Gorgias ( / ˈ ɡ ɔːr dʒ i ə s / GOR -jee-əs ; Ancient Greek : Γοργίας ; c. 483 BC – c. 375 BC ) was an ancient Greek sophist , pre-Socratic philosopher , and rhetorician who was a native of Leontinoi in Sicily . Several doxographers report that he was a pupil of Empedocles , although he would only have been a few years younger. W. K. C. Guthrie writes that "Like other Sophists, he was an itinerant that practiced in various cities and giving public exhibitions of his skill at the great pan-Hellenic centers of Olympia and Delphi, and charged fees for his instruction and performances. A special feature of his displays was to ask miscellaneous questions from the audience and give impromptu replies." He has been called "Gorgias the Nihilist ", although the degree to which this epithet adequately describes his philosophy is controversial.
182-453: Ajñāna ( Sanskrit : अज्ञान , (Vedic) IPA: /ɐd͡ʑ.ɲɑː.nɐ/; (Classical) IPA: /ɐd͡ʑˈɲɑː.n̪ɐ/) was one of the nāstika or "heterodox" schools of ancient Indian philosophy , and the ancient school of radical Indian skepticism . It was a Śramaṇa movement and a major rival of early Buddhism , Jainism and the Ājīvika school. They have been recorded in Buddhist and Jain texts. They held that it
364-434: A critique of epistemology. In the same passage, Silanka further continues: Knowledge cannot completely comprehend the nature of the object of knowledge, for it is said, "whatever is apprehended should have the parts, near, middle and outer but here only the near part is apprehended and not the others since it is determined by it (i.e. the nature of the object)"; as for the exhausting the atom ( paramanu-paryavasanata? ) with
546-534: A dead language in the most common usage of the term. Pollock's notion of the "death of Sanskrit" remains in this unclear realm between academia and public opinion when he says that "most observers would agree that, in some crucial way, Sanskrit is dead." The Sanskrit language scholar Moriz Winternitz states, Sanskrit was never a dead language and it is still alive though its prevalence is lesser than ancient and medieval times. Sanskrit remains an integral part of Hindu journals, festivals, Ramlila plays, drama, rituals and
728-606: A demonstration of its power over us," (Gumpert, 73). According to Van Hook, The Encomium of Helen abounds in "amplification and brevity, a rhythm making prose akin to poetry, bold metaphors and poetic or unusual epithets" (122). In the Defense of Palamedes Gorgias describes logos as a positive instrument for creating ethical arguments (McComiskey 38). The Defense , an oration that deals with issues of morality and political commitment (Consigny 38), defends Palamedes who, in Greek mythology ,
910-473: A framework for expressing the implications of action and the ways decisions about such actions were made" (Jarratt 103). And this is exactly the purpose of Gorgias' Encomium of Helen . Of the three divisions of rhetoric discussed by Aristotle in his Rhetoric (forensic, deliberative, and epideictic), the Encomium can be classified as an epideictic speech, expressing praise for Helen of Troy and ridding her of
1092-629: A gold statue of himself for a public temple. After his Pythian Oration, the Greeks installed a solid gold statue of him in the temple of Apollo at Delphi (Matsen, Rollinson and Sousa, 33). He died at Larissa in Thessaly . The philosophies of the pre-Socratic Greek Sophists are controversial among scholars in general, due to their highly subtle and ambiguous writings and also to the fact that they are best known as characters in Plato's dialogues . Gorgias, however,
1274-581: A language competed with numerous, less exact vernacular Indian languages called Prakritic languages ( prākṛta - ). The term prakrta literally means "original, natural, normal, artless", states Franklin Southworth . The relationship between Prakrit and Sanskrit is found in Indian texts dated to the 1st millennium CE. Patañjali acknowledged that Prakrit is the first language, one instinctively adopted by every child with all its imperfections and later leads to
1456-522: A means for a community of speakers, separated by geography or time, to share and understand profound ideas from each other. These speculations became particularly important to the Mīmāṃsā and the Nyaya schools of Hindu philosophy, and later to Vedanta and Mahayana Buddhism, states Frits Staal —a scholar of Linguistics with a focus on Indian philosophies and Sanskrit. Though written in a number of different scripts,
1638-486: A moral danger. While these three schools seem to have valued mental equanimity, it appears that the fourth school of Sceptics, associated with the philosopher Sanjaya Belatthiputta , did not share this value. A notable commonality among all these schools is the arrangement of propositions according to five-fold logic, alongside the usual two-fold mode and the four-fold mode ( catuṣkoṭi ) common in Pali Nikayas. The fifth mode
1820-454: A natural part of the earliest Vedic language, and that these developed in the centuries after the composition had been completed, and as a gradual unconscious process during the oral transmission by generations of reciters. The primary source for this argument is internal evidence of the text which betrays an instability of the phenomenon of retroflexion, with the same phrases having sandhi-induced retroflexion in some parts but not other. This
2002-479: A negative evidence to Pollock's hypothesis, but it is not positive evidence. A closer look at Sanskrit in the Indian history after the 12th century suggests that Sanskrit survived despite the odds. According to Hanneder, On a more public level the statement that Sanskrit is a dead language is misleading, for Sanskrit is quite obviously not as dead as other dead languages and the fact that it is spoken, written and read will probably convince most people that it cannot be
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#17330846262882184-460: A number of city-states, including Athens and Larisa . He was well known for delivering orations at Panhellenic Festivals and is described as having been "conspicuous" at Olympia . There is no surviving record of any role he might have played in organizing the festivals themselves. Gorgias's primary occupation was as a teacher of rhetoric. According to Aristotle , his students included Isocrates . (Other students are named in later traditions;
2366-596: A pan-Indo-Aryan accessibility to information and knowledge in the ancient and medieval times, in contrast to the Prakrit languages which were understood just regionally. It created a cultural bond across the subcontinent. As local languages and dialects evolved and diversified, Sanskrit served as the common language. It connected scholars from distant parts of South Asia such as Tamil Nadu and Kashmir, states Deshpande, as well as those from different fields of studies, though there must have been differences in its pronunciation given
2548-467: A question is put to them on this or that matter, they resort to verbal jugglery and eel-wriggling on four grounds." Brahmajala Sutta describes four schools of Scepticism, the first three of whom advocated Scepticism on the basis of fear of falsehood ( musavadabhaya ), fear of involvement ( upadanabhaya ), and fear of interrogation in debate ( anuyogabhaya ), respectively, which all of them considered undesirable since it led to remorse or worry, and which led to
2730-573: A refined and standardized grammatical form that emerged in the mid-1st millennium BCE and was codified in the most comprehensive of ancient grammars, the Aṣṭādhyāyī ('Eight chapters') of Pāṇini . The greatest dramatist in Sanskrit, Kālidāsa , wrote in classical Sanskrit, and the foundations of modern arithmetic were first described in classical Sanskrit. The two major Sanskrit epics, the Mahābhārata and
2912-534: A restrained language from which archaisms and unnecessary formal alternatives were excluded". The Classical form of the language simplified the sandhi rules but retained various aspects of the Vedic language, while adding rigor and flexibilities, so that it had sufficient means to express thoughts as well as being "capable of responding to the future increasing demands of an infinitely diversified literature", according to Renou. Pāṇini included numerous "optional rules" beyond
3094-422: A set of possible occurrences also need to be established. In the Defense these occurrences are as follows: communication between Palamedes and the enemy, exchange of a pledge in the form of hostages or money, and not being detected by guards or citizens. In his defense, Palamedes claims that a small sum of money would not have warranted such a large undertaking and reasons that a large sum of money, if indeed such
3276-439: A similar phonetic structure to Tamil. Hock et al. quoting George Hart state that there was influence of Old Tamil on Sanskrit. Hart compared Old Tamil and Classical Sanskrit to arrive at a conclusion that there was a common language from which these features both derived – "that both Tamil and Sanskrit derived their shared conventions, metres, and techniques from a common source, for it is clear that neither borrowed directly from
3458-506: A sister, whose name is not known, but whose grandson dedicated a golden statue to his great uncle at Delphi . It is not known whether Gorgias married or had children. Gorgias is said to have studied under the Sicilian philosopher Empedocles of Acragas ( c. 490 – c. 430 BC), but it is not known when, where, for how long, or in what capacity. He may have also studied under the rhetoricians Corax of Syracuse and Tisias , but very little
3640-616: A theory of being that at the same time refuted and parodied the Eleatic thesis. The original text was lost and today there remain just two paraphrases of it. The first is preserved by the Pyrrhonist philosopher Sextus Empiricus in Against the Logicians and the other by Pseudo-Aristotle , the author of On Melissus, Xenophanes, and Gorgias . Each work, however, excludes material that is discussed in
3822-621: A transaction had been made, would require the aid of many confederates in order for it to be transported. Palamedes reasons further that such an exchange could neither have occurred at night because the guards would be watching, nor in the day because everyone would be able to see. Palamedes continues, explaining that if the aforementioned conditions were, in fact, arranged then action would need to follow. Such action needed to take place either with or without confederates; however, if these confederates were free men then they were free to disclose any information they desired, but if they were slaves there
