La controverse des écoles dans l’Antiquité

Isocrates is generally known for having been a teacher of eloquence who learned from the masters of the first sophistics, especially from the old Sicilian Gorgias. Nevertheless, having evolved in an intellectual environment strongly dominated by rivalries between schools and positioning quarrels, the Athenian speaker, although he likes to define himself as a wise and calm man, has built a reputation that required conflict with some intellectuals of his time. His war with Plato became a commonplace. But the teacher of Eloquence Isocrates is best known for having been a disciple of the sophists who decided, strongly, a certain type of teaching that, compared to that given in his school, is considered sophistic, that is to say, of very poor quality. From then on, he engaged in a war against all those he considered to be bad teachers. The term that will serve as a weapon to disqualify his opponents is that of sophistès. If, in the imagination of Isocrates, all the bad teachers of his time are sophists, then it is normal to wonder if the former disciple of Gorgias and the sophists committed a parricide on his former teachers. Are the sophists whom Isocrates targets in his texts to decry their lessons his former masters ? Identifying Isocrates' true opponents makes it possible to highlight his art of controversy and his conception of education. This is the ambition of this essay

Art · Humanities · Literature · Sophist · Classical Antiquity Studies · Classical Philosophy and Thought · Classics · Historical and Literary Studies · Philosophy