Sophist – Plato
THEAETETUS: May I ask to what you are refer-inculcate the same lesson—always repeating both ring?
in verse and out of verse: STRANGER: My dear friend, we are engaged in
‘Keep your mind from this way of enquiry, a very difficult speculation—there can be no doubt for never will you show that not-being is.’
of that; for how a thing can appear and seem, and not be, or how a man can say a thing which Such is his testimony, which is confirmed by the is not true, has always been and still remains a very expression when sifted a little. Would you very perplexing question. Can any one say or object to begin with the consideration of the think that falsehood really exists, and avoid be-words themselves?
ing caught in a contradiction? Indeed, Theaetetus, the task is a difficult one.
THEAETETUS: Never mind about me; I am only desirous that you should carry on the argument THEAETETUS: Why?
in the best way, and that you should take me with you.
STRANGER: He who says that falsehood exists has the audacity to assert the being of not-be-STRANGER: Very good; and now say, do we vening; for this is implied in the possibility of false-ture to utter the forbidden word ‘not-being’?
hood. But, my boy, in the days when I was a boy, the great Parmenides protested against this doc-THEAETETUS: Certainly we do.
trine, and to the end of his life he continued to 109
Sophist – Plato
STRANGER: Let us be serious then, and consider STRANGER: It is also plain, that in speaking of the question neither in strife nor play: suppose something we speak of being, for to speak of an that one of the hearers of Parmenides was asked, abstract something naked and isolated from all
‘ To what is the term “not-being” to be ap-being is impossible.
plied?’—do you know what sort of object he would single out in reply, and what answer he THEAETETUS: Impossible.
would make to the enquirer?
STRANGER: You mean by assenting to imply that THEAETETUS: That is a difficult question, and one he who says something must say some one thing?
not to be answered at all by a person like myself.
THEAETETUS: Yes.
STRANGER: There is at any rate no difficulty in seeing that the predicate ‘not-being’ is not ap-STRANGER: Some in the singular (ti) you would plicable to any being.
say is the sign of one, some in the dual (tine) of two, some in the plural (tines) of many?
THEAETETUS: None, certainly.
THEAETETUS: Exactly.
STRANGER: And if not to being, then not to something.
STRANGER: Then he who says ‘not something’
must say absolutely nothing.
THEAETETUS: Of course not.