THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN NATURE AND CONVENTION IN SOPHISTICAL THOUGHT FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF PLATO AND ARISTOTLE

Abstract

In this article I investigate the main passages in which Plato and Aristotle address the problem of the dichotomy between phýsis and nómos, nature and law/custom/convention in association with the philosophy practiced by the sophists. We will study primarily the passages in which these two philosophers speak generically of the opposition between phýsis and nómos present in the thought “of the ancients” (οἱ ἀρχαῖοι, as Aristotle says in Sophistical Refutations, 173b), that is to say: without attributing specifically to a particular individual, but to a group or current of thought, mainly to the sophists. According to the established criterion, we include three passages from Plato: Laws, X, 888d-890a, Sophist, 265c and Republic, II, 358a-359b; and one passage from Aristotle: Sophistical Refutations, 173a-b. The passage from Republic, II, 358a-359b refers to the speech of Thrasymachus that precedes it, in book I, 343c-344c, and the passage from Sophistical Refutations, 173a-b, mentions the speech of Callicles in Gorgias, 482c-486d, but in both cases taking them as particular examples of general ideas more widely spread; we refer to these specific passages, as well as others throughout the text, as auxiliaries to the understanding of the general ones. Through the analysis and comparison of these texts I hope to clarify how the importance of the discussion around the natural and conventional or legal in sophistical thought was perceived by Plato and Aristotle.