Sophist – Plato
STRANGER: Here, then, is another thing which equally appear; and if we are able to see neither, we ought to bear in mind.
there may still be a chance of steering our way in between them, without any great discredit.
THEAETETUS: What?
THEAETETUS: Very good.
STRANGER: When we were asked to what we were to assign the appellation of not-being, we were in STRANGER: Let us enquire, then, how we come the greatest difficulty:—do you remember?
to predicate many names of the same thing.
THEAETETUS: To be sure.
THEAETETUS: Give an example.
STRANGER: And are we not now in as great a STRANGER: I mean that we speak of man, for difficulty about being?
example, under many names—that we attribute to him colours and forms and magnitudes and THEAETETUS: I should say, Stranger, that we are virtues and vices, in all of which instances and in one which is, if possible, even greater.
in ten thousand others we not only speak of him as a man, but also as good, and having number-STRANGER: Then let us acknowledge the diffi-less other attributes, and in the same way any-culty; and as being and not-being are involved in thing else which we originally supposed to be the same perplexity, there is hope that when the one is described by us as many, and under many one appears more or less distinctly, the other will names.