The Stranger as a Socratic Philosopher: The Socratic Nature of the Stranger’s Investigation of the Sophist (original) (raw)

The Eleatic Stranger in Sophist dialogue: A Continuation of the Socratic Legacy

Plato Journal, 2022

Within the framework of the discussion about the existence of a spokesman in the Platonic dialogues, we look, in the first part, into the possible transfer of this spokesman's function from Socrates to the Eleatic Stranger, identifying the contact and divergence points between both characters. In the second part, we try to show that this transfer has a dramatic staging at the beginning of the Sophist dialogue, where Socrates makes a demand that enables the Stranger to demonstrate his genuine philosophical condition.

Socrates, the Greatest Sophist

An anthology of philosohicl studies, v. 9

Nietzsche once said: " Aristophanes was right: Socrates was a Sophist ". Indeed, when we examine the Sophist, we note a suggestion that the most elevated sophists bear many similarities to the character of Socrates as depicted by Plato. Thus, at the end of the dialogue, at 268 c-d, the Stranger and Theaetetus seem to agree that: " He, then, who traces the pedigree of his art as follows – who, belonging to the conscious or dissembling (εἰρνωνικοῦ) section of the art of causing self-contradiction, is an imitator of appearance, and is separated from the class of the phantastic which is a branch of image-making into that further division of creation, the juggling of words, a creation human, and not divine – anyone who affirms the real Sophist to be of this blood and lineage will say the very truth. " In this paper, I will attempt to demonstrate that Socrates was a character situated between the Sophist and the philosopher, but a new kind of philosopher, of which he is the paradigm: the ironical, self-suspicious searcher of truth.

The soul of sophistry: Plato’s “Sophist” 226a9–231b9 revisited

Filosofiske Studier 2007

This paper argues that the so-called 6th definition of the sophist found in the outer part of Plato's "Sophist" is a methodological passage meant to point out how the sophist is to be pursued properly if he is to be distinguished from the philosopher.

Plato’s Use of ‘Sophistēs’: Neither Novel nor Distinct nor Derogatory

Byzantion nea hellás , 2021

In this paper I would like to challenge the received account according to which Plato’s conception of the sophist is either novel, distinct or derogatory. I propose that Plato uses common conceptions of the intellectual to create a rather loose identity for the sophist. Through the available evidence, I hope to show that Plato does not assign a new meaning to the label, but rather uses conventional conceptions of the sophist to create his main argument. I claim that apart from the Sophist, in other dialogues there is no clear conception of what and who the sophist is, no clarity as to what their activity is, and therefore (although there are reasons to suspect about them and their activity), there are no grounds to condemn them. Stemming from a conceptualization of σοφία in terms of knowledge, the σοφιστής is mainly described as someone who knows many things, or an expert in ‘all matters’—a description, we shall see, that precludes finding a single definition. My proposal is that Plato does not construct the hostility against sophists, as some accounts claim, but rather represents this hostility against experts and intellectuals by appealing to popular attitudes against the σοφοί. Importantly, Plato is critical of popular representations of sophists mainly because they are the result of people’s misjudgement or ignorance, from which the prejudice against philosophers also stems.

Waving or drowning? Socrates and the sophists on self-knowledge in the Euthydemus.

The Euthydemus gives the first impression of being one of the most wellorganised of Plato's dialogues. Compared, for example, with the lop-sidedness of the Parmenides, the sagging centre of the Cratylus, or the sheer immensity of the Laws, its clear structure promises the reader philosophical clarity as well. And yet its careful construction has worked, throughout its history, to its disadvantage.