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#17330846262884004-471: A type of seduction, but he does not deny philosophy entirely, giving some respect to philosophers. Plato answers Gorgias by reaffirming the Parmenidean ideal that being is the basic substance and reality of which all things are composed, insisting that philosophy is a dialectic distinct from and superior to rhetoric (Wardy 52). Aristotle also criticizes Gorgias, labeling him a mere Sophist whose primary goal
4186-445: A work entitled Technai (Τέχναι), a manual of rhetorical instruction, which may have consisted of models to be memorized and demonstrate various principles of rhetorical practice (Leitch, et al. 29). Although some scholars claim that each work presents opposing statements, the four texts can be read as interrelated contributions to the up-and-coming theory and art ( technē ) of rhetoric (McComiskey 32). Of Gorgias' surviving works, only
4368-480: Is itself something, and has pretensions to communicate knowledge, in conflict with its explicit pronouncement that there is nothing and that it can't be known or communicated. Gisela Striker argues: "I find it hard to believe that anyone should ever have thought that Gorgias seriously advocated the view that nothing is and that he was, therefore, a 'nihilist.'" Similarly Caston states: "Gorgias would have to be not merely disconsolate, but quite dull-witted, to have missed
4550-573: Is a next world, then if it were to occur to me ( iti ce me assa ) that there is a next world, I would pronounce that there is a next world. Yet, I do not say so, I do not say thus, I do not say otherwise, I do not say no, I deny the denials. Similarly with regard to the propositions, "there is no next world", "there is and is not a next world", "there neither is nor is not a next world", "there are beings who survive (death)", "there are no beings who survive", "there are and are no beings who survive", "there neither are nor are there no beings who survive", "there
4732-521: Is a result and a consequence of good and evil actions", "there is no result or consequence of good or evil actions", "the Perfect One (Tathagato) exists after death", "the Perfect One does not exist after death", "the Perfect One both exists and does not exist after death", "the Perfect One neither exists nor does not exist after death"" A similar account is given in the Samaññaphala Sutta . In both
4914-508: Is akin to that of Latin and Ancient Greek in Europe. Sanskrit has significantly influenced most modern languages of the Indian subcontinent , particularly the languages of the northern, western, central and eastern Indian subcontinent. Sanskrit declined starting about and after the 13th century. This coincides with the beginning of Islamic invasions of South Asia to create, and thereafter expand
5096-525: Is best" or as "those in whom no knowledge, i.e. scepticism, is evident". Apart from the specific technical meaning, Silanka also uses the word ajñānikah in a more general sense to mean anyone who is ignorant. The traces of scepticism can be found in Vedic sources such as in the Nasadiya hymn and hymn to sraddha (faith) in Rigveda . In Brahmanas and Early Upanishads doubt regarding a person's existence after death
5278-679: Is best". Silanka criticises the Sceptics' belief that one cannot know what is on another's mind, saying "the inner mind of another can be apprehended by his external features, gestures, movements, gait, speech and the changes in his eyes and face." Although criticised by the Buddhists as amarāvikkhepikā (eel-wrigglers) in the Pali canon, the Buddha is depicted negating various the four-fold logical alternatives or catuṣkoṭi when posed with metaphysical questions, which
5460-407: Is bound to contradict existing theories, and hence cannot be true. Hence nothing can be known to be true. Thus the Sceptics conclude that the contradictions of metaphysics and the impossibility of omniscience leads them to accept Scepticism. In a similar vein, the Sceptics held that Scepticism is the best since it is difficult to gauge the thought process of another. This may also be the reason why
5642-525: Is cast, while the Yajñavalkya argued for the impossibility of knowing the ultimate reality or the atman. However the flourishing of sceptical thoughts seems to have occurred in a period with diverse, conflicting, and irreconcilable theories, regarding morality, metaphysics, and religious beliefs. It is natural, in the absence of a commonly accepted criterion of truth, for some people to wonder if any theory could be true at all. The Sceptics specifically pointed to
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5824-480: Is considered to be an important contribution to the genre of epitaphios. During the 5th and 4th centuries BC, such funeral orations were delivered by well-known orators during public burial ceremonies in Athens, whereby those who died in wars were honoured. Gorgias' text provides a clever critique of 5th century propagandist rhetoric in imperial Athens and is the basis for Plato's parody, Menexenus (Consigny 2). Plato
6006-451: Is credited with the invention of the alphabet, written laws, numbers, armor, and measures and weights (McComiskey 47). In the speech Palamedes defends himself against the charge of treason. In Greek mythology, Odysseus – in order to avoid going to Troy with Agamemnon and Menelaus to bring Helen back to Sparta – pretended to have gone mad and began sowing the fields with salt. When Palamedes threw Odysseus' son, Telemachus , in front of
6188-562: Is described in Brahmajala Sutta in similar terms as the first, except that for them to be led to believe in a proposition by one's likes, desires, aversions, and resentments would be entanglement ( upadanam ), and such entanglement would be a source of worry ( vighato ) and as such a moral danger ( antarayo ). According to Jayatilleke, this group adopted Scepticism mainly due to morality, since to do so otherwise would lead to worry and mental disquietude ( vighata ), and not necessarily due to
6370-402: Is exemplified by the way that he playfully approaches each argument with stylistic devices such as parody, artificial figuration and theatricality (Consigny 149). Gorgias' style of argumentation can be described as poetics-minus-the-meter ( poiêsis-minus-meter ). Gorgias argues that persuasive words have power ( dunamis ) that is equivalent to that of the gods and as strong as physical force. In
6552-441: Is fictitious). For the first main argument where Gorgias says, "there is no-thing", he tries to persuade the reader that thought and existence are not the same. By claiming that if thought and existence truly were the same, then everything that anyone thought would suddenly exist. He also attempted to prove that words and sensations could not be measured by the same standards, for even though words and sensations are both derived from
6734-452: Is found in the writing of Bharata Muni , the author of the ancient Natya Shastra text. The early Jain scholar Namisādhu acknowledged the difference, but disagreed that the Prakrit language was a corruption of Sanskrit. Namisādhu stated that the Prakrit language was the pūrvam ('came before, origin') and that it came naturally to children, while Sanskrit was a refinement of Prakrit through "purification by grammar". Sanskrit belongs to
6916-480: Is given as the denial of denials, that is, the rejection of the dialectician's view. The first school is described in the Brahmajala Sutta : Herein a certain recluse or brahmin does not understand, as it really is, that this is good or this is evil. And it occurs to him: I do not understand what is good or evil as it really is. Not understanding what is good or evil, as it really is, if I were to assert that this
7098-616: Is good and this is evil, that will be due to my likes, desires, aversions, or resentments. If it were due to my likes, desires, aversions or resentments, it would be wrong. And if I were wrong, it would cause me worry ( vighato ) and worry would be a moral danger to me ( antarayo ). Thus, through fear of being wrong ( musavadabhaya ) and the abhorrence of being wrong, he does not assert anything to be good or evil and on questions being put to him on this or that matter he resorts to verbal jugglery and eel-wriggling, saying: I do not say so, I do not say thus, I do not say otherwise, I do not say no, I deny
7280-580: Is here that Gorgias compares the effect of speech on the mind with the effect of drugs on the body. He states that Helen has the power to "lead" many bodies in competition by using her body as a weapon (Gumpert, 74). This image of "bodies led and misled, brought together and led apart, is of paramount importance in Gorgias' speech," (Gumpert, 74). While Gorgias primarily used metaphors and paradox, he famously used "figures of speech, or schemata" (Matsen, Rollinson and Sousa). This included balanced clauses ( isocolon ),
7462-403: Is inapprehensible to humans; and third, that even if existence is apprehensible, it certainly cannot be communicated or interpreted to one's neighbors. That being said, there is consensus in late 20th century and early 21st century scholarship that the label 'nihilist' is misleading, in part because if his argument were genuinely meant to support nihilism it would be self-undermining. The argument
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7644-561: Is known about either of these men, nor is anything known about their relationship with Gorgias. It is not known what kind of role Gorgias may have played in the politics in his native Leontinoi, but it is known that, in 427 BC, when he was around sixty years old, he was sent to Athens by his fellow-citizens as the head of an embassy to ask for Athenian protection against the aggression of the Syracusans . After 427 BC, Gorgias appears to have settled in mainland Greece, living at various points in
7826-443: Is located in the forehead ( lalatavyavasthitam ), etc. -- in respect of every category there is no uniformity in their assertion. The conflicting theories of atman can be traced to Early Upanisads. The idea of atman "made of everything" ( sarvamayah , idammayah adomayah ) would be omnipresent ( sarvagatam ) (Brhadaranyaka 4.4.5) while the transcendent atman defined negatively (Brhadaranyaka 3.9.26) would not be so. Again at Katha 2.3.17
