Literary notes about sophist (AI summary)
The term "sophist" has been used in literature to evoke a complex blend of admiration and criticism. In some narratives, it designates a character celebrated for clever rhetorical skill—for instance, a Subtle Sophist who boldly seeks worthy opponents ([1])—while in other works it is employed pejoratively to denote someone whose persuasive language masks a lack of genuine knowledge or moral integrity ([2], [3]). Ancient writers such as Plato and Diogenes Laertius often present sophists as itinerant teachers of dialectic and rhetoric, essential to intellectual debates yet frequently critiqued for their reliance on imaginative invention rather than solid reasoning ([4], [5]). Later literary voices extend this ambivalence by portraying sophists as figures adept at crafting eloquent but ultimately superficial arguments, a characterization that continues to resonate with discussions about the nature of truth and public discourse ([6], [7]).
- "Well then!" returned the Subtle Sophist, "I must needs find another Opponent."
— from The Well of Saint Clare by Anatole France - The latter is our present concern, for the Sophist has no claims to science or knowledge.
— from Sophist by Plato - But he insisted that he was no Sophist, because he took no fees 365 and styled himself a practical philosopher.
— from The Works of the Emperor Julian, Vol. 2 by Emperor of Rome Julian - Of the logical class, there are the Politics, the Cratylus, the Parmenides, and the Sophist.
— from The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laertius - He may be regarded as standing in the same relation to Gorgias as Hippocrates in the Protagoras to the other great Sophist.
— from Meno by Plato - The sophist owns and justifies the expense of these military conversions.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon - Yet the most subtile sophist cannot produce a juster simile.
— from Common Sense by Thomas Paine
