Sophists
Sophists, itinerant teachers in ancient Greece, who offered for a fee a kind of higher education centered on how to be successful in civic life. They called themselves “teachers of wisdom.” They flourished in the fifth and early fourth centuries B.C. The Sophists ridiculed the superstitions of the people, including religious beliefs. They believed that there is a particular skill for every situation and that this skill can be taught by example and practice. The Sophist way to success was through oratory and debate—by eloquence to persuade listeners to a desired point of view (not necessarily true) and to refute any contradiction. Protagoras of Abdera was distinguished from other Sophists by his deeper thinking.
Socrates and Plato disapproved of Sophists for not seeking a truer wisdom. Aristophanes satirized them in The Clouds. However, the Sophists helped develop rhetoric and grammar, and their questioning of traditional belief profoundly influenced the course of Western philosophy.