8008-451: Is no one with an outstanding intellect whose statements may be regarded as authoritative; even if such a person existed, he cannot be discovered by one with a limited vision according to the maxim that "one who is not omniscient does not know everything" for it is said "how can one desiring to know that a certain person is omniscient at a certain time do so if he is devoid of that person's intellect, his knowledge and his consciousness"; owing to
8190-400: Is nothing', 'if there were anything no one would know it', 'and if anyone did know it, no one could communicate it'. This theory, thought of in the late 5th century BC, is still being contemplated by many philosophers throughout the world. This argument has led some to label Gorgias a nihilist (one who believes nothing exists, or that the world is incomprehensible, and that the concept of truth
8372-495: Is particularly frustrating for modern scholars to attempt to understand. While scholars debate the precise subtleties of the teachings of Protagoras , Hippias , and Prodicus , they generally agree on the basic frameworks of what these thinkers believed. With Gorgias, however, scholars widely disagree on even the most basic framework of his ideas, including over whether or not that framework even existed at all. The greatest hindrance to scholarly understanding of Gorgias's philosophy
8554-477: Is probable that "they would have seen no point in debate since one was nowhere nearer the truth at the end of it and at the same time feared debate because it could result in loss of their mental equanimity with they valued." The fourth school of Scepticism described in Brahmajala Sutta is associated with Sanjaya Belatthiputta, whose views are also recorded in the Samaññaphala Sutta , since identical language
8736-524: Is rare in the later version of the language. The Homerian Greek, like Ṛg-vedic Sanskrit, deploys simile extensively, but they are structurally very different. The early Vedic form of the Sanskrit language was far less homogenous compared to the Classical Sanskrit as defined by grammarians by about the mid-1st millennium BCE. According to Richard Gombrich—an Indologist and a scholar of Sanskrit, Pāli and Buddhist Studies—the archaic Vedic Sanskrit found in
8918-515: Is similar to the logic employed by the Ajñānins. However, all four schools of Ajñānins arrange their logic as five-fold formula, which seems to be based on the acceptance of the four-fold formula. This may mean that such logical schema was a common feature of the pre-Buddhist era. Alternatively, since there is no known school of Indian thinkers apart from the Buddhist who adopted a four-fold logical schema, and since all Sceptical schools are depicted to have
9100-479: Is taken along with evidence of controversy, for example, in passages of the Aitareya-Āraṇyaka (700 BCE), which features a discussion on whether retroflexion is valid in particular cases. The Ṛg-veda is a collection of books, created by multiple authors. These authors represented different generations, and the mandalas 2 to 7 are the oldest while the mandalas 1 and 10 are relatively the youngest. Yet,
9282-542: Is that he transplanted rhetoric from his native Sicily to Attica , and contributed to the diffusion of the Attic dialect as the language of literary prose. Gorgias was born c. 483 BC in Leontinoi , a Chalcidian colony in eastern Sicily that was allied with Athens . His father's name was Charmantides. He had a brother named Herodicus, who was a physician, and sometimes accompanied him during his travels. He also had
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#17330846262889464-702: Is that the vast majority of his writings have been lost and those that have survived have suffered considerable alteration by later copyists. These difficulties are further compounded by the fact that Gorgias's rhetoric is frequently elusive and confusing; he makes many of his most important points using elaborate, but highly ambiguous, metaphors, similes, and puns. Many of Gorgias's propositions are also thought to be sarcastic, playful, or satirical. In his treatise On Rhetoric , Aristotle characterizes Gorgias's style of oratory as "pervasively ironic" and states that Gorgias recommended responding to seriousness with jests and to jests with seriousness. Gorgias frequently blurs
9646-437: Is the relationship between words and their meanings in the context of a community of speakers, whether this relationship is objective or subjective, discovered or is created, how individuals learn and relate to the world around them through language, and about the limits of language? They speculated on the role of language, the ontological status of painting word-images through sound, and the need for rules so that it can serve as
9828-405: Is to make money by appearing wise and clever, thus deceiving the public by means of misleading or sophistic arguments. Despite these negative portrayals, Gorgias's style of rhetoric was highly influential. Gorgias's Defense of Helen influenced Euripides 's Helen and his Defense of Palamedes influenced the development of western dicanic argument, including possibly even Plato's version of
10010-425: Is to prove that being has no existence at all. Regardless of how it "has largely been seen" it seems clear that Gorgias was focused instead on the notion that true objectivity is impossible since the human mind can never be separated from its possessor. "How can anyone communicate the idea of color by means of words since the ear does not hear colors but only sounds?" This quote was used to show his theory that 'there
10192-468: Is unnecessary to learn the truth about actual matters when one has discovered the art of persuasion. In the dialogue, Gorgias responds to one of Socrates' statements as follows: "Rhetoric is the only area of expertise you need to learn. You can ignore all the rest and still get the better of the professionals!" (Plato 24). Gorgias, whose On Non-Existence is taken to be critical of the Eleatic tradition and its founder Parmenides , describes philosophy as
10374-576: Is used to describe them. Sanjaya is described as a contemporary of the Buddha, as a well-known and celebrated teacher, and as a leader of a sect who was held in high esteem by the common folk. He is said to have taught Sariputta and Moggallana, before their conversion to Buddhism. In Brahmajala Sutta, this fourth school of Sceptics is described as thus: Herein a certain recluse or brahmin is dull, stupid. And by reason of his dullness and stupidity, when questioned on this or that matter, he resorts to verbal jugglery or eel-wriggling: "If you ask me whether there
10556-467: Is widely thought to have influenced the styles of the historian Thucydides , the tragic playwright Agathon , the doctor Hippocrates , the rhetorician Alcidamas , and the poet and commentator Lycophron . Gorgias is reputed to have lived to be one hundred and eight years old (Matsen, Rollinson and Sousa, 33). He won admiration for his ability to speak on any subject (Matsen, Rollinson and Sousa, 33). He accumulated considerable wealth; enough to commission
10738-709: The Apology of Socrates . For almost all of western history, Gorgias has been a marginalized and obscure figure in both philosophical thought and culture at large. In the nineteenth century, however, writers such as the German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) and the English classicist George Grote (1794–1871) began to work to "rehabilitate" Gorgias and the other Sophists from their longstanding reputation as unscrupulous charlatans who taught people how to persuade others using rhetoric for unjust causes. As early as 1872,
10920-526: The Bhagavata Purana , the Panchatantra and many other texts are all in the Sanskrit language. The Classical Sanskrit with its exacting grammar was thus the language of the Indian scholars and the educated classes, while others communicated with approximate or ungrammatical variants of it as well as other natural Indian languages. Sanskrit, as the learned language of Ancient India, thus existed alongside
11102-533: The Suda adds Pericles , Polus , and Alcidamas , Diogenes Laërtius mentions Antisthenes , and according to Philostratus , "I understand that he attracted the attention of the most admired men, Critias and Alcibiades who were young, and Thucydides and Pericles who were already old. Agathon too, the tragic poet, whom Comedy regards as wise and eloquent, often Gorgianizes in his iambic verse"). Additionally, although they are not described as his students, Gorgias
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#173308462628811284-568: The Dalai Lama , the Sanskrit language is a parent language that is at the foundation of many modern languages of India and the one that promoted Indian thought to other distant countries. In Tibetan Buddhism, states the Dalai Lama, Sanskrit language has been a revered one and called legjar lhai-ka or "elegant language of the gods". It has been the means of transmitting the "profound wisdom of Buddhist philosophy" to Tibet. The Sanskrit language created
11466-474: The Encomium and the Defense are believed to exist in their entirety. Meanwhile, there are his own speeches, rhetorical, political, or other. A number of these are referred to and quoted by Aristotle , including a speech on Hellenic unity, a funeral oration for Athenians fallen in war, and a brief quotation from an Encomium on the Eleans. Apart from the speeches, there are paraphrases of the treatise "On Nature or
11648-415: The Encomium , Gorgias likens the effect of speech on the soul to the effect of drugs on the body: "Just as different drugs draw forth different humors from the body – some putting a stop to disease, others to life – so too with words: some cause pain, others joy, some strike fear, some stir the audience to boldness, some benumb and bewitch the soul with evil persuasion" (Gorgias 32). The Encomium "argues for
11830-668: The Indo-European family of languages . It is one of the three earliest ancient documented languages that arose from a common root language now referred to as Proto-Indo-European : Other Indo-European languages distantly related to Sanskrit include archaic and Classical Latin ( c. 600 BCE–100 CE, Italic languages ), Gothic (archaic Germanic language , c. 350 CE ), Old Norse ( c. 200 CE and after), Old Avestan ( c. late 2nd millennium BCE ) and Younger Avestan ( c. 900 BCE). The closest ancient relatives of Vedic Sanskrit in
12012-695: The Rigveda had already evolved in the Vedic period, as evidenced in the later Vedic literature. Gombrich posits that the language in the early Upanishads of Hinduism and the late Vedic literature approaches Classical Sanskrit, while the archaic Vedic Sanskrit had by the Buddha 's time become unintelligible to all except ancient Indian sages. The formalization of the Saṃskṛta language is credited to Pāṇini , along with Patañjali's Mahābhāṣya and Katyayana's commentary that preceded Patañjali's work. Panini composed Aṣṭādhyāyī ('Eight-Chapter Grammar'), which became
