Sophist – Plato
THEAETETUS: Possibly.
be two names of the same class?
STRANGER: But if they are identical, then again THEAETETUS: Very likely.
in saying that motion and rest have being, we should also be saying that they are the same.
STRANGER: But you would agree, if I am not mistaken, that existences are relative as well as absolute?
THEAETETUS: Which surely cannot be.
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
STRANGER: Then being and the same cannot be one.
STRANGER: And the other is always relative to other?
THEAETETUS: Scarcely.
THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: Then we may suppose the same to be a fourth class, which is now to be added to STRANGER: But this would not be the case un-the three others.
less being and the other entirely differed; for, if the other, like being, were absolute as well as THEAETETUS: Quite true.
relative, then there would have been a kind of other which was not other than other. And now STRANGER: And shall we call the other a fifth we find that what is other must of necessity be class? Or should we consider being and other to what it is in relation to some other.