Sophist – Plato
STRANGER: Let us, then, examine our imitator THEAETETUS: Very good.
of appearance, and see whether he is sound, like a piece of iron, or whether there is still some STRANGER: And shall we further speak of this crack in him.
latter class as having one or two divisions?
THEAETETUS: Let us examine him.
THEAETETUS: Answer yourself.
STRANGER: Indeed there is a very considerable STRANGER: Upon consideration, then, there crack; for if you look, you find that one of the two appear to me to be two; there is the dissembler, classes of imitators is a simple creature, who thinks who harangues a multitude in public in a long that he knows that which he only fancies; the other speech, and the dissembler, who in private and sort has knocked about among arguments, until in short speeches compels the person who is con-he suspects and fears that he is ignorant of that versing with him to contradict himself.
which to the many he pretends to know.
THEAETETUS: What you say is most true.
THEAETETUS: There are certainly the two kinds which you describe.
STRANGER: And who is the maker of the longer speeches? Is he the statesman or the popular STRANGER: Shall we regard one as the simple orator?
imitator—the other as the dissembling or ironi-cal imitator?
THEAETETUS: The latter.