The heritage of ancient sophists and modern culture – Polskie Towarzystwo Retoryczne

Cyprian MielczarskiUniversity of WarsawThe ideas of ancient sophists are visible in those trends of today’s humanities that express the essence of the democratic formation (for instance, various forms of postmodernist philosophy, Perelman’s “New Rhetoric”, and all the schools of the rhetorical theory of reality). The art of persuasion is the basic mechanism of democracy: Plato discovered the rhetorical nature of this type of political system and criticized it as based on something contrary to real knowledge. Sophists made revolutionary changes in Greek upbringing, creating the foundations of practical education. They were the first to regard the society as a community of individuals sending and receiving messages. Their pedagogy, based on rhetoric, had as its theoretical foundation a practical understanding of personal excellence. That pedagogy gave rise to the utilitarian and pragmatic orientation that formed the classical European liberal thought. The sophists were the authors of the...