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Thomas Taylor (1804)
Plato · Thomas Taylor (1804)
In hunting a definition of the sophist, Plato is led into deep metaphysics: to say that the sophist deals in falsehood and images, he must show how non-being can in some way be. This requires him to commit a kind of 'parricide' against Parmenides, who had forbidden any talk of what-is-not — arguing instead that not-being is simply difference, otherness woven through all things.
The dialogue also stages the 'battle of gods and giants' over being itself, and refines the method of division by which the philosopher carves reality at its joints.
From the Plato Scroll Encyclopedia · open this entry in the reader
We are come, Socrates, according to our agreement yesterday, as good manners require, and have brought with us this guest, who is an Elean by birth, but very different from the associates of Parmenides and Zeno: he is however a great philosopher.
Socrates: Perhaps, therefore, Theodorus, according to the assertion of Homer, you are conducting a certain God, and not a stranger. For he says, that both other Gods, and especially the hospitable deity, are conversant with men who participate of just shame, and that they inspect the insolent and the equitable conduct of men. So that perhaps he who now follows you, is one of the natures superior to man, who attends you in order to behold and confute us who dispute badly, as being himself a certain reprehending God.
Theodorus: This is not the manner of this guest, Socrates, but he is more modest than those that are studious of contention. And he appears to me, as being a man, not to be a God, but to be divine: for so I denominate all philosophers.
Socrates: And you do well in calling them so, my friend. But indeed the genus of philosophers is not much more easily distinguished, as I may say, than that of divinity. For those who are not fictitiously but truly philosophers, appear through the ignorance of others to be of an all-various nature, while they wander about cities, and behold from on high the life of inferior natures. And to some they appear to deserve no honour, but by others they are considered as worthy of all honour. And sometimes they appear to be politicians, but at other times Sophists; and sometimes, in the opinion of certain persons, they are considered to be perfectly insane. I would gladly, therefore, inquire of this our guest, if agreeable to him, what his familiars the Eleans think of these things, and how they denominate them.
Theodorus: What things do you mean, Socrates?
Socrates: The sophist, politician, and philosopher.
Theodorus: What, and of what kind, is the doubt about these, which you would wish to have dissolved?
Socrates: This: Whether they denominate all these, one or two. Or as there are three names, whether they also make a distribution into three genera, and ascribe the respective names to the respective genera.
Theodorus: But I think that he will not enviously refuse to discuss these things. Or how shall we say, guest?
Guest: In this manner, Theodorus: For I shall not enviously refuse, nor is it difficult to inform you, that they think these are three genera: but to define clearly what each of them is, is not a small nor an easy work.
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The Athenian who turned Socratic conversation into a written philosophy and founded the Academy.
Plato was born around 428 BCE into a wealthy and politically prominent Athenian family; through his mother Perictione the family traced kinship to the lawgiver Solon, and his relatives Critias and Charmides were among the oligarchs of the Thirty. A late tradition says his given name was Aristocles and that 'Plato' — from the word for 'broad' — was a nickname. He grew up during the long agony of the Peloponnesian War and came of age amid the violence and disillusion that followed Athens' defeat.
Plato · Thomas Taylor (1804). Each edition has its page, the reader and a plain-text file:
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