Sophist (dialogue)

The "Sophist" (Greek: Σοφιστής) is one of the late Dialogues of Plato, which was written much later than the "Parmenides" and the "Theaetetus", probably in 360 BC. After he criticized his own Theory of Forms in the "Parmenides", Plato proceeds in the "Sophist" with a new conception of the Forms, more mundane and down-to-earth, and makes more clear the epistemological and metaphysical puzzles of the "Parmenides"; thus, he refers to that dialogue between Parmenides and young Socrates, which was written probably much earlier than the "Sophist". Furthermore, he shows his expertise in Dialectic, as he applies it in this Dialogue in order to define the Sophist. Moreover, he solves the puzzle of the "false" and the "right opinion", as well as of the "justified true belief" that had been inquired in the "Theaetetus".

Synopsis

Introduction

The Dialogue is considered to have been written long after the "Parmenides" and the "Theaetetus", and aims at defining the Sophist. The participants are Socrates, who plays a minor role, the highly promising young student Theaetetus, and a Visitor from Elea, the hometown of Parmenides, who plays the major role in the conversation. Plato probably replaces Socrates with the Visitor from Elea, because he plans to criticize Parmenides’ notion that ‘we cannot speak or think of what is not’ (reference to the dialogue "Parmenides" between Parmenides and young Socrates). Here Plato's strategy is to distinguish the negation of the being from the not-being, and to define the "right" and the "false opinion" by the use of Dialectic. The Stranger sets out to define the Sophist, the Statesman and the Philosopher, claiming that they are three distinct human types. The definition of the Sophist aims at verbal explanation and requires knowledge of the nature of the kinds, as well as of their ability of blending.

Method of definition

In this Dialogue Plato follows a new method of definition by the use of a model, comparison of the model with the target kind, division (diairesis), collection, and deduction from the collected kinds. At first he starts with the use of a mundane model ("Angler"), which shares some qualities in common with the target kind ("Sophist"). This common quality is the certain expertise ("techne") at one subject. Then through the method of collection of different kinds (farming, caring for mortal bodies, for things that are put together or fabricated and imitation) he tries to bring them together (deduction) into one kind, which he calls "productive art". The same is true with the collection of learning, recognition, commerce, combat and hunting, which can be deduced into the kind of "acquisitive art." After these two collections he proceeds to the division of the expertise into "production" and "acquisition", and then he tries to find out to which of these two sub-kinds the angler belongs (classification), which means acquisition. By following the same method, deduction through collection, he divides the acquisition in "possession taking" and "exchanging goods", to which sophistry belongs. After many successive collections and divisions he finally arrives at the definition of the model (Angler). Throughout this process Plato discovers many kinds and sub-kinds (hunting, aquatic-hunting, fishing, strike-hunting).

After the verbal explanation of the model (definition), he tries to find out what the model and the target kind share in common (sameness) and what differentiates them (difference). Through this comparison, and after having been aware of the different kinds and sub-kinds, he can classify sophistry also among the other branches of the ‘tree’ of division of expertise as follows: "1.production, hunting by persuasion and money-earning, 2.acquisition, soul wholesaling, 3. soul retailing, retailing things that others make, 4. soul retailing, retailing things that he makes himself, 5. possession taking, competition, money-making expertise in debating".

Throughout the process of comparison of the deduced kinds through his method of collection, Plato discovers some attributes in relation to which the kinds can be divided (difference in relation to something). These are similar to the Categories of Aristotle, so to say: quantity, quality, relation, location, time, position, end etc.

After having failed to define sophistry, he attempts a final deduction through the collection of the five definitions of sophistry. Since these five definitions share in common one quality (sameness), which is the "imitation", he finally qualifies sophistry as "imitation art". Following the division of the imitation art in "copy-making and appearance-making", he discovers that sophistry falls under the "appearance-making art", namely the Sophist imitates the wise man. However, in order that his conclusion is irrefutable Plato has to examine first Parmenides’ notion, namely ‘it is impossible that things that are not are’, in comparison with his conclusion, that is to say ‘"those which are not (appearing and seeming) somehow are’".

Puzzles of being and not-being, great kinds

Plato, before proceeding to the final definition of sophistry, has to make clear the concepts that he used throughout the procedure of definition. In other words he has to clarify what is the nature of the Being ("that which is"), Not-Being, Sameness, Difference, Motion and Rest, and how they are interrelated. Therefore he examines Parmenides’ notion in comparison with Empedocles and Heraclitus’ in order to find out whether Being is identical with "Change" or "Rest" or both.

The conclusion is that "Rest" and "Change" both "are", which means both are beings, and not only "Rest" as Parmenides said. Furthermore, "Being" is a distinct kind, which all existing things share in common. "Sameness" is a distinct kind that all things, which belong to the same kind or genera share with reference to a certain attribute, and due to which deduction through collection is possible. "Difference" is a distinct kind that makes things of the same kind not to be identified , therefore it enables us to proceed to their division. The knowledge of these five Great Kinds and their ability of blending is the characteristic of the Philosopher, since it is equivalent to expertise in Dialectic. Finally, so-called "Not-Being" is not the opposite of "Being" but simply different from it; for instance, the statement "this is not black" does not necessarily indicate whiteness-- it asserts no preference among non-black colors. Therefore the negation of "Being" is identified with the "Difference", since negative predication indicates something different (an unlimited range) from the predicate. Not-being is difference, it is not the opposite of Being.

