Los Sofistas y El Discurso Político

LOS SOFISTAS y EL DISCURSO POLÍTICO
http://www.csudh.edu/phenom_studies/greekphil/greek09.htm
THE ATHENIAN PHILOSOPHERS
The history of Greek philosophy started from Ionia in the Asia Minor, which was the closest to and was most easily influenced by Persia (the cultural inheritance of the Mesopotamia). Due to Persian military expansions, the Ionian intellectuals and "technocrats" had to takethe refuge to the rest of Magna Graeca, mainly to Southern Italy. As a result of this cultural transference, there were created the so-called migrant philosophers who brought the cultural heritage of the Asia Minor to Italy. As a result, the stage of philosophy was moved from Asia Minor to Southern Italy. In Italy, not only the Eleatic logic and metaphysics were developed, but also many attemptswere made to revive the philosophy of nature in the face of the challenges of the Eleatic philosophy. Then the Greek Federation fought a war against Persia who further intended to expand its territories and the Greek won the Persian War (490-480 B.C).
The Athenian Navy played the crucial role in the Sea Battle, which lead the Persian Defeat and, thus, this victory of the Persian War by the GreekFederation lead by Athens made Athens the socio-political center of Magna Graeca as the most powerful city state. Pericles, being both the military leader and the politically most powerful, saw that Athens had deficiencies in the cultural aspects as a powerful city state. Thanks to Pericles' cultural policies, now Athens quickly emerged as the center of Greek culture, too. Not only Pericles invitedsuch "philosophers" as Anaxagoras and Protagoras, many intellectuals who were philosophically inclined to pursue knowledge and share its results with the others gathered in Athens. As a result, many great philosophers were born in Athens. Before we discuss Socrates and Plato as the native Athenian philosophers, we must study the sophists, who appeared as a special professionals, as the transitoryphilosophers, the bridge between the revivalists of the philosophy of nature and Socrates and Plato.
The Sophists
Through this geo-political transition of culture to Athens, the central question of the problems of philosophy was no longer sought in Heaven and Earth, in nature and its principles (Anaxagoras was still preoccupied with this philosophy of nature in Athens).
They were now concernedabout the Human beings Themselves.
In order that such a radical shift of questions in philosophy was possible, some cultural, psychological and philosophical preparations had to be done in ahead.
1) The problem of human-being oneself and of the society as well as the politics became more serious questions tot the consciousness of the people rather than those of the heaven and nature. Why? Becausewhat had been previously taken for granted as self-evident was no longer acceptable as true, but on the contrary, everything which was taken for granted in humanity and society had become questionable.
2) After the Persian War (490-480 B.C.) Athens became the leader of Pan-Graeca civilization.
Furthermore, the Athenians were basically very political people. They were thus more concerned aboutpolitics and human-being oneself.
3) The Athenians were originally very practical people, being good at making money, skillful in engineering, well equipped with navigational talents and excellent in military affairs. To them, philosophy, the search for knowledge for its own sake, appeared as
idle talks and totally useless in our human existence. That was why they hated Anaxagoras, who appearedto the Athenians wasting time for idle talks. At that time, they did not appreciate knowledge itself for its own sake and its pursuit.
As a result of the victory of the Persian War, Athens and the Athenians (aristocrats, of course) suddenly became very wealthy and now had a lot of leisure. Then, the Athenians started appreciating arts, theatres, poetry, music and philosophy. That is why it is...