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Theaetetus/Sophist

by Plato, H.N. Fowler (Translator)

4.08 of 5 stars 4.08 · rating details · 422 ratings · 17 reviews

Plato, the great philosopher of Athens, was born in 427 BCE. In early manhood an admirer of Socrates, he later founded the famous school of philosophy in the grove Academus. Much else recorded of his life is uncertain; that he left Athens for a time after Socrates' execution is probable; that later he went to Cyrene, Egypt, and Sicily is possible; that he was wealthy is li...more Plato, the great philosopher of Athens, was born in 427 BCE. In early manhood an admirer of Socrates, he later founded the famous school of philosophy in the grove Academus. Much else recorded of his life is uncertain; that he left Athens for a time after Socrates' execution is probable; that later he went to Cyrene, Egypt, and Sicily is possible; that he was wealthy is likely; that he was critical of 'advanced' democracy is obvious. He lived to be 80 years old. Linguistic tests including those of computer science still try to establish the order of his extant philosophical dialogues, written in splendid prose and revealing Socrates' mind fused with Plato's thought.

In "Laches, Charmides, " and "Lysis, " Socrates and others discuss separate ethical conceptions. "Protagoras, Ion, " and "Meno" discuss whether righteousness can be taught. In "Gorgias, " Socrates is estranged from his city's thought, and his fate is impending. The "Apology" (not a dialogue), "Crito, Euthyphro, " and the unforgettable "Phaedo" relate the trial and death of Socrates and propound the immortality of the soul. In the famous "Symposium" and "Phaedrus, " written when Socrates was still alive, we find the origin and meaning of love. "Cratylus" discusses the nature of language. The great masterpiece in ten books, the "Republic, " concerns righteousness (and involves education, equality of the sexes, the structure of society, and abolition of slavery). Of the six so-called dialectical dialogues "Euthydemus" deals with philosophy; metaphysical "Parmenides" is about general concepts and absolute being; "Theaetetus" reasons about the theory of knowledge. Of its sequels, "Sophist" deals with not-being; "Politicus" with good and bad statesmanship and governments; "Philebus" with what is good. The "Timaeus" seeks the origin of the visible universe out of abstract geometrical elements. The unfinished "Critias" treats of lost Atlantis. Unfinished also is Plato's last work of the twelve books of "Laws" (Socrates is absent from it), a critical discussion of principles of law which Plato thought the Greeks might accept.

The Loeb Classical Library edition of Plato is in twelve volumes.(less)

cloth, 480 pages

Published January 1st 1921 by Harvard University Press (first published -360)

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Sep 30, 2012 Timothy rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

By the middle of the book here's what I really wanted to see happen:
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STRANGER: There are some who imitate, knowing what they imitate, and
some who do not know. And what line of distinction can there possibly be greater than that which divides ignorance from knowledge?

THEAETETUS: There can be no greater.

STRANGER: Was not the sort of imitation of which we spoke just now the
imitation of those who know? For he who would imitate you would surely
know you and your figure?

THEAETETUS: Naturally.