Following these conclusions, the ‘true statement’ can be distinguished from the ‘false’ one, since each statement consists of a verb and a name. The name refers to the subject, namely the statement is about something, because a thought or a speech is always about something, and it cannot be about nothing ("Not-Being"). The verb is the sign of the action that the subject performs ("poiein") or the action being performed to or on the subject ("paschein"). When the verb states something that is about the subject, namely one of his properties, then the statement is true. While when the verb states something that is "different" ("it is not") from the properties of the subject, then the statement is false. In this way Plato associates the Non-Identity (NI) premise with Negative Predication (NP).

‘"Theaetetus is flying’" is false while ‘"Theaetetus is sitting’" is true, because the predicate ‘flying’ is different from the actual predicate of Theaetetus, which is ‘sitting’. Therefore, in order to examine whether a statement is false or true, we simply need to find at least one property which the subject possesses, and which is different from the one that the predicate specifies . It is plausible then, that ‘"things which are not (appearing and seeming) somehow are"’, and so it is also plausible that the sophist produces false appearances and imitates the wise man.

Final definition

After having solved all these puzzles, that is to say the interrelation between being, not-being, difference and negation, as well as the possibility of the ‘appearing and seeming but not really being’, Plato can finally proceed to define sophistry. In other words, "sophistry is a productive art, human, of the imitation kind, copy-making, of the appearance-making kind, uninformed and insincere in the form of contrary-speech-producing art".

Interpretations

Since Plato wrote the "Statesman" after the "Sophist", while he never wrote the Dialogue "Philosopher", many scholars argue that Plato challenges the audience to search for the definition of the philosopher themselves, by applying the method of inquiry and definition shown in those two Dialogues. However, this does not mean that one can simply extend the method in a mechanical way to the investigation of the philosopher, but he only shows us how one can proceed in such philosophical enquiries.

References

*Ackrill, J. L. "Essays on Plato and Aristotle", Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. 93-109
*Ambuel, David (2007). "Image and Paradigm in Plato's Sophist". Parmenides Publishing. ISBN 978-1-930972-004-9
*"Plato's Sophist. The Professor of Wisdom" - With translation, introduction and glossary by Eva Brann, Peter Kalkavage, Eric Salem - Newburyport, Focus Publishing, 1996
*Bakalis, N., "Handbook of Greek Philosophy: From Thales to the Stoics Analysis and Fragments" ISBN 1-4120-4843-5
*Benardete, S., "Plato's Sophist. Part II of The being of the beautiful", Chicago: Chicago University Press (1986)
*Cornford, F. M., 1935, "Plato's Theory of Knowledge", London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
*Eck, J. van, 2002, “Not Being and Difference: on Plato's Sophist 256d5-258e3”, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 23: 63-84.
*Frede, M., 1992, “Plato's Sophist on False Statements”, in The Cambridge Companion to Plato, R. Kraut (ed.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 397-424.
*Frede, M., 1996, “The Literary Form of the Sophist”, in Form and Argument in Late Plato, C. Gill and M. M. McCabe (eds.), Oxford: Clarendon Press. 135-51.
*Gill, C. and M. M. McCabe (eds.), 1996, "Form and Argument in Late Plato", Oxford: Clarendon Press.
*Harte, V., 2002, "Plato on Parts and Wholes: The Metaphysics of Structure", Oxford: Clarendon Press.
*Heidegger, M., 1997, "Plato's Sophist", Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Translation of "Platon: Sophistes", Frankfurt: Vittorio Klostermann, 1992, vol. 19 of Heidegger's "Gesamtausgabe".
*Moravcsik, J. M. E., 1992, "Plato and Platonism", Oxford: Blackwell.
*Nehamas, A., 1982, “Participation and Predication in Plato's Later Thought”, Review of Metaphysics 26: 343-74.
*Sallis, J., 1996, "Being and Logos: Reading the Platonic Dialogues", Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 3rd edn., ch. 6.
*Stenzel, J., 1931 [1940] , "Plato's Method of Dialectic", D. J. Allan (trans. and ed.), Oxford: Clarendon Press.
*Vlastos, G., 1973, “An Ambiguity in the Sophist”, in "Platonic Studies", G. Vlastos, Princeton: Princeton University Press. 270-322.
*White, N. P., 1993, "Plato: Sophist", Indianapolis, Ind.: Hackett.

External links

*http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato-sophstate/: [Mary Louise Gill, Method and Metaphysics in Plato's Sophist and Statesman]
* [http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/sophist.html Sophist, Translated by Benjamin Jowett]
* [http://www.formalontology.it/plato-sophist.htm Plato's Sophist and the Being of Non-Being]
* [http://platogeek.com/work/6 Plato's Sophist Bibliography]
* [http://el.wikisource.org/wiki/Σοφιστής Platon:"Sofisti"el:The Dialogue in original language]