12194-526: The Rāmāyaṇa , however, were composed in a range of oral storytelling registers called Epic Sanskrit which was used in northern India between 400 BCE and 300 CE, and roughly contemporary with classical Sanskrit. In the following centuries, Sanskrit became tradition-bound, stopped being learned as a first language, and ultimately stopped developing as a living language. The hymns of the Rigveda are notably similar to
12376-406: The sandhi rules, both internal and external. Quite many words found in the early Vedic Sanskrit language are never found in late Vedic Sanskrit or Classical Sanskrit literature, while some words have different and new meanings in Classical Sanskrit when contextually compared to the early Vedic Sanskrit literature. Arthur Macdonell was among the early colonial era scholars who summarized some of
12558-500: The verbal adjective sáṃskṛta- is a compound word consisting of sáṃ ('together, good, well, perfected') and kṛta - ('made, formed, work'). It connotes a work that has been "well prepared, pure and perfect, polished, sacred". According to Biderman, the perfection contextually being referred to in the etymological origins of the word is its tonal—rather than semantic—qualities. Sound and oral transmission were highly valued qualities in ancient India, and its sages refined
12740-413: The (knowledge of) the near portion, considering the unrepresented parts out of the three parts, it is not possible to apprehend the atom by those with a limited vision owing to the excellence of its nature; therefore, since there is no omniscient person and since one who is not omniscient cannot comprehend the nature of an object as it is constituted, since all the theorists ( sarvavadinam ) have conceived of
12922-414: The 13th century, a premier center of Sanskrit literary creativity, Sanskrit literature there disappeared, perhaps in the "fires that periodically engulfed the capital of Kashmir" or the "Mongol invasion of 1320" states Pollock. The Sanskrit literature which was once widely disseminated out of the northwest regions of the subcontinent, stopped after the 12th century. As Hindu kingdoms fell in the eastern and
13104-560: The 1st century BCE, such as the Ayodhya Inscription of Dhana and Ghosundi-Hathibada (Chittorgarh) . Though developed and nurtured by scholars of orthodox schools of Hinduism, Sanskrit has been the language for some of the key literary works and theology of heterodox schools of Indian philosophies such as Buddhism and Jainism. The structure and capabilities of the Classical Sanskrit language launched ancient Indian speculations about "the nature and function of language", what
13286-521: The 7th century where he established a major center of learning and language translation under the patronage of Emperor Taizong. By the early 1st millennium CE, Sanskrit had spread Buddhist and Hindu ideas to Southeast Asia, parts of the East Asia and the Central Asia. It was accepted as a language of high culture and the preferred language by some of the local ruling elites in these regions. According to
13468-750: The Ajñāna come from the Buddhists and Jain sources. The Ajñāna view points are recorded in Theravada Buddhism 's Pāli Canon in the Brahmajala Sutta and Samaññaphala Sutta and in the Sūyagaḍaṃga of Jainism . Along with these texts, the sayings and opinions of the Sceptics ( ajñānikāḥ , ajñānināḥ ) has been preserved by Jain writer Silanka, from the ninth century, commenting on the Sutrakritanga . Silanka considers sceptics "those who claim that scepticism
13650-482: The Buddhists as well. Judging by the propositions listed, Sanjaya's scepticism seems to have encompassed both metaphysics and morality. Sanjaya seems to grant the possibility of their truth, while denying the possibility of knowing this. The Jains criticised the Sceptics by pointing out that their scepticism should lead them to the conclusion that they know nothing whatsoever, yet they assert the knowledge of their scepticism and claim to know such propositions as "ignorance
13832-521: The Dravidian languages borrowed from Sanskrit vocabulary, but they have also affected Sanskrit on deeper levels of structure, "for instance in the domain of phonology where Indo-Aryan retroflexes have been attributed to Dravidian influence". Similarly, Ferenc Ruzca states that all the major shifts in Indo-Aryan phonetics over two millennia can be attributed to the constant influence of a Dravidian language with
14014-513: The Dravidian words and forms, without modifying the word order; but the same thing is not possible in rendering a Persian or English sentence into a non-Indo-Aryan language. Shulman mentions that "Dravidian nonfinite verbal forms (called vinaiyeccam in Tamil) shaped the usage of the Sanskrit nonfinite verbs (originally derived from inflected forms of action nouns in Vedic). This particularly salient case of
14196-593: The English philosopher Henry Sidgwick (1838–1900) was already calling this the "old view". Modern sources continue to affirm that the old stereotype of the Sophists is not accurate. Since the late twentieth century, scholarly interest in Gorgias has increased dramatically and the amount of research conducted on him is even beginning to rival the research on his more traditionally popular contemporary Parmenides . Gorgias's distinctive writing style, filled with antithesis and figurative language, has been seen as foreshadowing
14378-480: The Hinayana) but the Prakrit works that have survived are of doubtful authenticity. Some of the canonical fragments of the early Buddhist traditions, discovered in the 20th century, suggest the early Buddhist traditions used an imperfect and reasonably good Sanskrit, sometimes with a Pali syntax, states Renou. The Mahāsāṃghika and Mahavastu, in their late Hinayana forms, used hybrid Sanskrit for their literature. Sanskrit
14560-469: The Indo-Aryan language underwent rapid linguistic change and morphed into the Vedic Sanskrit language. The pre-Classical form of Sanskrit is known as Vedic Sanskrit . The earliest attested Sanskrit text is the Rigveda , a Hindu scripture from the mid- to late-second millennium BCE. No written records from such an early period survive, if any ever existed, but scholars are generally confident that
14742-507: The Indo-European languages are the Nuristani languages found in the remote Hindu Kush region of northeastern Afghanistan and northwestern Himalayas, as well as the extinct Avestan and Old Persian – both are Iranian languages . Sanskrit belongs to the satem group of the Indo-European languages. Colonial era scholars familiar with Latin and Greek were struck by the resemblance of
14924-507: The Jain Sutrakrtanga lists sixty-seven "schools" of Sceptics among three hundred and sixty-three different schools of thought. While the list is artificially constructed according to Jain categories, the four main schools of thought, Kriyavada, Akriyavada, Ajnanikavada, and Vainayikavada, and their subgroups must have existed. Thus, philosophical Scepticism is thought to have appeared around this historic time frame. The Ajñāna claimed that
15106-512: The Jain leaders and Purana Kassapa, and maybe later to Makkhali Gosala and the Buddha, on the basis of which they claimed to speak with authority. The dictum, that with a limited knowledge no one can know that any person is omniscient, may possibly be an old saying of the Sceptics; and they may have extended the idea to say that since human intellect was limited, no one could claim to know everything with such limited intellect. The passage may also be seen as
15288-521: The Muslim rule in the form of Sultanates, and later the Mughal Empire . Sheldon Pollock characterises the decline of Sanskrit as a long-term "cultural, social, and political change". He dismisses the idea that Sanskrit declined due to "struggle with barbarous invaders", and emphasises factors such as the increasing attractiveness of vernacular language for literary expression. With the fall of Kashmir around
15470-542: The Muslim rulers. Hindu rulers such as Shivaji of the Maratha Empire , reversed the process, by re-adopting Sanskrit and re-asserting their socio-linguistic identity. After Islamic rule disintegrated in South Asia and the colonial rule era began, Sanskrit re-emerged but in the form of a "ghostly existence" in regions such as Bengal. This decline was the result of "political institutions and civic ethos" that did not support
15652-752: The Non-Existent." These works are each part of the Diels-Kranz collection, and although academics consider this source reliable, many of the works included are fragmentary and corrupt. Questions have also been raised as to the authenticity and accuracy of the texts attributed to Gorgias (Consigny 4). Gorgias' writings are intended to be both rhetorical (persuasive) and performative. He goes to great lengths to exhibit his ability of making an absurd, argumentative position appear stronger. Consequently, each of his works defend positions that are unpopular, paradoxical and even absurd. The performative nature of Gorgias' writings
15834-488: The Saṃskṛta language, both in its vocabulary and grammar, to the classical languages of Europe. In The Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-European World , Mallory and Adams illustrate the resemblance with the following examples of cognate forms (with the addition of Old English for further comparison): The correspondences suggest some common root, and historical links between some of
16016-399: The Sceptics held to another dictum that All teachings are like the utterances of barbarians since they have no (epistemic) basis. Likewise, Silanka comments, "owing to the difficulty of knowing another's mind, they do not grasp what is intended by the words of their teacher and thus repeat the other's words like a barbarian without understanding the real meaning." Regarding this passage and
16198-616: The South India, such as the great Vijayanagara Empire , so did Sanskrit. There were exceptions and short periods of imperial support for Sanskrit, mostly concentrated during the reign of the tolerant Mughal emperor Akbar . Muslim rulers patronized the Middle Eastern language and scripts found in Persia and Arabia, and the Indians linguistically adapted to this Persianization to gain employment with
