Reception and development of the idea of justice by selected sophists

Abstract

The article has the ambition to present different receptions and development of the idea of justice by selected sophists. Emphasis will be especially put on heterogeneous concepts of justice which, with more simplification, we can divide into two groups – justice that is created by the acts made and agreed by people (nomoi, we can call it legal justice) or justice which is based on its own nature and the laws of the cosmos (fysis, it is an ethical justice). Among the many sophists we chose Protagoras, Antiphon, Thrasymachus and Callicles to analyse their understanding of the idea of justice. At the same time, we point
out that on the background of fysis vs. nomoi is arising the controversy 102 over the nature of justice, which is called the first ethical discussion of its kind in Western philosophy.