Ancient History, Greek and Roman through Late Antiquity Commons^™

The Truth Of Antiphon's 'Truth', Michael Gagarin

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

My intention in this paper is to explore some of the implications of the fact that the fifth century sophistic thinker Antiphon entitled his main "sophistic" treatise, published in two books. Truth (Alêtheia). As in the case of Protagoras' treatise of the same name, this title may be understood as an indication that Antiphon is responding to Parmenides' "Way o f Truth" and is affirming his own view of the truth about the world, that physis is more real or truer than nomos, or in other words, statements are true if and only if they correspond to physis, but not …