16380-447: The Vedic Sanskrit in these books of the Ṛg-veda "hardly presents any dialectical diversity", states Louis Renou – an Indologist known for his scholarship of the Sanskrit literature and the Ṛg-veda in particular. According to Renou, this implies that the Vedic Sanskrit language had a "set linguistic pattern" by the second half of the 2nd millennium BCE. Beyond the Ṛg-veda, the ancient literature in Vedic Sanskrit that has survived into
16562-451: The Vedic Sanskrit's bahulam framework, to respect liberty and creativity so that individual writers separated by geography or time would have the choice to express facts and their views in their own way, where tradition followed competitive forms of the Sanskrit language. The phonetic differences between Vedic Sanskrit and Classical Sanskrit, as discerned from the current state of the surviving literature, are negligible when compared to
16744-507: The absence of the knowledge of the means, it cannot properly be accomplished; it cannot be accomplished because of the mutual dependence (of the two); for it is said "without a super-knowledge ( visistaparijñana ) the knowledge of the means is not attained and as a result there is no attainment of the super-knowledge of the object". This criticism of omniscience seems to be directed at those teachers who claimed omniscience, or to their followers who later claimed them to be omniscient, specifically
16926-403: The accounts, the stupidity of this school is emphasised, highlighting the antipathy that the Buddhists felt about this school. In the Brahmajala Sutta , out of sixty-two philosophical schools mentioned, this school is singled out as being "a product of sheer stupidity;" whereas in the Samaññaphala Sutta , Ajatasattu singles out Sanjaya as "the most foolish and stupid." Notable in this account of
17108-455: The alphabet, the structure of words, and its exacting grammar into a "collection of sounds, a kind of sublime musical mold" as an integral language they called Saṃskṛta . From the late Vedic period onwards, state Annette Wilke and Oliver Moebus, resonating sound and its musical foundations attracted an "exceptionally large amount of linguistic, philosophical and religious literature" in India. Sound
17290-417: The atman is of "the size of a digit", while at Chandogya 3.14.3, the atman is "smaller than a kernel of a grain of millet". Again at Brhadaranyaka 2.3.1, Brahman which is identical with the atman is said "both to have form and also be formless." Likewise at Katha 2.3.17 the atman "resides in the heart" while at Aitareya Aranyaka 2.1.4.6 it is located in the head. In the same passage, Silanka continues: There
17472-567: The blame she faced for leaving Sparta with Paris (Wardy 26). Helen – the proverbial "Helen of Troy" – exemplified both sexual passion and tremendous beauty for the Greeks. She was the daughter of Zeus and Leda, the Queen of Sparta, and her beauty was seen by the Trojans as the direct cause of the decade long Trojan War between Greece and Troy . The war began after the goddesses Hera , Athena , and Aphrodite asked Paris (a Trojan prince) to select who
17654-440: The capacity to understand the old Prakrit languages such as Ardhamagadhi . A section of European scholars state that Sanskrit was never a spoken language. However, evidences shows that Sanskrit was a spoken language, essential for oral tradition that preserved the vast number of Sanskrit manuscripts from ancient India. The textual evidence in the works of Yaksa, Panini, and Patanajali affirms that Classical Sanskrit in their era
17836-428: The category of the soul, some assert that the soul is omnipresent ( sarvagatam ) and other that it is not omnipresent ( asarvagatam ), some (say) it is of the size of a digit ( angustaparvamatram ) others that it is of the size of a kernel of a grain of millet ( syamakatandulamatram ) some say it both has form and is formless ( murtamamurtam ), some that it resides in the heart ( hrdayamadhyavartinam ) and (others) that it
18018-517: The close relationship between the Indo-Iranian tongues and the Baltic and Slavic languages , vocabulary exchange with the non-Indo-European Uralic languages , and the nature of the attested Indo-European words for flora and fauna. The pre-history of Indo-Aryan languages which preceded Vedic Sanskrit is unclear and various hypotheses place it over a fairly wide limit. According to Thomas Burrow, based on
18200-557: The conflict between his presentation and its content". Finally, Wardy says, "This sadly mistaken reading overlooks the most obvious consequence of Gorgias' paradoxologia (παραδοξολογία): his message refutes itself, and in consequence, so far from constituting a theory of logos , it confronts us with a picture of what language cannot be, with what it cannot be assumed to aspire to be." Gigon and Newiger make similar points. Gorgias ushered in rhetorical innovations involving structure and ornamentation, and he introduced paradoxologia –
18382-408: The conflicting theories of atman and the requirement of omniscience, and hence the criticism of omniscience, to obtain true knowledge. A proliferation of view points existed during the period immediately preceding the rise of Buddhism, as attested in the Buddhist and Jain texts. The Buddhist Brahmajal Sutta lists four types (or schools) of Sceptics along with fifty-eight other schools of thought, while
18564-554: The considerations of rebirth, as understood according to the Buddhist connotation of the word "entanglement". In Brahmajala Sutta, the third school of Scepticism is shown to put forward such arguments in support for their view point: I do not know, as it really is, what is good and what is evil and not knowing, if I were to pronounce that this is good or this is evil, then I would have to join issue, argue and debate with recluses and brahmins, learned, subtle, hair-splitters, skilled in controversy, who go about debunking with their intellect
18746-609: The context of a speech or language, is found in verses 5.28.17–19 of the Ramayana . Outside the learned sphere of written Classical Sanskrit, vernacular colloquial dialects ( Prakrits ) continued to evolve. Sanskrit co-existed with numerous other Prakrit languages of ancient India. The Prakrit languages of India also have ancient roots and some Sanskrit scholars have called these Apabhramsa , literally 'spoiled'. The Vedic literature includes words whose phonetic equivalent are not found in other Indo-European languages but which are found in
18928-691: The crystallization of Classical Sanskrit. As in this period the Indo-Aryan tribes had not yet made contact with the inhabitants of the South of the subcontinent, this suggests a significant presence of Dravidian speakers in North India (the central Gangetic plain and the classical Madhyadeśa) who were instrumental in this substratal influence on Sanskrit. Extant manuscripts in Sanskrit number over 30 million, one hundred times those in Greek and Latin combined, constituting
19110-428: The denials. (literally, I do not say "no, no"). In the absence of adequate information, the Sceptics prudently recommend suspension of judgement. The Sceptics felt that it was not just intellectually dishonest, but also morally dangerous not to do so. However, according to Jayatilleke, this was probably not a temporary suspension of judgement, until new information could come by to make a better evaluation; but rather it
19292-467: The detailed and sophisticated treatise then transmitted it through his students. Modern scholarship generally accepts that he knew of a form of writing, based on references to words such as Lipi ('script') and lipikara ('scribe') in section 3.2 of the Aṣṭādhyāyī . The Classical Sanskrit language formalized by Pāṇini, states Renou, is "not an impoverished language", rather it is "a controlled and
19474-467: The differences between the Vedic and Classical Sanskrit. Louis Renou published in 1956, in French, a more extensive discussion of the similarities, the differences and the evolution of the Vedic Sanskrit within the Vedic period and then to the Classical Sanskrit along with his views on the history. This work has been translated by Jagbans Balbir. The earliest known use of the word Saṃskṛta (Sanskrit), in
19656-456: The distant major ancient languages of the world. The Indo-Aryan migrations theory explains the common features shared by Sanskrit and other Indo-European languages by proposing that the original speakers of what became Sanskrit arrived in South Asia from a region of common origin, somewhere north-west of the Indus region , during the early 2nd millennium BCE. Evidence for such a theory includes
19838-501: The divine power of the gods, how could a weaker person refuse and reject him? But if love is a human sickness and a mental weakness, it must not be blamed as mistake, but claimed as misfortune" (Gorgias 32). Finally, if speech persuaded Helen, Gorgias claims he can easily clear her of blame. Gorgias explains: "Speech is a powerful master and achieves the most divine feats with the smallest and least evident body. It can stop fear, relieve pain, create joy, and increase pity" (Gorgias 31). It
20020-451: The dominant language of Hindu texts has been Sanskrit. It or a hybrid form of Sanskrit became the preferred language of Mahayana Buddhism scholarship; for example, one of the early and influential Buddhist philosophers, Nagarjuna (~200 CE), used Classical Sanskrit as the language for his texts. According to Renou, Sanskrit had a limited role in the Theravada tradition (formerly known as
20202-718: The existence of anything that is straightforwardly endorsed by Gorgias himself. According to Alan Pratt, nihilism is "the belief that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated." It is associated with pessimism and a radical skepticism that condemns existence. Gorgias presented his nihilist arguments in On Non-Existence ; however, the original text is no longer extant. We only know his arguments through commentary by Sextus Empiricus and Pseudo-Aristotle 's De Melisso, Xenophane, Gorgia. Ostensibly Gorgias developed three sequential arguments: first, that nothing exists; second, that even if existence exists, it
20384-525: The extant work by the Pyrrhonist philosopher Sextus Empiricus . Sanskrit language Sanskrit ( / ˈ s æ n s k r ɪ t / ; attributively 𑀲𑀁𑀲𑁆𑀓𑀾𑀢𑀁 , संस्कृत- , saṃskṛta- ; nominally संस्कृतम् , saṃskṛtam , IPA: [ˈsɐ̃skr̩tɐm] ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages . It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from
