But in spite of their vast information they had about the knowledge then current...

But in spite of their vast information they had about the knowledge then current, they did not believe in fixed truths, and they did not consider any thing to be definitely known or certain. As reported by historians of philosophy, they were professional teachers who taught rhetoric and debate, and they trained defense lawyers for the courts, for which there was much demand at that time.

This profession required the defense lawyer to be able to establish any claim and to be able to reject all sorts of opposing claims. Dealing with this sort of teaching which was often subject to fallacy, gradually brought about a kind of thinking according to which basically there is no truth beyond human thought! You have heard the story of a man who jokingly said that in such and such a house sweets are being given away.

In their simplicity, the people hurried to crowd around the door of the mentioned house. Little by little, the speaker himself began to harbor suspicions about the matter, and so as not to lose out on the chance for free sweets, he joined the line. It seems as if the Sophists also were victims of this same fate.

By teaching fallacious methods to establish and deny claims, little by little such tendencies came to appear in their own thinking, that basically truth and falsehood depend on human thought, and in conclusion that there is no truth beyond human thought! The expression "sophism," which meant sage and learned, due to being ascribed to such mentioned people, lost its fundamental meaning, and it came to be used as a symbol and sign for a way of thinking according to fallacious reasoning.

It is this same expression that in Arabic has taken the form “ sūfisṭī ” and the term “ safsaṭah ” is derived from it. The Period of the Flourishing of Philosophy The most famous thinker who stood up against the Sophists and who criticized their ideas and views was Socrates. It was he who called himself philosophus , that is, a lover of wisdom. It is this same expression that in Arabic took the form filsūf from which the term falsafah is derived.