Introduction
In Ancient Greece, speech was both a tool of power and an instrument for the pursuit of truth. The fifth century BC, known as the “Age of Pericles”, marked the flourishing of Athenian democracy. In this context, the word logos assumed a central role in public life. It was through the force of speech that citizens persuaded, deliberated, defended causes, and rose politically.
It was in this environment that rhetoric gained notoriety as the supreme art. For many, mastering speech was synonymous with wisdom and power. Yet this very esteem brought deep questions in its wake: to what extent did rhetoric serve truth and justice, and to what extent did it serve only manipulation and self-interest?
In this essay, we explore how the Sophists consolidated rhetoric as the pinnacle of practical wisdom; how Socrates and then Plato reacted to this conception, establishing dialectic as a method of rational confrontation in the search for truth; and how Aristotle finally systematised these disciplines, distinguishing them within a broader conceptual framework.
Rhetoric and the Sophists: the art of persuasion as practical wisdom
The fifth century BC in Athens was marked by democratic effervescence. Political decisions were taken in the agora, in popular assemblies where any citizen had the right—and indeed the need—to present and defend opinions. In this setting, the ability to speak well was not merely an ornamental virtue but a condition of political survival.
It is in this context that the Sophists appear: Protagoras, Gorgias, Hippias, Prodicus, among others. They were itinerant teachers who specialised in training young Athenians in mastery of speech and argument, generally in exchange for payment. For them, rhetoric was not merely a technique but the apex of practical wisdom, because it enabled one to convince in the assemblies, influencing collective decisions; to win legal disputes, defending oneself or accusing in the courts; and to stand out in public life, attaining prestige and power.
One of their great exponents, Protagoras, coined the famous maxim: “Man is the measure of all things: of those that are, that they are, and of those that are not, that they are not.” This statement reveals a relativist view: there is no absolute truth outside human perception; what matters is how people judge and perceive things.
Thus rhetoric gained the status of sovereignty: if two speakers, with opposing arguments, could be equally persuasive, that meant persuasion did not depend on objective truth but on discursive skill. The highest value was not correspondence with reality, but the capacity to mould opinions.
For the Sophists, therefore, wisdom consisted in knowing how to persuade. It was a useful, pragmatic, and immediate wisdom, tailored to the demands of the political and social life of the polis.
Critiques of Rhetoric: the problem of truth
Although admired by many, the Sophists were also the target of strong criticisms, especially from Plato. The philosopher perceived an ethical and epistemological risk in sophistic rhetoric.
The central question was: if any opinion can be defended convincingly, what becomes of truth?
For Plato, sophistic rhetoric reduced itself to a technique of persuasion detached from the search for truth. Just as cookery can please the palate without truly nourishing, rhetoric could delight the ears without leading to justice or the good. This metaphor appears in the dialogue Gorgias, where Socrates confronts Sophists and shows that rhetoric, if used merely as technique, is a form of flattery.
From this critique arises the need for a method that does not content itself with winning debates, but truly seeks truth. That method was dialectic.
The Birth of Dialectic: the confrontation of arguments as a path to truth
Dialectic was born as a critical response to sophistic rhetoric. While rhetoric had as its primary aim the persuasion of the interlocutor, regardless of the truth of what was said, dialectic emerged as the philosophical effort to unveil what lies hidden beneath the surface of human opinions and contradictions. It represents, therefore, the movement of reason seeking to grasp reality amid appearances and misleading speeches.
In Plato’s thought, dialectic is more than an argumentative technique: it is the very path by which the soul ascends from the sensible world to the intelligible. Through it, the human spirit rises from the particular to the universal, from mere opinion to knowledge, from appearance to essence. It is a process of intellectual purification in which truth is not imposed but progressively discovered as ideas are refined through rational confrontation.
Yet this lofty conception of dialectic has its roots in the everyday practice of Socratic dialogues. In his conversations, Socrates did not seek to defeat an adversary but to examine ideas until only what could withstand criticism remained as true. Dialogue thus became a field of shared inquiry, where each argument was put to the test and each contradiction an opportunity for learning.
The fundamental difference between the dialectical method and sophistic discourse lies precisely in intention. The Sophist seeks to win; the philosopher seeks to be convinced—not by imposition, but by reason. While the Sophist makes speech an instrument of power, the philosopher makes it a means of enlightenment. Plato, in systematising this distinction in his works, gives theoretical shape to what Socrates had already embodied in practice: dialectic as the rational exercise par excellence, by which human thought approaches the true through dialogue, doubt, and shared reflection.
