The Sophists leaned heavily on a skepticism of the intellect, and thus they trained their students in the art of persuasion, rather than the art of discovery. The Sophists were also skeptical about morality. Socrates is most famous for challenging the Sophists about their skepticism. Socrates transformed our understanding of the oracle's decree "know thyself". For him, the decree meant the art of self discovery in relation to the truth, as opposed to the traditional meaning, that everyone should know who they are in relation to society.
Heraclitus: "Nature loves to hide herself". He taught that all things are made of strife, but that very few are interested in discovering the truth about reality. Heraclitus has three main doctrines, of which we covered part of the first: the doctrine of opposites, which states that nothing can be known or can exist independently of its relation to its opposite. Nature is like a bow, it functions according to the tension of its parts, just as a bow gets its strength when pulled back. And just as a bow cannot be understood with understanding the tension it produces, so too nature cannot be understood with understanding that reality is a conjunction of its opposites. Hot requires cold, love requires hate. "The way up and the way down are the same."
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