/lit/ - Literature

What were the sophists? I'm not talking about people like Protagoras and Gorgias, I'm talking about professional trolls who would make fallacious arguments and, apparently, make a living teaching other people to do the same.

"Do you beat your dog? And is your dog a father? Then you beat your father!"

"Do you know every pair is even? Well what about this pair of pebbles I had in my pocket, so you didn't know that every pair is even after all, did you?"

"Is Homer a poet? Then he must exist, because he is!"

These are real sophistical arguments from ancient sources. I have a hard time imagining who these people were, or why anyone took them seriously, or what they thought they were doing, exactly. They seem like IRL shitposters. But Aristotle took them seriously enough to write an entire book refuting their various arguments. Enlighten me.

>Grab the Bible
>Move it to fiction

>>15340236
How is this not the first thing that comes to your mind lil zoomer?

check out this one guys

>I don't do a lot of reading because I don't like spending that much time inside someone's else's imagination.

>Inside someone else's imagination

>imagination.

>Inside their imagination.

>nation.

>NATION

>>10450643
>unbiased news sources
That's fundamentally wrong though as most news networks were collectively biased against Trump.