STRANGER...more

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Jul 08, 2011 Tim rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Sophist is one of the few Platonic dialogues which don’t have Socrates as the main character (all are from the late period). This seems to offer Plato some advantages, especially for this book’s purposes. Using the Eleatic Visitor as the main speaker allows Plato to make sustained arguments consisting of series of positive statements as opposed to the Socratic character’s standard approach, claiming to know nothing and play the midwife of others’ thoughts – asking questions, testing answers, usu...more Sophist is one of the few Platonic dialogues which don’t have Socrates as the main character (all are from the late period). This seems to offer Plato some advantages, especially for this book’s purposes. Using the Eleatic Visitor as the main speaker allows Plato to make sustained arguments consisting of series of positive statements as opposed to the Socratic character’s standard approach, claiming to know nothing and play the midwife of others’ thoughts – asking questions, testing answers, usually showing their inadequacy, and typically ending inconclusively. Arguably Plato could have used Socrates the same way he used the Visitor, but that would have been odd as Socrates is the main speaker in the Theaetetus, Sophist’s predecessor in a trilogy, in which Socrates is true to his old form. Sophist is an attack on Plato’s adversaries, the sophists, and on some of their most important (and to Plato, very dangerous) word or logic puzzles. His animus towards sophists, and towards poets, might seem excessive, but we should remember that he saw both as educators offering falsehoods, in some cases in the guise of truth and in others with a relativistic view of truth. And this was at a time when disinterested, rational investigation into truth was new and insecure. For some it was seen as impious, probably for others a potential threat to society and the state. Another danger that seems to have been quite real was the conflating of philosophy and sophistry (as we see in Aristophanes’ Clouds, and as Plato’s Apology seems to suggest, though in reality they were perhaps less distinct than Plato might have us believe). Regarding at least some sophists, the main issue was the reality and importance of truth and the importance of pursuing truth regardless of outcome as opposed to developing and teaching skill in persuasion regardless of truth. The sophists’ puzzles posed serious problems for Plato, causing fundamental aspects of existence (being and non-being, rest and motion, one and many, etc.) to appear hopelessly mired in contradictions and confusions, leading among other things to relativism about truth and morality.

Primary among these problems was confusion about being (i.e. the word “is”) and manipulation of the confusion of “is” as denoting existence with its denoting a thing’s having particular qualities. With this difference long clear to us, it’s hard to understand how the brightest minds in ancient Greece were stumped by it, but it was a major problem that Plato seems to have effectively clarified in Sophist. Another main problem in sophistical arguments was the equation of “not being x” with “being the opposite of x.” Plato pretty effectively clarifies that “not” indicates difference but not necessarily contrariety. He also, very importantly, believes he establishes that we can talk about things that don’t exist without necessarily contradicting ourselves. I’m not sure he established this in a way that would decisively undermine the sophists, but this issue was central to Plato’s problem with them. Some sophists claimed there couldn’t be false belief or speech because no one could think or say “that which is not” since “that which is not” has no share in “being” (this picks up an issue from the Theaetetus, while Sophist in general is largely directed against Parmenides, with some mostly indirect connection to the dialogue named after him). We might say that Plato demonstrated, or believed he demonstrated, that at least some things which don’t exist (e.g. things that are false) are nevertheless available to thought and speech.

Another main issue Plato tackles, also without the greatest clarity, is that qualities (possibly the Forms or Ideas from his earlier works) can blend with each other (this revisits a central problem from the Parmenides, at least if we take it as dealing with the Forms). He doesn’t provide much of an account of how this works, but in a proto-Aristotelian manner he doesn’t seem to need to so he doesn’t bother; he gives some examples which appear to adequately demonstrate that this “blending” happens in at least some situations and then forgoes further proof as he’s achieved his primary objectives: demonstrating that things can either “be” in the sense that they exist or they can “be” possessors of qualities; they can “not be” in possession of quality x but this doesn’t mean they have (or are) its opposite; they can “not be” something without meaning they don’t exist; we can discuss things that “are not” without contradicting ourselves or saying nothing; and things can possess a multiplicity of differing qualities, “blending with each other,” without this being inherently contradictory or problematic. At least this is my understanding of what I take to be the main points of the dialogue. (The first third of the book is an entertaining search for a definition of “sophist,” in which we also meet the Eleatic Visitor and are introduced to his “method of division.”)

The Visitor seems to speak for Plato much more clearly than the character Socrates elsewhere, and it’s hard to imagine Plato taking on the tasks of this dialogue with the usual Socratic limitations and dialectical method. Decisively refuting the sophists on the points addressed was critical to Plato’s project (there is truth, it’s absolute and unchanging, and it very possibly can be discovered and understood by man; there also must be falsehood – both deceit and misunderstanding or ignorance; similarly, justice and knowledge are real, and attempting to pursue and understand them is not necessarily destined to be fruitless). But we also find the Visitor as the main speaker in Statesman, while Parmenides had been the main speaker in that dialogue (with a young Socrates largely on the defensive), and Socrates doesn’t even appear in The Laws. Timaeus and Critias are essentially monologues by those characters, and even in Philebus, with Socrates as the main speaker, he asserts positive doctrine rather than questioning others and demolishing their definitions and arguments. It seems Plato in his late period needed something his earlier Socratic character and method could no longer provide him (with the exception of the Theaetetus, perhaps acting as a coda for the old Socrates and an introduction to the trilogy which apparently was to include Sophist, Statesman, and the unwritten Philosopher).

