Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. In classical Athens, public life became dominated by clever and smart-sounding sophists. These ...

Public questions in America about science have become the playthings of the manufactured controversy, or “manufactroversy,” in which political activists invent a scientific disagreement that isn’t ...

As political philosophers of antiquity and of the Middle Ages remind us, the public life of the polis — politics — is necessarily a life in which conflict is ever-present. It may feel small comfort, ...

If you’ve ever attended a high-energy seminar where a speaker yells, “unleash your greatness!” while pacing in an expensive suit reflective of poor fashion sense, congratulations – you’ve witnessed ...

In classical Greece, the sophists were practitioners of the art of rhetoric. They took pride in their ability to persuade audiences to embrace any position. They could, as one boasted, “make the ...

Protagoras’ responds, saying that the expert’s judgment of advantage for a person is better, not truer, because . . . He thinks that the parties involved are likely to agree at the finish that the ...

The first major thinker to move to Athens from abroad was Anaxagoras. Arriving in 464 BC, he became a friend of Pericles and outraged religious opinion by claiming (correctly) that the moon was lit by ...

The first major thinker to move to Athens from abroad was Anaxagoras. Arriving in 464 BC, he became a friend of Pericles and outraged religious opinion by claiming (correctly) that the sun was lit by ...

Ryan Leack does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their ...

In classical Athens, public life became dominated by clever and smart-sounding sophists. These mellifluous "really wise guys" made money and gained influence by their rhetorical boasts to "prove" the ...