David D. Corey - The Sophists in Plato’s Dialogues

THE SOPHISTS IN PLATOS DIALOGUES

THE SOPHISTS IN PLATOS DIALOGUES

DAVID D. COREY

Published by State University of New York Press, Albany

2015 State University of New York

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Corey, David D.

The sophists in Platos Dialogues / David D. Corey.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-4384-5617-1 (hardcover. : alk. paper)

ISBN 978-1-4384-5619-5 (ebook)

1. Plato. Dialogues. 2. Sophists (Greek philosophy) I. Title.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To my teachers of Greek
Matthew Christ, Nate Greenberg, Jim Helm, and Tom VanNortwick
And to Cecil Eubanks

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

T his book was made possible in part by a generous research leave from Baylor University and through the expert assistance of numerous graduate students at Baylor, especially Matt Dinan, Patrick Cain, Josh King, and Corrine Peters. Several friends and colleagues commented on parts of the manuscript along the way. Rob Miner, Jake Howland, Mary Nichols, Catherine Zuckert, and Cary Nederman were especially helpful. Avi Mintz at the University of Tulsa deserves special thanks for reading the entire manuscript, offering detailed comments, and tirelessly pressing me to get this book in print.

Above all, I thank my wife, Elizabeth Corey, who has read the entire book multiple times and been an unwavering source of support and inspiration.

Earlier versions of appeared respectively in History of Political Thought 29, no. 1 (2008): 126; and in Christopher A. Dustin and Denise Schaeffer, eds., Socratic Philosophy and Its Others (Lanham: Lexington Press, 2013), 91114. They appear here with the kind permission of these presses.

David D. Corey

Waco, Texas

May 2014

ABBREVIATIONS

ABBREVIATED TITLES FOR WORKS OF PLATO

OTHER ABBREVIATIONS

ONE

INTRODUCTION

T radition ascribes thirty-five dialogues to Plato, and more than half of them (21) touch on the theme of sophistry in one way or another. In some dialogues, Plato casts the sophists as leading interlocutors of Socrates; in others they are mentioned for their intellectual tendencies and pedagogical practices. Frequently Plato exposes readers to hearsay about the sophistssometimes friendly, sometimes hostile. At times he has Socrates defend them, but not always. And, constantly, he hints at the many ways in which Socrates seems both like and unlike the sophists. The richness and frequency of Platos handling of the sophists gives rise naturally to certain questions: What was Platos purpose in presenting these controversial figures? What was his view of them? And how did he expect readers to understand their relationship to Socrates?

This book springs from the suspicion that such questions have not been adequately answered. The dominant and indeed almost universally held view is that Plato was the sophists implacable foe, that he presented them in his dialogues in order to discredit them, and that his campaign against them was motivated by a deep desire to separate what he regarded as the sham wisdom of the sophists from the genuine wisdom of his teacher, Socrates. This view no doubt has its attractions, not least of which is that it captures something of a dramatic, almost epochal struggle for the soul of Athens and the integrity of philosophy in Platos handling of the sophists. But how well does it ultimately line up with evidence from the dialogues?

but it is also tendentiousor so readers of this dialogue should understand. For it fails to accommodate the full range of sophistic traits that Theaetetus and the stranger had outlined over the dialogues labyrinthine course. Moreover, and just as importantly, around the midpoint of the dialogue, Theaetetus and the stranger hesitatingly agree that Socrates (or some group of figures indistinguishable from Socrates) should be classed among the sophists for attempting to educate the young by means of a purgative art of refutation (231ac). One thus wonders: Why would Platos chief dialogue on the sophists (if the Sophist can be described that way) dismiss these figures on obviously tendentious grounds and, at the same time, allow Socrates to appear vexingly intermingled with them, if his purpose were indeed to distinguish Socrates and the sophists once and for all?

Platos handling of sophistry in the Meno raises similar questions. When Socrates there suggests to Anytus that people who want to learn virtue or excellence (aret) might do well to consult the sophists, Anytus reacts with horror: the sophists are plainly the ruin and corruption of those who associate with them! Anytus responds notoriously that he has in fact never had any experience of the sophists at all. To which Socrates reasonably retorts that Anytus must be some kind of prophet; for how else could he know whether there is something good or bad in a matter of which he has no experience? Thus is Anytus revealed to be a thoughtless proponent of a mere prejudice against the sophists. But, again, why would Plato have Socrates stand up for the sophists in this way if his goal were to discredit them?

Or consider Platos fascinating presentation of the sophist, Prodicus. Though there is no dialogue called the Prodicus, this sophist is treated in more than a dozen different places in the Platonic corpus, once as a character in the