This volume is a welcome addition to the ever-growing literature on the Sophists. Several features of the book are particularly helpful. First, McK. delves into the social and political context of Athens and Greece more broadly that led to the popularity and influence of the sophists. Second, he seeks to treat the sophists as individual thinkers rather than as a collective group. Third, he explores broader themes that the sophists deal with: the nature of logos, problems with definition, antilogic and the nomos/phusis debate. After that, three chapters address how Isocrates, Plato and Aristotle treat the sophists, which further illustrates their influence on the history of philosophy and accounts for their relatively negative portrayal in the history of philosophy until the work of George Grote, who began their philosophical galvanisation (p. 2). The book also has a useful appendix with extensive ancient source material that addresses the sophists, their writings, their beliefs and practices. In what follows I summarise McK.’s treatment of the individual sophists, their milieu and early reception.
In the preface McK. provides a glimpse into the long history of the book, a decade in the making. Happily, he overcame his initial resistance to taking on the project and decided that, if the book were to come into being, he would need to address several core questions: ‘What is a Sophist?, What is a defensible way to decide who are Sophists?, What chronological limits should be used?, Which Sophists should be discussed?’ (p. vii). One result of these framing questions is that ‘rather than seeing the Sophists as forming a cooperative movement, I have come to see them as professional rivals in competition with one another for students, money, and fame’ (p. ix). The preface also addresses the vexed question of how we deal with Plato’s portrayal of the sophists (pp. ix–x). Despite the fact that Plato ‘ruined their reputation forever by comparing the individual Sophists unfavourably with his philosophical hero Socrates’ (p. 1), McK. lands on a reasoned view that allows us to trust a great deal of the detail that Plato provides us with because ‘he would have lost credibility and gained nothing by presenting an obviously false picture of the speakers in his dialogues’ (p. ix).
McK.’s concise but wide-ranging introduction touches upon many important aspects of Greek culture that facilitated the prominence of the sophists. He addresses the rise of Athenian dominance after the Persian War and the increasingly inclusive democratic reforms that help set the stage for the prominence of the sophists in Athenian culture (p. 3). As a result, ‘speech had to be directed to a wider range of citizens, not all of them sharing the same views or equally able to understand what was said’ (p. 3). He also addresses the changes in Greek education (p. 4) and the emergence of prose alongside poetry as a cultural phenomenon (p. 5). Another helpful aspect of the introduction is the linking of sophists back to Presocratic philosophers such as Xenophanes and Heraclitus. McK. also explains how he arrived at the list of eight sophists he covers in the book: Protagoras, Gorgias, Antiphon, Hippias, Prodicus, Thrasymachus and the pair, Euthydemus and Dionysodorus (pp. 6–14).
McK. starts with Protagoras. He draws extensively on Plato’s portrait of him in the Protagoras, though he interweaves some aphorisms regularly attributed to Protagoras. He assesses Protagoras’ speech in light of its Homeric roots and its treatment of shame and justice as ‘potentialities that can be developed to different degrees and in different ways’ (p. 23). McK. notes, ‘Protagoras concludes his speech, which is simultaneously a justification of his profession as a Sophist and a piece of self-advertising by declaring that although everyone contributes to training children to be effective members of a community, some contribute more effectively than others’ (p. 23). He also discusses the democratic leanings of the Sophists and the ‘subsequent resistance from the wealthy Athenians who had formerly held a virtual monopoly on political power’ (p. 23), Plato’s treatment of Protagorean relativism in the Theaetetus and Cratylus, and Protagoras’ view of the gods, where he again makes some fascinating links back to Xenophanes (pp. 30–2). Further, McK. addresses Protagoras’ repudiation of geometry and briefly touches on his interest in language.
McK. turns to Gorgias next. He covers his diplomatic mission to Athens (p. 18) and the perplexing fact that Plato has him claiming to disavow being a sophist in the Gorgias (p. 19). Despite this Platonically presented protestation, Gorgias has been regularly regarded as a sophist from ancient through modern times (p. 19). Though McK. emphasises the entertaining nature of Gorgias’ work, he underscores its philosophical importance by addressing On What Is Not or On Nature and the Encomium to Helen. McK. ends the chapter by raising questions about Gorgias’s intent: ‘Was Gorgias content to impress and confuse? Or did he not only raise and argue for these challenging theses but actually puzzle about them?’ (p. 47). In my own view Gorgias did puzzle about them.
Chapter 4 deals with Antiphon’s work. McK. addresses the attribution problem of possibly three different Antiphons, but aligns with a unitarian view, which has a pragmatic purpose in that there are more texts to study. I found McK.’s emphasis on the fact that Antiphon was a teacher with his own set of students in Rhamnous, a deme of Athens, in addition to being a speechwriter, particularly helpful. McK. is right in that it helps explain the range of topics he addresses: rhetoric, geometry, logic and natural science.
Chapter 5 offers a short survey of Hippias, drawing primarily on his portrayal in the Platonic dialogues, but also his interest in the nomos–phusis debate. McK. suggests that Hippias’ work ‘was so widespread in discussions of moral, social and political issues in the late fifth century’ (p. 51) that ‘[s]ome scholars take it as evidence that Hippias was the first to draw the distinction’ (p. 51). He salvages genuine philosophical interest in Hippias’ work from the treatment of him in the dialogues.
Chapter 6 focuses on Prodicus. McK. emphasises three main aspects of Prodicus’ thought: ‘Drawing fine distinctions in the meaning of words, his views on the origin of religious belief, which led some to call him an atheist, and a performance speech about Heracles, implicitly recommending a life of virtue rather than pleasure’ (p. 65). Prodicus was an impressive thinker who clearly had a great deal of intellectual influence in his time.
In Chapter 7 McK. briefly addresses Thrasymachus of Chalcedon. Very little of Thrasymachus’ work survives though we can look to the detailed portrait of him in the Republic for clues to the range of his interests in the political domain. He was probably on a diplomatic mission during the dramatic date of the Republic. Though Thrasymachus is often thought to be an advocate for the view that ‘Justice is the interest of the Stronger’, some scholars suggest that he may well have been goading Socrates into defending Athenian imperialistic actions in these terms. Chapter 8 offers a look at Euthydemus and Dionysodorus, also of Chalcedon. McK. rightly observes that, unlike other sophists, they did not promote specific views or doctrines but ‘rather a method of debate that consists in refuting other people’s views without any commitment to the truth of any opposing view’ (p. 78).
McK. gives us enough succinct information to help see these sophists as individual thinkers, which is a true benefit of his approach. At the same time, the closing chapter outlining thematic similarities in the sophist works clearly illustrates why it is easy for people to regard them as a sophistic movement. The concluding chapter on Isocrates and Aristotle’s treatment of the sophists reinforces how quickly and decisively their negative reputation became solidified. In sum, this book is concise, well-organised and highly accessible. It will benefit scholars and students alike.
