User:World Sophist Society

World Sophist Society Nominates Three Contributors to World Wisdom - Lowenthal - Womack- King Jamal

Dateline: The United Kingdom; September 3, 2012

The World Sophist Society is an organisation dedicated to preserving true intellectual discourse through relativism, discourse and Socratic reasoning. The Society has seven hundred members worldwide and holds four closed assemblies annually in disparate locations throughout the world. Membership in the World Sophist Society is by invitation only. Potential members are identified through the Society’s vigilant perusal of musings and commentaries both existential and pragmatic. Its membership includes philosophers, poets, religionist, artists, musicians, and scientist.

Each year the World Sophist Society singles out an individual, for special recognition, who has contributed to preserving its mission of intellectual discourse through relativism, discourse and Socratic reasoning. Nominees are identified and adjudicated by a nomination committee consisting of former winners and Society members with at least twenty years of service.

The term sophism originated from Greek sophistēs, meaning "wise-ist", one who "does" wisdom, one who makes a business out of wisdom (sophós means "wise man").

Since the time of the poet Homer, the term has connoted anyone with expertise in a specific domain of knowledge or craft. Thus a charioteer, a sculptor, a warrior could be Sophist in his or her occupation. Gradually the word came to denote general wisdom and especially wisdom about human affairs - politics, ethics or household management.

During the 7th and 6th Century BC, the term Sophist was given to the Greek Seven Sages, like Solon and Thales. This meaning of Sophist appeared in the histories of Herodotus. At about the same time, Sophist was a synonym for poet and, by association with the traditional role of poets as the teachers of society, a synonym for one who teaches through the performance of prose works or speeches that impart practical knowledge.

In the second half of the 5th century BC, particularly at Athens, Sophist came to denote a class of itinerant intellectuals who taught courses in excellence or virtue, speculated about the nature of language and culture and employed rhetoric achieve their purposes, generally to persuade or convince others. Sophists claimed they could find the answers to all questions. Most of these sophists are known today primarily through the writings of their opponents, specifically Plato and Aristotle. Protagoras is generally regarded as the first Sophist.

The founder of the World Sophist Society was the German/British pragmatic philosopher, Ferdinand Canning Scott Schiller (1864 – 1937). Born in Altona, Hamburg in the Duchy of Holstein (a part of Denmark), Schiller studied and was also a professor at the University of Oxford. Later in life he taught at the University of Southern California. In his lifetime he was well known as a philosopher and was often aligned with the pragmatism of William James.

In 1891, F.C.S. Schiller made his first contribution to philosophy by laying claim to an intermediate position between both the spartan landscape of naturalism and the speculative excesses of nonsense metaphysics, which he also referred to as pseudo metaphysics. His contention was only through metaphysics can sense be made of our higher world – free will, consciousness, God, purpose and universal truths. That only through naturalism can we understand our lower world – imperfection, change and physicality.

Thus, the World Sophist Society was born. An egalitarian society of intellectuals who share wisdom and knowledge within a closed society dedicated to elevating truth and art for those capable of true appreciation.

In an article that appeared in the May, 1942 edition of the Los Angeles Times, the World Sophist Society was maligned as a group of pseudo-intellectuals, who thought they were better and smarter that anyone else in the world. Two days later a front-page retraction was printed when the paper’s publisher, Harry Chandler, was identified as a member of the Society.

The World Sophist Society does not seek publicity, does not publish commentary, but once each year recognizes an individual who supports and articulates its noble mission. This years nominees are:

Horatio Lowenthal, professor-emeritus of the Physics Department of Stockholm University. Professor Lowenthal is the author of a seminal tome, We Think Alike, that exposits the works of philosophers beginning with Plato through Hans Rainer and including Percipetes, Ramses, Heinrich, Madam Curie, Lavenhook, Sir Thomas Henry, and Lowell Thomas. Lowenthal presents exhaustive and definitive evidence that these great thinkers are inextricably connected through intellect and genetic disposition.

Larry G. Womack, retired business author,consultant, and developer of the Natural Learning Process (NLP). NLP is a learning process based on the work of Bandler and Grinder identified as Neuro-Linguistic-Programing Trance-Formational Learning. In America, Womack is often referred to as the Father of Artificial Intelligence. Through a magical combination of the wit and wisdom presented on his website, blogs, and through spontaneous social commentary, Womack spreads universal truths in a manner hither fore unexperienced. Though his followers are not legion, they are loyal, brave and true.

Abdul Jamal Jamal, King of the Sudostandi Emirate. His Majesty, who has benevolently rule this oil rich kingdom on the Tiber River for over forty years, is recognized for his continuous efforts to eradicate disease and ignorance among his people by providing free health care and mandatory education for everyone under the age of forty.