Sophist – Plato
THEAETETUS: Yes.
I not refer to not-being as one?
STRANGER: And a little while ago I said that THEAETETUS: Certainly.
not-being is unutterable, unspeakable, indescribable: do you follow?
STRANGER: And yet we say that, strictly speaking, it should not be defined as one or many, and THEAETETUS: I do after a fashion.
should not even be called ‘it,’ for the use of the word ‘it’ would imply a form of unity.
STRANGER: When I introduced the word ‘is,’
did I not contradict what I said before?
THEAETETUS: Quite true.
THEAETETUS: Clearly.
STRANGER: How, then, can any one put any faith in me? For now, as always, I am unequal to the STRANGER: And in using the singular verb, did refutation of not-being. And therefore, as I was I not speak of not-being as one?
saying, do not look to me for the right way of speaking about not-being; but come, let us try THEAETETUS: Yes.
the experiment with you.
STRANGER: And when I spoke of not-being as THEAETETUS: What do you mean?
indescribable and unspeakable and unutterable, in using each of these words in the singular, did STRANGER: Make a noble effort, as becomes 113
Sophist – Plato
youth, and endeavour with all your might to speak and I should like to know, Theaetetus, how we can of not-being in a right manner, without introduc-possibly answer the younker’s question?
ing into it either existence or unity or plurality.
THEAETETUS: We shall doubtless tell him of the THEAETETUS: It would be a strange boldness in images which are reflected in water or in mirrors; me which would attempt the task when I see also of sculptures, pictures, and other duplicates.
you thus discomfited.
STRANGER: I see, Theaetetus, that you have STRANGER: Say no more of ourselves; but until never made the acquaintance of the Sophist.
we find some one or other who can speak of not-being without number, we must acknowledge THEAETETUS: Why do you think so?
that the Sophist is a clever rogue who will not be got out of his hole.
STRANGER: He will make believe to have his eyes shut, or to have none.
THEAETETUS: Most true.
THEAETETUS: What do you mean?
STRANGER: And if we say to him that he professes an art of making appearances, he will grapple with STRANGER: When you tell him of something us and retort our argument upon ourselves; and existing in a mirror, or in sculpture, and address when we call him an image-maker he will say, him as though he had eyes, he will laugh you to
‘Pray what do you mean at all by an image?’—
scorn, and will pretend that he knows nothing 114
Sophist – Plato
of mirrors and streams, or of sight at all; he will STRANGER: And you mean by true that which say that he is asking about an idea.
really is?
THEAETETUS: What can he mean?
THEAETETUS: Yes.
STRANGER: The common notion pervading all STRANGER: And the not true is that which is these objects, which you speak of as many, and the opposite of the true?
yet call by the single name of image, as though it were the unity under which they were all in-THEAETETUS: Exactly.
cluded. How will you maintain your ground against him?
STRANGER: A resemblance, then, is not really real, if, as you say, not true?
THEAETETUS: How, Stranger, can I describe an image except as something fashioned in the like-THEAETETUS: Nay, but it is in a certain sense.
ness of the true?
STRANGER: You mean to say, not in a true sense?
STRANGER: And do you mean this something to be some other true thing, or what do you mean?
THEAETETUS: Yes; it is in reality only an image.
THEAETETUS: Certainly not another true thing, STRANGER: Then what we call an image is in but only a resemblance.
reality really unreal.