#sophists — Public Fediverse posts

‘USS Abraham Lincoln sailors tried to jump overboard amid extended deployment – reports’ https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/aug/12/uss-abraham-lincoln-overboard-extended-deployment

When those with all the capital have not only lost their compass. When the business of war becomes a business for war to control oil and gas it is the people who lose. Death cults are unsustainable, as dependent on deregulated markets, so why vote for those who invest in them? Isn’t it time to get rid of the ultras mob rule especially when it has no science of logic to justify its morality? Even the oligarchs and plutocrats are going to lose it all! #RiskingArmageddon #ForWhat #Sophists #Propaganda #Losers #Foundation #EndOfEmpires #FederationOfRepublics

#philosophy and #sophists are offensive lineman in the #American football game of life.

The concussion of ideas causes psychic damage.

2/2

What's really egregious are the #kleptocrats and #sophists the #CorporateState chose to head the report — individuals that got us into this mess!

See #InnesWillox, shill for glorified #PropertyDevelopers (we mean #universites), the #MigrationCouncil and other #speculators and #rentseekers. Two years ago, he was all too happy to make us vulnerable.

Four Corners did a good job of highlighting others on the "commission".

Well done, Four Corners! Maybe, the last #journalists in Australia.

@dlovell That's the #sophists vs. #philosophers debate all over again.

I realised a few years back (on Google+) that there were two major schools of online discussion. One is #rhetorical, aimed at winning or convincing. The other is #dialectic, interested in understanding or finding truth. The two are almost wholly incompatible.

Dialectic discussion depends strongly on (I want to say "requires", though I'm not certain of that) a mutual respect. It's quite easiy disrupted.

Encounters with rhetoricians should be considered at best training on their methods. References to the classsics, such as Aristotle's Sophistical Refutations (the original "Bullshit Arguments Which Must Die"), and Cicero, remain useful. Very rarely can you actually win a concession. Less rarely, learn something.

@woozle (toot.cat's Supreme Uberwensch) was party to that G+ thread and has a similar interest in epistemic debate.

For more on the Sophists, see the Stanford Online Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sophists/

I'd also recommend the HoP episode:

https://historyofphilosophy.net/sophists
Audio: https://hopwag.podbean.com/mf/feed/6qa8mu/HoP_014_Making_the_Weaker_Argument_the_Stronger___the_Sophists.mp3

References:
J.M. Dillon and T. Gergel, The Greek Sophists (London: 2003).

G.B. Kerferd, The Sophistic Movement (Cambridge: 1981).

#sophists #sophistry #philosophy #HistoryOfPhilosophy #podcasts