Sophists — Hive

They were the first to take up politics. They were interested in the world, the elements. They were a group of social philosophers who moved from the myth to the thought freed from the activities of the gods. The state according to them was not created by gods or heroes, but it is the work of people who have to serve them, as well as institutions such as law, courts, the idea of justice. Laws in this state are a matter of convention. Sophists believed that man is a measure of all things: "those that are, there are also those who are not, that there is not" (Protagoras of Abdery (IV / V century BC), father of sophists, founder of their school). In the place of the idea of the primacy of society, the individualists of the individual were sophisticated. They were relativists, which meant that human - citizen is the only measure of social institutions, that social values are the common good of people and that this understanding of people, not nature, determines the course of things. Sophists sold their political knowledge (they put emphasis on rhetoric, taught "how to make the weakest speech the strongest"). They also took up the problem of the social contract. Among them were also those who pondered the genesis of the state, which was established on the basis of a contract between people or thanks to a group of people who could take over. They introduced the concept of the law of nature. According to them, these are laws that exist despite the law created by the state. The natural law is immutable. Despite this, Antiphon and Hipiasz agreed that it is a virtue to respect the rights of the state.
The dilemma of natural law is continuous in philosophical thought (Sophocles' Antigone). Violation of the laws of nature violates the truth, has more consequences than non-observance of human rights. Man is subject to both these laws. Some sofists also preached the idea of equality of people, in accordance with the law of nature ("we all breathe equally with mouth and nose" - Antiphon).