Sophist – Plato
THEAETETUS: They cannot.
creating infinity, or dividing them into finite elements, and forming compounds out of these; STRANGER: But would either of them be if not whether they suppose the processes of creation participating in being?
to be successive or continuous, would be talking nonsense in all this if there were no admixture.
THEAETETUS: No.
THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: Then by this admission everything is instantly overturned, as well the doctrine of STRANGER: Most ridiculous of all will the men universal motion as of universal rest, and also themselves be who want to carry out the argu-then doctrine of those who distribute being into ment and yet forbid us to call anything, because immutable and everlasting kinds; for all these participating in some affection from another, by add on a notion of being, some affirming that the name of that other.
things ‘are’ truly in motion, and others that they ‘are’ truly at rest.
THEAETETUS: Why so?
THEAETETUS: Just so.
STRANGER: Why, because they are compelled to use the words ‘to be,’‘apart,’ ‘from others,’
STRANGER: Again, those who would at one time
‘in itself,’ and ten thousand more, which they compound, and at another resolve all things, cannot give up, but must make the connecting whether making them into one and out of one links of discourse; and therefore they do not re-139
Sophist – Plato
quire to be refuted by others, but their enemy, STRANGER: But this is utterly impossible.
as the saying is, inhabits the same house with them; they are always carrying about with them THEAETETUS: Of course.
an adversary, like the wonderful ventriloquist, Eurycles, who out of their own bellies audibly STRANGER: Then only the third hypothesis re-contradicts them.
mains.
THEAETETUS: Precisely so; a very true and ex-THEAETETUS: True.
act illustration.
STRANGER: For, surely, either all things have STRANGER: And now, if we suppose that all communion with all; or nothing with any other things have the power of communion with one thing; or some things communicate with some another—what will follow?
things and others not.
THEAETETUS: Even I can solve that riddle.
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
STRANGER: How?
STRANGER: And two out of these three suppositions have been found to be impossible.
THEAETETUS: Why, because motion itself would be at rest, and rest again in motion, if they could THEAETETUS: Yes.
be attributed to one another.