The Role of Socrates: maieutics and the search for truth
Socrates (469–399 BC) lived during a period of intense intellectual ferment in Athens, when sophistic rhetoric and relativism dominated the public spaces of debate. While the Sophists taught the art of winning discussions by means of persuasive techniques often dissociated from truth, Socrates proposed the opposite path: rational investigation and self-knowledge. His life and method broke with paid, superficial instruction: he did not charge for dialogues nor offer ready-made formulas for speech. His interest was not victory in debate but the awakening of critical consciousness in himself and others.
Thus arose maieutics, a Greek term meaning “the art of midwifery”. Inspired by his mother’s profession, Socrates compared his method to helping the other “give birth” to the truth already latent in the soul. Maieutics is therefore not limited to a string of successive questions, but constitutes a pedagogical and existential process: through questioning, the interlocutor is led to recognise the fragility of certainties, to face contradictions, and finally to rebuild thought upon firmer foundations.
The Socratic method unfolded in two complementary stages: irony and maieutics proper. In the first, Socrates feigned ignorance—hence his famous maxim, “All I know is that I know nothing”—with the purpose of disarming the interlocutor’s intellectual pride and prompting them to express opinions spontaneously. Then came the maieutic phase, in which, through carefully framed questions, he brought to light the incoherences of those opinions, guiding the dialogue towards a purification of thought. Knowledge, thus, was not transmitted from without, but was born from within, through reflection and the rational effort of the individual.
The consequences of this method were profound for both philosophy and education. By turning dialogue into an instrument for the pursuit of truth, Socrates laid the foundations of Western rational ethics and inspired a philosophical tradition devoted to examining conscience and forming the moral person. His dialogical practice marked the beginning of a new conception of knowledge: not imposed by authority, but won by reason and dialogue.
Plato, his disciple, was largely responsible for recording and systematising this legacy, transforming maieutics into a philosophical method that guides thought’s ascent from the sensible to the intelligible. Aristotle, in turn, inherited the same investigative spirit, though reformulated on logical and scientific bases.
Maieutics therefore transcended its own time. It remains timely because it teaches that authentic knowledge is born of questioning and intellectual humility. To recognise that “we know nothing” is not a sign of weakness, but the first step towards wisdom.
Socrates and the Sophists: proximities and distances
In the intellectual scene of fifth-century-BC Athens, both Socrates and the Sophists played central roles in transforming cultural and political life. Both worked in the city’s public spaces—especially the agora—teaching and debating with young people keen to understand the world and the human condition. This coincidence of setting and superficial method led many Athenians, at first glance, to see in Socrates merely another of the many masters of words then proliferating. Yet beneath this common appearance lay a decisive difference: whereas the Sophists made eloquence an art of persuasion, Socrates turned speech into an instrument for the pursuit of truth.
The Sophists—figures such as Protagoras, Gorgias, Hippias, and Prodicus—represented the new mentality of the Greek Enlightenment. They were itinerant teachers of rhetoric, grammar, and politics—skills indispensable for public life in democracies. They believed knowledge to be relative and conditioned by individual perception: “Man is the measure of all things,” said Protagoras. This relativist perspective led to a pragmatic conception of truth, understood not as adequation to reality but as efficacy of discourse. Winning the debate, rather than reaching the true, was the ultimate goal. Thus the Sophist was, above all, a technician of the word—a strategist of opinion.
Socrates, by contrast, broke with this utilitarian conception of knowledge. Although he shared with the Sophists the use of dialogue and argument, his aim was not to convince but to understand. He did not sell his teaching or promise political success; rather, he walked the city conversing freely with any citizen willing to think. His proposal was ethical and spiritual: to lead the interlocutor to examine the soul, recognise ignorance, and seek a life guided by reason and virtue. Thus, while the Sophist formed orators, Socrates formed consciences.
In Plato’s dialogues, this opposition becomes evident. In works such as Gorgias, Protagoras, and Hippias Major, Plato presents Socrates confronting the Sophists, dismantling their arguments and revealing the contradictions of their speeches. The contrast is clear: the Sophists speak to the crowd; Socrates speaks with the individual. The former seek the adhesion of the masses; the latter seeks self-knowledge. For the Sophists, speech is a means to power; for Socrates, it is the path to the soul’s purification.
