how do dialectics deal with sophism?

Answer 1

This is more easily understandable if one considers the actual scale of the components of an atom. If one takes into account the fact that the neutrons, protons and electrons of an atom actually have huge spaces between them it becomes clear that the atoms that make up seemingly solid objects are made up of 99+ percent empty space.

This alone does not seem too important till you add the idea that the atoms that make up seemingly solid objects are more of a loose conglomeration that share a similar attraction but never really touch each other.

At first glance this does not really seem relevant, but closer analysis reveals that this adds a tremendous amount of empty space to solid objects that are already made up of atoms that are 99 percent space. When so-called solid objects are seen in this light it becomes apparent that they can in no way be the seemingly solid objects they appear to be.

We ourselves are not exceptions to this phenomenon.

These seemingly solid objects are more like ghostly images that we interpret as solid objects based on our perceptual conclusions.

From this we must conclude that Perception is some sort of a trick that helps us to take these ghostly images and turn them into a world we can associate and interact with. This clever device seems to be a creation of our intellect that enables us to interact with each other in what appears to be a three dimensional reality.

I hope that helps to answered your question.

Love and blessings Don

Answer 2

A note from Hegel

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/sl/sl_divis.htm

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/sl/sl_vi.htm#SL81

'Dialectic, it may be added, is no novelty in philosophy. Among the ancients Plato is termed the inventor of Dialectic; and his right to the name rests on the fact that the Platonic philosophy first gave the free scientific, and thus at the same time the objective, form to Dialectic. Socrates, as we should expect from the general character of his philosophising, has the dialectical element in a predominantly subjective shape, that of Irony. He used to turn Dialectic, first against ordinary consciousness, and then especially against the Sophists. In his conversations he used to simulate the wish for some clearer knowledge about the subject under discussion, and after putting all sorts of questions with that intent, he drew those with whom he conversed to the opposite of what their first impressions had pronounced correct.

If, for instance, the Sophists claimed to be teachers, Socrates by a series of questions forced the Sophist Protagoras to confess that all learning is only recollection. In his more strictly scientific dialogues, Plato employs the dialectical method to show the finitude of all hard and fast terms of understanding. Thus in the Parmenides he deduces the many from the one. In this grand style did Plato treat Dialectic. In modern times it was, more than any other, Kant who resuscitated the name of Dialectic, and restored it to its post of honour. He did it, as we have seen, by working out the Antinomies of the reason. The problem of these Antinomies is no mere subjective piece of work oscillating between one set of grounds and another; it really serves to show that every abstract proposition of understanding, taken precisely as it is given, naturally veers round to its opposite.'

Answer 3

The simpliest answer is they dismiss them as politically loaded. The Socratic dialectic engages the other in participation. The Sophists are mere rhetoric (empty yet persuasive).