Sophist – Plato
SOCRATES: Is he not rather a god, Theodorus, of men, and they ‘hover about cities,’ as Homer who comes to us in the disguise of a stranger?
declares, looking from above upon human life; and For Homer says that all the gods, and especially some think nothing of them, and others can never the god of strangers, are companions of the meek think enough; and sometimes they appear as and just, and visit the good and evil among men.
statesmen, and sometimes as sophists; and then, And may not your companion be one of those again, to many they seem to be no better higher powers, a cross-examining deity, who has than madmen. I should like to ask our Eleatic come to spy out our weakness in argument, and friend, if he would tell us, what is thought about to cross-examine us?
them in Italy, and to whom the terms are applied.
THEODORUS: Nay, Socrates, he is not one of the THEODORUS: What terms?
disputatious sort—he is too good for that. And, in my opinion, he is not a god at all; but divine SOCRATES: Sophist, statesman, philosopher.
he certainly is, for this is a title which I should give to all philosophers.
THEODORUS: What is your difficulty about them, and what made you ask?
SOCRATES: Capital, my friend! and I may add that they are almost as hard to be discerned as SOCRATES: I want to know whether by his coun-the gods. For the true philosophers, and such as trymen they are regarded as one or two; or do are not merely made up for the occasion, appear they, as the names are three, distinguish also in various forms unrecognized by the ignorance three kinds, and assign one to each name?