Word: sophistication
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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Professor Winspear became suspicious of the Socratic tradition when he noticed that Socrates was described differently by Aristophanes than by Plato. In his satiric play, The Clouds, Aristophanes pictured Socrates as a ragged leader of the rabble, a Sophist, "a thoroughly subversive influence." Pondering this contradiction, Professor Winspear next noticed that The Clouds was produced in 423 B.C., when Socrates was 47 and Plato a child of six. He concluded that between 423 and about 400 B.C., when Plato knew him, Socrates changed, and that young Plato, who had a high contempt for the rabble, chose to overlook 70-year...