The moral and Political doctrines of Antiphon the Sophist. A reconsideration

Abstract

Since the publication in 1915 of the first of the papyrus fragments of Antiphon, the major problem of interpretation has been how to relate the Antiphon of the papyri to the Antiphon of the other fragments. The appeal to Physis as against Nomos in the papyri suggested that Antiphon was rejecting the claims of the community upon the individual while the fragments of the Περὶ Ὁμονοίας with their emphasis upon education and σωφροσύνη seemed to point in a different direction. Some, like Luria, may have felt that the difficulty could be dealt with by invoking the doctrine of the two Antiphons and attributing the papyrus fragments to one and the remaining fragments to the other. Others, like Sir Ernest Barker, have attempted a doctrinal reconciliation by appealing to more general principles from which both sets of doctrine might follow, or by so interpreting the doctrines of the papyrus tliat the conflict largely disappears. All have assumed that the papyrus fragments do give us either Antiphon's own views, or at least some of his views. This is true even of Bignone,Studi sul pensiero antico(Naples, 1938), who recognized that some of the time Antiphon is discussing the views of others. In what follows it will be argued that the papyrus fragments throughout are discussing the views of others and that Antiphon's own views only appear incidentally if at all.