Sophist

Platonis Opera, Tomus I: Tetralogia I-II. Burnet, John, 1863-1928, editor. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1905.

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This work is a dialogue by Plato that primarily aims to define the nature of the "sophist." The discussion is led by a Visitor from Elea and the young mathematician Theaetetus, while Socrates and Theodorus look on. They begin with a preliminary exercise of defining an "angler" to establish their method, which they then apply to the sophist. However, because the sophist appears in various guises—such as a wealth-seeker, a disputant, and a purveyor of false knowledge—the definition proves elusive. The inquiry is forced to confront a profound philosophical puzzle inherited from Parmenides: how can "non-being" (what is not) or "falsehood" exist at all if only "being" is? To resolve this, the Eleatic Visitor conducts a rigorous analysis of the "five greatest kinds"—Being, Rest, Motion, Sameness, and Difference—demonstrating that non-being is not the opposite of being, but rather "the different." This framework successfully explains how false statements (logos) can exist through the combination of nouns and verbs. In the end, they successfully define the sophist as an insincere, imitative illusion-maker who, conscious of his own ignorance, forces others into self-contradiction in private arguments.