Sofisti e avvocati, II

Abstract

Sophists and lawyers: commonplace often tends to assimilate the two categories under the double mark of an indifference toward truth and justice and the celebration of the power of speech that, as in Aristophanes’ Clouds, makes falsehood prevail over truth. Are lawyers truly modern Sophists, though? The authors analyze convergences and divergences between the lawyers’ practices and sophistry with respect to various questions relative to the truth of discourse, the normative rules regulating judicial activities, the relation with the audience, the function of rhetoric, and the social role of lawyers themselves.