The Tradition of Greek philosophy is a rich and prolific one. The ancient writings of the Greeks have shaped many of the ideals and ideologies that our modern society still portrays. One such Greek philosophy is Sophism. Though not as famous as other ancient Greek schools of thought, the Sophists significantly partook in the crucial structuring of Greek society. The Sophists were seen as professional teachers and shared their knowledge of philosophy, public speaking and politics with the people of Ancient Greece. The Sophist were individualists who questioned the standard and accepted norms of their time. For this reason they were not always viewed in such a positive manner. Though Sophist belief may have been viewed as unorthodox, its significance could not have been overlooked by even the most animate of their opposition both then and now.
             The word Sophist means an expert in the practical or theoretical matters. The Sophists were great thinkers who stressed more the rhetorical rather than the philosophical. Sophists dealt with the world as an individualist and on a practical scale, rather than ponder the perplexities of the abstract world. Sophist belief also centered on the contradiction that exists in the world. Such Sophists as Gorgias reasoned that existence is a tension of opposites. To articulate this he argues,"One should not condemn Helen of Troy, for she only chose one side of an inescapable contradiction. The injustice lay not in her, but in the irremediable ambivalence of life"(Aspell, 100). In saying this Gorgias attempts to support his argument by applying it to one of the most well know works of his time, "The Iliad".
             One of the most profound Sophists, and arguably the first was Protagoras. Protagoras was an avid supporter of individualism. Perhaps one of his most famous teachings is "Man is the Measure of all things, of existing things that they exist and of non-existing th
             ...