20566-543: The first language of the respective speakers. The Sanskrit language brought Indo-Aryan speaking people together, particularly its elite scholars. Some of these scholars of Indian history regionally produced vernacularized Sanskrit to reach wider audiences, as evidenced by texts discovered in Rajasthan, Gujarat, and Maharashtra. Once the audience became familiar with the easier to understand vernacularized version of Sanskrit, those interested could graduate from colloquial Sanskrit to
20748-475: The five-fold formula of denial, which seems to be based on the acceptance of a four-fold form of predication, this may suggest the four-fold schema to be the Buddhist invention. Indeed, two of the foremost disciples of Buddha, Sariputta and Moggallāna , were initially the students of Sanjaya; and a strong element of skepticism is found in early Buddhism, most particularly in the Aṭṭhakavagga sutra. The catuṣkoṭi
20930-412: The foundation of Vyākaraṇa, a Vedānga . The Aṣṭādhyāyī was not the first description of Sanskrit grammar, but it is the earliest that has survived in full, and the culmination of a long grammatical tradition that Fortson says, is "one of the intellectual wonders of the ancient world". Pāṇini cites ten scholars on the phonological and grammatical aspects of the Sanskrit language before him, as well as
21112-515: The four logical alternatives mentioned in Timon's account (i.e. is, is not, both is and is not, neither is nor is not) are identical with that of Sanjaya, the Buddhists, and perhaps also of the three schools of Sceptics... Lastly (4) the value of the sceptical attitude is said by Pyrrho to lie in the fact that it promotes speechlessness (aphasia) and mental imperturbability (ataraxia). Scholars including Barua, Jayatilleke , and Flintoff, contend that Pyrrho
21294-440: The fourth school of Scepticism is the lack of concern for good life and peace of mind, which the previous three schools regarded as desirable, and hence their advocacy of scepticism. Jayatilleke states that Sanjaya may have been a more thorough-going sceptic, to the point of being sceptical about a sceptic's way of life, and as such might have been a more vocal critic of his opponents and their regard for mental tranquillity, valued by
21476-476: The gods Varuna, Mitra, Indra, and Nasatya found in the earliest layers of the Vedic literature. O Bṛhaspati, when in giving names they first set forth the beginning of Language, Their most excellent and spotless secret was laid bare through love, When the wise ones formed Language with their mind, purifying it like grain with a winnowing fan, Then friends knew friendships – an auspicious mark placed on their language. The Vedic Sanskrit found in
21658-431: The historic Sanskrit literary culture and the failure of new Sanskrit literature to assimilate into the changing cultural and political environment. Sheldon Pollock states that in some crucial way, "Sanskrit is dead ". After the 12th century, the Sanskrit literary works were reduced to "reinscription and restatements" of ideas already explored, and any creativity was restricted to hymns and verses. This contrasted with
21840-673: The idea of paradoxical thought and paradoxical expression. For these advancements, Gorgias has been labeled the "father of sophistry " (Wardy 6). Gorgias is also known for contributing to the diffusion of the Attic Greek dialect as the language of literary prose. Gorgias was the first orator known to develop and teach a "distinctive style of speaking" (Matsen, Rollinson and Sousa, 33). Gorgias' extant rhetorical works – Encomium of Helen (Ἑλένης ἐγκώμιον), Defense of Palamedes (Ὑπέρ Παλαμήδους ἀπολογία), On Non-Existence (Περὶ τοῦ μὴ ὄντος ἢ Περὶ φύσεως), and Epitaphios (Επιτάφιος) – come to us via
22022-478: The intense change that must have occurred in the pre-Vedic period between the Proto-Indo-Aryan language and Vedic Sanskrit. The noticeable differences between the Vedic and the Classical Sanskrit include the much-expanded grammar and grammatical categories as well as the differences in the accent, the semantics and the syntax. There are also some differences between how some of the nouns and verbs end, as well as
22204-419: The joining of contrasting ideas ( antithesis ), the structure of successive clauses (parison), and the repetition of word endings ( homoeoteleuton ) (Matsen, Rollinson and Sousa, 33). The Encomium shows Gorgias' interest in argumentation, as he makes his point by "systematically refuting a series of possible alternatives," (Matsen, Rollinson and Sousa, 33). It is an encomium of the "rhetorical craft itself, and
22386-459: The largest cultural heritage that any civilization has produced prior to the invention of the printing press. Sanskrit has been the predominant language of Hindu texts encompassing a rich tradition of philosophical and religious texts, as well as poetry, music, drama , scientific , technical and others. It is the predominant language of one of the largest collection of historic manuscripts. The earliest known inscriptions in Sanskrit are from
22568-549: The later development of Menippean satire , as well as, in more recent times, the mannerist , grotesque , and carnivalesque genres. Several scholars have even argued that Gorgias's thoughts on the nature of knowledge, language, and truth foreshadow the views of modern philosophers such as Martin Heidegger , Jacques Derrida , Ludwig Wittgenstein , A. J. Ayer , Amélie Rorty , and Stanley Fish . Nonetheless, many academic philosophers still ridicule any efforts to portray Gorgias as
22750-628: The lines between serious philosophical discourse and satire, which makes it extremely difficult for scholars to tell when he is being serious and when he is merely joking. Gorgias frequently contradicts his own statements and adopts inconsistent perspectives on different issues. As a result of all these factors, Scott Porter Consigny calls him "perhaps the most elusive of the polytropic quarry hunted in Plato's Sophist . Gorgias has been labelled "The Nihilist" because some scholars have interpreted his thesis on "the non-existent" to be an argument against
22932-412: The linguistic expression and sets the standard for the Sanskrit language. Pāṇini made use of a technical metalanguage consisting of a syntax, morphology and lexicon. This metalanguage is organised according to a series of meta-rules, some of which are explicitly stated while others can be deduced. Despite differences in the analysis from that of modern linguistics, Pāṇini's work has been found valuable and
23114-632: The list of sixty-seven types. However, according to Jayatilleke, these last four "types" may represent the kind of questions the Sceptics themselves might have asked. The last four questions are: Such psychological speculations seem to be rife during this era, as evinced in Pali Nikayas, especially the Potthapada Sutta. In the Pali texts, the Sceptics are nicknamed Amarāvikkhepika s, which translates as "eel-wrigglers," probably in reference to their "verbal jugglery." They are collectively spoken of as "some recluse and brahmins who wriggle like eels. For when
23296-503: The literary works. The Indian tradition, states Winternitz , has favored the learning and the usage of multiple languages from the ancient times. Sanskrit was a spoken language in the educated and the elite classes, but it was also a language that must have been understood in a wider circle of society because the widely popular folk epics and stories such as the Ramayana , the Mahabharata ,
23478-511: The maxims on knowledge, Jayatilleke compares the Sceptic's views with that of the Greek sophist Gorgias , as given in his book "Nature or the Non-existent," and proposes that the Sceptics may have arrived at their position using similar lines of reasoning. According to Jayatilleke's interpretation of the passage given by Silanka, perception is divided into near, middle, and outer, and we perceive only
23660-427: The mind, they are essentially different. This is where his second idea comes into place. The Encomium of Helen is considered to be a good example of epideictic oratory and was supposed to have been Gorgias' "show piece or demonstration piece," which was used to attract students (Matsen, Rollinson and Sousa, 33). In their writings, Gorgias and other sophists speculated "about the structure and function of language" as
23842-501: The modern age include the Samaveda , Yajurveda , Atharvaveda , along with the embedded and layered Vedic texts such as the Brahmanas , Aranyakas , and the early Upanishads . These Vedic documents reflect the dialects of Sanskrit found in the various parts of the northwestern, northern, and eastern Indian subcontinent. According to Michael Witzel, Vedic Sanskrit was a spoken language of
24024-429: The more advanced Classical Sanskrit. Rituals and the rites-of-passage ceremonies have been and continue to be the other occasions where a wide spectrum of people hear Sanskrit, and occasionally join in to speak some Sanskrit words such as namah . Classical Sanskrit is the standard register as laid out in the grammar of Pāṇini , around the fourth century BCE. Its position in the cultures of Greater India
24206-401: The most advanced analysis of linguistics until the twentieth century. Pāṇini's comprehensive and scientific theory of grammar is conventionally taken to mark the start of Classical Sanskrit. His systematic treatise inspired and made Sanskrit the preeminent Indian language of learning and literature for two millennia. It is unclear whether Pāṇini himself wrote his treatise or he orally created
24388-593: The most archaic poems of the Iranian and Greek language families, the Gathas of old Avestan and Iliad of Homer . As the Rigveda was orally transmitted by methods of memorisation of exceptional complexity, rigour and fidelity, as a single text without variant readings, its preserved archaic syntax and morphology are of vital importance in the reconstruction of the common ancestor language Proto-Indo-European . Sanskrit does not have an attested native script: from around
24570-409: The mountains of what is today northern Afghanistan across northern Pakistan and into northwestern India. Vedic Sanskrit interacted with the preexisting ancient languages of the subcontinent, absorbing names of newly encountered plants and animals; in addition, the ancient Dravidian languages influenced Sanskrit's phonology and syntax. Sanskrit can also more narrowly refer to Classical Sanskrit ,
24752-425: The nature of the categories in a mutually contradictory manner and those who have claimed super-knowledge ( uttarapari-jñaninam ) are at fault ( paramdavatam ) Scepticism is best owing to the magnitude of the mistakes that arise (from claims of knowledge). To the Sceptics, none of the contending theories, proposed by limited intellect, can be known to be true, since they are mutually contradictory. Also, any new theory
