Week 2/3: What's wrong with sophistry? Are teachers penultimate sophists?

The sophists were rhetoric teachers in Athens who lived at the same the as Socrates – they were professional teachers of persuasion. While sophistry and rhetoric may at some point been interchangeable with rhetoric being the art of persuasion effectively using language. the term ‘sophistry’ has a negative connotation.

I don’t think anything is wrong with sophistry – the saying ‘all is fair in love and war’ comes to mind. Being persuasive and ‘winning’ an argument doesn’t equate with being factually correct or being on the moral high ground.

I think of climate change when it comes to facts vs. persuasion. Climate scientists are basically all on the same page and they argue with models and facts – those who disagree with the majority of climatologists use scientific uncertainty and doubt to dissuade the public.  While uncertainty, questioning, doubt and repositioning are a normal part of the scientific processes to the uneducated scientific public these core components appear as lack of consensus and are inaccurately extrapolated – even if a model isn’t spot-on the general trend remains the same. In the arena of public climate science persuasion is the most effective tool – regardless of the facts.

Sophists were teachers of the art of persuasion, they weren’t subject mater experts – a fact they prided themselves on. So I would disagree that teachers are the penultimate sophists as generalization, as this is confined to teachers of persuasion.