the Sophist (written with approximately of 360 before J. - C.) is a dialog of Plato treating nature of the Sophiste, and of that of the being. It is the continuation of the Théétète of which it prolongs the discussion. Theodore and Socrate had been given return takes care it to you to continue the discussion with their friends: Théétète and a foreigner who comes from Elée, just like Parménide, although he is not a disciple. Socrat and Theodore listen to dialog the foreigner who questions and Théétète which answers. As in the last writings of Plato, Socrate does not intervene, because the sophist criticizes the traditional position that Plato gives to Socrate: the Theory of the Ideas, indicated here under the theory of the forms (" friends of the formes"). The Sophist belongs to the time series Parménide, Théétète, the Sophist, the Policy. Plato there criticizes and softens his primitive ontology of the Ideas to substitute to him a theory of the participation in the Idea, with the divine one. See also Cratyle, Philèbe.
The definition of the sophist
tests of a definition
After a short preamble between Socrate, Theodore, the Foreigner and Théétète, the dialog commits himself between these two last by an attempt defining the sophist. The method to be used is a succession of dichotomies (dialectical), method which proves its effectiveness for the fisherman with the line! The choice of the fisherman is not a chance, because this one is defined in opposition to the hunting of the terrestrial animals. Indeed, among the men who capture their prey, one can distinguish those which fish them and those which drive out them with ground.
The sophist is to him a hunter of terrestrial animals, the men. By continuing the dichotomies, one can as say as it drives out the rich men, that it wants to grow rich, and that it does it by speeches. The sophist is a merchant of speech. The problems start when the foreigner with Théétète manage with this method to give 6 various definitions of the sophists (216):
- like hunter interested by young rich people (232a)
- as teacher
- as wholesaler
- as tradesman of details
- as athlete in the combat of the words
- like purifier (cf Cratyle 397a)
The problem arising from the sophist
Having obtained 6 definitions of his art, the sophist shows his encyclopedic claim: he claims himself specialist in all and contradicts everyone on all the subjects. However, it is absolutely impossible all to know. It is of which that its art is a play: play of the mimetic one: the sophist does not speak about the real things, it does nothing but imitate them. He creates illusions and not a true copy of the things. The sophist speaks, but does not speak about nothing. How is this possible? Here is the great difficulty: to say something without bearing being in truth (236e).
The sophist thus seems to be defined by an attitude on the speech: any speech is inevitably true because the non-being does not exist. the difficulty resides in the possibility of even pronouncing false proposals: a proposal to be a proposal must manage to say something, i.e. it is necessary that there is something that one states. But in ordinary Greek and philosophical Greek, a false proposal is a proposal which says something which does not exist. (Michael Frede). Here the thesis of the sophist thus: how could one say what is not? (Cf Cratyle). The sophist hides in the darkness of the non-being. To flush out it, after a dialectical attempt at definition of the sophist who does not end, Plato criticizes Parménide and its thesis on the being and the non-being, redefines the participation to be it and of the non-being and finally manages to define the sophist.
To think the possibility of the false proposistions, Plato tries to clarify two sources of confusion: on the one hand which direction is necessary it to allot to the conjunction " pas" in " not être" and in addition how to think the value of a proposal in term of preaching (to allot to something a particular characteristic)
Not to be
To think the non-being is doubly difficult because it is necessary to think at the same time the negation and the being. After a first interrogation on the non-being, Plato wonders about the being which is as problematic as the non-being. After criticizing Parménide and his vision to be it, Plato reconsiders the question of the non-being.
The problem of the non-being
This supposes the non-being gold Parménide says that it is necessary to divert its reflection of the non-being: the non-being, one cannot even it name, it is already an abuse language. Asserting Parménide, the Sophist with whom one will reproach for not making that images of reality will require what is an image, if the Platonic image is defined as an interlacing to be and non-being.
The sophists arrive at speaking about the non-being, since they create illusions to mislead rich people. And even the foreigner arrives there, would be this only by saying that it is unpronouncable and unthinkable. That seems to be a car-contradiction to say that the non-being is this or that. Because one speaks about him like existing unit, having certain properties. The non-being should not only be. However it is not the case, since the sophists or the Foreigner speak about it. The only possible solution is thus to be opposed to the thesis Parménide, for which only the being is. Even the non-being must have some to be.
