Editing Sophist (section)

==Major figures==
Most of what is known about sophists comes from commentaries from others. In some cases, such as Gorgias, some of his works survive, allowing the author to be judged on his own terms. In one case, the [[Dissoi logoi]], an important sophist text survived but knowledge of its author has been lost. However, most knowledge of sophist thought comes from fragmentary quotations that lack context. Many of these quotations come from [[Aristotle]], who seems to have held the sophists in slight regard.{{citation needed|date=April 2016}}

===Protagoras===
{{main|Protagoras}}
Protagoras was one of the best known and most successful sophists of his era; however, some later philosophers, such as [[Sextus Empiricus]]<ref>''Outlines of Pyrrhonism'', Book I, Chapter 32.</ref> treat him as a founder of a philosophy rather than as a sophist. Protagoras taught his students the necessary skills and knowledge for a successful life, particularly in politics. He trained his pupils to argue from both points of view because he believed that truth could not be limited to just one side of the argument. Protagoras wrote about a variety of subjects and advanced several philosophical ideas, particularly in [[epistemology]]. Some fragments of his works have survived. He is the author of the famous saying, "Man is the measure of all things", which is the opening sentence of a work called ''Truth''.<ref>{{cite book|last=Vaulker|first=Aashish|title=Markets and measurements in nineteenth-century Britain|year=2012|publisher=Cambridge University Press|location=Cambridge|pages=218–228}}</ref>

===Xeniades===
{{main|Xeniades}}
Xeniades was a skeptical philosopher from  [[Ancient Corinth|Corinth]], probably a follower of the pre-Socratic [[Xenophanes]]. There may have been two such persons, as he is referenced by [[Democritus]] c. 400 BCE, though was also supposedly the purchaser of [[Diogenes the Cynic]] c. 350 BCE,  when he was captured by [[pirate]]s and sold as a [[Slavery in ancient Greece|slave]]. Xeniades was supposed to have been the man who persuaded [[Monimus]] to become a follower of Diogenes, and was the source of his skeptical doctrines.<ref>Diogenes Laërtius, vi. 82</ref> The little that is known of him is derived from [[Sextus Empiricus]], who represents him as holding the most [[philosophical skepticism|ultrasceptical]] opinions, and maintaining that all notions are false, and that there is absolutely nothing true in the [[universe]].<ref>Sextus Empiricus, ''Adv. Math.'' vii. 388, 399</ref>  He more than once couples him with [[Xenophanes]].<ref>Sextus Empiricus, ''Pyrrh. Hyp.'' ii. 18, ''adv. Math.'' vii. 48</ref>

===Gorgias===
{{main|Gorgias}}
Gorgias was a well-known sophist whose writings showcased his ability to make counter-intuitive and unpopular positions appear stronger. Gorgias authored a lost work known as ''[[On the Non-Existent]]'', which argues that nothing exists. In it, he attempts to persuade his readers that thought and existence are different.<ref>{{cite book|last=Gaines|first=Robert N.|title=Philosophy & Rhetoric|year=1997|publisher=Penn State University Press|location=Pennsylvania|pages=1–12}}</ref> He also wrote ''Encomium of Helen'' in which he presents all of the possible reasons for which [[Helen of Troy|Helen]] could be blamed for causing the [[Trojan War]] and refutes each one of them.

===Lycophron===
{{main|Lycophron (sophist)}}
Lycophron is mentioned as a sophist by Aristotle, and was probably among the students of [[Gorgias]].<ref name="Menake">Quarles (2004), pp. 135–136</ref> He rejected the supposed value of an [[Aristocracy (class)|aristocratic birth]],<ref name="Menake"/> claiming that "Now the nobility of good birth is obscure, and its grandeur a matter of words."<ref name="Menake"/> meaning that there is no factual difference between those well-born and those low-born; only words and opinion assign value to these different circumstances of birth.<ref name="Diels">Diels, Dent Sprague (2001), pp. 68–69</ref> This statement may indicate that Lycophron shared the beliefs of [[Antiphon (orator)|Antiphon]], that (regardless of their ancestry) both [[Greeks]] and [[barbarian]]s are born with the same capacities: An [[Egalitarianism|egalitarian]] belief that was a minority view in the 5th century BCE.<ref name="Menake"/><ref>quoted in Mario Untersteiner, The Sophists, tr. [[Kathleen Freeman (classicist)|Kathleen Freeman]] (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1954), p. 252</ref> He is also known for his statement (reproduced by Aristotle, in the latter's ''Politics'', 1280b10), that "[[law]] is only a convention, a surety to another of justice".,<ref name="Mulgan">Mulgan (1979), pp. 121–128</ref> also translated as "a guarantor of men's rights against one another". He, thus, believed that law is a matter of agreement, a [[Convention (norm)|social convention]] and not a natural or universal standard (there is no evidence that Lycophron rejected the idea that law is a universal standard – indeed his view appears far more universalist than that of Aristotle, in that Lycophron proposes a single standard, what would now be called the non aggression principle, in relation to all states). In this respect his views on law are similar to those of [[Protagoras]].<ref name="Menake"/><ref name="Menake2">Quarles (2004), pp. 121–122</ref> This means that he treats law as a mere means, in the context of a (perhaps primitive) [[social contract]] theory, without considering it as something special, in contradistinction to, e.g., [[Plato]] but similar to both [[Thrasymachus]] and [[Callicles]], albeit that their theories have – as far as can be ascertained from the information available about them – more specific characteristics.<ref name="Mulgan"/>
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===Prodicus===
{{main|Prodicus}}

===Thrasymachus===
{{main|Thrsymachus}}

===Hippias===
{{main|Hippias}}

===Antiphon the Sophist===
{{main|Antiphon the Sophist}}

===Anonymous Sophists===
====Quoted by Iamblichus====
====Author of ''Dissoi Logoi''====
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