Federal University Lafia

Faculty of Arts
Department of Philosophy
First Semester 2015/2016 Academic Session
Course Code: PHL. 112
Course Title: Ancient Philosophy
Credits: 2
Course Lecturers:
Terfa Kahaga Anjov Ph.D,
Obono M. Obono
&
Besong Eric
Time: Mondays, 8am – 10am

Course Description
Ancient Philosophy is a survey of the philosophical development of the ideas and
arguments of philosophers from the Early Greek philosophers to the era if the Hellenistic
philosophers. During the course students are going to meet for the first time the
reflection and the thinking of the philosophers in the Greco-Roman world.
The course is divided into five periods as follows: the first period deals with the
Pre-Socratic era which has fundamental questions like; “what is the world made up of?
What are human beings to do? How are human beings to live?). The study at the
beginning is able to cover the different theories of the nature of the physical world as
postulated by each philosopher, emphases should be paid to the paradoxes concerning
issues of motion, change and stability.
The Platonic period provides an overview of the personality of Socrates who
dealt with the question of “How are humans to live the Good life? And what is the
Good? The idea of the Good life challenges humans concerning the decision to take
when faced with dilemma. So the Aristotelian period takes a critical look at “what is it to
know?” as far as the world.is concern.
The Hellenistic Period or post-Aristotelian era studies philosophers that existed
after the death of Alexander the Great to the time of the battle of Actium. The distinctive
mark of these philosophers was their criticism against the two pillars of Greek
philosophy; Plato and Aristotle.

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The Objectives of the Course
• To promote visionary and logical human intellect for future development
• To stimulate critical thinking based on observation of how the universe works in
order to make the world comprehensible
• To offer new sort of answer to traditional question
• To initiate different approaches to problem-solving
• To assess the human mind as the correct tool for understanding the world with
certainty
• To show that conclusions are made based on observation and rational
argumentations
• To show that Plato and Aristotle are the most significant of the Ancient
Philosophers
Reading Materials:
Algra, Keimpe et.al. The Cambridge History of Hellenistic Philosophy. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1999.
Armstrong, A.H. The Cambridge History of Later Greek and Early Medieval
Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967.

Gibert, J. 2003. ‘The Sophists.’ In C. Shields (ed.), The Blackwell Guide to Ancient
Philosophy, 27-50. Oxford, Blackwell.

Guthrie, William. The Greek Philosophers: From Thales to Aristotle. London: Methuen,
1950.
Jordan, William. Ancient Concepts of Philosophy. London and New York: Routledge,
1990.
Miller, Jon and Brad Inwood (eds.) Hellenistic and Early Modern Philosophy.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.

Course Requirements:
1. Two (2) Continuous Assessment (20 marks each)
2. Final Examination (60 marks)

The course is divided between Terfa Kahaga Anjov and Mbono Martin Mbono.
Eric Besong is to assist both of us. Each of us will give three weeks (6 hours) of lecture
which will culminate with a written essay test and graded. Equal number of questions
will be asked during the final examination and each lecturer will mark the questions
taught by him and score accordingly.

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Tentative Schedule of Lectures:
1. Lecture 1 holds on the 7th December, 2015 and it is taken from William Jordan.
Ancient Concepts of Philosophy. London and New York: Routledge, 1990
Chapter One pp. 9 – 60 (Pre-Socratic Philosophers)
2. Lecture 2 holds on the 14th December, 2015 and draws its reading material from
William Jordan. Ancient Concepts of Philosophy. London and New York:
Routledge, 1990 Chapter two pp. 61 – 70 (Socratic philosophy)
3. Lecture 3 holds on 21st December, 2015 students are expected to read William
Jordan. Ancient Concepts of Philosophy. London and New York: Routledge,
1990 Chapter four pp. 105 – 136. The emphasis is on Aristotle. A written test will
be conducted on this day with thirty minutes towards the end of the class.
4. Lecture 4 holds on the 1st February, 2016 and readings are taken from Jon Miller
and Brad Inwood (eds.) Hellenistic and Early Modern Philosophy. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2003. Chapter 1 – 6 and Furley, David (ed.).
Routledge History of Philosophy volume II: From Aristotle to Augustine. London
and New York: Routledge, 1999 chapter 6 and 7 (Stoicism and Epicureanism)
5. Lecture 5 comes up on the 8 th February, 2016. It draws its readings from Jon
Miller and Brad Inwood (eds.) Hellenistic and Early Modern Philosophy.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003 chapters 7 – 11 and Furley, David
(ed.). Routledge History of Philosophy volume II: From Aristotle to Augustine.
London and New York: Routledge, 1999. Chapter 8 (Cyrenaics, Cynics and
Sceptics)

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INTRODUCTION
The course Ancient Philosophy is basically dealing with the history of
philosophy. It is a course that tells the story of philosophy from the (circa 600BC – circa
AD 400), that is, from the 6th Century which is precisely c. 585 to the 6 th century AD. It
is best for an introductory class and I shall adopt the lecture approach to teach it. During
this period all that is to be known about philosophy is a reflection of what can be referred
to as the thinking of the Greco-Roman world. Ionic philosophers to the Stoics and
Cynics. It is subdivided into the following parts:
(1) The Period of Pre-Socratic
(2) The Period of Plato
(3) The Period of Aristotle
(4) The Period of Post-Aristotelian (Hellenistic Philosophy)
(5) The Period of Neo-Platonism
The Pre-Socratic Period
There are about 15 philosophers who lived within the Pre-Socratic period. They
are: the Milesians who are identified as Thales who is the first, Anaximander, and
Anaximenes who is the last among the philosophers in the city of Meletus. Xenophanes
of Colophon, Heraclitus of Ephesus, Parmenides of Elea, Zeno of Elea, Melissus of
Samos, Pythagoras of Croton, Anaxagoras of Clazomenae, Empedocles of Acragas, the
Atomists: Leucippus of Abdera, Democritus of Abdera and Diogenes of Apollonia.
It is on record that Western Greek philosophy started at Miletus, which was a
Greek colony on the coast of Asia Minor (Sullivan, 9). The philosophers who came from
this city which was a trade centre were known as Ionians or Milesians. Although there
were other thinkers within the city of Miletus, the sudden break from the traditional way
of answering the question of the underlying unity of all things as postulated by Thales,
Anaximander and Anaximenes placed them above all the others. The three philosophers
sought for new sort of answers to traditional questions concerning the universe.
The trio were like any other person in the City-State of Athens. Men and women
with the sense of wonder. Every human being has the gift of asking questions with the
expectation that the questions would adequately answered. Most philosophical questions
are asked when human observe a sense of disorder in society in which they live in. the
questions are expected to provide solutions to the reason for the disorder. Naturally,
human beings abhor disorder, chaotic states. It is from these questions that create wonder
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in human that gave birth to philosophy. No wonder Aristotle is attributed to have said
that Philosophy arose out of wonder.
Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes began to give new meaning to the mode
of speculation found in Miletus. They sought for rational answers to the questions
surrounding the nature of the (cosmos) universe. Walsh asserted that: “They attempted to
give a reasoned explanation, of the origin, the basic ‘material’ and the fundamental
structure of our physical world” (1). They were no longer interested in the myths that
were flying around. They did not attribute the solutions to their problems to the gods.
They adopted the method of observing events in the world with their senses and applying
rational argumentations they were able to come to a conclusion that was obviously true.
They were able to save much of their time wondering whether the stories told about the
actions of the gods or goddess on matters of the universe are true or not.
Instead of trying to tell fortunes by the position of the planets like most of their
contemporaries, they used this knowledge of the heavens to try to explain rationally the
nature of the heavenly bodies themselves and their movements. Robin Waterfield
captures the change of attitude as follows:
But it is enough that there is some kind of di fference. The point is that the
Presocratics, both in their scientific and in their philosophical modes,
ushered in the kind of system with which we are still involved, or perhaps
burdened. In other words, the Presocratic revolution was a genuine
revolution––a paradigm shift of the first importance. One could say that
before the Presocratics the worldview was a kind of projection. All one’s
awe and fears are projected outwards. It is not that I, an individual human
being, am feeling awe of my own accord: it is a deity of some kind out
there who is making me feel it. Then along came the Presocratics and
said, ‘No, there is order in the world. And it is precisely because it is
ordered that it can be comprehended by the human mind.’ The Sophists
picked up on this emphasis on the importance of human beings, and made
their message: ‘I do it; I can do it’ (xxiii).

This at once marks them off from other wise men of antiquity. Again, Robin
insists that: “
They differ from their predecessors not so much in the kinds of questions
they asked (above all, “What is the nature of reality?” but in the answers
they gave – in not adhering to the traditional framework, in assigning
functions of the gods to natural phenomena, in using what we can
recognize as logic to reason things through coherently in forming general
philosophical hypotheses and embracing reductionism rather than
pluralism, and in an unrestricted, even iconoclastic spirit of enquiry
(xxiv).

