The Sophistic Movement

The Sophistic Movement PDF Author: G. B. Kerferd
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521283571
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 198

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book offers an introduction to the Sophists of fifth-century Athens and a new overall interpretation of their thought. Since Plato first animadverted on their activities, the Sophists have commonly been presented as little better than intellectual mountebanks - a picture which Professor Kerferd forcefully challenges here. Interpreting the evidence with care, he shows them to have been part of an exciting and historically crucial intellectual movement. At the centre of their teaching was a form of relativism, most famously expressed by Protagoras as 'Man is the measure of all things', and which they developed in a wide range of views - on knowledge and argument, virtue, government, society, and the gods. On all these subjects the Sophists did far more than simply provoke Plato to thought. Their contributions were substantial and serious; they inaugurated the debate on many central philosophical questions and decisively shifted the focus of philosophical attention from the cosmos to man.

The Sophistic Movement

The Sophistic Movement PDF Author: G. B. Kerferd
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521283571
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 198

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book offers an introduction to the Sophists of fifth-century Athens and a new overall interpretation of their thought. Since Plato first animadverted on their activities, the Sophists have commonly been presented as little better than intellectual mountebanks - a picture which Professor Kerferd forcefully challenges here. Interpreting the evidence with care, he shows them to have been part of an exciting and historically crucial intellectual movement. At the centre of their teaching was a form of relativism, most famously expressed by Protagoras as 'Man is the measure of all things', and which they developed in a wide range of views - on knowledge and argument, virtue, government, society, and the gods. On all these subjects the Sophists did far more than simply provoke Plato to thought. Their contributions were substantial and serious; they inaugurated the debate on many central philosophical questions and decisively shifted the focus of philosophical attention from the cosmos to man.

The Second Sophistic

The Second Sophistic PDF Author: Graham Anderson
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134856849
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 318

Get Book Here

Book Description
Presenting the sophists' role as civic celebrities side-by-side with their roles as transmitters of Hellenic culture, Anderson produces a valuable and lucid account of the Second Sophistic.

Philo and Paul Among the Sophists

Philo and Paul Among the Sophists PDF Author: Bruce W. Winter
Publisher: CUP Archive
ISBN: 9780521591089
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 328

Get Book Here

Book Description
A study of Philo and Paul and the first-century sophistic movement.

The Oxford Handbook of the Second Sophistic

The Oxford Handbook of the Second Sophistic PDF Author: Daniel S. Richter
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199837473
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 777

Get Book Here

Book Description
The study of the Second Sophistic is a relative newcomer to the Anglophone field of classics, and much of what characterizes it temporally and culturally remains a matter of legitimate contestation. This Handbook offers a diversity of scholarly voices that attempt to define the state of this developing field. Included are chapters that offer practical guidance on the wide range of valuable textual materials that survive, many of which are useful or even core to inquiries of particularly current interest (e.g., gender studies, cultural history of the body, sociology of literary culture, history of education and intellectualism, history of religion, political theory, history of medicine, cultural linguistics, intersection of the classical traditions and early Christianity).

The Social World of Intellectuals in the Roman Empire

The Social World of Intellectuals in the Roman Empire PDF Author: Kendra Eshleman
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139851837
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 305

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book examines the role of social networks in the formation of identity among sophists, philosophers and Christians in the early Roman Empire. Membership in each category was established and evaluated socially as well as discursively. From clashes over admission to classrooms and communion to construction of the group's history, integration into the social fabric of the community served as both an index of identity and a medium through which contests over status and authority were conducted. The juxtaposition of patterns of belonging in Second Sophistic and early Christian circles reveals a shared repertoire of technologies of self-definition, authorization and institutionalization and shows how each group manipulated and adapted those strategies to its own needs. This approach provides a more rounded view of the Second Sophistic and places the early Christian formation of 'orthodoxy' in a fresh context.

Protagoras of Abdera

Protagoras of Abdera PDF Author: Johannes M. van Ophuijsen
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004251243
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 344

Get Book Here

Book Description
Protagoras of Abdera, Socrates’ older contemporary, is regarded as one of the most prominent representatives of the so-called sophistic movement. Instead of simply accepting the biased reports given by Plato and Aristotle about this sophist, the contributors to this volume review the complicated doxographical situation and make a case for Protagoras as a philosopher in his own right. Two major themes of this volume are Protagoras’ relativism and his case for a moral and political ideal, both of which are contrasted with the metaphysical idealism of his future opponents in the Academy and the mundane conventionalism typically associated with the sophists. It turns out that rather than a parasitic force of intellectual subversion, Protagoras may have been a prolific and original thinker aiming at a coherent and comprehensive view of man’s place in the world.

