How did Plato criticize the Sophists’ approach to truth and debate?

Plato’s criticism of the Sophists centered on their approach to debate and their perceived disregard for objective truth. He famously characterized their methods as eristic—arguments designed solely to secure victory rather than to uncover truth—and antilogic, the practice of assigning a counterargument to any position to imply that both are equally true.1

Plato argued that because the Sophists focused on phenomena and subjective perception, they failed to grasp the existence of absolute, unchanging forms, which he believed were the only true objects of knowledge. While the Sophists taught rhetoric as a tool for political success in democracy, Plato viewed this as a dangerous separation of verbal skill from wisdom.12

In contrast to the Sophistic focus on winning arguments, Plato—through the character of Socrates—employed the Socratic method to expose an interlocutor's ignorance. By leading them to see that their own premises were contradictory, he aimed to guide them toward a deeper, more rigorous understanding of concepts like virtue and justice, rather than merely silencing them through mechanical debate.13