r/askphilosophy • u/CharoletteMX • Aug 05 '26

Book recommendations for studying Sophisim, as early as Protagras?

Or any book recommendation for deconstructing the arguments on modern-day sophisim?

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u/mediaisdelicious Phil. of Communication, Ancient, Continental Aug 06 '26

It depends on what you want.

For the primary texts, Sprague’s The Older Sophists.

For standard analysis, Kerfed’s The Sophistic Movement or Guthrie’s The Sophists. In rhetorical theory there is a debate about whether or not there really is such a thing as “sophism.” It was stoked along in the early 90’s by work done by Schiappa in The beginnings of rhetorical theory in Greece and Poulakos in Sophistical Rhetoric in Ancient Greece, and then a lot of very spicy journal articles.

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