Plato’s Protagoras

Plato’s Protagoras PDF Author: Olof Pettersson
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319455850
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 235

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book presents a thorough study and an up to date anthology of Plato’s Protagoras. International authors' papers contribute to the task of understanding how Plato introduced and negotiated a new type of intellectual practice – called philosophy – and the strategies that this involved. They explore Plato’s dialogue, looking at questions of how philosophy and sophistry relate, both on a methodological and on a thematic level. While many of the contributing authors argue for a sharp distinction between sophistry and philosophy, this is contested by others. Readers may consider the distinctions between philosophy and traditional forms of poetry and sophistry through these papers. Questions for readers' attention include: To what extent is Socrates’ preferred mode of discourse, and his short questions and answers, superior to Protagoras’ method of sophistic teaching? And why does Plato make Socrates and Protagoras reverse positions as it comes to virtue and its teachability? This book will appeal to graduates and researchers with an interest in the origins of philosophy, classical philosophy and historical philosophy.

Protagoras and Logos

Protagoras and Logos PDF Author: Edward Schiappa
Publisher: Univ of South Carolina Press
ISBN: 9781570035210
Category : Rhetoric
Languages : en
Pages : 276

Get Book Here

Book Description
Reassesses the philosophical and pedagogical contributions of Protagoras Protagoras and Logos brings together in a meaningful synthesis the contributions and rhetoric of the first and most famous of the Older Sophists, Protagoras of Abdera. Most accounts of Protagoras rely on the somewhat hostile reports of Plato and Aristotle. By focusing on Protagoras's own surviving words, this study corrects many long-standing misinterpretations and presents significant facts: Protagoras was a first-rate philosophical thinker who positively influenced the theories of Plato and Aristotle, and Protagoras pioneered the study of language and was the first theorist of rhetoric. In addition to illustrating valuable methods of translating and reading fifth-century B.C.E. Greek passages, the book marshals evidence for the important philological conclusion that the Greek word translated as rhetoric was a coinage by Plato in the early fourth century. In this second edition, Edward Schiappa reassesses the philosophical and pedagogical contributions of Protagoras. Schiappa argues that traditional accounts of Protagoras are hampered by mistaken assumptions about the Sophists and the teaching of the art of rhetoric in the fifth century. He shows that, contrary to tradition, the so-called Older Sophists investigated and taught the skills of logos, which is closer to modern conceptions of critical reasoning than of persuasive oratory. Schiappa also offers interpretations for each of Protagoras's major surviving fragments and examines Protagoras's contributions to the theory and practice of Greek education, politics, and philosophy. In a new afterword Schiappa addresses historiographical issues that have occupied scholars in rhetorical studies over the past ten years, and throughout the study he provides references to scholarship from the last decade that has refined his views on Protagoras and other Sophists.

A Companion to Ancient Education

A Companion to Ancient Education PDF Author: W. Martin Bloomer
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 144433753X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 532

Get Book Here

Book Description
A Companion to Ancient Education presents a series of essays from leading specialists in the field that represent the most up-to-date scholarship relating to the rise and spread of educational practices and theories in the ancient Greek and Roman worlds. Reflects the latest research findings and presents new historical syntheses of the rise, spread, and purposes of ancient education in ancient Greece and Rome Offers comprehensive coverage of the main periods, crises, and developments of ancient education along with historical sketches of various educational methods and the diffusion of education throughout the ancient world Covers both liberal and illiberal (non-elite) education during antiquity Addresses the material practice and material realities of education, and the primary thinkers during antiquity through to late antiquity

Making Men

Making Men PDF Author: Maud W. Gleason
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 069113734X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 228

Get Book Here

Book Description
Ch. 1. Favorinus and His Statue -- Ch. 2. Portrait of Polemo: The Deportment of the Public Self -- Ch. 3. Deportment as Language Physiognomy and the Semiotics of Gender -- Ch. 4. Aerating the Flesh: Voice Training and the Calisthenics of Gender -- Ch. 5. Voice and Virility in Rhetorical Writers -- Ch. 6. Manhood Achieved through Speech: A Eunuch-Philosopher's Self-Fashioning.