Sophist – Plato
THEAETETUS: True.
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
STRANGER: And we know that there exists in STRANGER: And seeing that language is true and speech...
false, and that thought is the conversation of the soul with herself, and opinion is the end of think-THEAETETUS: What exists?
ing, and imagination or phantasy is the union of sense and opinion, the inference is that some of STRANGER: Affirmation.
them, since they are akin to language, should have an element of falsehood as well as of truth?
THEAETETUS: Yes, we know it.
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
STRANGER: When the affirmation or denial takes Place in silence and in the mind only, have you STRANGER: Do you perceive, then, that false any other name by which to call it but opinion?
opinion and speech have been discovered sooner than we expected?—For just now we seemed to THEAETETUS: There can be no other name.
be undertaking a task which would never be ac-complished.
STRANGER: And when opinion is presented, not simply, but in some form of sense, would you not THEAETETUS: I perceive.
call it imagination?
STRANGER: Then let us not be discouraged about 164
Sophist – Plato
the future; but now having made this discovery, THEAETETUS: True.
let us go back to our previous classification.
STRANGER: And now, since there has been THEAETETUS: What classification?
shown to be false speech and false opinion, there may be imitations of real existences, and out of STRANGER: We divided image-making into two this condition of the mind an art of deception sorts; the one likeness-making, the other imagi-may arise.
native or phantastic.
THEAETETUS: Quite possible.
THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: And we have already admitted, in STRANGER: And we said that we were uncer-what preceded, that the Sophist was lurking in tain in which we should place the Sophist.
one of the divisions of the likeness-making art?
THEAETETUS: We did say so.
THEAETETUS: Yes.
STRANGER: And our heads began to go round STRANGER: Let us, then, renew the attempt, and more and more when it was asserted that there in dividing any class, always take the part to the is no such thing as an image or idol or appear-right, holding fast to that which holds the Soph-ance, because in no manner or time or place can ist, until we have stripped him of all his com-there ever be such a thing as falsehood.
mon properties, and reached his difference or 165
Sophist – Plato
peculiar. Then we may exhibit him in his true of creation—of images, however, as we affirm, and nature, first to ourselves and then to kindred not of real things.
dialectical spirits.
THEAETETUS: Quite true.
THEAETETUS: Very good.
STRANGER: In the first place, there are two kinds STRANGER: You may remember that all art was of creation.
originally divided by us into creative and acquisitive.
THEAETETUS: What are they?
THEAETETUS: Yes.
STRANGER: One of them is human and the other divine.
STRANGER: And the Sophist was flitting before us in the acquisitive class, in the subdivisions of THEAETETUS: I do not follow.
hunting, contests, merchandize, and the like.
STRANGER: Every power, as you may remem-THEAETETUS: Very true.
ber our saying originally, which causes things to exist, not previously existing, was defined by us STRANGER: But now that the imitative art has as creative.
enclosed him, it is clear that we must begin by dividing the art of creation; for imitation is a kind THEAETETUS: I remember.