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 The implication of the above statement is that the early philosophers, using
reasoning as a guide, endeavoured to find explanations for natural phenomena which did
not bring in magic or the activity of the gods, not because they were necessarily atheists,
but because they recognized that magical, religious, allegorical or mythical explanations
differed from a rational, scientific explanation (Sullivan 9).
The big question that awaits our answer is “Why is the study of the first
philosophers necessary?” The first philosophers are not studied just for the sake of
achieving a historical perspective. Students of philosophy do not necessary need to look
back at the events in the West where it is commonly attributed to the beginning of
philosophy. The era of the pre-Socratic taught us of paradigm shift, the evolution of
ideas and the need to replace myth by logos. We ought to know that in every human
being there appears a bundle of rational and irrational impulses and any attempt to
divorce one from the other will result to failure. Robin Waterfield goes on to explain
that: “In this sense the Pre-Socratic comibination of vision and logic is a precise model
for two strands of future development in human intellectural endeavor, which should not
perhaps have been allowed to separate from each other…” (xxxiii).
Thales of Miletus
Thales was born in Miletus in Greek Ionia. He lived at the beginning of the sixth
century B.C The source of information about Thales is found most in the works of
Aristotle. Thales was a sage, philosopher and father of natural philosophy. He was
interested in the study of every discipline. He studied philosophy, history, science,
mathematics, engineering, geography, and politics. He was one of the legendary Seven
Wise Men of Ancient Greece. Thales popularity did not come about because of the many
things he did during his life time. One thing about Thales that made him unique was his
break away from the traditional way of answering the question of underlying unity of all
things. In fact, the theories he used in explaining the events in the world were not just
new, they were made in confidence and boldness.
He was famous for predicting an eclipse which, according to astronomers took
place in 585 B.C. This knowledge, he probably got from his association with Babylonia,
where it was common knowledge amongst lonian strummers that eclipses recur in a
cycle of about nineteen years. Thus, Thales as well as the Babylonians knew that at a
certain date, it was worthwhile to look out for an eclipse. His greatest contribution to
philosophy was his postulation that the ultimate stuff of the universe is water. This
appeared very plausible to him, because water seems to permeate everything in the
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universe. Aristotle writes that Thales might have derived that water is the ultimate stuff
of the universe from observation of simple events, ‘perhaps from seeing that the
nutriment of all thing is moist, and that heat is generated from the moist and kept alive
by it…he got his notion from this tact and from the fact that the seeds of all things have a
moist nature, and water is the origin of the nature of moist things” (Aristotle:
Metaphysics, 7). Other observations also contributed to this idea: the earth like an island
is surrounded by water; water when it evaporates becomes air, when it becomes cold it
forms solid. The liquidity of water allows it to appear in many different shapes and
guises. The postulation of water as the first principle by Thales is not what makes him
occupy a special position in philosophy; it is rather the problem he raised. What he had
said was; things come and go, yet, nevertheless, everything is one. This problem would
be rephrased later in forms of the problem of being and becoming. Further Reading
check the article on Thales of Miletus on the Internet.
Anaximander
Anaximander (c. 611 – 546 B.C) was a younger contemporary and a pupil of
Thales. He agreed with his teacher that there is some single basic stuff out of which
everything comes. Unlike Thales, however, Anaximander speculated that the source of
the origin of the world is in apeiron, which literally means ‘without limits’ (Waterfield
5) Stumpf interpretes apeiron to be “the indeterminate boundless” (14). He argued that if
one single substance was the primal substance, it would subdue the rest. This is because
he argues, of the basic elements: fire is hot, air is cold, and water is moist: if any of them
therefore, was infinite the others would have ceased to exist.
The primal substance must therefore be neutral. If the ageless, everlasting,
imperishable reality is not any definite substance such as earth, air, fire and water, it is
the amorphous compound of all contrary elements. It is neutral in the cosmic strife which
exists between elements (earth, air, fire, and water). All things he argues originate from it
and return to it. Within the apeiron, there are innumerable other worlds besides the world
known to us. Our own world came from the apeiron as a whirling vortex in consequences
of the ‘eternal motion’ (Walsh 5). It is regrettable to note that Anaximander did not
explain what the apeiron really is.
Robin Waterfield opines that: “It seems most likely that Anaximander himself
said nothing definite about his boundless, seeing it as a spatially unlimited,
homogeneous, material mass” (5). He argues that the world was not created, it evolved