Yet this distinction, although clear to later philosophy, was not so obvious to Socrates’ contemporaries. Many confused his irony and argumentative skill with sophistic techniques. His refusal to offer ready answers and his insistence on questioning everyone and everything sounded provocative. In a society shaken by military defeats, political instability, and loss of confidence in institutions, the philosopher came to be viewed with suspicion. The freedom of thought he proposed seemed to threaten the polis’ religious and moral traditions.
Thus Socrates’ condemnation in 399 BC cannot be attributed to the Sophists, but to the Athenian popular court itself. Accused of corrupting the youth and introducing new gods, he fell victim to a democracy in crisis that feared criticism and reflection. The philosopher became a scapegoat for a city that, after the Peloponnesian War, sought to restore a lost moral order. His death symbolically sealed the conflict between free thought and collective opinion—between philosophy and rhetoric.
Paradoxically, however, this condemnation consolidated his difference from the Sophists. By accepting death in the name of truth, Socrates showed that his quest was no game of words but an existential commitment. While the Sophists taught the art of winning debates, he taught the harder art of overcoming oneself—submitting one’s own beliefs to the test of reason. And it is precisely in this fidelity to truth, even in the face of death, that Socrates distinguishes himself forever from his contemporaries and inaugurates philosophy as a moral vocation and a path of inner liberation.
Plato and the systematisation of critique
After Socrates’ death, Plato undertook to transform the master’s legacy into a systematic philosophical body. If in Socrates dialectic was a living practice of question and answer in the daily life of the polis, in Plato it becomes a rigorous method of intellectual and moral ascent. The Athenian philosopher understood that merely refuting the Sophists was not enough: it was necessary to structure rationally the difference between apparent persuasion and true knowledge. From this effort arises Plato’s critique of rhetoric and the consolidation of dialectic as the path to truth.
For Plato, sophistic rhetoric is a form of manipulation—a play with words that appeals to the senses and emotions, yet strays from the real. In his view, the Sophist is an artisan of speech who may produce verisimilitude—what seems to be true—but never truth itself. Such practice, centred on persuasion rather than wisdom, threatens the human soul by diverting it from the good and keeping it captive to the world of appearances. This criticism appears forcefully in dialogues such as Gorgias, where the philosopher compares sophistic rhetoric to cookery: both produce pleasure, but not health; both satisfy, but do not nourish. Rhetoric, therefore, is an imitative art devoid of rational foundation.
By contrast, Plato raises dialectic to the status of the true science of discourse—the episteme that leads the intellect from the shadows of the sensible to the light of the intelligible. In the Phaedrus, he affirms that speech is legitimate only when guided by truth and justice, and that the true orator is one who knows the soul of the hearer and seeks to orient it towards the good. Thus rhetoric has value only when subordinated to dialectic—that is, when it ceases to be an instrument of manipulation and becomes a means of revelation.
Dialectic in Plato therefore assumes a twofold role: epistemological and ethical. On the level of knowledge, it is the method by which reason overcomes opinions and reaches the Forms—eternal, immutable realities that constitute true being. On the moral level, it is the process of purifying the soul, freeing it from sensible illusions so that it may contemplate the Good, the highest of all Forms. Hence dialectic is not merely a logical exercise but a spiritual path.
This conception has profound consequences for the history of Western thought. Plato inaugurates the distinction between true discourse and persuasive discourse—between the logos that enlightens and the logos that seduces. His critique of sophistic rhetoric is not only philosophical but also political: by warning of the dangers of the manipulation of speech, he denounces the risk of a democracy guided by orators who speak to please the crowds, without commitment to the just and the true.
By systematising Socrates’ critique, Plato transforms dialectic into philosophy’s supreme instrument—an art that does not seek to defeat the other, but to raise both interlocutors to the contemplation of truth. If the Sophists made speech a means of power, Plato restored its dignity: that of being the reflection of the rational order of being.
Aristotle: the distinction between science, dialectic, and rhetoric
With Aristotle, reflection on rational discourse reaches a new degree of systematisation and maturity. Plato’s intellectual heir, the Stagirite recognised the value of his master’s criticisms of sophistic rhetoric, yet also grasped the need to restore to persuasive language a legitimate place within the realm of reason. In his work, the discursive practices—science, dialectic, and rhetoric—are no longer confused or opposed absolutely; they occupy complementary positions within a single hierarchy of knowledge.
