268
I would, therefore, advise young men to spend some time on these disciplines,Compare Callicles’ similar view about the study of philosophy in Plat. Gorg. 484c. but not to allow their minds to be dried up by these barren subtleties, nor to be stranded on the speculations of the ancient sophists, who maintain, some of them, that the sum of things is made up of infinite elements; Empedocles that it is made up of four, with strife and love operating among them; Ion, of not more than three; Alcmaeon, of only two; Parmenides and Melissus, of one; and Gorgias, of none at all.The fruitlessness of the speculations of the early philosophers (physicists) is shown, according to Isocrates, in the utter diversity of their views, for example, regarding the first principles or primary elements from which the world was created. At one extreme was Anaxagoras, who held that the primary elements were infinite in number; at the other was Gorgias, who in his nihilistic philosophy denied that there was any such thing as being or entity at all. Cf. Isoc. 10.3; Xen. Mem. 1.1.14 ff.; Plat. Soph. 242.
269
For I think that such curiosities of thought are on a par with jugglers’ tricks which, though they do not profit anyone, yet attract great crowds of the empty-minded, and I hold that men who want to do some good in the world must banish utterly from their interests all vain speculations and all activities which have no bearing on our lives.
270
Now I have spoken and advised you enough on these studies for the present. It remains to tell you about “wisdom” and “philosophy.”See General Introd. pp. xxvi ff. It is true that if one were pleading a case on any other issue it would be out of place to discuss these words (for they are foreign to all litigation), but it is appropriate for me, since I am being tried on such an issue, and since I hold that what some people call philosophy is not entitled to that name, to define and explain to you what philosophy, properly conceived, really is.