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from an eternal motion (that is natural law). The neutral nature of the apeiron is able to
control the interplay between the opposite stuff of the world.
Here, Robin’s comments are highly instructive when he explained that: “None of
the opposites is allowed to encroach too far” (6). Another view is attributed to
Anaximander a belief that: “there is a plurality of worlds” (6 -7) although there is no
mention of the fact that these worlds are co-existent or successive. Based on the principle
of sufficient reason, Anaximander proclaimed that the earth which has the shape of a
drum is at the centre of the universe and has no other place to go to. Living creatures
came from the moist element as it was evaporated by the sun. Man also evolved from
fishes. This is plausible because due to his long infancy, he would not have survived
otherwise (Russell, 46). Anaximander is known to have been the first person to construct
the map of the world.
Anaximenes
Anaximenes (c. 588 – 334 BC) suggested that the fundamental boundless, self-
changing substance is air. Unlike his predecessors, Thales and Anaximander, his main
concern was not to answer the question concerning what the world is made of, but rather
to give an explanation of how the world came to be what it now is. He argues that the
earth is shaped like a round table, all things are formed from air through the processes of
condensation and rarefaction. Air for him can take any form by condensation or
expansion. When condensed, air is at first water, if further condensed, it becomes earth
and finally stone. Air is therefore the principle of life. Life itself is warm breath. Our soul
too is air. Breath and air surround the whole universe and hold it together. The earth and
all heavenly bodies are flat and float on the air like leaves.
Heraclitus
Heraclitus (fl. 504 B.C) was famous for making the statements that “all things
pass, everything flows on and nothing remains”, “the sun is new every day”, you can
never step twice into the same river, for fresh waters are ever running upon you”
(Russell, 63). He believed and thought that everything was in a state of flux; that matter
is forever moving, changing and developing. Heraclitus postulated fire as the primary
element. According to him, everything is exchanged for fire and fire for all things, as
merchandise. The world as we have it is ordered and unified by a rational structure, a
single divine law called the logos.
The primary substance passes through three fundamental forms. From fire it
becomes water, from water, earth and from earth it changes to water, and from water,
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into fire, that fire is God. This postulation obeys the doctrine of cosmic cycle. According
to Russell, he claims: “this world, which is the same for all, no one of gods or men has
made; but it was ever, is now, and ever shall be an ever-living fire, with measures kindly
and measures going out (Russell, 62). Anaximenes describes this process as the unity of
opposites.
Concerning human knowledge, Anaximenes opines that the dry soul is the wisest
and best. For anyone to appreciate his/her role in the universe, it is important for such a
person to go in search of the self. This is best done when enjoying leisure times in life.
One who eats too much food definitely has a wet soul and is known to be dull and
unintelligent being. He does not condemn war. He clearly states that war is father and
king of all. After every war, there is peace.
Parmenides
Parmenides (c. 515 – 448) was a native of Elea, in the south of Italy. According
to Plato, Socrates in his youth had an interview with Parmenides and learnt much from
him. Parmenides was a prophet, magician and healer. He was the founder of the Eleatic
School. He opposed Heraclitus who maintained that everything is in a state of flux
“changing”. Parmenides retorted that nothing changes. He believes in the principle of
permanence. He says that nature is uncreated and imperishable.
Being is abiding. It did not come to be out of that which is not, nor will it pass
away into that which is not. Being never varies from being, the same reality always is
Non-being, on the other hand is not. Nature or being is and always is. It is immovable. It
does not change. It cannot be added to, for where would an addition come from, when
non-being is not. The ‘is’, is always completely what it is. There is therefore no coming
to being. What is known as Parmenidean Real is a philosophy that was handed down to
him by the Goddess of the underworld called Tartaros.
Plurality of being is an illusion, just like becoming is. This theory is defended in
his book titled “On Nature”. The book is divided into two parts. On one hand, it focuses
on Alethia (which talks of the Way of Truth and doxa which implies the way of seeming.
He considered the senses deceptive, and condemned the multitude of sensible things as
mere illusion. The only true being is ‘the one’, which is infinite and indivisible. It is
based on this understanding that Anaximenes was called “the father of deductive. It is in
his way of thinking that we can say that he has traces of idealism in him. He rejected the
senses, while at the same time holding fast to the fact that reason alone can lead human
beings to truth.
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 When we say something exist that is X is. We have to say so because our level of
certainty is derived from the fact that we do indicate and we do know. By this statement
he was prepared to There can be no change, since change consists in things coming into
being or ceasing to be.
Zeno
Zeno (fl. 464 B.C) was a disciple of Parmenides. Much of what is attributed to
Zeno according to Plato as captured by David Furley was to: “Defend Parmenides
against those who pointed out absurd consequences of Parmenides’ view that there is
only one thing” (134). By this act, Zeno was ready to repay those who ridiculed Eleatic
philosophy in their own coin” (135). Parmenides holds that there is no change in the
universe and all things are one, but how true is this assertion? Can we not see that there
are many things in the world? What arguments did Zeno use to defend his master? Was
he successful in carrying out this task? It is important to note that the arguments put
forward by the opponents of Parmenides were not strictly against plurality but motion.
Zeno’s Paradox
What others called arguments in philosophy is referred to as paradox in the case
of Zeno. This is because the manner of argument adopted by Zeno in order to solve the
problem of understanding the Parmenidean Real which are absurd to other philosophers
are in themselves full of absurdities. For instance, David Furley quotes the first Zenonian
argument as presented by Plato that: “If things that are are many, they must be both like
and unlike, but this is impossible. For unlike things cannot be like, nor can like things be
unlike” (135). A clearer explanation of the interpretation of this hypothesis is contained
on the last paragraph of page 137 to 139.
Zeno was chiefly concerned with answering Parmenides’ critics by showing that,
their own assumptions led to conclusions even more ridiculous than the ones they were
criticizing. He presented a series of reduction ad absurdum arguments to support
Parmenides’ doctrines on the impossibility of motion and plurality, and to refute by
Pythagorean doctrine of plural units and number. There are more than forty paradoxes
Zeno used, but four are critical for this level of studies.
The Dichotomy
The paradox on the dichotomy holds that “being is motionless”. The world as we
have it is static, motionless. To say that something is in a state of motion is the result of
the illusion of our senses. Thus, motion is illusory. If anyone wished to traverse a
racecourse he would have to traverse an infinite (apeiron) number of points in a
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(peperasmenon) finite time; and this is impossible for one to perform an apeiron
sequence of tasks especially one that has not limit.
The Achilles
You must have heard of a common saying that pertains to the Achilles’ heel. It is
a reminder that Achilles was recognized as the fastest runner on the face of the earth and
the tortoise was the slowest animal on earth. Zeno tells the story of a competition
between Achilles and the tortoise at a race field. Because of their difference in running,
the tortoise was asked to go after the middle of the race field to start the race there. At
the blow of the whistle, both of them started at their different positions. The argument
Zeno gave was that: If Achilles were to give a head-start to a tortoise in a race, then,
while Achilles was moving forward towards the tortoise’s position A, the tortoise would
have moved on further to position B; and while Achilles moved forward towards the
tortoise’s position B, the tortoise meanwhile would have advanced on to position C, and
so on ad infinitum (Walsh 10).
No matter how slow the tortoise was running, it was not possible for Achilles to
catch up with the tortoise. David Furley captures Aristotle’s explanation as thus: “The
slowest as it runs will never be caught by the fastest. For the pursuer must first reach the
point from which the pursued departed, so that the slower must always be some distance
in from” (142). Thus, sense experience of motion and of plurality is illusory. Reality is a
continuum a plenum. Thought therefore according to Zeno shows that being is one,
motionless and material.
Pythagoras
Pythagoras (c. 580 – 497 B.C) is from the lonian city of Samos, about twenty
miles north-west of Miletus. He founded an ascetic, religious community or brotherhood
of which the main tenets were the transmigration of souls and the sinfulness of eating
beans (Russell 50). The aims of the Pythagoras community were religious, philosophical
and partly political. What held them bound together as a brotherhood was their felt need
of personal salvation? This salvation they sought through mathematical studies. They
believe that mathematics, philosophy and disinterested service provide the best form of
purification and liberation of spirit. Aristotle reports that “the Pythagoreans…devoted
themselves to mathematics, they were the first to advance this study, and having been
brought up in it they taught its principles were the principles of all things.” The
philosophy of the Pythagoreans was mathematic-metaphysical philosophy. They
discovered that musical sounds can be reduced to and expressed by numbers. From this,
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they held that all things are numbers. All things to them are made of numbered points,
lines and surfaces. Numbers they believe can account for the wide range of different
natures of different things. The order and harmony of the universe is explainable in terms
of number. Number therefore constitutes the essence of things. Pythagoras taught that
the soul is immortal and is transmitted into other kinds of living things. Thus, nothing is
absolutely new on earth. Whatever lives now had already existed, perhaps in another
form in the past life. He therefore taught that all things ought to be treated as kindred.
Bevan writes of him thus: “once, they say, he (Pythagoras) was passing by when a dog
was being ill-treated. ‘Stop’, he said, ‘don’t hit it! It is the soul of a friend! I knew it
when I heard its voice” (Bevan, 121).
Anaxagoras
Anaxagoras (c. 500 -428 B. C) taught that there are many ultimate units or
wholes. These whole or units, when cut into parts, become merely smaller units
qualitatively the same as the original units. He argues that in any concrete object of our
experience there is an intermingling together of many qualitatively different particles or
units but, with one particular kind of particle (e.g. silver in a bracelet) predominating.
“There is a mixture of all things in everything”. The dominating substance Anaxagoras
calls the homeomeric substance. New products are merely new mixture or combinations
of the pre-existing ultimate units.
Changes in the world can be explained in terms of the intermingling and
separating of these indestructible materials or particles. Mind, he argues is the source of
all motion. It causes a rotation, which is gradually spreading throughout the world, and is
causing the lightest things to go to the circumference, and the heaviest to fall towards the
case. Mind is uniform; it is the same in animals as well as man. The seeming difference
of intelligence between the two is due to man’s possession of hands. The difference is
therefore that of bodily arrangement and not of mind.
Anaxagoras also postulated the existence of an omniscient entity called Nous or
mind. It was Nous and not blind necessity which initiated the formulation of the cosmos
by setting the mixtures in motion. Nous controls the formation of all living things. It
controls the rotatory motion which separates materials partially from each other. Later in
his days, he declared that the sun was not a god, but a hot mass of molten rock. This
position and his association with Pericles landed him in great trouble to the point that the
people of the city accused him of impiety. He died in 428 BCE.
Empedocles
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 Empedocles (c. 484 – 424 B.C) held that, there are four eternal and different
kinds of ‘realities; earth, air, fire, and water. These are ultimate, unchangeable,
indestructible, and irreducible to each other. At the beginning of any circular periodic
world-cycle, these four elements are completely separate, held apart by hate or force of
repulsion. As the cycle advances, love or force of attraction enters in and different
particles intermingle together in different propositions and combinations. The different
objects of our concrete world come to be and then pass away through these mingling and
separations in an unending cyclic process.
He formulated a theory of evolution and survival of the fittest that foreshadowed
Charles Darwin’s theory. Originally he argues, countless tribes of moral creatures were
scattered abroad endowed with all manner of forms. These were heads without neck,
arms without shoulders, eyes without foreheads, solitary limbs seeking for union. These
things in time Empedocles claims, join together as each might chance. Thus, there were
creatures with countless hands, creatures with the bodies and faces of man and others
with the faces of oxen and bodies of men.
There were also hermaphrodites combining the natures of men and women. In the
end however, only some of these forms survived (Russell 73). Empedocles also taught
that the moon shines by reflected light, which he believes is also true of the sun. He also
asserts that light travels at a speed so fast that the naked eye cannot observe. This
foreshadowed Albert Einstein’s postulation that the speed of light is finite. He called
himself an immortal god although he managed to keep a woman alive for a month. In
order to prove his godly nature, he jumped into a crater of Mount Etna and that was how
he died. He supported as well as defended the Parmenidean Real,
The Atomists: Leucippus and Democritus
Leucippus (c.440 B.C) was the founder of the Atomic School where the Atomic
theory was propounded to stimulate the development of sciences. According to him: “all
things are made of atoms”. The atom are ‘uncut’, and ‘uncuttable’ or physically
indivisible. They were not created, and they are indestructible. Each physical object is an
aggregation of several difference atoms. The cosmos they held originated in a chaotic
whirl or random movement of atoms, akin to the movement of motes in a sunbeam.
In this random whirl, collisions and interlocking occurred, and vortices or
whirling spirals of atoms were formed. These vortices generated bodies and worlds. The
atoms they claimed were always in motion. These random motion of atoms resulted to
collision which leads to the formation of things of different shapes in the world. For
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Leucippus when atoms are said to collide it does not mean that they touch one another,
rather they only form objects through close association.