I mentioned a proto-Aristotelian aspect in this dialogue; it seems there are several of these in the Parmenides and Theaetetus-Sophist-Statesman trilogy: The logic puzzles in Parmenides almost demand an analysis and categorization of logical fallacies, for which a formal logic would be a prerequisite. The Eleatic Visitor’s method of division (used in Sophist and Statesman) is a step away from Socratic dialectic and a step towards Aristotelian logic. The Visitor also insists on differentiation between general and specific, and seems to be moving towards something like Aristotle’s genus and species. The unmoved mover makes a very brief appearance in Statesman’s cosmological myth, which also includes something like an initial abstract of Aristotle’s Politics (i.e. a survey and critique of existing political systems). And there’s also something similar to Aristotle’s beloved doctrine of the mean in Statesman. To be fair to Aristotle, no one else in the Academy took these hints or produced the remarkable body of work he did, and there are plenty of things in Aristotle, e.g. his causality, which don’t seem to have any obvious precedents in Plato. Certainly Aristotle’s formal logic was one of history’s great intellectual achievements, regardless of the extent of the foundation Plato provided. And of course the mindsets of the two men were very different, not least in the place (or lack thereof) of empiricism in their respective worlds of thought.

Perhaps it should be noted that our view of the sophists may be excessively negative and otherwise unbalanced largely due to Plato’s well-preserved and brilliant dialogues which so often savage the group. It’s unlikely we’ll ever have adequate knowledge of them to be able to independently assess Plato’s characterizations. But perhaps it’s worth keeping in mind Plato’s harsh view of the poets, who we do know, when considering his even harsher view of the sophists.(less)

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Oct 12, 2012 Colin rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Working through the Sophist as an introduction to a Seminar I am taking on Aristotle.

Read this Dialogue a few times from "Plato: Complete works" Edited by John Cooper and found this to be a much easier translation to follow, especially if it is a close and careful reading.

The downside is that at times there are words which are clearly translated into more colloquial and modern English. This serves the reader well for having a better sense of what is happening within the dialogue, but from a lite...more

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Mar 26, 2012 Catherine rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: catherine-s-cobwebs, 2012

Although the Sophist is not my favorite of Plato's dialogues, I have to give it points for keeping me awake in the dark for several hours. I just could not stop thinking long enough to get to sleep. I actually ended up having to get up in the middle of the night and jot down a few thoughts!
While part of that was due to the dialogue itself, I think that an equal, if not greater, force behind my preoccupation was that I could hear the individual voices of Mr. Kalkavage, Mr. Salem and Ms. Brann. I...more

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Nov 28, 2010 Edith rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: philosophy, greek

O.k. Since now, whenever somebody asks me what's the point of reading Plato after nearly 2500 years, I can laught earnestly.
This was a truly extraordinary experience. Plato is quite regardful writer, he makes sure everybody's got the point before he moves on. Trying to define (and succeding in it which is a nice change from Hippias Major) the concept of Sophist, he manage to designate a neat classification of all human activity, prove that Non-Being exists, define the concepts of Being, Not-Bein...more

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Jun 15, 2011 Jeremiah Tillman rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: ancients, philosophy

My first real trip into Plato's late dialogues. I read up to part two of the Parmenides, but turned chicken at the sheer impenetrability of the second part. I don't feel all that bad though, even Gilbert Ryle (my favorite "average guy" philosopher), among others, couldn't make heads or tails of that one. Going in, my contention was that this dialogue would be similar as it comes from the same period and is often grouped together with the Parmenides and the Theaetetus. The Sophist is much more co...more

