Our usual Monday morning post from Stephen. Thank you very much!!!
Click here for Wisdom (Part 1 of 3): The Socratic Method
One is known by the quality of one’s enemies. Socrates was known by the philosophical enemies of a school known as the Sophists. As discussed in last weeks’ post Socrates’s philosophy was the ultimate philosophy of understanding and seeking the truth.
Sophists were not really philosophers at all, not seekers of ultimate truth, if fact they could not care less about the truth at all. The entire concept of sophistry was about winning the argument, that the purpose and function of public discourse was to persuade people to your side, not to be concerned with whether an argument was right or wrong.
Sophistry was, or is, a school of thought about being able to argue any side of any issue, an ancient Greek debate club as opposed to a philosophical society. Their ideal being able to choose any topic at random, chose any side of the issue, and the speaker should be able to persuade a crowd or public official that the position is the correct one, even if that position is chosen purely at random.
If that sounds like a cynical school of thought, that is because it is. A cynical approach to argument in direct contrast to philosophy which is the search for truth and wisdom.
The Sophists, as any reader of Dan Brown or viewer of the movies based upon his books would surmise, actually took their name from Sophia, the Greek goddess of wisdom. This is more than a little ironic that a group named after the goddess of wisdom would not care in the least about wisdom itself.
Students of modern political history will be familiar with this practice of adopting a name which alludes to a principle or perspective opposite of the meaning of the word itself. Liberals support a totalitarian system called socialism which denies people liberty. The socialist system itself in being conformist, denies social ties and freedoms of association in the name of progress. Progressives adhere to that political perspective which thwarts progress.
Sophistry, like the Socratean philosophy, was never limited to ancient Greece, that is just where it acquired its most familiar name. The same approach has been used in politics, academia, and religion around the world in many different cultures.
And, it is a mask.
Anyone who has attempted to read the Talmud, is quickly mired in a particularly irritating form of Sophistry, that of endless legalisms over meaningless minutia and trivia, combined with frequent precedents for the trivial legalisms. There are lengthy discussions as to whether it is work on the Sabbath to carry an object into the house often depending solely upon whether the object was handed to the person or whether they had to pick it up off of the ground, and other such silliness.
Usually Sophistry is more eloquent and grandiose than to dwell upon trivial details, used by the historical Sophists to hire themselves out to individuals in the wake of the Thirty Tyrants of Athens when the new government was trying to decide what needed to be done with the property the city had confiscated and nationalized under the rule of the tyrants. The Sophists were effectively formed as the lawyers of ancient Athens, but pretended to be philosophers.
Similar debates continued into Christian academics in the medieval periods debating whether because an angel was insubstantial and lacked mass, a multitude of them could make themselves so compact as to dance upon the head of a pin or whether they still occupied the equivalent space of a man even though they were insubstantial.
It was a similar approach which had the likes of Immanuel Kant use large words in complicated sentence structures to mask the fact that he wasn’t really saying anything if you understood the words and followed the sentence structure, but the pseudo-intellectual can’t so he proclaims Kant to be brilliant, just as they do Marx. John Locke warned us about this particular form of Sophistry, of the verbose argument.
I recall being in law school and having all of the professors telling us that they were teaching us by the Socratic method, to be able to argue both sides of the issue effectively, calling upon people at random to argue one side or the other. It was a colossal and profound insult to Socrates to teach Sophistry and call it “The Socratic Method”.
In studying mathematics, prior to law, more than anything else there was one thing of extreme value I learned as a mathematical philosopher. That one thing of value was that it was more important to be able to spot and find the error than it ever is to find the correct solution. Finding the flaw in someone’s reasoning is central to the Socratic method, and the anathema to Sophist.
The other important lesson, which only mathematicians and philosophers really can appreciate, is that the two most closely related fields in academia are mathematics and philosophy, because both, if done correctly, must by necessity be based in pure reason. (Which could be the very reason that a Sophist like Kant critiqued it, saying that nothing was actually knowable.)
How does this understanding of sophistry help us? By allowing us to understand the modern incarnations of the Sophist philosophy, it is pervasive in modern society, and not just in the lawyers but throughout academia, politics, and even some things many people often view as scientific in nature.
Sophistry is always an error, even when the sophist happens by chance to be on the correct side of an issue, the lack of reason in their argument diminishes all argument, makes those who hold the same position appear no different than their opponents.
In law school, the Sophists taught that if the law was on your side, your argument should pound the law; if the facts were on your side, you should pound home the facts; if neither are on your side, you should pound the table. Win at all costs, for your client, but more importantly for your fee.
The use of pseudo-science produced by academic Sophists is used by legal Sophists to play on emotions to bring in large judgments against “soulless” corporations; by politicians to expand government to protect the poor, the elderly, the children, the minorities, et cetera.
Once society accepts that consensus is more scientific than proof, that feelings more important than facts, that ideology trumps reality, then you know that Sophistry has infected the body politic, the leviathan of state, with its insidious and infectious perspective.
Have you ever wondered why a large number of people involved in political discussions do not care when someone points out the errors in their logic, the fallacy of their reasoning, or that their very facts are incorrect? You wonder because you do not understand their “philosophy”. They are not philosophers, they are Sophists. The “wise” men who lack wisdom.
“To argue with a man who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead.” – Thomas Paine.
That Sophist is that cynic who has renounced the use of reason, unless reason will help him win the argument. Winning the argument is not about convincing his opponent, but entirely about convincing the observer. The Sophist wants that third person watching the discussion to side with him, if not through reason through emotion. It is the appeal to the judge or the jury, not to reason itself.
Our legal adversarial system is built around the argument of the Sophist, the persuasion of the audience, and not the argument of Socrates which actually searches for the truth, for answers. Our political systems are much the same, it is the audience and message of the media which so oft wins the day not the truth or rectitude of a moral position.
Why do your recitation of countervailing facts continually get ignored by those with whom you argue politically? Why would they be willing to recite provably false statistics over and over? Because those recitation convince the audience. You are not their audience. You are not their judge. You are their opponent.
Why are your facts not important to them? Simply because they do not actually care about the facts. The truth means nothing to the Sophist, only looking like they have a valid point. Sophistry is the antithesis of philosophy. Philosophy is a love of the truth. Sophistry is a love of argument itself. Sophistry is not a philosophy, it is foolery.
