Fifth-Century Athens: The Teachers Vs. The Midwife

The Teachers vs. the Midwife

Throughout much of fifth-century Athens, there were two distinct types of philosophers, ones that followed the teachings of the Sophists or ones that followed the ideals of Socrates. In this essay, I will first portray the Sophistry and their values. Then I will further depict Socrates as the Sophistry’s opposite. Furthermore, I will demonstrate the countless differences and the limited common interests between the Sophists and Socrates.

Athens’ democracy is certainly that gave the Sophists their jobs. If an Athenian had any chance of becoming an idolized man of political importance, it was imperative that he obtained an education from the Sophists. The Sophists were all paid instructors that promised personal and political success to all of their pupils. During their schooling, the Sophist would teach their students the importance of technical rhetoric. This type of rhetoric appeals to the emotions of the council by utilizing values and practices of persuasive speaking to make any case (good or bad) seem sound. The Sophist also tended to be skeptical of the “truth” because they understood that the only concepts humans can know are appearances and all real knowledge is exceeding us. “All we have—and all we ever can have—are opinions,” remarked Parmenides. They also believed in

Sophists and claimed to teach arête or ‘excellence’ in a way of managing how they were presenting themselves to the Athenian democracy (which as I previously stated, was through the art of persuasion). Thus, to the Sophistic, human excellence was measured by how successfully a person was in the Athenian government. Although Socrates doesn’t claim to know what ‘human excellence,’ is he is constantly searching and questioning others for the answer. Hence, they both have shared interest in human