24934-474: The near; so each person's view of what they see of an object will be different according their perspective. Since our knowledge depends on our individual perspective, the knowledge would be subjective since different person will have differing perspectives. In the absence of objectivity, there is no knowledge and all private experiences of impressions of different individuals would be incommunicable. According to Silanka, The Sceptics... conceive that even if there
25116-435: The northwest in the late Bronze Age . Sanskrit is the sacred language of Hinduism , the language of classical Hindu philosophy , and of historical texts of Buddhism and Jainism . It was a link language in ancient and medieval South Asia, and upon transmission of Hindu and Buddhist culture to Southeast Asia, East Asia and Central Asia in the early medieval era, it became a language of religion and high culture , and of
25298-583: The numbers are thought to signify a wish to be aligned with the prestige of the language. Sanskrit has been taught in traditional gurukulas since ancient times; it is widely taught today at the secondary school level. The oldest Sanskrit college is the Benares Sanskrit College founded in 1791 during East India Company rule . Sanskrit continues to be widely used as a ceremonial and ritual language in Hindu and Buddhist hymns and chants . In Sanskrit,
25480-403: The oral transmission of the texts is reliable: they are ceremonial literature, where the exact phonetic expression and its preservation were a part of the historic tradition. However some scholars have suggested that the original Ṛg-veda differed in some fundamental ways in phonology compared to the sole surviving version available to us. In particular that retroflex consonants did not exist as
25662-432: The other, which suggests that each version may represent intermediary sources (Consigny 4). It is clear, however, that the work developed a skeptical argument, which has been extracted from the sources and translated as below: The argument has largely been seen as an ironic refutation of Parmenides ' thesis on Being. Gorgias set out to prove that it is as easy to demonstrate that being is one, unchanging and timeless as it
25844-431: The other." Reinöhl further states that there is a symmetric relationship between Dravidian languages like Kannada or Tamil, with Indo-Aryan languages like Bengali or Hindi, whereas the same relationship is not found for non-Indo-Aryan languages, for example, Persian or English: A sentence in a Dravidian language like Tamil or Kannada becomes ordinarily good Bengali or Hindi by substituting Bengali or Hindi equivalents for
26026-446: The others. Much debate over both the nature and value of rhetoric begins with Gorgias. Plato 's dialogue Gorgias presents a counter-argument to Gorgias' embrace of rhetoric, its elegant form, and performative nature (Wardy 2). The dialogue tells the story of a debate about rhetoric, politics and justice that occurred at a dinner gathering between Socrates and a small group of Sophists. Plato attempts to show that rhetoric does not meet
26208-448: The plow, Odysseus avoided him, demonstrating that he was sane. Odysseus, who never forgave Palamedes for making him reveal himself, later accused Palamedes of betraying the Greeks to the Trojans. Soon after, Palamedes was condemned and killed (Jarratt 58). In this epideictic speech, like the Encomium , Gorgias is concerned with experimenting with how plausible arguments can cause conventional truths to be doubted (Jarratt 59). Throughout
26390-522: The political elites in some of these regions. As a result, Sanskrit had a lasting impact on the languages of South Asia, Southeast Asia and East Asia, especially in their formal and learned vocabularies. Sanskrit generally connotes several Old Indo-Aryan language varieties. The most archaic of these is the Vedic Sanskrit found in the Rigveda , a collection of 1,028 hymns composed between 1500 BCE and 1200 BCE by Indo-Aryan tribes migrating east from
26572-585: The possibility of knowledge is doubtful since the claims to knowledge were mutually contradictory. Silanka quotes, "They posit the theory that since those who claim knowledge make mutually contradictory assertions, they cannot be stating the truth." Regarding Sceptic's point of view, Silanka in his commentary writes, as translated by Jayatilleke: For they (i.e. the Sceptics) say that those who claim knowledge ( jñaninah ) cannot be stating actual facts since their statements are mutually contradictory, for even with regard to
26754-414: The possible influence of Dravidian on Sanskrit is only one of many items of syntactic assimilation, not least among them the large repertoire of morphological modality and aspect that, once one knows to look for it, can be found everywhere in classical and postclassical Sanskrit". The main influence of Dravidian on Sanskrit is found to have been concentrated in the timespan between the late Vedic period and
26936-445: The possible reasons for Helen's journey to Troy. He explains that Helen could have been persuaded in one of four ways: by the gods, by physical force, by love, or by speech ( logos ). If it were indeed the plan of the gods that caused Helen to depart for Troy, Gorgias argues that those who blame her should face blame themselves, "for a human's anticipation cannot restrain a god's inclination" (Gorgias 31). Gorgias explains that, by nature,
27118-439: The previous 1,500 years when "great experiments in moral and aesthetic imagination" marked the Indian scholarship using Classical Sanskrit, states Pollock. Scholars maintain that the Sanskrit language did not die, but rather only declined. Jurgen Hanneder disagrees with Pollock, finding his arguments elegant but "often arbitrary". According to Hanneder, a decline or regional absence of creative and innovative literature constitutes
27300-480: The problems of interpretation and misunderstanding. The purifying structure of the Sanskrit language removes these imperfections. The early Sanskrit grammarian Daṇḍin states, for example, that much in the Prakrit languages is etymologically rooted in Sanskrit, but involves "loss of sounds" and corruptions that result from a "disregard of the grammar". Daṇḍin acknowledged that there are words and confusing structures in Prakrit that thrive independent of Sanskrit. This view
27482-596: The regional Prakrit languages, which makes it likely that the interaction, the sharing of words and ideas began early in the Indian history. As the Indian thought diversified and challenged earlier beliefs of Hinduism, particularly in the form of Buddhism and Jainism , the Prakrit languages such as Pali in Theravada Buddhism and Ardhamagadhi in Jainism competed with Sanskrit in the ancient times. However, states Paul Dundas , these ancient Prakrit languages had "roughly
27664-490: The relationship between various Indo-European languages, the origin of all these languages may possibly be in what is now Central or Eastern Europe, while the Indo-Iranian group possibly arose in Central Russia. The Iranian and Indo-Aryan branches separated quite early. It is the Indo-Aryan branch that moved into eastern Iran and then south into South Asia in the first half of the 2nd millennium BCE. Once in ancient India,
27846-406: The requirements to actually be considered a technê but rather is a somewhat dangerous "knack" to possess, both for the orator and for his audience, because it gives the ignorant the power to seem more knowledgeable than an expert to a group. Gorgias is the author of a lost work : On Nature or the Non-Existent (also On Non-Existence ). Rather than being one of his rhetorical works, it presented
28028-476: The rites-of-passage. Similarly, Brian Hatcher states that the "metaphors of historical rupture" by Pollock are not valid, that there is ample proof that Sanskrit was very much alive in the narrow confines of surviving Hindu kingdoms between the 13th and 18th centuries, and its reverence and tradition continues. Hanneder states that modern works in Sanskrit are either ignored or their "modernity" contested. Gorgias Prominent among his claims to recognition
28210-491: The same relationship to Sanskrit as medieval Italian does to Latin". The Indian tradition states that the Buddha and the Mahavira preferred the Prakrit language so that everyone could understand it. However, scholars such as Dundas have questioned this hypothesis. They state that there is no evidence for this and whatever evidence is available suggests that by the start of the common era, hardly anybody other than learned monks had
28392-551: The semi-nomadic Aryans . The Vedic Sanskrit language or a closely related Indo-European variant was recognized beyond ancient India as evidenced by the " Mitanni Treaty" between the ancient Hittite and Mitanni people, carved into a rock, in a region that now includes parts of Syria and Turkey. Parts of this treaty, such as the names of the Mitanni princes and technical terms related to horse training, for reasons not understood, are in early forms of Vedic Sanskrit. The treaty also invokes
28574-594: The social structures such as the role of the poet and the priests, the patronage economy, the phrasal equations, and some of the poetic metres. While there are similarities, state Jamison and Brereton, there are also differences between Vedic Sanskrit, the Old Avestan, and the Mycenaean Greek literature. For example, unlike the Sanskrit similes in the Ṛg-veda, the Old Avestan Gathas lack simile entirely, and it
28756-779: The soul exists? Of what use is this knowledge? Who knows that the soul does not exist? Of what use is this knowledge? The Sutrakrtanga affirms that the Sceptics "teach final beatitude and final deliverance." Thus, the Sceptics may have contended that knowledge is not necessary for salvation but tapas , which seem similar to karmapatha . Silanka in his commentary mentions sixty-seven types of Sceptics. However, these sixty-seven types are obtained combinatorially by taking nine categories ( navapadartha ) of Jainism, each with seven forms of predication ( saptabhangakah ), to give sixty-three (9 × 7) forms of sceptical questions, which were considered to represent sixty-three "types" of Sceptics asking these questions. The last four "types" were added to complete
28938-469: The text, Gorgias presents a method for composing logical ( logos ), ethical ( ethos ) and emotional ( pathos ) arguments from possibility, which are similar to those described by Aristotle in Rhetoric . These types of arguments about motive and capability presented in the Defense are later described by Aristotle as forensic topoi . Gorgias demonstrates that in order to prove that treason had been committed,
