The Cambridge Companion to the Sophists
Christopher Moore editor Joshua Billings editor
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Cambridge University Press
Published:19th Oct '23
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
This paperback is available in another edition too:
- Hardback£90.00(9781108494687)
Introduces the Sophists and their time: a period of cultural enlightenment in thought, language, pedagogy, and performance.
A comprehensive introduction to the Classical Greek sophists, placing them afresh in their cultural context. These public figures, such as Protagoras and Gorgias, were wide-ranging experts before discipline-specialization, and represent the flourishing of linguistic, historical, and philosophical reflection in the time of Socrates.The Classical Greek sophists – Protagoras, Gorgias, Prodicus, Hippias, and Antiphon, among others – are some of the most important figures in the flourishing of linguistic, historical, and philosophical reflection at the time of Socrates. They are also some of the most controversial: what makes the sophists distinctive, and what they contributed to fifth-century intellectual culture, has been hotly debated since the time of Plato. They have often been derided as reactionaries, relativists or cynically superficial thinkers, or as mere opportunists, making money from wealthy democrats eager for public repute. This volume takes a fresh perspective on the sophists – who really counted as one; how distinctive they were; and what kind of sense later thinkers made of them. In three sections, contributors address the sophists' predecessors and historical and professional context; their major intellectual themes, including language, ethics, society, and religion; and their reception from the fourth century BCE to modernity.
'[This Companion] is among those rare edited volumes where the whole is truly greater than the sum of its parts. Its contributions are uniformly excellent.' Bryn Mawr Classical Review
ISBN: 9781108796859
Dimensions: 228mm x 152mm x 28mm
Weight: 760g
400 pages