Complete the account of the Sophists’ central distinction.
The Sophists distinguished ______, which is human convention and could have been otherwise, from ______, which holds regardless of any agreement. Applying the distinction to social arrangements was ______, because it implied that hierarchies people took to be natural were merely ______.
Word bank: nomos · physis · subversive · agreed · permanent
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- One term covers what varies between cities and one what holds everywhere.
- The political consequence is what made the distinction dangerous.
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The Sophists distinguished nomos, which is human convention and could have been otherwise, from physis, which holds regardless of any agreement. Applying the distinction to social arrangements was subversive, because it implied that hierarchies people took to be natural were merely agreed.
The distinction is analytically simple and politically explosive: if a hierarchy is convention rather than nature, it stands in need of justification and could be changed. That is the birth of political philosophy.
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