Speech was well known among those who were sophist. They gave many speeches and at times people didn't even know what they were talking about, they would just applaud. Some people would just follow along with what the others did or they would hear the speech given say one thing and they would agree with the speaker, especially if the speaker was well known among the people.
Pericles and Alcibiades were two well known men that had the advantage of receiving sophist teachings. Pericles was a wealthy man that had a well known family and he had plenty of power. It appears that Pericles has had three men that in some way taught him and that he admired. Damon was a sophist that taught Pericles poetry and other subjects. He was also the one that prepared him for the political debates that he would eventually encounter. Zeno was also one of Pericles teacher. He taught him how to cross-examine someone by using the question and answer method. Zeno was said to be the one who perfected this method. (Plut.Pericles, pg.168) The teacher that Pericles really seemed to look up to was Anaxagoras. He was Pericles inspiration. This caused Pericles to be a calm and a self-respecting character. This showed by the movements he made when he was out in public. (Plut.Pericles, pg.169).
The sophist teachings affected Pericles political career in a positive and negative way. The positive that came out of these teachings were that Pericles was so well spoken that he was able to gain so much power in Athenians and he would persuade people to listen to him. Pericles was always preparing an effective way to fight a war. Even when the troops wanted to go ahead and fight, he was able to talk them into waiting so that they would go into the war with a strategic plan. There was a revolt in Euboeaand, Pericles went over there with his men and he banished a social class called the knights. They were very wealthy and popular men. He moved the people of Hestiaea from their land and put them in an Athenian colony.
He set out to prove he is not a Sophist by showing that everything he does is a complete contrast to the Sophist philosophy. Socrates is not a Sophist. ... The Sophists charge for their "services". ... The Sophists went around offering their services. ... Athenians confused that with Sophism. ...
He was to become a pre-Socratic philosopher, writer, and sophist, which meant that he taught others Greek rhetoric and fallacious arguments. ... Cause of Event Protagoras was a sophist, and a controversial philosopher. ... Because sophistic skills promoted injustice in court and in ethics, the term "sophist" acquired a negative connotation. ... Because of Protagoras and his fellow sophists, Plato began the search for transcendent forms of knowledge which could somehow anchor moral judgment. Plato even called him "the inventor of sophism....
There is certainly an element of sophism that was present not in his argument, not the other way around, as he claims. Though I do not accuse Descartes of being a sophist, I believe that he truly believed all that he wrote, and it was not his intention to deceive....
There are many contending definitions of the term Virtue. To be virtuous one must possess Merit, Valor, and have beneficial qualities. One must know and act upon what is good, what is right. Plato expresses in the "Republic- that a person and later a state must aim to achieve the four principal ...