Democritus (c. 460-371 B.C)

He was a student of Leucippus. He shared many positions with his master, they
both agreed that reality is dominated by atoms and void. They also proposed a
materialistic mechanistic solution to the philosophic problem concerning the nature of
being as presented by the different insights of Heraclitus and Parmenides. Leucippus and
Democritus presented a deterministic account of changes occurring in our abiding
universe in terms of a random mechanical intermingling of material atoms.
Atoms cannot be generated nor destroyed or qualitatively changed. Although all
atoms are made of the same material substance, what makes each item differ in the size,
shape, and motion. For instance, taste is a function of the size and shape of atoms in food
and their interaction with the atoms of our mouths. This in essence supports the theory of
necessity. Even the soul was composed of atoms and thought was a physical process.
There was no purpose in the universe, there were only atoms governed by mechanical
laws.
The Sophists
The sophists emerged in the fifth century B.C. and were generally referred to as
itinerant teachers (which means teachers who do not sit in one place but move around to
teach). The word sophist originally had no bad connotation, it meant, almost close to
what we mean by professor today. This is drawn from the etymology of the word sophist
which is either Sophia (wisdom) or Sophos (wise). A sophist was a man who made his
living by teaching young men certain things that, it was thought, would be useful to them
in practical life (Russell 94). They were not just interested in teaching the young. They
taught the young wealthy Greek men education in arête (that is in the area of virtue or
excellence) for a fee.
Originally, virtues that were part and parcel of the aristocratic men in Greece.
They virtues that were encouraged at the time were those of courage and physical
strength. Anyone one who had these virtues was highly respected in Greece. The advent
of the sophists the meaning of virtues changed from the just having courage and physical
strength to the ability to speak and win your opponent in a public debate. Charlesworth
agrees with this point when he said that: “a group of teachers who emerged to teach the
14
arts of public debate and persuasion” (8). The art of public speaking was needed at the
time of the sophist because of the practice of democracy. Politicians needed to influence
citizens to vote for them especially during political campaign with the aid of rhetorical
persuasions. Since there was no public provision for such education, the sophists taught
only those who had the money to pay, or whose parents had.
The sophists mistrusted the conflicting hypotheses and cosmologies of the earlier
Greek philosophers. They noted their contradictions and they abandoned the attempt to
understand the nature of the universe. Their own interest was subjective. Their emphasis
was on man and on the relatively different ways of human living. Their criticisms were
often negative and destructive; and their teachings showed a tendency towards
skepticism and relativism in reference to the human quest for truth. They argued that
“ethical judgments cannot be universal but are subjective in that, what is considered right
or just and what is considered wrong or unjust depends on an individual’s perception
which is linked to what is convenient for the individual” (Guthrie, 68).
It is based on the approach they adopted in their debates about issues that made
the name sophist take on a derogatory term as sophistry. Today, the word sophistry
simply means the use of fallacious reasoning, intellectual charlatanism and moral
unscrupulousness. There are six prominent sophists, but three of them are more famous
due to the influence they made on the youth of their time. These include; Protagoras,
Gorgias and Thrasymachus.
Protagoras (c. 480-410 B.C)
Protagoras was the most famous of all the sophists and he was the first to charge
fees. He was an associate of the great Athenian General and Statesman called Pericles.
The sophists all had a sense of skepticism and relativism in them but the strongest of
them was Protagoras who is the author of the well-known dictum: “man is the measure
of all things, of those things that are that they are, of those things that are not that are
they are not” DK, 80B1). This implies that there is no objective truth, and that all
opinions are equally worthy of consideration and respect. The affirmed; about any one
thing, two contradictory statements may be made and again “truth is what appears to
each one”.
He displayed religious agnosticism concerning the gods when he is purported to
have asserted that “with regard to the gods, I cannot feel sure either that they are or that,
they are not, nor what they are like in figure; for there are many things that hinder sure
knowledge, the obscurity of the subject and the shortness of human life (Russell, 97). He
15
believed that rhetoric was the core of sophistic education. Due to his relationship with
Pericles, he was given the opportunity to draft laws for the Athenian city of Thurri in 444
BCE,
Thrasymachus
Thrasymachus is purported to have held that, in practice, all real rights are the
rights of the stronger. Might he believes is right. He held the opinion that injustice is to
be preferred justice. That only a simpleton will prefer justice to injustice, but if you are
intelligent you will know injustice is better than justice. Injustice for him pays not to the
meager level of pig but for the intelligent. For him, laws are made by government for
their own advantage: and there is no impersonal standard to which to appeal in contests
for power. The law of nature he said, is the law of the stronger; but for convenience, men
have established institutions and the moral precepts to restrain the strong (Russell, 99).
He accused Socrates of deliberate deception when Socrates says that: “A ruler is just
when he looked after his subjects”.
Gorgia
Gorgia (c. 475-375 B.C) used argument similar to those of Zeno and Melissus of
Elea in order to prove the absurdity of Eleatic philosophy. He then abandoned
philosophy and devoted himself to a study of rhetoric, practical psychology, drama and
the art of persuasion. In a work called On Not-Being or Nature, he used dialectical
arguments of different kinds in support of his threefold assertion:
1. Non-being is real, and being is not.
2. If anything is, it cannot be known
3. If anything is known, it cannot be expressed or imparted (Popkin & Stroll 188).
Before we bring to an end what is to be known about the sophists, it is pertinent
to have a grasp of the four major themes that set the sophists apart from other
philosophers of their time. These themes are; nature and convention, relativism, language
and reality and the distinction between philosophy and sophistry. Part of what these
themes makes the difference between the sophists and Socrates much clearer. So, it is
important to begin the treatment of the distinction then culminate with the major themes
of the sophists.
Distinction between the sophists and Socrates
The implication of making a distinction between the sophist and Socrates is the
affirmation which arose that Socrates was also a sophist and an iterant one at heart. It is

16
recommended that every student who wants to achieve a deeper understanding of this
difference should read Aristophanes play entitled The Clouds.
For the purpose of clarity it is important to be abreast with the following facts
about the sophists and Socrates. Socrates did not charge fees for his teaching the
Athenian youths. Socrates unlike the other sophists did not claim to know everything. He
was always claiming to be ignorant and indeed the most ignorant person in Athens.
Socrates employed question-and-answer method in search of the truth, while the other
sophist gave long epideictic speeches for the purposes of persuasion.
The sophistic education revealed a decline from the heroic mentality of the earlier
Athenian generations. From the above points it is clear that the attribution to the sophists
of intellectual deviousness and moral dubiousness predates Plato and Aristotle. Although
we have enumerated the above reasons as the distinctive mark between Socrates and the
other sophists of this time, it is important to note that there was no single straight
benchmark of determining who was a sophist and who was not. Nevertheless, we are
made to understand that the sophists has special themes which gave them their peculiar
character as sophist and later on won them the title sophistry.
Major Themes of the Sophists
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.C.E. and is
especially important for understanding the work of the sophists. Before turning to
sophistic considerations of these concepts and the distinction between them, it is worth
sketching the meaning of the Greek terms.
Aristotle defines physis as ‘the substance of things which have in themselves as
such a source of movement’ (Metaphysics, 1015a13-15). The term physis is closely
connected with the Greek verb to grow (phuō) and the dynamic aspect of physis reflects
the view that the nature of things is found in their origins and internal principles of
change. Some of the Ionian thinkers now referred to as presocratics, including Thales
and Heraclitus, used the term physis for reality as a whole, or at least its underlying
material constituents, referring to the investigation of nature in this context as historia
(inquiry) rather than philosophy.
The term nomos refers to a wide range of normative concepts extending from
customs and conventions to positive law. It would be misleading to regard the term as
referring only to arbitrary human conventions, as Heraclitus’ appeal to the distinction
17
between human nomoi and the one divine nomos (DK 22B2 and 114) makes clear.
Nonetheless, increased travel, as exemplified by the histories of Herodotus, led to a
greater understanding of the wide array of customs, conventions and laws among
communities in the ancient world. This recognition sets up the possibility of a dichotomy
between what is unchanging and according to nature and what is merely a product of
arbitrary human convention.
The dichotomy between physis and nomos seems to have been something of a
commonplace of sophistic thought and was appealed to by Protagoras and Hippias
among others. Perhaps the most instructive sophistic account of the distinction, however,
is found in Antiphon’s fragment On Truth.
Antiphon applies the distinction to notions of justice and injustice, arguing that
the majority of things which are considered just according to nomos are in direct conflict
with nature and hence not truly or naturally just (DK 87 A44). The basic thrust of
Antiphon’s argument is that laws and conventions are designed as a constraint upon our
natural pursuit of pleasure. In a passage suggestive of the discussion on justice early in
Plato’s Republic, Antiphon also asserts that one should employ justice to one’s
advantage by regarding the laws as important when witnesses are present, but
disregarding them when one can get away with it. Although these arguments may be
construed as part of an antilogical exercise on nature and convention rather than
prescriptions for a life of prudent immorality, they are consistent with views on the
relation between human nature and justice suggested by Plato’s depiction of Callicles
and Thrasymachus in the Gorgias and Republic respectively.
Callicles, a young Athenian aristocrat who may be a real historical figure or a
creation of Plato’s imagination, was not a sophist; indeed he expresses disdain for them
(Gorgias, 520a). His account of the relation between physis and nomos nonetheless owes
a debt to sophistic thought. According to Callicles, Socrates’ arguments in favour of the
claim that it is better to suffer injustice than to commit injustice trade on a deliberate
ambiguity in the term justice. Callicles argues that conventional justice is a kind of slave
morality imposed by the many to constrain the desires of the superior few. What is just
according to nature, by contrast, is seen by observing animals in nature and relations
between political communities where it can be seen that the strong prevail over the weak.
Callicles himself takes this argument in the direction of a vulgar sensual hedonism
motivated by the desire to have more than others (pleonexia), but sensual hedonism as
such does not seem to be a necessary consequence of his account of natural justice.
18
 Although the sophist Thrasymachus does not employ the physis/nomos
distinction in Book One of the Republic, his account of justice (338d-354c) belongs
within a similar conceptual framework. Like Callicles, Thrasymachus accuses Socrates
of deliberate deception in his arguments, particularly in the claim the art of justice
consists in a ruler looking after their subjects. According to Thrasymachus, we do better
to think of the ruler/ruled relation in terms of a shepherd looking after his flock with a
view to its eventual demise. Justice in conventional terms is simply a naive concern for
the advantage of another. From another more natural perspective, justice is the rule of the
stronger, insofar as rulers establish laws which persuade the multitude that it is just for
them to obey what is to the advantage of the ruling few
An alternative, and more edifying, account of the relation between physis and
nomos is found in Protagoras’ great speech (Protagoras, 320c-328d). According to
Protagoras’ myth, man was originally set forth by the gods into a violent state of nature
reminiscent of that later described by Hobbes. Our condition improved when Zeus
bestowed us with shame and justice; these enabled us to develop the skill of politics and
hence civilized communal relations and virtue. Apart from supporting his argument that
aretē can be taught, this account suggests a defence of nomos on the grounds that nature
by itself is insufficient for the flourishing of man considered as a political animal.
b. Relativism
The primary source on sophistic relativism about knowledge and/or truth is
Protagoras’ famous ‘man is the measure’ statement. Interpretation of Protagoras’ thesis
has always been a matter of controversy. Caution is needed in particular against the
temptation to read modern epistemological concerns into Protagoras’ account and
sophistic teaching on the relativity of truth more generally.
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). There is near scholarly consensus that Protagoras is referring here to
each human being as the measure of what is rather than ‘humankind’ as such, although
the Greek term for ‘human’ –hōanthrōpos– certainly does not rule out the second
interpretation. Plato’s Theaetetus (152a), however, suggests the first reading and I will
assume its correctness here. On this reading we can regard Protagoras as asserting that if
the wind, for example, feels (or seems) cold to me and feels (or seems) warm to you,
then the wind is cold for me and is warm for you.

