- Lycophron (Sophist)
Lycophron was a
sophist ofAncient Greece . He is known for his statement (reproduced byAristotle , in the latter's Politics, 1280b10), that "law is only a convention, a surety to another of justice". This means that he treats law as a mere means, in the context of a (perhaps primitive)social contract theory, without considering it as something special, in contradistinction to, e.g.,Plato but similar to bothThrasymachus andCallicles , albeit that their theories have – as far as can be ascertained from the information available about them – more specific characteristics.Literature
*Richard G. Mulgan, 'Lycophron and Greek Theories of Social Contract'. "Journal of the History of Ideas" 40 (1), 1979: 121 – 128.
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