Plato vs. the Sophists

Plato vs. the Sophists

 

The philosophy of Plato and the Sophists are at two different ends of the scale when comparing their ideas on law and morals. Plato’s thoughts on law and morals are universal, objective, and natural. On the other hand, the Sophists’ thoughts on law and morals were subjective, self interested, and manmade. In today’s world, Plato’s philosophy would be more practical for the common person to understand and use in everyday life, whereas the Sophists’ philosophy would just cause confusion and problems for the common person.

Plato and the Sophists have different ideas when it comes to law. Plato came up with his philosophy to be used as an antidote for the Sophists’ ideas on rejecting objective natural moral laws or justice. Plato’s doctrine was absolute, unchanging, and objective. According to Plato, law was not manmade, but came from a higher power. An example of a non-manmade law would be the idea of gravity that was introduced by Newton. Plato claims that the law is universal and the Sophists claim the law is more opened for an individual to pick and choose how they want the laws to work for them. Thus, Plato would think that the law of gravity is a natural law; to man, there is no way around it. Sophists however, would argue this idea to  their own benefit.

On the other hand, the Sophists denied objective natural moral laws or justice. Sophist philosophy states that all law is manmade. The Sophists’ idea of law was to promote self interest in a group of people and the laws were to promote the goals of the group. This could only be maintained by power or force. An example of the Sophists’ law is Nazi Germany. People who were Sophist in Germany  were racist against other citizens and they wanted to get rid of them. So the Nazi dictatorship created laws to get rid of people who were not fit for the mold of the ideal German  breed and this had  to be made acceptable to all Germans. The citizens believed in all the things that were told to them such as the Jews being bad, sending the misfits of society to concentration camps on account of them polluting the gene pool, and the misfits just being problems.  This is an example of Sophist brainwashing and putting the fear into the citizens of Germany. This brainwashing controlled and forced obedience on the German citizens, requiring physical force by secret police and military. Sophists would try to confuse the common person into  thinking what the government wished the citizens to know.

The philosophy of the Sophists is more trouble than its worth because it makes no sense for the common good of society. For example, when a community adopts Sophists’ arguments into their constitution, it “chooses to enforce a law, even a bad one, that law is ‘right’”(p.9 hand outs). According to one Sophist, Hippias, there was no point obeying any of the laws made by man because “variety and variability of laws” make it pointless to obey any of them. With this kind of thinking, a Sophist could be selfish and get what he or she wants out of life. Some Sophists would fight the idea of gay marriage to bend towards their own personal benefit. This idea would follow the lines of their thinking laws were man made and not from a higher power. A Sophist would argue that gay marriage is not  intended for man because the Ten Commandants (a manmade law) forbids this kind of act.  However, Plato would look at this kind of thinking as unreasonable and not for the common good of society.

Plato’s thoughts on morals were not similar at all to the Sophist ideas on morals.

Plato thought that human beings were rational animals and the Sophists did not agree with that. They thought that human beings were wild animals, therefore the Sophists can claim humankind does not have to think  past animal instincts.  Plato would back up the idea of man being a rational animal by saying that man has a mind and is able to use it to tell unchanging patterns , able to distinguish right from wrong. An example of  unchanging patterns, and being able to distinguish right from wrong is the story of The  Boy Who Cried Wolf.  In this story, the boy lies more than once about a wolf being in the field with the sheep (unchanging pattern) and   the villagers don’t believe him when he calls for help for real. Thus at the end of the story the boy finally distinguishes right from wrong when it is too late. The Sophists’ thought on morals are subjective to the person’s best judgment and the choices that one makes are what is good or evil to them. This idea was based on the individual and  his/her desire compared to Plato’s idea being universal.

            If one was to compare the thoughts of Plato and the Sophists on a drawing board, they would get a better understanding of the two. Sophists’ ideas on law and morals would cause a country to fall apart, because of the irrational thoughts that they had. Plato’s ideas look more rational compared to the Sophist. His ideas looked like they would make a country last longer, because Plato’s ideas were universal, objective, and based on natural law.  People will be comparing the philosophy of Plato and the Sophists for the rest of all time because there is always going to be a battle between the good instincts vs. evil, selfish will within each human being. Every day mankind will put up armor to fight an endless fight against the Sophist view of subjective use of the law and morals.

 

Reviews

[NCPanthersgurl]

This is really well written but extremely factual, and I can't help but ask, did you do this for a project/essay or something?