Without that indeed, it would be impossible to criticize the sophists. One could not say that they lie, since the forgery being the non-being, they could nothing say forgery. To say that the sophists lie, it is thus necessary that they can speak about the non-being, i.e. of what is false. It is necessary to be able to say that what does not exist exists, and that what exists does not exist. The concepts to be and of one, in the center of the philosophy of Parménide, if they are not revised, we will leave impotent vis-a-vis the sophists.
the problem to be it
Dualistic and unit doctrines
From where the criticism of the theses until used there in philosophy. Initially pluralist doctrines: it is to say that the being is one and multiple as others say that it is love and hatred or although the whole is one. It is to call the " un" two. Then, critical of the unit thesis: the being is the one: the being is the whole. Plato criticizes these theses: to say that the being is the one, in addition to which one uses two words to indicate the unit, is impossible: or the name of the different one from the thing which it indicates and one falls down in the duality, or the name coincides with the thing which it indicates and then it is only one word which recovers only one word, or then the " should be insulated; un" remainder and finally this word return only to itself. In the same way, to say that the being is the whole is impossible: to say " l'" to be supposes a certain unit in its being, but the whole can be divided, but one cannot be divided. That comes down affecting the being of a character of unit and placing the whole beyond one: one falls down in the dualistic doctrines. What to make? to tell what is the being neither nor whole? It is however necessary to find a place with the one and the whole in the being.
Conclusion: that which tries to say the being in the logos either as in a couple of concepts, or in only one is conveyed towards thousands of other dead ends (245e). The logos proves to be impossible to return account to be it.
Wire of the ground and friends of forms
The question of being it was often the cause of the conflict between materialists, for which the being is the body (exists only what offers a resistance), and in favor of the Idées, which not only admits the existence of the heart, but also of transcendent entities like justice or wisdom. These two parts are indicated in the Sophist by wire of the ground and the friends of the forms (246). one recognizes in the first holding them of Héraclite, and in the second… Socrate, which however present pipe not word in the dialog!
Against Wire of the ground, the foreigner declares that there exist right hearts and the other unjust ones; or if one does not recognize the existence of justice, the hearts old and the other insane ones. " The heart is certainly body in their opinion. But as regards wisdom and all these other realities which the question aims at, shame retains them to dare or to absolutely deny the being to them, or to affirm categorically that all are corps". (247c). How to then think the bodies and these incorporeal realities? The foreigner was in Théétète somebody of good composition, and have to imagine a son of the ground " civilisé" : it is not known as that a truth wire of the ground would have been of agreement with this argument. The foreigner benefits from this passage at wire of the ground to give a definition (logos) to be it as power (either to act or to suffer), than it borrows from holding of a realism. The being is power of relation here. This definition to be it is used against the friends of the form.
Against the friends of the forms (248), the foreigner criticizes the division which it operates between becoming it and the existence. What is prone to the change, with becoming is not; what is really is stable. The foreigner answers them that the man, from his body has contact with becoming it by the means of the feeling but has also contact with the existence from his heart, by the means of the reasoning (logismo). How to then include/understand this double communication with becoming it and the existence? This communication supposes a power, a relation between two things: the body and objects, hearts and forms. Will the friends of the forms say that the existence knows neither to act nor to suffer but how then to know? Knowledge is also relation between what is known and what knows. : " insofar as it is known, it will be driven because passivates, because to suffer does not take place say of what is with the repos".
With final, which the foreigner reproaches to the friends forms, it is their too great rigidity: " and what by Zeus, we will so easily let be convinced that the movement, the life, the heart, the thought do not have a place within the universal being, that he did not see nor does not think and that solemn and crowned, empty of intellect, there remains planted there, without being able bonger". (here the supreme being would be without logos living). On the contrary poses the foreigner, it exists a Intellect (us) animated in the being (249). (See Plotin and its second hypostasis; intellect, to see the Philèbe for the passage of divine to the demiurge, to see Metaphysical 1012b 23). As one cannot support any more as the Forms are motionless and separate. The body forms and things communicate between them.
Conclusion
" To the philosopher thus, at whoever these goods at the top of all the others absolute rules seems it puts is prescribed consequently: by those which preach either one, or multiplicity of the forms, not to let itself impose the immobility of the whole; with those which in addition drive the being in any direction, not even not to lend the ear; but to make as make the children in their wishes: all that east is motionless and all that is drive and to say that the being is the whole and one and both at the same time. " This program then makes it possible to hold the being in the logos.