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Nov 07, 2007 Draco3seven Crawdady rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: philosopher and scholars

Shelves: philosophy

The concept of the sophist is one of the most important concepts in at least Western academia... and maybe all human thinking....
Plato’s dialogue The Sophist is concerned with defining what the sophist is or more precisely defining what the sophist does and in so doing giving meaning to the term. So Plato’s goal here is to explain actions that define the term, and so explain the methods that define the sophist. Roughly the sophist is some one who is not concerned with truth and genuine knowledg...more

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Apr 06, 2013 MirijamZ rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Der Sophist ist eindeutig kein Buch, das man aus Vergnügen nebenher mal eben lesen kann. Platon hat allerdings die Suche nach der definitiven Definition einer Sache in einen Dialog verpackt. Dadurch kann man den Eindruck gewinnen bei dem Gespräch selbst anwesend zu sein und Rückfragen, die man selbst vielleicht stellen würde werden durch den Gesprächspartner im Buch gestellt. Wer ist denn nun dieser Sophist? Gibt es Unwahrheit? Existiert Nichtseiendes? Fragen, deren Antworten wir als selbstverst...more

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Jan 09, 2013 Michael Ledezma rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

An unfolding of dialectical logic before one's very own eyes. (And always with a touch of humor) To think that this was written when it was. It may be the case that current epochal Being is an enframing rather than phusis, but some things have not changed all that much.

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Apr 01, 2013 David Haines rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

a very interesting discussion of what characterizes a Sophist. plato touches on the relation between being, becoming, and non-being, as well as whether false belief is possible. A great dialogue that asks some very difficult questions.

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Mar 28, 2013 Yeonoh rated it 3 of 5 stars

So difficult to follow that sometimes got lost. The only thing I remember is the conclusion which is "knowledge is right opinion with the addition of reason or explanation".

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Sep 10, 2011 Thompson rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This dialogue is the companion diaglogue to Theatetus. Plato continues his thoughts on his theory of knowledge.

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May 21, 2013 Cameron rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The problem of being and non-being. How can thought be of something that is not? One of the better later Platonic dialogues.

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May 18, 2010 Jesse Lopes rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is the best example of dialectic reasoning. Heidegger masturbated over his copy; you should too.

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Jul 23, 2011 Yann rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: antiquité, philosophie, grece, politique

Un ensemble de dialogues qui vient après la République. Platon explique, toujours au moyen de dialogues vivants, sa conception idéaliste du monde. Il affirme la supériorité de l intelligence sur le plaisir, imagine que le monde est construit sur la base de concepts géométriques et mathématiques, qui semblent farfelus de nos jours. Pour lui, toute la création a été conçue en vue du bien par le divinité. Le mythe de l Atlantide est signale ici, pour illustrer ses conceptions politiques issues de l...more

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Dec 27, 2011 David Williamson rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: philosophy

This book opened up some ideas of Derrida's to me; its bleeding of being and non-being, difference and sameness. But, I can't say I particular enjoyed it or found it that rewarding - although, it was infinitely clearer than Derrida, which isn't hard.

I think fundamentally Plato and I just don't get on.

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Jun 04, 2008 Seth rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A Sophist is a hunter of young boys by the way.

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About Plato

Birth c. 428–427 BC, Athens
Death c. 348–347 BC, Athens

Plato was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the foundations of Western philosophy and science.

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Books by Plato

The Trial and Death of Socrates (Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Phaedo)

Five Dialogues: Euthyphro/Apology/Crito/Meno/Phaedo

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Quotes from Theaetetus/Sophist

“Stranger: 'Are not thought and speech the same, with this exception, that what is called thought is the unuttered conversation of the soul with herself?

Theatetus: Quite true.

Stranger: But the stream of thought which flows through the lips and is audible is called speech?

Theatetus: True.

Stranger: And we know that there exists in speech...

Theatetus: What exists?

Stranger: Affirmation

Theatetus: Yes, we know it.” — 1 person liked it

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