SOPHISM, SOPHIST

The words sophism, sophist refer to very different realities in philosophy and in ordinary language.

1. The Historical Sophists

In ancient Greece, the Sophists were the first to implement a philosophy of language in their interactions with their fellow citizens. Through calculated discursive interventions called “sophisms” by their opponents, the Sophists destabilize the peaceful current representations of the world as seen through current language. They emphasize the “arbitrariness” of language (in the Saussurian sense of “arbitrary”), and thus provoking naive speakers who consider language to be transparent and unproblematic. These discourses are not intended to deceive their listeners, but to show them the paradoxes of their current thinking and discourse.

In the Euthydemus, Plato stages Socrates deconstructing sophistical arguments, such as the following. Dionysodorus is a sophist, Ctesippus his naive interlocutor:

[Dionysodorus:] — […] And your father turns out to be […] a dog.
— And so does yours, said Ctesippus.
— You will admit all this in a moment, Ctesippus, if you answer my questions, said Dionysodorus. Tell me, have you got a dog?
— Yes, and a brute of a one too, said Ctesippus.
— And has he got puppies?
— Yes indeed, and they are just like him.
— And so, the dog is their father?
— Yes, I saw him mounting the bitch myself, he said.
— Well then: isn’t the dog yours?
— Certainly, he said.
— Then since he is a father and is yours, the dog turns out to be your father, and you are the brother of the puppies, aren’t you?
Plato, Euthydemus, 298d-e. CW, p. 737

This argument is not intended to convince Ctesippus that he is the son and brother of a dog. The Sophist does not deceive his partners, he leaves them perplexed and angry.

The Sophists devised thought-provoking paradoxes such as the following one:

Antiphon the Sophist claimed that the law, by obliging man to testify the truth in courts, often compels us to do wrong to one who has done us no harm, that is, to contradict the first precept of justice.
Émile Bréhier, [History of Philosophy], 1928.[1]

The Sophists, along with the Skeptics, represent an essential intellectual movement for argumentation theory. The Sophists established the principle of debate between irreducibly contradictory discourses, as the basic cases presented in Antiphon’s Second Tetralogy, about a prosecution for accidental homicide; the case is discussed as follows:

First speech for the prosecution
Reply to the same charge
Second speech for the prosecution
Second speech for the defense[2]

The intellectual and social contributions of the historical Sophists have been stigmatized by Platonic idealism which has imposed on them deformations that persisted until Hegel and have survived in common language.
The ancient sophists were no more sophists in the modern sense of the word than Duns Scott was a dunce.

2. Contemporary Use: The Sophism, an Intentional Paralogism

In contemporary usage, a sophism is an eristic discourse, that is, a deceptive and manipulative discourse whose intentions are difficult to unmask.
Since any kind of discourse can be denounced by calling it a “sophism”, the concept is essential for analyzing the polemical reception of argumentative discourse.

A sophism is a paralogism wrapped in malicious language, produced to pull the rug out from under the opponent. The distinction between sophisms and paralogisms is based on an accusation of deceptive intent, which may or may not be properly substantiated.
Paralogism is on the side of error and stupidity; sophism is a paralogism that serves the interests or passions of its author. According to the principle of “who benefits from the crime?”, such an “error” is accused of malice by the recipient and potential victim. One moves from description to the accusation which is embedded in the negative contemporary use of sophist, sophistry, see fallacies: Aristotle fundamental list, Paralogism.

[1] Émile Bréhier, Histoire de la Philosophie, Vol. 1, Antiquité et Moyen Âge [Antiquity and  the Middle Ages] Paris: PUF, 1981, p. 74.

[2] Antiphon, Second Tetralogy. KJ. Maidment, ed. Cited after www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0020%3Aspeech%3D3