Sophist – Plato
THEAETETUS: Quite true.
late knowledge and reason and mind, and yet ventures to speak confidently about anything.
STRANGER: And yet this equally follows, if we grant that all things are in motion—upon this THEAETETUS: Yes, with all our might.
view too mind has no existence.
STRANGER: Then the philosopher, who has the THEAETETUS: How so?
truest reverence for these qualities, cannot possibly accept the notion of those who say that the STRANGER: Do you think that sameness of con-whole is at rest, either as unity or in many forms: dition and mode and subject could ever exist and he will be utterly deaf to those who assert without a principle of rest?
universal motion. As children say entreatingly
‘Give us both,’ so he will include both the move-THEAETETUS: Certainly not.
able and immoveable in his definition of being and all.
STRANGER: Can you see how without them mind could exist, or come into existence anywhere?
THEAETETUS: Most true.
THEAETETUS: No.
STRANGER: And now, do we seem to have gained a fair notion of being?
STRANGER: And surely contend we must in every possible way against him who would annihi-THEAETETUS: Yes truly.