Analysis of history shows that large personalities tend to run together. Whether this is a result of history's perspective, or some human tendency, I am hardly qualified to say. For example, if you look at Einstein's writings and biography, he crossed paths with Marie Curie, George Bernard Shaw, Lorentz, and many others. Sometimes people at odds philosophically can be quite close in friendship or other ways.
One of the concepts I would like to know about the Sophists would be their relation to their contemporary counterparts. Yes, Plato jabbed deftly at Gorgias in his writing, but did they have any kind of working relationship outside this? What kind of interactions did the Sophists have with their antisophistic brethren?
Another idea that is intrigueing is the notion of "truth" vs "Truth" and how this argument has advanced, evolved, and stayed similar through the years. To what extent did the sophists adhere to this tenant? Western Civilization, at its core, inculcates the idea of an attainable Truth, and steady movement toward it. For good or ill, we are raised in this framework, and even our arguments for truth tend to be framed in the idea that we can beat the Truth with the correct argument (a hybrid T/t truth?) What did the individual philosophers lumped together as "sophists" believe about "Truth"? What were their ideas about the existence or non-existence of an ultimate Truth? And pragmatically, does it really matter what they thought, or are the interpretations we are working with what is important?
How did these people conduct themselves within the auspice of the oikos? Did their truths extend into the idea of the Dominus of the house being the master, or were they more open to a shifting of roles?
I may be rambling at this point since I took some Benadryl to help fight off a cold.
You have some very coherent ramblings:) I particularyl like your question about what the relationships were really like.
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