SOPHIST (continued 1)
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Plato and Jowett, Benjamin
THEAETETUS: How do you mean? And where does the danger lie?
STRANGER: When we say that he deceives us with an illusion, and that his art is illusory, do we mean that our soul is led by his art to think falsely, or what do we mean?
THEAETETUS: There is nothing else to be said.
STRANGER: Again, false opinion is that form of opinion which thinks the opposite of the truth:—You would assent?
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
STRANGER: You mean to say that false opinion thinks what is not?
THEAETETUS: Of course.
STRANGER: Does false opinion think that things which are not are not, or that in a certain sense they are?
THEAETETUS: Things that are not must be imagined to exist in a certain sense, if any degree of falsehood is to be possible.
STRANGER: And does not false opinion also think that things which most certainly exist do not exist at all?
THEAETETUS: Yes.
STRANGER: And here, again, is falsehood?
THEAETETUS: Falsehood—yes.
STRANGER: And in like manner, a false proposition will be deemed to be one which asserts the non-existence of things which are, and the existence of things which are not.
THEAETETUS: There is no other way in which a false proposition can arise.
STRANGER: There is not; but the Sophist will deny these statements. And indeed how can any rational man assent to them, when the very expressions which we have just used were before acknowledged by us to be unutterable, unspeakable, indescribable, unthinkable? Do you see his point, Theaetetus?
THEAETETUS: Of course he will say that we are contradicting ourselves when we hazard the assertion, that falsehood exists in opinion and in words; for in maintaining this, we are compelled over and over again to assert being of not-being, which we admitted just now to be an utter impossibility.
STRANGER: How well you remember! And now it is high time to hold a consultation as to what we ought to do about the Sophist; for if we persist in looking for him in the class of false workers and magicians, you see that the handles for objection and the difficulties which will arise are very numerous and obvious.
THEAETETUS: They are indeed.
STRANGER: We have gone through but a very small portion of them, and they are really infinite.
THEAETETUS: If that is the case, we cannot possibly catch the Sophist.
STRANGER: Shall we then be so faint-hearted as to give him up?
THEAETETUS: Certainly not, I should say, if we can get the slightest hold upon him.
STRANGER: Will you then forgive me, and, as your words imply, not be altogether displeased if I flinch a little from the grasp of such a sturdy argument?
THEAETETUS: To be sure I will.
STRANGER: I have a yet more urgent request to make.
THEAETETUS: Which is—?
STRANGER: That you will promise not to regard me as a parricide.
THEAETETUS: And why?
STRANGER: Because, in self-defence, I must test the philosophy of my father Parmenides, and try to prove by main force that in a certain sense not-being is, and that being, on the other hand, is not.
THEAETETUS: Some attempt of the kind is clearly needed.
STRANGER: Yes, a blind man, as they say, might see that, and, unless these questions are decided in one way or another, no one when he speaks of false words, or false opinion, or idols, or images, or imitations, or appearances, or about the arts which are concerned with them; can avoid falling into ridiculous contradictions.
THEAETETUS: Most true.
STRANGER: And therefore I must venture to lay hands on my father's argument; for if I am to be over-scrupulous, I shall have to give the matter up.
THEAETETUS: Nothing in the world should ever induce us to do so.
STRANGER: I have a third little request which I wish to make.
THEAETETUS: What is it?
STRANGER: You heard me say what I have always felt and still feel—that I have no heart for this argument?
THEAETETUS: I did.
STRANGER: I tremble at the thought of what I have said, and expect that you will deem me mad, when you hear of my sudden changes and shiftings; let me therefore observe, that I am examining the question entirely out of regard for you.