Socrates The Sophist

Socrates, in spite of his numerous epistemological and metaphysical errors, is often held up as one of history's brilliant intellects.  What an undeserved reputation!  Many people, especially those who are pseudo-intellectuals, seem to respect him as if he actually did anything to earn the reputation beyond asking people questions without providing sound answers to his own inquiries.  Many people I know at my university laud Socrates as a champion of philosophy, but that is only because they know about as little about logic and reality as Socrates did (I scarcely pass up an opportunity to call out the sheer stupidity of many people at HBU).

In the surviving Plato dialogues, Socrates often fills his arguments with fallacies, all while allegedly pursuing genuine knowledge and forsaking the follies of the sophists, a group of people who, for money, would give people fallacious explanations.  In modern times, a demagogue or deceiver might be still be said to use sophistry, with sophistry referring to the use of fallacies to appeal to an audience.  Socrates relied heavily on sophistry as a rhetorical tool, though he did not receive money for his rhetoric.  His arbitrary division of the soul into three parts (Republic), insistence that the mathematical knowledge of a slave is confirmation of reincarnation (Meno), belief in unverifiable forms corresponding to moral ideas, and assumptions about values are just a few examples of his numerous fallacious beliefs.  The non sequiturs, red herrings, question begging premises, and circular reasoning Socrates used do not disappear just because many people speak of him positively.

It is ironic that, near end of his life, he suddenly denied that he claimed to know anything he cannot know (Apology)--yet many parts of his worldview beforehand involved claims about concepts that, even if they were true, could not be known by any human.  Throughout his other dialogues he had been claiming to know things that no human can prove, while speaking as if Platonic forms actually exist or can be known.  Whether he finally identified his actual epistemological limitations by the time of his trial or was merely contradicting himself, his general philosophy was a disgrace to true rationality.

Socrates was a sophist, apart from the receiving of money, because he extensively used sophistry.  He may have had the right questions and the right goals in mind, but many aspects of his answers fall woefully short of logicality.  Answers, not questions, form a worldview.  Despite having a reputation as a person intelligent and passionate enough to verbally combat the sophists, Socrates was just like them in a key way--not in title, but in the fact that he too offered fallacies instead of legitimate, demonstrable explanations.