The question rebounds however: how to reconcile in the being the movement and the rest? With final, the question of being it (249) is quite as problematic as that of the non-being that the dialog already studied in 237c declares the foreigner. How to cut through with the logos a path between these shelves?
NB: One will pay attention here to the displacement operated since the initial question. It is not a question here any more of saying the being is movement or rest but of saying that the movement and the rest take part all two in the being.
The participation of the kinds in the being
Linguistics
We say (legomen) a thing by several names: at the beginning of the language is put the question of one and the multiple. We pose each thing like single saying it multiple ways: to say " the man is blanc" , it is already to say it multiple ways and to pose the being in becoming it. Certain ontologicians extremists then refused to use the copula being in the speech: rather than to say the man is white, he would be necessary to better say the man bleached.
From where three questions:
- is it prohibits to link the being at rest and with the movement, the one and the multiple, same and the other in the logos?
- the movement and is the rest able to join mutually?
- certain things is they able to link rest and movement and of other not? (251e)
- the preceding discussions showed that the rest and the movement existed. However to say (legein) all that would be nothing to say if there is nothing which cannot mix. Those which hold the speech (logos) most ridiculous are those which do not allow that a thing is in bond with another thing. In a certain manner, they are obliged with regard to all things to make use of " être" and of " séparé" , of " autres" , of " in soi" and of thousands of other similar names that they are able neither to draw aside, nor to avoid attaching together in the logos and which thus they do not have need for someone else to refute them; they place on their premises like one says the enemy and the opponent and go while carrying a voice which resounds in their interior like the foreigner Euryclés (Euryclés was ventriloque). 252c
- To confuse movement and rest wants to say that these are only two words which are recovered and which do not have any substance
- It thus should be said that sometimes certain things are able to link movement and rest and of other not. There is thus an art to weave movement unit and rest, a little like the music or the grammar which manage to compose certain sounds or certain letters units while certain sounds or letters are not likely to be dependant units. For example a mélagne is needed vowels and consonants. If there are only consonants, they is unpronouncable.
The contribution of the dialectical one
So certain things can be sometimes plain at rest and with the movement, it is that there are kinds to be it which admit a mixture between them. One thus needs a certain science to advance in the logos (reason, speech) and to study this participation of the kinds between them. This science it is dialectical philosophy: " to divide thus by kinds and not to take for another form which is same form which is different, is not there would say works it to us dialectical science? " (253d) or even " That which in is able, its glance is enough penetrating to see a single form deployed in any direction through a plurality of forms from which each one remains distinct, a plurality of mutually different forms that a widespread single form through an overall plurality without breaking its unit there, finally many absolutely interdependent forms. However to be able of that, it is knowto know to distinguish kinds by kinds which associations are for each one of them possible or not " (253e). That there philosophizes in all purity and any justice.
Contrary to the philosopher who studies with the clearness to be it how the forms take part between them, the sophist hides in the obscure area of the non-being. He applies his thought by reasoning (logismo) to give a form to be in what does not take part in it. It is true that the philosopher is not either very easy to distinguish but for him, it is because of the glare of which resplendit the area to be it. it is that the eyes of the vulgar heart are not force to maintain their glance fixed on the divine one. (254b)
Supreme kinds
The dichotomic method, used at the beginning of the work, is defined by the Foreigner as being the Dialectique. The dialectician is able, starting from a form, to distinguish the other forms which are included in it, and to see how the various established kinds communicate. However, the concept to be, which is mixed, needs the work of this dialectician. (254e)
We had the categories to be, of rest, and movement. The rest and the movement cannot mix but the being can mix with both, because both take part in the being. It is necessary to add to these three categories the same one and the other. These categories, which are not reducible with the preceding ones have the property to be homological, they apply to them same. The same one always says the same one, and the other is said always relative to another. (256e).
Starting with the movement, the Foreigner applies the new categories to the first. The movement is other than the rest and other that the same one. But the movement also takes part in same. Consequently, relative with itself, the movement is the same one, relative at rest, the movement is the different one. In the same way, the movement is the same one as the being, in his report/ratio with itself, and other that the being, in his report/ratio at rest.
