Sophistic Movement :: essays research papers

The vast majority of todays society isnt the slightest bit aw are of the tremendous influence the sophistic period of time of thought has had and continues to allow on modern western politics. But how could a supposedly highly educated and intelligent people be so ignorant of such an important and signifi basint epoch in our archives? It was during the fifth century B.C. when the sophistic movement, founded by a gay named Protagoras, was at its prime. The sophist were recognized as highly skillful teachers by publicy and their kit and caboodle on issues such as the efficiency of language and the humanity of gods were considered to be revolutionary at the time. Not every one was in aggreance with these new philosophies and not long after the movement began, the sophist and their works were organism harshly persecuted. Many of them were exhiled and their works were all but altogether annihilated. Now, very little is left of the sophists, except for what other prominent theori sts have said about them. At the head of this condescending army was Plato, whose experience theories opposed those of the sophists in numerable . Anyone who has read some of Platos writing can tell you that what he had to say about Protagoras, Gorgias, Prodicus and the other sophists was by no means benevolent, and according to G.B. Kerferd, nor was it a completely factual description of them. Unfortunately, since these innacurate depictions are all we have left, the generations that were to come accepted Platos hostile opinion of the sophists and it is for this fence that the word sophist is now found to be synonomous with the words bigot and know-it-all. groundbreaking scholars have recently been trying to dispell the myths about the sophists, which is exactly what G.B. Kerferd attempts to do in his book The Sophistic Movement.           According to Kerferd, at the foundation of sophistic though is the statement, made by its founder Pro tagoras, that Man is the touchstone of all things. Man considers things to be as they appear to him. To explain this phenomenon, Kerferd makes an example out of the wind. If one man says that the wind is cold, and the man standing beside him finds it to be warm, even if they were both being affected by the same wind, both statements would be considered correct. Since man (the individual) is the measure of all things, the wind is cold to the man to whom it appears cold and warm to the man to whom it appears warm.