Complete Works

by Plato

STRANGER: For certainly, my friend, the attempt to separate all existences from one another is a barbarism and utterly unworthy of an educated or philosophical mind. THEAETETUS: Why so? STRANGER: The attempt at universal separation is the final annihilation of all reasoning; for only by the union of conceptions with one another do we attain to discourse of reason. THEAETETUS: True. STRANGER: And, observe that we were only just in time in making a resistance to such separatists, and compelling them to admit that one thing mingles with another. THEAETETUS: Why so? STRANGER: Why, that we might be able to assert discourse to be a kind of being; for if we could not, the worst of all consequences would follow; we should have no philosophy. Moreover, the necessity for determining the nature of discourse presses upon us at this moment; if utterly deprived of it, we could no more hold discourse; and deprived of it we should be if we admitted that there was no admixture of natures at all.