Devil’s advocate — Rise of the modern Sophist!
Sophism is dead! Long live Sophism!!
The original Sophists may have lived in 5th century BCE but it will be a great mistake to suppose that Sophism is dead. On the contrary, today, the popular modern culture reeks with the ideas of the Sophists, more than ever.
In 5th century Greek-speaking world, particularly at Athens, Sophists were travelling intellectuals who taught ‘Arête’ (excellence or virtue) to anyone who could pay the right fee. They were not a school of philosophers and they did not invent or follow any system of philosophy but they excelled in the art of logical argument: ‘Dialectic’ and the art of persuasive speaking : ‘Rhetoric’.
The Sophists were splendid orators, public speakers and mouths for hire!
Completely ignorant of any morality or ethics, these charismatic men dazzled everyone with their clever reasoning but usually fallacious arguments. They earned reputations as the crowd pullers who could convince anyone that good could be bad or vice versa or even that day was night!
The famous case of ‘Corax and Tisias’ …
Corax, a teacher of Rhetoric in Syracuse, Sicily around 476 BCE sued his pupil, Tisias, for not paying his tuition.
In court, Tisias argued that he should not have to pay, regardless of the outcome, because:
Either he will prove his case, and therefore not have to pay as the result of winning the suit, or he will lose the suit and that will be proof that Corax did not teach him well enough to deserve being paid his tuition.
Corax argued that he should be paid, regardless of the outcome, because:
If he wins the suit, then the court will require him to be paid, and if he loses the suit, that will be proof that he taught Tisias well enough to beat him and therefore he deserves to be paid his fee.
Who is right?
The judge shook his head in disdain and ruled, “Mali corvi, mali ovum.” — One bad thing (the bad crow, malus corvus) can only give rise to something else bad (the bad egg, malum ovum).
Eventually, their attitude, coupled with the unscrupulous pursuit of wealth, led to popular resentment against sophists and their ideas. With the rise of the philosophers like Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, they slowly sank into oblivion and faded away.
1st century CE witnessed a very short-lived resurgence of Sophism known as the ‘Second Sophistic’.
And so it was presumed that Sophism died an unceremonious death after that. But to everyone’s astonishment, fed by capitalist society and market-driven higher education, Sophistry has risen like a phoenix from the ashes.
As described in a Financial Times article by Janan Ganesh, the elite professions in modern society - lawyers and management consultants, political advisers and advertising executives, public-relations strategists, and even certain types of investment bankers: all trade on the same skill of Sophistry!
In today’s society, lawyers are the true modern Sophists — arguers for hire. And the court is their battleground where they try to outshine each other in a dazzling show of Sophistry! An attorney is even legally obligated to argue as persuasively as they can for their client’s best interests, irrespective of his or her innocence!
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