SOPHIST (continued 1)
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Plato and Jowett, Benjamin
THEAETETUS: Yes.
STRANGER: Take music in general and painting and marionette playing and many other things, which are purchased in one city, and carried away and sold in another—wares of the soul which are hawked about either for the sake of instruction or amusement;—may not he who takes them about and sells them be quite as truly called a merchant as he who sells meats and drinks?
THEAETETUS: To be sure he may.
STRANGER: And would you not call by the same name him who buys up knowledge and goes about from city to city exchanging his wares for money?
THEAETETUS: Certainly I should.
STRANGER: Of this merchandise of the soul, may not one part be fairly termed the art of display? And there is another part which is certainly not less ridiculous, but being a trade in learning must be called by some name germane to the matter?
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
STRANGER: The latter should have two names,—one descriptive of the sale of the knowledge of virtue, and the other of the sale of other kinds of knowledge.
THEAETETUS: Of course.
STRANGER: The name of art-seller corresponds well enough to the latter; but you must try and tell me the name of the other.
THEAETETUS: He must be the Sophist, whom we are seeking; no other name can possibly be right.
STRANGER: No other; and so this trader in virtue again turns out to be our friend the Sophist, whose art may now be traced from the art of acquisition through exchange, trade, merchandise, to a merchandise of the soul which is concerned with speech and the knowledge of virtue.
THEAETETUS: Quite true.
STRANGER: And there may be a third reappearance of him;—for he may have settled down in a city, and may fabricate as well as buy these same wares, intending to live by selling them, and he would still be called a Sophist?
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
STRANGER: Then that part of the acquisitive art which exchanges, and of exchange which either sells a man's own productions or retails those of others, as the case may be, and in either way sells the knowledge of virtue, you would again term Sophistry?
THEAETETUS: I must, if I am to keep pace with the argument.
STRANGER: Let us consider once more whether there may not be yet another aspect of sophistry.
THEAETETUS: What is it?
STRANGER: In the acquisitive there was a subdivision of the combative or fighting art.
THEAETETUS: There was.
STRANGER: Perhaps we had better divide it.
THEAETETUS: What shall be the divisions?
STRANGER: There shall be one division of the competitive, and another of the pugnacious.
THEAETETUS: Very good.
STRANGER: That part of the pugnacious which is a contest of bodily strength may be properly called by some such name as violent.
THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: And when the war is one of words, it may be termed controversy?
THEAETETUS: Yes.
STRANGER: And controversy may be of two kinds.
THEAETETUS: What are they?
STRANGER: When long speeches are answered by long speeches, and there is public discussion about the just and unjust, that is forensic controversy.
THEAETETUS: Yes.
STRANGER: And there is a private sort of controversy, which is cut up into questions and answers, and this is commonly called disputation?
THEAETETUS: Yes, that is the name.
STRANGER: And of disputation, that sort which is only a discussion about contracts, and is carried on at random, and without rules of art, is recognized by the reasoning faculty to be a distinct class, but has hitherto had no distinctive name, and does not deserve to receive one from us.
THEAETETUS: No; for the different sorts of it are too minute and heterogeneous.
STRANGER: But that which proceeds by rules of art to dispute about justice and injustice in their own nature, and about things in general, we have been accustomed to call argumentation (Eristic)?
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
STRANGER: And of argumentation, one sort wastes money, and the other makes money.