side, some of socrates' arguments were trick arguments, too, but he was always concerned with finding the truth and nature of things, and with morality, so he was "better" than the sophists. the sophists were nothing but tricksters trying to get their own way - socrates used both valid techniques, and their own tricks, against them to try and make people more concerned with truth and morality. sophists made the world worse with their immoralism, socrates tried to make it better. if you read "gorgias" or any of the dialogues mentioned earlier you will get a clearer understanding of why the socratic method was preferred to sophistry