19
 Another interpretative issue concerns whether we should construe Protagoras’
statement as primarily ontological or epistemological in intent. Scholarship by Kahn,
Owen and Kerferd among others suggests that, while the Greeks lacked a clear
distinction between existential and predicative uses of ‘to be’, they tended to treat
existential uses as short for predicative uses. Having sketched some of the interpretative
difficulties surrounding Protagoras’ statement, we are still left with at least three possible
readings (Kerferd, 1981a, 86). Protagoras could be asserting that (i) there is no mind-
independent wind at all, but merely private subjective winds (ii) there is a wind that
exists independently of my perception of it, but it is in itself neither cold nor warm as
these qualities are private (iii) there is a wind that exists independently of my perception
of it and this is both cold and warm insofar as two qualities can inhere in the same mind-
independent ‘entity’.
All three interpretations are live options, with (i) perhaps the least plausible.
Whatever the exact import of Protagoras’ relativism, however, the following passage
from the Theaetetus suggests that it was also extended to the political and ethical realm:
“Whatever in any particular city is considered just and admirable is just and admirable in
that city, for so long as the convention remains in place” (167c). One difficulty this
passage raises is that while Protagoras asserted that all beliefs are equally true, he also
maintained that some are superior to others because they are more subjectively fulfilling
for those who hold them. Protagoras thus seems to want it both ways, insofar as he
removes an objective criterion of truth while also asserting that some subjective states
are better than others. His appeal to better and worse beliefs could, however, be taken to
refer to the persuasiveness and pleasure induced by certain beliefs and speeches rather
than their objective truth.
The other major source for sophistic relativism is the Dissoi Logoi, an undated
and anonymous example of Protagorean antilogic. In the Dissoi Logoi we find competing
arguments on five theses, including whether the good and the bad are the same or
different, and a series of examples of the relativity of different cultural practices and
laws. Overall the Dissoi Logoi can be taken to uphold not only the relativity of truth but
also what Barney (2006, 89) has called the variability thesis: whatever is good in some
qualified way is also bad in another respect and the same is the case for a wide range of
contrary predicates.
c. Language and Reality

20
 Understandably given their educational program, the sophists placed great
emphasis upon the power of speech (logos). Logos is a notoriously difficult term to
translate and can refer to thought and that about which we speak and think as well as
rational speech or language. The sophists were interested in particular with the role of
human discourse in the shaping of reality. Rhetoric was the centrepiece of the
curriculum, but literary interpretation of the work of poets was also a staple of sophistic
education. Some philosophical implications of the sophistic concern with speech are
considered in section 4, but in the current section it is instructive to concentrate on
Gorgias’ account of the power of rhetorical logos.
The extant fragments attributed to the historical Gorgias indicate not only
scepticism towards essential being and our epistemic access to this putative realm, but an
assertion of the omnipotence of persuasive logos to make the natural and practical world
conform to human desires. Reporting upon Gorgias’ speech About the Nonexistent or on
Nature, Sextus says that the rhetorician, while adopting a different approach from that of
Protagoras, also eliminated the criterion (DK, 82B3). The elimination of the criterion
refers to the rejection of a standard that would enable us to distinguish clearly between
knowledge and opinion about being and nature. Whereas Protagoras asserted that man is
the measure of all things, Gorgias concentrated upon the status of truth about being and
nature as a discursive construction.
About the Nonexistent or on Nature transgresses the injunction of Parmenides
that one cannot say of what is that it is not. Employing a series of conditional arguments
in the manner of Zeno, Gorgias asserts that nothing exists, that if it did exist it could not
be apprehended, and if it was apprehended it could not be articulated in 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. Gorgias also suggests, even more provocatively, that insofar as speech is the
medium by which humans articulate their experience of the world, logos is not evocative
of the external, but rather the external is what reveals logos. An understanding of logos

21
about nature as constitutive rather than descriptive here supports the assertion of the
omnipotence of rhetorical expertise. Gorgias’ account suggests there is no knowledge of
nature sub specie aeternitatis and our grasp of reality is always mediated by discursive
interpretations, which, in turn, implies that truth cannot be separated from human
interests and power claims.
In the Encomium to Helen Gorgias refers to logos as a powerful master (DK,
82B11). If humans had knowledge of the past, present or future they would not be
compelled to adopt unpredictable opinion as their counsellor. The endless contention of
astronomers, politicians and philosophers is taken to demonstrate that no logos is
definitive. 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. For just as different drugs dispel
different secretions from the body, and some bring an end to disease and
others to life, so also in the case of logoi, some distress, others delight,
some cause fear, others make hearers bold, and some drug and bewitch
the soul with a kind of evil persuasion (DK, 82B11).

All who have persuaded people, Gorgias says, do so by moulding a false logos.
While other forms of power require force, logos makes all its willing slave. This account
of the relation between persuasive speech, knowledge, opinion and reality is broadly
consistent with Plato’s depiction of the rhetorician in the Gorgias. Both Protagoras’
relativism and Gorgias’ account of the omnipotence of logos are suggestive of what we
moderns might call a deflationary epistemic anti-realism.
d. The Distinction between Philosophy and Sophistry
The distinction between philosophy and sophistry is in itself a difficult
philosophical problem. This closing section examines the attempt of Plato to establish a
clear line of demarcation between philosophy and sophistry. As alluded to above, the
terms ‘philosopher’ and ‘sophist’ were disputed in the fifth and fourth century B.C.E.,
the subject of contention between rival schools of thought. Histories of philosophy tend
to begin with the Ionian ‘physicist’ Thales, but the presocratics referred to the activity
they were engaged in as historia (inquiry) rather than philosophia and although it may
have some validity as a historical projection, the notion that philosophy begins with
Thales derives from the mid nineteenth century. It was Plato who first clearly and
consistently refers to the activity of philosophia and much of what he has to say is best

