| The sophists' well-established professional activities are incompatible with epistemological relativism. One cannot justifiably teach or persuade others to adopt certain viewpoints if one believes that all viewpoints are equally valid. Pragmatism, intellectual dishonesty, belief in objective principles, or disinterest in persuasion are unsatisfactory explanations for this discrepancy. While each has its own weaknesses, all fail to explain Plato's sustained and often respectful treatment of Protagoras and Gorgias as both rhetoricians and serious, relativistic thinkers. In this dissertation, I shall show that major sophistic figures of the fifth century reject epistemological relativism. I shall argue that Protagoras, Gorgias, Antiphon, and Thucydides instead hold constructivist epistemologies. However, they differ on how much power humans have to shape, alter, and control knowledge. The more pessimistic views of Antiphon and Thucydides may reflect the influence of the Peloponnesian War and the emergence of harmful demagoguery. Those who would appropriate the sophists' ideas would do well to bear this history in mind. |
