School
5th c. BCE
The Sophists were the professional teachers who, in the fifth century BCE, travelled the Greek cities offering instruction — for a fee — in rhetoric, argument, and the virtue needed for success in public life. The greatest were Protagoras, who declared that 'man is the measure of all things', and Gorgias, a master of persuasion.
They pressed the great debate of nature versus convention, suggesting that laws and morals are human inventions rather than natural truths — a relativism that alarmed traditionalists.
Socrates and Plato defined themselves sharply against them: where the Sophist taught the art of making any case persuasive for pay, the philosopher sought the truth for its own sake. From this quarrel the word 'sophistry' took its bad name — yet the Sophists were also brilliant pioneers of education, rhetoric, and the study of language.
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