22
understood in terms of an explicit or implicit contrast with the rival schools of the
sophists and Isocrates (who also claimed the title philosophia for his rhetorical
educational program).
The related questions as to what a sophist is and how we can distinguish the
philosopher from the sophist were taken very seriously by Plato. He also acknowledges
the difficulty inherent in the pursuit of these questions and it is perhaps revealing that the
dialogue dedicated to the task, Sophist, culminates in a discussion about the being of
non-being. Socrates converses with sophists in Euthydemus, Hippias Major, Hippias
Minor, Gorgias, Protagoras and the Republic and discusses sophists at length in the
Apology, Sophist, Statesman and Theaetetus. It can thus be argued that the search for the
sophist and distinction between philosophy and sophistry are not only central themes in
the Platonic dialogues, but constitutive of the very idea and practice of philosophy, at
least in its original sense as articulated by Plato.
This point has been recognized by recent poststructuralist thinkers such as
Jacques Derrida and Jean Francois-Lyotard in the context of their project to place in
question central presuppositions of the Western philosophical tradition deriving from
Plato. Derrida attacks the interminable trial prosecuted by Plato against the sophists with
a view to exhuming ‘the conceptual monuments marking out the battle lines between
philosophy and sophistry’ (1981, 106). Lyotard views the sophists as in possession of
unique insight into the sense in which discourses about what is just cannot transcend the
realm of opinion and pragmatic language games (1985, 73-83).
The prospects for establishing a clear methodological divide between philosophy
and sophistry are poor. Apart from the considerations mentioned in section 1, it would be
misleading to say that the sophists were unconcerned with truth or genuine theoretical
investigation and Socrates is clearly guilty of fallacious reasoning in many of the
Platonic dialogues. In the Sophist, in fact, Plato implies that the Socratic technique of
dialectical refutation represents a kind of ‘noble sophistry’ (Sophist, 231b).
This in large part explains why contemporary scholarship on the distinction
between philosophy and sophistry has tended to focus on a difference in moral character.
Nehamas, for example, has argued that ‘Socrates did not differ from the sophists in
method but in overall purpose’ (1990, 13). Nehamas relates this overall purpose to the
Socratic elenchus, suggesting that Socrates’ disavowal of knowledge and of the capacity
to teach aretē distances him from the sophists. However, this way of demarcating
Socrates’ practice from that of his sophistic counterparts, Nehamas argues, cannot justify
23
the later Platonic distinction between philosophy and sophistry, insofar as Plato forfeited
the right to uphold the distinction once he developed a substantive philosophical
teaching, that is, the theory of forms.
There is no doubt much truth in the claim that Plato and Aristotle depict the
philosopher as pursuing a different way of life than the sophist, but to say that Plato
defines the philosopher either through a difference in moral purpose, as in the case of
Socrates, or a metaphysical presumption regarding the existence of transcendent forms,
as in his later work, does not in itself adequately characterise Plato’s critique of his
sophistic contemporaries. Once we attend to Plato’s own treatment of the distinction
between philosophy and sophistry two themes quickly become clear: the mercenary
character of the sophists and their overestimation of the power of speech. For Plato, at
least, these two aspects of the sophistic education tell us something about the persona of
the sophist as the embodiment of a distinctive attitude towards knowledge.
The fact that the sophists taught for profit may not seem objectionable to modern
readers; most present-day university professors would be reluctant to teach pro bono. It
is clearly a major issue for Plato, however. Plato can barely mention the sophists without
contemptuous reference to the mercenary aspect of their trade: particularly revealing
examples of Plato’s disdain for sophistic money-making and avarice are found at
Apology 19d, Euthydemus 304b-c, Hippias Major 282b-e, Protagoras 312c-d and
Sophist 222d-224d, and this is not an exhaustive list. Part of the issue here is no doubt
Plato’s commitment to a way of life dedicated to knowledge and contemplation. It is
significant that students in the Academy, arguably the first higher education institution,
were not required to pay fees. This is only part of the story, however.
A good starting point is to consider the etymology of the term philosophia as
suggested by the Phaedrus and Symposium. After completing his palinode in the
Phaedrus, Socrates expresses the hope that he never be deprived of his ‘erotic’ art.
Whereas the speechwriter Lysias presents erōs (desire, love) as an unseemly waste of
expenditure (Phaedrus, 257a), in his later speech Socrates demonstrates how erōs impels
the soul to rise towards the forms. The followers of Zeus, or philosophy, Socrates
suggests, educate the object of their erōs to imitate and partake in the ways of the God.
Similarly, in the Symposium, Socrates refers to an exception to his ignorance. Approving
of the suggestion by Phaedrus that the drinking party eulogise erōs, Socrates states that
ta erōtika (the erotic things) are the only subject concerning which he would claim to
possess rigorous knowledge (Symposium, 177 d-e). When it is his turn to deliver a
24
speech, Socrates laments his incapacity to compete with the Gorgias-influenced rhetoric
of Agathon before delivering Diotima’s lessons on erōs, represented as a daimonion or
semi-divine intermediary between the mortal and the divine. Erōs is thus presented as
analogous to philosophy in its etymological sense, a striving after wisdom or completion
that can only be temporarily fulfilled in this life by contemplation of the forms of the
beautiful and the good (204a-b). The philosopher is someone who strives after wisdom –
a friend or lover of wisdom – not someone who possesses wisdom as a finished product,
as the sophists claimed to do and as their name suggests.
Plato’s emphasis upon philosophy as an ‘erotic’ activity of striving for wisdom,
rather than as a finished state of completed wisdom, largely explains his distaste for
sophistic money-making. The sophists, according to Plato, considered knowledge to be a
ready-made product that could be sold without discrimination to all comers. The
Theages, a Socratic dialogue whose authorship some scholars have disputed, but which
expresses sentiments consistent with other Platonic dialogues, makes this point with
particular clarity. The farmer Demodokos has brought his son, Theages, who is desirous
of wisdom, to Socrates. As Socrates questions his potential pupil regarding what sort of
wisdom he seeks, it becomes evident that Theages seeks power in the city and influence
over other men. Since Theages is looking for political wisdom, Socrates refers him to the
statesmen and the sophists. Disavowing his ability to compete with the expertise of
Gorgias and Prodicus in this respect, Socrates nonetheless admits his knowledge of the
erotic things, a subject about which he claims to know more than any man who has come
before or indeed any of those to come (Theages, 128b). In response to the suggestion that
he study with a sophist, Theages reveals his intention to become a pupil of Socrates.
Perhaps reluctant to take on an unpromising pupil, Socrates insists that he must follow
the commands of his daimonion, which will determine whether those associating with
him are capable of making any progress (Theages, 129c). The dialogue ends with an
agreement that all parties make trial of the daimonion to see whether it permits of the
association.
One need only follow the suggestion of the Symposium that erōs is a daimonion
to see that Socratic education, as presented by Plato, is concomitant with a kind of
‘erotic’ concern with the beautiful and the good, considered as natural in contrast to the
purely conventional. Whereas the sophists accept pupils indiscriminately, provided they
have the money to pay, Socrates is oriented by his desire to cultivate the beautiful and
the good in promising natures. In short, the difference between Socrates and his sophistic
25
contemporaries, as Xenophon suggests, is the difference between a lover and a prostitute.
The sophists, for Xenophon’s Socrates, are prostitutes of wisdom because they sell their
wares to anyone with the capacity to pay (Memorabilia, I.6.13). This – somewhat
paradoxically – accounts for Socrates’ shamelessness in comparison with his sophistic
contemporaries, his preparedness to follow the argument wherever it leads. By contrast,
Protagoras and Gorgias are shown, in the dialogues that bear their names, as vulnerable
to the conventional opinions of the paying fathers of their pupils, a weakness
contributing to their refutation. The sophists are thus characterised by Plato as
subordinating the pursuit of truth to worldly success, in a way that perhaps calls to mind
the activities of contemporary advertising executives or management consultants.
The overestimation of the power of human speech is the other theme that emerges
clearly from Plato’s (and Aristotle’s) critique of the sophists. In the Sophist, Plato says
that dialectic – division and collection according to kinds – is the knowledge possessed
by the free man or philosopher (Sophist, 253c). Here Plato reintroduces the difference
between true and false rhetoric, alluded to in the Phaedrus, according to which the
former presupposes the capacity to see the one in the many (Phaedrus, 266b). Plato’s
claim is that the capacity to divide and synthesise in accordance with one form is
required for the true expertise of logos. Whatever else one makes of Plato’s account of
our knowledge of the forms, it clearly involves the apprehension of a higher level of
being than sensory perception and speech. The philosopher, then, considers rational
speech as oriented by a genuine understanding of being or nature. The sophist, by
contrast, is said by Plato to occupy the realm of falsity, exploiting the difficulty of
dialectic by producing discursive semblances, or phantasms, of true being (Sophist,
234c). The sophist uses the power of persuasive speech to construct or create images of
the world and is thus a kind of ‘enchanter’ and imitator.
This aspect of Plato’s critique of sophistry seems particularly apposite in regard
to Gorgias’ rhetoric, both as found in the Platonic dialogue and the extant fragments
attributed to the historical Gorgias. In response to Socratic questioning, Gorgias asserts
that rhetoric is an all-comprehending power that holds under itself all of the other
activities and occupations (Gorgias, 456a). He later claims that it is concerned with the
greatest good for man, namely those speeches that allow one to attain freedom and rule
over others, especially, but not exclusively, in political settings (452d). As suggested
above, in the context of Athenian public life the capacity to persuade was a precondition
of political success. For present purposes, however, the key point is that freedom and
26
rule over others are both forms of power: respectively power in the sense of liberty or
capacity to do something, which suggests the absence of relevant constraints, and power
