The Cambridge Companion to the Sophists

In press, co-edited with Joshua Billings (Princeton), and expected early in 2023, the first Cambridge Companion to the Sophists.

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.

Table of Contents

Introduction: The Problem of the Sophists

Chapter 1: Sophia before the Sophists                                               Kathryn Morgan

Chapter 2: The Sophists between Aristocracy and Democracy         Mark Munn

Chapter 3: The Professional Lives of the Sophists                            Håkan Tell

Chapter 4: The Sophists in the Fifth-Century Enlightenment            Joshua Billings

Chapter 5: Nature and Norms                                                             Richard Bett

Chapter 6: The Turn to Language                                                      Mauro Bonazzi

Chapter 7: Problems of Being                                                            Evan Rodriguez

Chapter 8: Politics in Theory and Practice                                         Chloe Balla

Chapter 9: Interrogating the Gods                                                      Mirjam Kotwick

Chapter 10: Skills of Argument                                                         Mi-Kyoung Lee

Chapter 11: Civic and Anti-Civic Ethics                                            David Conan Wolfsdorf

Chapter 12: The Fourth-Century Creative Reception of the Sophists  Christopher Moore

Chapter 13: Writing the First Sophistic                                              Susan Prince

Chapter 14: The Sophists in the History of Philosophy                     Christopher C. Raymond

Appendix: The People of the Sophistic Period                                  Christopher Moore