The other thus has these qualities interesting to be always relative (when we say a thing is different, we want to say that it is other than…) and to penetrate all the kinds to be it: the movement is other than the being, the same one is other than the being, the rest is other than the movement…. Continuing the reasoning, the foreigner applies the category of the other to the being. The other takes part in the being to give rise to the non-being. When we state (legein) the non-being, it is not there this seems, to state something of opposite to the being but only something of other. To say that a thing is not this, it is to say that it is different. To deny the being of a thing, it is to affirm its otherness. Around of each form, there is thus multiplicity to be and infinite quantity of non-being (256e). Lastly, last property of the other: to each exit kind of the other, a science corresponds. To study thebeautiful one and the beautiful one, it is esthetic science. It is to oppose part of the other with part to be it of.
Logos and non-being
The foreigner is thus far from the way parménidienne: he studied the non-being, affirmed his existence and even studied his form. " Once shown that there is a nature of the other, and that it is detailed with all the beings in their mutual relation, of each fraction of the other which is opposed to the being, we said it boldly is this even as is the non-être". This is possible because the foreigner congédié the non-being like opposite to be it, " not having cure to know if it were logos or alogos". The being and the other compénêtre mutually: the other takes part in the being like other and the being particpe with the other in his relationship with all the other kinds. Here is the true way of respecting the direction of the logos. (259c) Those which say that the same one is different, that one is the multiple or of another quibbles expresses in their logoi only the first hasty fruit of a very first contact with reality. " Because it is the most radical manner of destroying any logos to isolate each thing from all the remainder; because it is by a mutual insurance company combination of the forms that the speech is to us né". It is necessary to keep the logos in the community of the kinds (260b).
Return to the problem of the speech and the sophist
The participation of the other in the logos
Thus, all is mixed, and one can speak only if the things are mixed. If the being were not mixed with the non-being, no speech would be possible. It nevertheless remains to be checked that, if the speech is him also a being, then the non-being can mix with the speech, in order to obtain the false speech. Because the sophist will defend himself by saying that the speech does not mix, and that the forgery is impossible. IT is necessary on the contrary to prove that the other can mix with the logos for generates the false opinion, therefore the error to him, therefore the fraud, therefore the illusion, therefore the image and to say to him that it makes with its logos only images, shows of reality.
The Foreigner starts with a linguistic analysis of the speech. As one had studied to know if all the sounds can mix between them to give music, it should be seen whether all the names can mix between them to compose a direction. The words which, said to the wire compose a direction, agree between (Socrate eats Théétète), if they do not express any direction, that wants to say that it does not agree between them (Socrate Théétète eats). The sentence is the association of a noun and a verb. The verb shows the action carried out, whereas the name shows which makes the action. This first connection between a noun and a verb coincides with the birth of the logos. (262a) Before one naming now one discourses. And any speech, to be one about it, must relate on something, a subject. Then, one can say that the sentence (logos) distorts is that which says (legein) something of other that what is (Théétète flies), whereas the true one said what is (Théétète sat). But this false sentence really said something of what is not. The false sentence thus has also a being: non-being defined as other.
This non-being mixed with the speech is possible in the thought (which are logos interior 263e), in the opinion (assertion, negation) and in imagination (opinion relating to a feeling).
Return to the sophist
It is finally possible to define the sophist. The sophist was defined as producer of speech (logos). But this production is human and not divine (265b). The divine one produced the nature and the image of nature (shade, reflection) with the logos but the sophist produced with the logos of the shows of reality. The fraud is indeed possible since the foreigner gave a statute to the false image (since one can mix the other and the logos, therefore to hold of the false speeches thus to introduce the error, therefore the fraud, therefore the image, therefore the show). The sophist will imitate the things which he does not know and will underline a pretense by revealing it like present. But the sophist is not naive, it is an ironic imitator, who knows that it misleads his interlocutor. Its goal only aims to the bottom at contradicting its opponent.
This art of contradiction which, by the ironic part, of an art based on the only opinion returns in the mimetic one and by the kind which produces shows attaches to art to create images, production human and nondivine, having for object the production of the logoi: here what is the sophist (268d)
See too
| Random links: | Leo Perutz | Canada environment | Christ' S College (Cambridge) | Samson (Giant processional) | Culex quinquefasciatus |