Compare and contrast the primary concerns of the pre-Socratic philosophers to those of the Sophists, and suggest whether these philosophical traditions are still visible in any trends in contemporary thought

Question

Please provide the best answer for the statement.

Answer 1

1. Pre-Socratics were chiefly concerned with explaining the natural universe. The pre-Socratics asked, “What lies behind the world of appearance? What is everything made of? How does it work? Is there an essential truth or core at the heart of the physical universe?” Some pre-Socratic philosophers, such as Pythagoras, Leucippus, and Democritos, arrived at insights that served as forerunners of modern scientific understanding of the movement of the planets and stars, atomic theory, and neurology.
2. Unlike the pre-Socratics, Sophists asked not “What do we know?” but “How do we know what we think we know?” and, crucially, “How can we trust it?” In other words, the Sophists concentrated on the human mind and were committed to what we have come to call humanism—that is, a focus on the actions of human beings. Protagoras said, “Man is the measure of all things,” meaning that each human defines reality as it appears to him or her—an insight that seems strikingly modern, as does the Sophists’ belief that there are two sides to every argument. The Sophists’ ultimate aim as itinerant teachers was to teach political virtue—areté—and they especially emphasized the art of speaking eloquently and persuasively.