The rhetorical technique of the Sophist School is based on individualism and sensoryism on the one hand, and on the other hand it is premised on recognizing the inevitability of opposing doctrines. Protagoras believed that there could be two opposing theories about anything, further developing Zeno's skill of exposing contradictions in specific arguments. Rhetoric skills focus on choosing what is good and taking it to the extreme, regardless of truth or falsehood. This concept is also a realistic reflection of the fact that citizens express their opinions at the citizens' assembly and choose the most advantageous implementation from numerous opposing opinions. Democracy does not avoid contradictions, but affirms the rationality of contradictions and fully develops them. This principle played a positive role in the heyday of Greek democracy.
Philosophical thoughts. The Sophists do not have a unified organization, and their political attitudes are not the same. They are not an independent sect. However, in terms of ideological doctrines, their views and basic tendencies are relatively consistent, so some people call them "Sophists". The basic philosophical thoughts of the wise can be summarized into the following aspects: (1) The cognitive theories of sensoryism, relativism and skepticism. They accepted Heraclitus's idea of ??the flux of all things, affirmed the authenticity of the changing sensory phenomena, and opposed the Eleatic school's view of denying the role of perceptual knowledge. However, they also moved towards relativism and skepticism, believing that knowledge is feeling. It is asserted that everyone's feelings are real. For the same thing, if you feel cold, it is cold, and if I feel not cold, it is not cold. It does not matter whether it is true or false, right or wrong, and personal feelings are used as the standard of truth. Protagoras' famous proposition "Man is the measure of all things" is a typical expression of this idea. (2) The ideological factors of naive dialectics. Rhodagoras develops Empedocles' idea that sensible things are a mixture of opposite qualities, and further proposes that every problem has opposing aspects. Through three arguments about "non-existence", Gorgias refuted the Eleatic school's metaphysical view of denying non-existence, revealed the difference between thinking and existence, and came into contact with the connection and transformation of existence and non-existence. (3) Conventionalist view of social history. They believe that political and legal systems and moral norms are neither natural nor created by divine will. They are formed by human beings in their long-term mutual life. They are the products of conventions made by people in order to avoid being destroyed in killing each other. Protagoras proposed that the city-state originated from people's "requirements for self-preservation". Justice and virtue should belong to everyone. Law and morality can only exist when they are beneficial to people, and they are the truth. Hippias believed that law did not exist naturally, but was created by humans and was enacted by tyrants. The coercive nature of law violated human nature. According to Trasimachus, legal justice reflects the interests of the powerful. These all reflected the desire of the democrats at that time to break away from old traditions and ideas. (4) Doubt and denial of God. In order to oppose the constraints of traditional ideas and religious myths, they tried to belittle the authority of God and deny the traditional image of God. Protagoras argued that God is unknowable. Man relies on his own strength to invent language, build houses, clothes, shoes and beds, and obtain health-preserving resources from the soil.
Prodicus denied that the attributes of gods are immortal, and believed that gods were just imagined by people for their own benefit. People named the sun, moon, and rivers as gods because they saw that they were good for themselves. Critias believed that the gods were indifferent to man's fate.
The position of the Sophists in the history of ancient Greek philosophy. The rise of democracy in ancient Greece transformed philosophical thought from monism to pluralism, and from one center to multiple centers. The primordial foundation proposed by ancient philosophers gradually transformed from one material form to biochemical all things into multiple forms. From Thales's " "One" - water is transformed into Empedocles' "four" - water, earth, fire, and air, and then transformed from the finite material form into the infinite "seed" of Anaxagoras. The highest summary of this substance-based pluralism in ancient times was the atomism of the Aberdra school. Atoms are both "one" and "many". Atoms are self-sufficient, without gaps and independent. They can be combined with each other to form the form of all things, but they themselves remain unchanged.
If we look at ancient atomism from Leucippus to Democritus as a unified school, we cannot deny the influence of atomism on the thinking of the Sophists, especially Protagoras. Protagoras' proposition that "man is the measure of all things" is the further development and application of the basic principles of atomistic philosophy in social life. Every free citizen living in a democratic society is a small "atom". It has its own independence, self-satisfaction, and contentment. It has all its independence to relate to others and combine with others to form a city-state. It is true that the people of the city-state need to negotiate in order to combine into a unity, but in this unity, every citizen is free and still does not lose the independence of the "atom". They are impeccable, and everyone's opinion is the truth. Not only should it be allowed to be published, but it should be listened to and taken seriously. Such closed atoms do their own thing, and of course they will collide. It is in the vortex collision of atoms that all things change and grow. Contradictions, oppositions, and conflicts are not terrible, and they cannot shake everyone's strong confidence. "Atoms" have sizes and weights, and people have strengths and weaknesses, and the strong is king, just as large atoms push away small atoms in collisions. But no matter how big or small, they are all atoms, no matter how strong or weak they are, they are still "human beings". Those who are capable work more, and the strong have heavy responsibilities. This is the law of nature. The law is to restrict the strong, prevent them from abusing their power, and protect the legitimate rights of the weak.
From the perspective of historical development, the "atomic" democracy of slave owners' freedom is a false phenomenon that cannot last long, because to maintain such an "atomic" life requires considerable resources. The material economic foundation, and in the ancient slave society, this material economic foundation was not provided by the "atoms themselves", but by slaves who were not "atoms". These slaves were not "people" and certainly not the "measure" of all things. They were just The talking "tool" itself is one of the "things" among all things. Therefore, ancient Greek democracy was the democracy of slave owners, not the democracy of slaves. Therefore, it was not the democracy of the majority of members of society, let alone the democracy of all members, but It is just a democracy for a few people. Under such conditions, the so-called "democracy" is actually extremely limited and often distorted. In fact, "atoms" are not self-sufficient. They have to provide food, clothing, housing, and transportation from the outside. They are the "leisure class", and indolence in production is a necessary condition for these educated "atoms". They are not "people" in the true sense, but some "spiritual aristocrats" who use the material wealth created by others. Of course, maintaining one's own freedom would not last long, so a profound contradiction occurred in ancient Greek democracy. This contradiction soon developed into a deformed state: most free people became increasingly poor, and material wealth was highly concentrated in the hands of a handful of large slave owners. , the life of some free people in Athens was even worse than that of some slaves (especially domestic slaves).
This social crisis was reflected in the subsequent development of the Sophist School. It shows the evil consequences of individualism, subjectivism and relativism.
After the decline of Greek democracy, Greek slavery did not collapse. Alexander of Macedon ushered in the Hellenistic period, of which the encyclopaedic philosopher Aristotle was an early figure.