Aristotle distinguishes three fundamental forms of rational discourse. Science (episteme) is demonstrative knowledge, grounded in necessary and universal principles, capable of producing true and indisputable conclusions. It is the domain of certainty, attained by logical demonstration. Dialectic, by contrast, is reasoning that operates upon the plausible—that which is probable and generally accepted—serving as an instrument to examine opinions, test hypotheses, and draw nearer to truth. It is a critical method that investigates common beliefs and seeks to purge them. Finally, rhetoricis defined as the art of persuasion, that is, of adapting speech to circumstances, audience, and topic when one does not have scientific foundations or absolute proofs at hand.
Unlike Plato, Aristotle does not condemn rhetoric as mere manipulation. On the contrary, he recognises its social and political value. In his work Rhetoric, the philosopher shows that persuasion also has method and rationality, provided it is guided by ethical principles and grounded in reason. For Aristotle, rhetoric is an extension of dialectic: both deal with the plausible and the contingent, but while dialectic seeks the rational examination of opinions, rhetoric seeks to move the audience by means of them.
Persuasive speech, according to Aristotle, rests upon three fundamental elements: logos, the rational argument and logical structure of discourse; ethos, the credibility and character of the speaker; and pathos, the capacity to touch the audience’s emotions and dispositions. These three pillars demonstrate that persuasion is not an arbitrary technique but an art that combines reason, morality, and sensibility.
Thus Aristotle offers a remarkable synthesis: rhetoric is not the opposite of philosophy but its practical ally. It enables reason to become effective in the public sphere, making it possible to communicate the true in a way that is accessible and convincing. Regulated by ethics and rationality, rhetoric ceases to be an instrument of deception and becomes an instrument of civilisation.
With this, Aristotle completes the path initiated by Socrates and systematised by Plato. If the first discovered the importance of dialogue as a route to self-knowledge, and the second elevated dialectic to the science of the Forms, the third restored to speech its legitimate power to build consensus and guide collective life. In Aristotle, reason and persuasion cease to be opposing forces and come to coexist: philosophy finds, at last, the balance between the rigour of truth and the art of communicating it.
Conclusion: from rhetoric to philosophy as the pursuit of truth
The trajectory of rhetoric in Ancient Greece—from the Sophists to Aristotle—reveals the birth of the opposition between the power of the word and the commitment to truth. For the Sophists, masters of persuasion, rhetoric was the supreme form of wisdom, for it gave a person the capacity to dominate the public sphere and gain prestige in Athenian democracy. Knowledge was measured not by what was discovered, but by what was made convincing.
Socrates, however, subverted this logic. Instead of teaching how to win debates, he taught how to doubt and to recognise one’s own ignorance as the starting point of true knowledge. Through maieutics and dialogue, he restored to speech its ethical dimension: to speak not in order to triumph, but to clarify—to lead the soul to truth.
Plato gave this stance systematic form. In his philosophy, rhetoric is legitimate only when subordinated to dialectic—that is, when it serves truth and not appearance. Persuasive discourse, detached from the good and the true, becomes manipulation—a kind of flattery that gratifies the senses but corrupts reason. For Socrates’ disciple, the true orator is one who knows souls and guides them towards the just and the beautiful.
With Aristotle, this heritage reaches balance and maturity. The philosopher distinguishes precisely three modes of rational discourse: science, which seeks the necessary; dialectic, which examines the probable; and rhetoric, which persuades about the possible. Far from rejecting persuasion, Aristotle recognises in it a legitimate function in public life, provided it is regulated by ethics and guided by reason. Thus the word, purified of its sophistic use, again becomes an instrument of civilisation—a means by which thought communicates the true and the just in a way accessible to all.
This path from rhetoric to philosophy shows the birth of Western critical reflection. Between appearance and essence, opinion and science, persuasion and truth, philosophy rises as the effort to discern the real by means of reason. It is in this confrontation between the dazzling allure of speech and the silent demand of truth that philosophical thought found its origin and its mission.
More than two millennia later, the question remains current. In an age of calculated political discourse, seductive advertising, and social networks dominated by the rhetoric of the image, the Socratic challenge continues to address us: are we truly seeking truth, or merely trying to win debates? The answer to this question still defines the value we accord to speech, to reason, and to our very humanity.