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IMPEACHMENT
COMPLAINT - I:
The
Greek Tragedy
A
445 B.C.
Play
Around
1,500 years ago, Sophism was born in Greece, the
fathers of Sophism being: Protagoras of Abdera, Gorgias of
Leontini, Prodicus of Ceos and Hippias of Elis.
Sophism affirmed that: To be....... is what it appears to be. There is no reality in
itself.... only reality as it appears to us.
The "Good" is that which satisfies one's instincts and passions. The good consists in securing for oneself the greatest possible quantity of possessions without regard for the means used to attain them, for these goods can satisfy the instincts and the passions in which happiness consists.
Natural law "is the right of the stronger - It is the strong man who, despising all laws advanced by the weak in the name of justice, imposes his will, which becomes
the "right". Thus, the concept of justice was substituted
by the concept of force. Right is that which succeeds in imposing itself through force, or an imposition established by force and violence. Men by nature are not equal - there are the strong and the
weak - and "right" consists in force. It becomes the office of the strong to command and make laws; the weak must
just obey.
Sophism justified the use of all deception and the most violent passions.
It was the aim of the Sophists to create in the youth the ability to argue over the proper use of words (Eristic Method) or their misuse (Sophistic Method).
The Sophists sustained
that Everything is relative (relativism)
They boasted of their ability to make the worse appear the better reason - to prove that black is white.
The sophists tried to entangle, entrap and confuse their opponents, and
even if this were not possible, to beat them down by mere violence and noise.
Gorgias goes as far as to assert that it was not necessary to have any knowledge of a subject to give satisfactory replies as regards
it - he ostentatiously answered any question on any subject instantly and without consideration.
They sought also to dazzle by means of strange or flowery metaphors, by unusual figures of speech, by epigrams and paradoxes, and in general by being clever and
smart rather than earnest and truthful. Hence our word
"sophistry" means: the use of fallacious arguments knowing them to be such.
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