in the sense of dominion over others. Gorgias is suggesting that rhetoric, as the expertise
of persuasive speech, is the source of power in a quite comprehensive sense and that
power is ‘the good’. What we have here is an assertion of the omnipotence of speech, at
the very least in relation to the determination of human affairs.
The Socratic position, as becomes clear later in the discussion with Polus (466d-
e), and is also suggested in Meno (88c-d) and Euthydemus (281d-e), is that power
without knowledge of the good is not genuinely good. Without such knowledge not only
‘external’ goods, such as wealth and health, not only the areas of expertise that enable
one to attain such so-called goods, but the very capacity to attain them is either of no
value or harmful. This in large part explains the so-called Socratic paradox that virtue is
knowledge.
Plato’s critique of the sophists’ overestimation of the power of speech should not
be conflated with his commitment to the theory of the forms. For Plato, the sophist
reduces thinking to a kind of making: by asserting the omnipotence of human speech the
sophist pays insufficient regard to the natural limits upon human knowledge and our
status as seekers rather than possessors of knowledge (Sophist, 233d). This critique of the
sophists does perhaps require a minimal commitment to a distinction between
appearance and reality, but it is an oversimplification to suggest that Plato’s distinction
between philosophy and sophistry rests upon a substantive metaphysical theory, in large
part because our knowledge of the forms for Plato is itself inherently ethical. Plato, like
his Socrates, differentiates the philosopher from the sophist primarily through the virtues
of the philosopher’s soul (McKoy, 2008). Socrates is an embodiment of the moral
virtues, but love of the forms also has consequences for the philosopher’s character.
There is a further ethical and political aspect to the Platonic and Aristotelian
critique of the sophists’ overestimation of the power of speech. In Book Ten of
Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle suggests that the sophists tended to reduce politics to
rhetoric (1181a12-15) and overemphasised the role that could be played by rational
persuasion in the political realm. Part of Aristotle’s point is that there is an element to
living well that transcends speech. As Hadot eloquently puts it, citing Greek and Roman
sources, ‘traditionally people who developed an apparently philosophical discourse
without trying to live their lives in accordance with their discourse, and without their
discourse emanating from their life experience, were called sophists’ (2004, 174).
27
 The testimony of Xenophon, a Greek general and man of action, is instructive
here. In his treatise on hunting, (Cynēgeticus, 13.1-9), Xenophon commends Socratic
over sophistic education in aretē, not only on the grounds that the sophists hunt the
young and rich and are deceptive, but also because they are men of words rather than
action. The importance of consistency between one’s words and actions if one is to be
truly virtuous is a commonplace of Greek thought, and this is one important respect in
which the sophists, at least from the Platonic-Aristotelian perspective, fell short.
One might think that a denial of Plato’s demarcation between philosophy and
sophistry remains well-motivated simply because the historical sophists made genuine
contributions to philosophy. But this does not entail the illegitimacy of Plato’s
distinction. Once we recognise that Plato is pointing primarily to a fundamental ethical
orientation relating to the respective personas of the philosopher and sophist, rather than
a methodological or purely theoretical distinction, the tension dissolves. This is not to
deny that the ethical orientation of the sophist is likely to lead to a certain kind of
philosophising, namely one which attempts to master nature, human and external, rather
than understand it as it is.
Sophistry for Socrates, Plato and Aristotle represents a choice for a certain way
of life, embodied in a particular attitude towards knowledge which views it as a finished
product to be transmitted to all comers. Plato’s distinction between philosophy and
sophistry is not simply an arbitrary viewpoint in a dispute over naming rights, but is
rather based upon a fundamental difference in ethical orientation. Neither is this
orientation reducible to concern with truth or the cogency of one’s theoretical constructs,
although it is not unrelated to these. 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 cognizant of the necessarily provisional nature of this
pursuit. The data on the major themes is gotten from Google and the reader is encourage
to read further for much information on the activities of the sophist. With these
distinction we are reap to treat the personality known as Socrates in the next section.
Socrates (470 – 399 B.C)
Socrates left no writings. He saw his mission as one of seeking wisdom for both
himself and those with whom he conversed in the streets of Athens. His doctrines,
activities and methods are mainly known through the works of Xenophon and Plato’s
dialogues. Socrates criticized sophism on the ground that if genuine knowledge cannot
be found, the presumption of Protagoras and his disciples to instruct others on worldly
28
success could be misleading. For these “students and teachers might after all be doing the
wrong thing, since they did not have any positive knowledge” (Popkin & Stroll 189). For
Socrates, since neither the teachers nor the students had any knowledge, it means, the
blind (sophists) were leading the blind (students). Socrates was therefore convinced that
one could only act on the basis of the truth. Like the sophists, he taught philosophy to the
young, but unlike them he did not charge money.
The oracle of Delphi was purportedly asked if they were any men wiser than
Socrates, and he replied that there was not. Socrates was said to be puzzled by this, since
according to him he knew nothing, he therefore, went out to interact with the reputed
wise men around to confirm whether the god was right or not. He went to a politician
considered wise by the people and found out that the man was not wise. He then went to
the poets, and asked them to explain passages of their writings, but they were unable to
do so. Here he learnt that poets write their poems through inspirations and emotion and
not wisdom. He went to the artisans, but found them also disappointing. He therefore,
concluded that “God only is wise; and by his answer he intends to show that the wisdom
of men is worth little or nothing (Russell 106). Socrates consistently maintained that he
knows nothing and is only wiser than others in knowing that he knows nothing; but he
does not however, think of knowledge as unattainable. He rather thinks, that the search
for knowledge is of utmost importance (Russell, 111).
Socrates agreed with the sophists in turning his thoughts away from problems of
the universe. Frost said of him that, “he set his face against all discussions of such high
matters as the nature of the universe; how the cosmos came into being or by what forces
the celestial phenomena arise. To trouble one’s brain about such matters, be argued, is to
play the fool” (Russell, 56). His focus was therefore on man and the problems
surrounding him. He sought to combat the intellectual confusion of his times. Wisdom he
believes could be attained not through mental confusion but through mental clarity and
rational action. For this reason, he induced his students and those whom he met, to assist
him to attain clear and distinct definition and concepts of justice, piety, friendship,
temperance, courage, truth et cetera. He saw these as stable fixed concepts capable of
being defined precisely in universal definition.
Socrates saw his mission in life as that of persuading men “to seek virtue and
wisdom”. And for him virtue and wisdom are one. He was convinced that any wise man,
who knows what is right, and who is deeply convinced that it is right, will also do what
is right. Thus, any man who is deeply convinced that a certain action will genuinely
29
promote his own true happiness, enlightened life is one and the same thing. No man sins
wittingly. Thus, only knowledge is required to make men virtuous. Socrates saw himself
as a midwife who is responsible for bringing out the knowledge already possessed from
man. He used dialectic method to draw out knowledge from people. The method is in
harmony with his doctrine of reminiscence, according to which are learnt by
remembering what was known in the former existence. Socrates was accused of
corrupting the youth. He faced the jury and at the end was sentenced to death.
Plato
Plato (428-348 B.C) was a disciple of Socrates. He was convinced of the
necessity of producing wise statesmen, men whose principles and ideals would be
founded on eternal truths. No notes of Plato’s academic lectures were published. But his
popular’ dialogues were published. In several of the dialogues, Socrates is the central
character who articulates doctrines which, at times, are probably Plato’s own doctrines.
Among the most important of Plato’s writings include Analogy, on the trial and defence
of Socrates. Euthyphro, on piety and impiety; Crito, on Socrates’ reasons for refusing to
attempt to escape from prison and from his death sentence; Protagoras on the unity of the
virtues; Gorgias, on rhetoric, symposium, on love and beauty. Phaedo, on ideas and
immorality: Republic, on justice and the ideal state, et cetera.
Plato writes that reality as sensed by an animal or a rational animal is not what
reality really is. For instance, the fish knows John and his activities, not as John is, but as
the fish is. Also, the immediate sense-knowledge of the infant mind knows beings not as
they are, but as the infant mind is. Being is always distinctly what it is, and it is totally all
that is. It is this world of ongoing being, intelligible, capable of being understood, that is
the real world. The human mind struggle to grasp this real intelligible world, through its
concepts and definitions of, for instance, goodness, or beauty, or other such intelligible
forms of being. These intelligible forms of being exist not in this sensible world, but in
the world of forms. He therefore postulated the existence of two worlds; the sensible
world and the world of forms. The visible sensible world is transient and illusory,
whereas the world of forms is eternal. The particular things in this world are mere replica
or fake, initiation or resemblance of the original in the world of forms. The true universe
Plato argues, is the universe of changeless, pure, eternal ideas which, is the world of
forms. Real knowledge is the knowledge of Forms. While knowledge is of the
intelligible archetypes, sense-beliefs are merely sensed opinions based on mirror images,
shadows, reflection or anthropomorphic copies of the intelligible archetypes. Sense
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objects are therefore inferior copies which imitate and partake of the ideal archetype. Just
as the sun is the source of physical illumination and life on earth, so also the Good or
Form is the source of knowledge, mental enlightenment and existence in the world
(Walsh, 34 – 25). These ideas were dramatically presented in the Allegory of the Cave.
Here, we are asked to imagine some lifelong prisoners chained to a wall in an
