Sophist – Plato
THEAETETUS: And what is their answer?
STRANGER: Yes; but our reply will be, that we want to ascertain from them more distinctly, STRANGER: They deny the truth of what we whether they further admit that the soul knows, were just now saying to the aborigines about and that being or essence is known.
existence.
THEAETETUS: There can be no doubt that they THEAETETUS: What was that?
say so.
STRANGER: Any power of doing or suffering in STRANGER: And is knowing and being known a degree however slight was held by us to be a doing or suffering, or both, or is the one doing sufficient definition of being?
and the other suffering, or has neither any share in either?
THEAETETUS: True.
THEAETETUS: Clearly, neither has any share in STRANGER: They deny this, and say that the either; for if they say anything else, they will power of doing or suffering is confined to becom-contradict themselves.
ing, and that neither power is applicable to being.
STRANGER: I understand; but they will allow that if to know is active, then, of course, to be THEAETETUS: And is there not some truth in known is passive. And on this view being, in so what they say?
far as it is known, is acted upon by knowledge, 132
Sophist – Plato
and is therefore in motion; for that which is in a perfect being, but that it has no soul which con-state of rest cannot be acted upon, as we affirm.
tains them?
THEAETETUS: True.
THEAETETUS: And in what other way can it contain them?
STRANGER: And, O heavens, can we ever be made to believe that motion and life and soul STRANGER: Or that being has mind and life and and mind are not present with perfect being?
soul, but although endowed with soul remains Can we imagine that being is devoid of life and absolutely unmoved?
mind, and exists in awful unmeaningness an everlasting fixture?
THEAETETUS: All three suppositions appear to me to be irrational.
THEAETETUS: That would be a dreadful thing to admit, Stranger.
STRANGER: Under being, then, we must include motion, and that which is moved.
STRANGER: But shall we say that has mind and not life?
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
THEAETETUS: How is that possible?
STRANGER: Then, Theaetetus, our inference is, that if there is no motion, neither is there any mind any-STRANGER: Or shall we say that both inhere in where, or about anything or belonging to any one.