Abstract
During the fourth century BC, Greek thinkers discussed about the limits and characteristics of philosophy in order to distinguish it from other practices. In this paper, I will focus on the portrait of sophists as diametrically opposed to philosophers. Specifically, I will discuss the platonic answer to the charge that Isocrates directed against all Socrates’ disciples in the treatises Against the Sophists and Encomium of Helen. I will defend that Plato’s strategy to avoid his critics was to develop, in the Euthydemus and the fifth definition of the Sophist, a character that combines the most significant attributes censured by Isocrates: the eristic sophist. I will argue that this figure does not refer to the Sophists of the fifth century BC., but to the Megaric group. They would have been those who, according to Plato, really deserved the Isocratic attack.
Published Version
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