29120-557: The theories of others. If I were to join issue, argue and debate with them, I would no be able to explain to them. If I were unable to explain to them, that would cause me worry ( vighata ) and be moral danger ( antarayo ). Thus because he fears and detests interrogation ( anuyoga ) he does not "pronounce this to be good nor that to be evil." According to Jayatilleke, it is not clear from this passage if they wished to avoid debate because they were Sceptics or whether they adopted Scepticism because they wanted to avoid debate. According to him, it
29302-477: The totalizing power of language." Gorgias also believed that his "magical incantations" would bring healing to the human psyche by controlling powerful emotions. He paid particular attention to the sounds of words, which, like poetry, could captivate audiences. His florid, rhyming style seemed to hypnotize his audiences (Herrick 42). Unlike other Sophists, such as Protagoras, Gorgias did not profess to teach arete (excellence, or, virtue). He believed that there
29484-641: The turn of the 1st-millennium CE, it has been written in various Brahmic scripts , and in the modern era most commonly in Devanagari . Sanskrit's status, function, and place in India's cultural heritage are recognized by its inclusion in the Constitution of India 's Eighth Schedule languages . However, despite attempts at revival, there are no first-language speakers of Sanskrit in India. In each of India's recent decennial censuses, several thousand citizens have reported Sanskrit to be their mother tongue, but
29666-408: The variants in the usage of Sanskrit in different regions of India. The ten Vedic scholars he quotes are Āpiśali, Kaśyapa , Gārgya, Gālava, Cakravarmaṇa, Bhāradvāja , Śākaṭāyana, Śākalya, Senaka and Sphoṭāyana. In the Aṣṭādhyāyī , language is observed in a manner that has no parallel among Greek or Latin grammarians. Pāṇini's grammar, according to Renou and Filliozat, is a classic that defines
29848-564: The vernacular Prakrits. Many Sanskrit dramas indicate that the language coexisted with the vernacular Prakrits. The cities of Varanasi , Paithan , Pune and Kanchipuram were centers of classical Sanskrit learning and public debates until the arrival of the colonial era. According to Lamotte , Sanskrit became the dominant literary and inscriptional language because of its precision in communication. It was, states Lamotte, an ideal instrument for presenting ideas, and as knowledge in Sanskrit multiplied, so did its spread and influence. Sanskrit
30030-399: The war, but also a popular and literary tradition of blaming Helen for her wrongdoing. It is this tradition which Gorgias confronts in the Encomium . The Encomium opens with Gorgias explaining that "a man, woman, speech, deed, city or action that is worthy of praise should be honored with acclaim, but the unworthy should be branded with blame" (Gorgias 30). In the speech Gorgias discusses
30212-406: The weak are ruled by the strong, and, since the gods are stronger than humans in all respects, Helen should be freed from her undesirable reputation. If, however, Helen was abducted by force, it is clear that the aggressor committed a crime. Thus, it should be he, not Helen, who should be blamed. And if Helen was persuaded by love, she should also be rid of ill repute because "if love is a god, with
30394-497: The Ṛg-veda is distinctly more archaic than other Vedic texts, and in many respects, the Rigvedic language is notably more similar to those found in the archaic texts of Old Avestan Zoroastrian Gathas and Homer's Iliad and Odyssey . According to Stephanie W. Jamison and Joel P. Brereton – Indologists known for their translation of the Ṛg-veda – the Vedic Sanskrit literature "clearly inherited" from Indo-Iranian and Indo-European times
30576-484: Was a risk of their voluntarily accusing to earn freedom, or accusing by force when tortured. Slaves, Palamedes says, are untrustworthy. Palamedes goes on to list a variety of possible motives, all of which he proves false. Through the Defense Gorgias demonstrates that a motive requires an advantage such as status, wealth, honour, and security, and insists that Palamedes lacked a motive (McComiskey 47–49). This text
30758-408: Was a spoken language ( bhasha ) used by the cultured and educated. Some sutras expound upon the variant forms of spoken Sanskrit versus written Sanskrit. Chinese Buddhist pilgrim Xuanzang mentioned in his memoir that official philosophical debates in India were held in Sanskrit, not in the vernacular language of that region. According to Sanskrit linguist professor Madhav Deshpande, Sanskrit
30940-427: Was a spoken language in a colloquial form by the mid-1st millennium BCE which coexisted with a more formal, grammatically correct form of literary Sanskrit. This, states Deshpande, is true for modern languages where colloquial incorrect approximations and dialects of a language are spoken and understood, along with more "refined, sophisticated and grammatically accurate" forms of the same language being found in
31122-472: Was adopted voluntarily as a vehicle of high culture, arts, and profound ideas. Pollock disagrees with Lamotte, but concurs that Sanskrit's influence grew into what he terms a "Sanskrit Cosmopolis" over a region that included all of South Asia and much of southeast Asia. The Sanskrit language cosmopolis thrived beyond India between 300 and 1300 CE. Today, it is believed that Kashmiri is the closest language to Sanskrit. Reinöhl mentions that not only have
31304-722: Was also the language of some of the oldest surviving, authoritative and much followed philosophical works of Jainism such as the Tattvartha Sutra by Umaswati . The Sanskrit language has been one of the major means for the transmission of knowledge and ideas in Asian history. Indian texts in Sanskrit were already in China by 402 CE, carried by the influential Buddhist pilgrim Faxian who translated them into Chinese by 418 CE. Xuanzang , another Chinese Buddhist pilgrim, learnt Sanskrit in India and carried 657 Sanskrit texts to China in
31486-410: Was impossible to obtain knowledge of metaphysical nature or ascertain the truth value of philosophical propositions; and even if knowledge was possible, it was useless and disadvantageous for final salvation. They were specialized in refutation without propagating any positive doctrine of their own. Sanjaya Belatthiputta was one of the major proponents of this school of thought. All of our knowledge of
31668-421: Was influenced by, or at the very least agreed with, Indian scepticism rather than Buddhism or Jainism, based on the fact that he valued ataraxia , which can be translated as "freedom from worry". Jayatilleke, in particular, contends that Pyrrho may have been influenced by the first three schools of Ajñāna, since they too valued freedom from worry. If this is true, then the methods of the Ajñānins may be preserved in
31850-484: Was knowledge it is useless ( nisphalam ) since it has many disadvantages ( bahudosavat ). This quotation suggests that the Sceptics preferred scepticism not just on intellectual basis, but also for pragmatic or moral reasons. What these disadvantages are, Silanka does not elaborate, but can be found in the Buddhist sources. Regarding the futility of knowledge, Silanka puts these questions of the Sceptics: Who knows that
32032-446: Was later used as a tool by Nagarjuna to formulate his influential brand of Madhyamaka philosophy. Since skepticism is a philosophical attitude and a style of philosophising rather than a position, the Ajñānins may have influenced other skeptical thinkers of India like Nagarjuna, Jayarāśi Bhaṭṭa , and Shriharsha . According to Diogenes Laërtius , the Greek philosopher Pyrrho developed his skeptical philosophy in India when Pyrrho
32214-416: Was meant to be a permanent state of affair by outright denying the very possibility of knowledge, and hence of questions regarding morality. Thus, their Scepticism is motivated by both intellectual as well as moral reasoning (i.e. fear of asserting falsehood due to one's prejudices). They seem to have contended that knowledge was not necessary for salvation but for karma-patha . The second school of Sceptics
32396-439: Was no absolute form of arete , but that it was relative to each situation. For example, virtue in a slave was not the same as virtue in a statesman. He believed that rhetoric, the art of persuasion, was the king of all sciences, since he saw it as a techné with which one could persuade an audience toward any course of action. While rhetoric existed in the curriculum of every Sophist, Gorgias placed more prominence upon it than any of
32578-469: Was one of Gorgias' greatest critics and a student of Socrates. Plato's dislike for sophistic doctrines is well known, and it is in his eponymous dialogue that both Gorgias himself as well as his rhetorical beliefs are ridiculed (McComiskey 17). In his dialogue Gorgias , Plato distinguishes between philosophy and rhetoric , characterizing Gorgias as a shallow, opportunistic orator who entertains his audience with his eloquent words and who believes that it
32760-399: Was the most beautiful of the three. Each goddess tried to influence Paris' decision, but he ultimately chose Aphrodite who then promised Paris the most beautiful woman. Paris then traveled to Greece where he was greeted by Helen and her husband Menelaus . Under the influence of Aphrodite, Helen allowed Paris to persuade her to elope with him. Together they traveled to Troy, not only sparking
32942-489: Was there during the conquest of Alexander the Great . Based on the so-called "Aristocles passage," Jayatilleke draws many similarities between Pyrrhonist philosophy and the Indian philosophies current at the time. In particular, he lists the following: (1) There were no beliefs or opinions which were true or false and therefore (2) we should give no positive answer to any of the logical alternatives. It would also be seen that (3)
33124-442: Was visualized as "pervading all creation", another representation of the world itself; the "mysterious magnum" of Hindu thought. The search for perfection in thought and the goal of liberation were among the dimensions of sacred sound, and the common thread that wove all ideas and inspirations together became the quest for what the ancient Indians believed to be a perfect language, the "phonocentric episteme" of Sanskrit. Sanskrit as
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