underground cave where they can only see shadows on the walls opposite them. The
shadows are cast by various objects in an unseen parapet behind, where a fire burns. If
one prisoner frees himself and is therefore able to see the artificial figures in the
flickering firelight, he would then be in the world of belief concerning realities. If he
happens to escape into the sunlight outside the cave, he would be delighted on seeing the
real world of true realities, which is like the realm of the form. If he happens to return to
the chain companions and attempts to explain that what they see on the wall are mere
shadows, they would scorn at him, just as the sensists scorn at the doctrine of the forms.
He concludes that the philosopher has to be patient, in educating his students. Through
education, the students can be brought step by step to behold and cherish eternal and
absolute truth and values. Plato’s conviction was therefore, that true knowledge is
absolute, stable and infallible knowledge of universal forms of being.
True knowledge is knowledge of the universals, and the universals always have
an objective reference to the realm of reality. The different degrees of progression
through belief toward knowledge are illustrated in the simile of ‘the line’ from an initial
state of ignorance through intermediary imperfect states, to a final state of true
knowledge of universal first principles and ideas (Walsh, 27). This ‘line’ towards true
knowledge comprises three intermediary stages: the first is the stage of opinion, which is
a state of shady, sophistic or judgment about reality; the second is the stage of opinion of
judgment, which is the stage of genuine belief in the existence of particular sense objects
in the world of nature and art; the third stage is the stage of progression towards perfect
knowledge. His theory of forms progresses into philosophy of ethics and moral
philosophy. If a person can be deceived by appearances in the physical world, he can
equally be deceived by appearance in the moral realm. He believes that just as there
would be no science or physics if our knowledge were limited to visible things, so also
there would be no knowledge of universal idea of morality if we were limited to the
experience of a particular action.
Man according to Plato is a creation of the universe. Pure idea is impressed upon
matter, and the universe which we experience is created. All things came into being as
31
ideas are impressed into matter. However, man is the only creation which can come to
know these ideas and to understand the process by which things of nature came into
being. Man is therefore, not like the animals, although his creation took place the same
way as theirs. His ‘soul’ is part of divine reason which has entered the body and which is
capable of knowing the eternally real things of the universe. When this rational part of
man comes into the body, it is hindered, held down, clouded by the body which is matter.
Its task is to overcome this disadvantage and rise above the body. The philosopher as
Plato believes, is able to rise above the body and dwells in a realm of mind in which he
can know that which is real-ideas.
For Plato, knowledge is innate, thus, learning is the development of ideas buried
deep in the soul, often under the mid-life-like guidance of an interrogator. He
distinguished between knowledge which is certain and mere opinion which is not certain.
Opinions derive from the shifting world of sensation; knowledge derives from the world
of timeless forms or essence. Certain knowledge is justified true belief. Plato accepted
Socrates’ moral theory. He believes that all men desire only what is good. No man
desires to do wrong; and if a man actually does wrong, then he does so unwillingly.
Virtue is entirely dependent on knowledge of what is good. Each particular virtue aims at
what is good in particular circumstances. Since, each particular virtue aims at what is
good, and then all virtues are ultimately one. He argues in ‘Protagoras’ that virtue is
knowledge and thus could be taught.
Man according to Plato is essentially a social being and thus can find true
happiness only in society. This belief led Plato to attempt to discover the nature of the
ideal state. The ideal state he argues, must certainly be a just state. A just state is one
which the three strata of the society perform their function harmoniously without
conflict. The society or state he believes is man writ large. As man writ large, the society
is composed of three parts like man, the artisans (which corresponds to the appetitive
part of man), the guardians (corresponding to the spirited part of man). The artisans
would need to work and provide for the needs of the state, while loyally following the
dictates of the rulers. The guardians are the soldiers who need to defend the state against
attack, would also persuade and convince the citizens to be loyal to their rulers and not
over step their position and their duties within the state. The rulers on the other hand are
the philosopher-kings who must provide laws and regulations to guide the citizens. When
all these strata perform their specific duties without interference, justice will ensue in the
state.
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Aristotle
Aristotle was born in 384 B.C in Macedonia in northern Greece. He was a student
of Plato. Aristotle’s early writings, during the years he spent at the Academy, were
relatively close in content and in general form to the writings of Plato. After Plato’s
death, Speusippus became head of the Academy. Aristotle’s writings became more
independent and critical of the teachings of the Athenian Academy (Walsh 46).
Aristotle‘s finest work dated from the days when he was active in teaching and research
work in the Lycecum. The works that survived include the Organon or Logical Works;
the categories, On Interpretation, the Prior Analytics, the Posterior Analytics and the
Topics; the Physics; On Generation and Corruption. On the Heavens, De Anima or On
the Soul; the Nicomachean Ethics, the Magna Moralia, the Eudeman Ethics, the Politics
and the Poetics.
Aristotle invented formal logic. He believes reality is divisible into primary and
secondary realities. A primary reality, such as a living individual man or an individual
horse, is neither ‘predicable of’ nor ‘present in’ a subject. Secondary realities (like the
specie of dog) are the species of which the primary realities are members. Primary
realities or individuals come first; they are the ‘entities which underlie and are the
subjects of everything else. Individuals come first; what is said of them come second.
Aristotle invented certain concepts and techniques which made further development of
formal logic possible. Thus, he used letters of the alphabet (A, B, C...) to represent
variables in stating his syllogistic forms of implication. For example, ‘if A is present in
all B, and if B is predicable of all C, then A is present in all C’, or more simply, ‘if all B
is A, and all C is B, then all C is A’; that is, if all men are mortal, and all Nigerian are
men, then all Nigerians are mortal. This introduction of variables into logic made it
possible to develop logic into a science with general laws, instead of a mere collection of
different examples.
In his work on metaphysics, Aristotle develops what he calls the science of first
philosophy. Throughout this work, his concern is on the type of knowledge that could be
most appropriately called wisdom. This work begins with the statement, ‘all men by
nature desire to know’. There are however, different levels of knowledge. Some people
know only what they experience through their senses. Aristotle disparaged this kind of
knowledge to the lower level. He believes that wisdom is more than knowledge from
sensible experience. Wisdom concerns itself not only with sensory knowledge, but
moves from there to investigate the causes. This scientific knowledge is greater than
33
sensory knowledge. However, Aristotle argues that there is a specific science that
concerns itself with the first principles and causes of things. These, first principles and
causes he claims are the true foundations of wisdom, for they give us knowledge not of
any particular object or activity, but rather knowledge of true reality (Stumpf, 56).
According to Aristotle, if we wish to understand any particular entity and if we
wish to understand how it has come to be what it is, then we must try to discover the
causes which have made it to be what it is. There are four main causes; the material
cause, the formal cause, the final cause and the efficient cause. Aristotle stated that, in
reference to any particular entity, the question ‘What is this?’ could be answered in four
different ways, each of which corresponds to what he calls a ‘cause’ in the sense of
‘something without which the thing would not be’. Thus, given a marble statue, the
question: ‘What is this?’ could correctly be answered in one of the following ways: ‘This
is marble’. This is what was made by Phydias’. This is something to be put in the temple
of Apollo’ and ‘this is Apollo. These answers are the answers to four different questions,
respectively; ‘What is this made of’, who made this? ‘What is this made for?’ And what
is it that makes this what it is and not something else?’ (Physics, II.3. 194b 23 – 195a3).
These answers have come to be known as, the material cause, the efficient cause, the
final cause and the formal cause respectively. The material cause is an answer to the
material composition of the thing, the formal cause answers for the form or shape of the
thing, the final cause answers for the purpose for which a thing is made; the efficient
cause is the agent through which the thing is made.
In book VIII of the Physics, Aristotle presented his idea of the unmoved mover of
all that is in motion. His argument is that, anything which did not exist and yet actually
came to be, could not have brought itself to be, since it did not exist. It must therefore
have been brought to being by another. A series of beings, every member of which was
brought into being is neither self-sufficient nor self-explanatory. Each and all are
dependent for their very being on something outside themselves. Each and all of them
therefore, are explainable in terms of a mover, which does not itself belong to the series
of movers. This argument is based on Aristotle’s idea of motion. He believes that the
whole universe and each thing within it is in motion. The ultimate source of motion,
bringing all into being, must itself therefore be in being and unmoved, it is an unmoved
mover, a first principle of motion (Walsh, 54)
Aristotle begins his Nicomachean ethics with a statement that “every art and
every inquiry, and similarly every action and pursuit, is thought to aim at some good”. If
34
this is so, then the question for Ethics becomes; “what is the good at which human
behavior aims?” (Nicomachean Ethics 109a30). He arrived at the conclusion that
happiness is the highest good of man. To attain this happiness, he argues that man must
act in accordance with right reason. This means that the rational part of the soul should
control the irrational part. He argued that when the irrational part of the soul controls
reason, it leads man to vice, but when reason is in control of the irrational part, virtue
thrives and consequently happiness springs up.
Hellenistic Philosophy to be uploaded later
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