Sophist – Plato
THEAETETUS: What is it?
THEAETETUS: There is.
STRANGER: The nature of the other appears to STRANGER: Shall we say that this has or has me to be divided into fractions like knowledge.
not a name?
THEAETETUS: How so?
THEAETETUS: It has; for whatever we call not-beautiful is other than the beautiful, not than STRANGER: Knowledge, like the other, is one; something else.
and yet the various parts of knowledge have each of them their own particular name, and hence STRANGER: And now tell me another thing.
there are many arts and kinds of knowledge.
THEAETETUS: What?
THEAETETUS: Quite true.
STRANGER: Is the not-beautiful anything but STRANGER: And is not the case the same with this—an existence parted off from a certain kind the parts of the other, which is also one?
of existence, and again from another point of view opposed to an existing something?
THEAETETUS: Very likely; but will you tell me how?
THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: There is some part of the other which is opposed to the beautiful?
STRANGER: Then the not-beautiful turns out to 151
Sophist – Plato
be the opposition of being to being?
STRANGER: The same may be said of other things; seeing that the nature of the other has a THEAETETUS: Very true.
real existence, the parts of this nature must equally be supposed to exist.
STRANGER: But upon this view, is the beautiful a more real and the not-beautiful a less real ex-THEAETETUS: Of course.
istence?
STRANGER: Then, as would appear, the opposi-THEAETETUS: Not at all.
tion of a part of the other, and of a part of being, to one another, is, if I may venture to say so, as STRANGER: And the not-great may be said to truly essence as being itself, and implies not the exist, equally with the great?
opposite of being, but only what is other than being.
THEAETETUS: Yes.
THEAETETUS: Beyond question.
STRANGER: And, in the same way, the just must be placed in the same category with the not-just—
STRANGER: What then shall we call it?
the one cannot be said to have any more existence than the other.
THEAETETUS: Clearly, not-being; and this is the very nature for which the Sophist compelled us THEAETETUS: True.
to search.