"Against the Sophists" is among the few Isocratic speeches that have survived from Ancient Greece. This polemical text was Isocrates' attempt to define his educational doctrine and to separate himself from the multitudes of other teachers of rhetoric. Isocrates was a sophist, an identity which carried the same level of negative connotation as it does now. Many of the sophistic educators were characterized as deceitful because they were more concerned with making a profit from teaching persuasive trickery than of producing quality orators that would promote Athenian democracy. Isocrates was more concerned with the latter of these objectives and sought to separate himself from these less reputable sophistic teachers. After opening his school around 393 or 392 BC, Isocrates wrote "Against the Sophists" to clearly distinguish his teaching methods from the commonly held view of sophistic education.
General Analysis
Isocrates' Criticism of the Sophists
Isocrates begins his speech by defining the typical characteristics of most sophist teachers. He makes seven clear accusations about what is wrong with their instructional methods. The first accusation is that sophists make big promises that they cannot fulfill, especially relating to having the ability to teach the virtue and justice. The inconsistency between what the sophists claim to teach and their actual ability is Isocrates’ second point. They claim to teach qualities they do not possess themselves, namely truth, happiness and justice. His third accusation expands this point by demonstrating that despite claiming to teach such invaluable virtues and the wonderful art of oratory, sophists only charge minute prices for the instruction (three or four minae). In Isocrates’ fourth charge he establishes that if these teachers were actually capable of teaching virtue and justice, then they would have no issue trusting their students. Yet they insist on receiving advanced payment for their services, which clearly demonstrates their lack of genuine confidence either in their students or in their own teaching abilities. Isocrates’ fifth accusation connects the sophist's inability to teach oratory correctly and their lack of rhetorical knowledge. He asserts that these sophists do not have enough respect for the art of discourse to actually spend the time studying it thoroughly, and because they lack solid understanding of the art, they teach it incorrectly. Isocrates’ sixth claim condemns the techné pushed by these teachers and states that "they are applying the analogy of an art with hard and fast rules to a creative process" (sec. 12). Isocrates explains how much easier it is to teach a man a few universal rules and rhetorical tricks rather than teaching him to apply the true basis of speech—timeliness (kairos), appropriateness (to prepon), and originality. To justify the importance of distinguishing himself from other sophists, Isocrates’ final accusation proclaims "that the bad repute which results therefrom does not affect the offenders only, but that all the rest of us who are in the same profession share in the opprobrium" (sec. 11). In other words, through their mediocre and deceitful practices, these sophists give a bad reputation to all teachers of oratory.
Isocrates' teaching principles
Despite his intention for Against the Sophists to be written as an outline of his own pedagogical principles, Isocrates only briefly mentions his own style and thought of proper discourse before digressing to other criticisms of the current state of sophistry. There are separate but relatively rare occasions where Isocrates lists his own positive exposition of his philosophy.
In arguing against the rigid form which some sophists apply to the art of oration, Isocrates states that, "oratory is only good if it has the qualities of fitness for the occasion, propriety of style, and originality of treatment..." (sec. 13). He says of his own school of oratorical thought that, as opposed to teaching a rigid form, a proper teacher will instil in his students the ability to speak with fluidity and to improvise in order to speak appropriately for the occasion.