Sophistes
The Sophistes ( ancient Greek Σοφιστής Sophistḗs , Latinized Sophista , German also The Sophist ) is a late work by the Greek philosopher Plato , written in dialogue form . A fictional, literary conversation is reproduced in it. The main interlocutors are an unnamed "stranger" from Elea and the young mathematician Theaetetos . Plato's teacher Socrates and the mathematician Theodoros of Cyrene play supporting roles .
The two discussants set themselves the task of defining the term “ sophist ”. The sophist, a teacher of the art of persuasion, should be precisely characterized so that this profession can be grasped in its essence and separated from all other activities. First, the technique of definition is practiced using a simpler example, the angler. The stranger, far superior in expertise, directs the conversation. The method of Dihairesis is used to define it : a general term is subdivided into sub-terms until the exact definition of the term under investigation has been found. In this way, the interlocutors work out the definition of the sophist.
Plato pursued a polemical intention. He was a sharp critic of sophistry, a controversial educational movement that caused a stir in his hometown of Athens . For Plato, the sophists were charlatans who argued dubiously, played a frivolous game with logic and pretended to have no knowledge. So he let the strangers and Theaetetus come to the conclusion that they were a certain kind of swindler.
The subject of deception gives the dialogue participants an opportunity to examine the relationship between being and not being . When being and non-being are sharply separated and non-being does not exist, there can be no falsehood and no explanation for delusions. Thus, there must be a relationship between being and not-being that allows false appearances; that which does not exist must be real and be given together with what is. The investigation of this question leads to general conclusions in the field of ontology , the doctrine of being or of beings as such.
In modern research, the Sophist is recognized as the first development of a differentiated ontology in the history of Western philosophy. For the first time, the question “What is being?” Was examined here. Through an intensive examination of the pre-Socratic Parmenides understanding of being , Plato came to results that enabled him to interpret the complex web of beings and non-existents, unity and multiplicity in a consistent manner. At the same time he formulated momentous theses in the field of logic and the philosophy of language . For the later development of the category theory , his introduction of the five highest genres was groundbreaking. Even in the modern age, his investigation of the question of being had a considerable influence on philosophical discourse.
Circumstances, place and time
The conversational situation is probably made up by Plato. In contrast to many other Platonic dialogues, the Sophist is not designed as a narrative by a narrator. The event is not embedded in a framework , but starts suddenly and is consistently reproduced in direct speech (“dramatic form”).
The Sophistes is the second part of a trilogy , a group of three dialogues linked in terms of content and scenery that take place within two days. On the first day there is a conversation between Socrates, Theaetetus and Theodoros about epistemology , which forms the plot of the dialogue Theaetetos . Also present is a young philosopher named Socrates, who is now called “ Socrates the Younger ” to distinguish him from Plato's teacher of the same name. He listens in silence. The following day these men and a new participant, the stranger from Elea, meet for a further discussion. That is the conversation that is presented in the Sophistes . Socrates the Elder and Theodorus hold back; they leave the field to the stranger who argues with Theaetetus. Socrates the Younger remains silent. On the same day, the third dialogue, the politicos (statesman) follows , in which the procedure for defining the term “statesman” is tested. This time the stranger conducts the investigation with Socrates the Younger; Theodoros and the elder Socrates only take part in the conversation briefly at the beginning, Theaetetus does not intervene at all.
The three dialogues of the trilogy take place in the spring of 399 BC. Shortly before Socrates was sentenced to death and executed. The trial that will end in the death sentence is imminent. The Theaetetus mentions that the charges against Socrates have already been brought. This background was familiar to Plato's contemporary readers.
The setting for the three dialogues is the Palaistra - a practice area intended for wrestling matches - in an Athenian gymnasium . At that time the grammar schools served primarily for physical training; In addition, a Palaistra was also a social meeting place for young people. The descriptions in Plato's dialogues show that Socrates liked to stay in such places. There he had the opportunity for fruitful philosophical discussions with young men and young people.
The participants
The actual dialogue takes place between the stranger and Theaetetos, the other two participants only appear in the introductory conversation. The stranger is the main character. He brings in the essential thoughts, while his young, inexperienced interlocutor limits himself for a long time to expressing agreement and asking questions. Therefore the Sophist seems relatively "dogmatic" in comparison with other Platonic dialogues. The didactics characteristic of Plato's Socrates figure, maeutics , has been eliminated. In addition to the four people who took the floor, a number of silent listeners were present.
The stranger
The stranger, whose name is not mentioned, is usually called ES ("Eleatic Stranger") in English-language specialist literature. The designation of origin indicates his intellectual background: His thinking is shaped by the " Eleatic School ", which had its center in Elea in southern Italy , which was then inhabited by Greek people . Lived there Parmenides , the most popular among the Eleatic thinkers, and his student Zeno of Elea . In the Sophistes , Theodoros introduces the stranger as a “companion” of the philosophers around Parmenides and Zeno. However, the stranger does not appear as a consistent representative of the pure teaching of the Eleatic people. Rather, he knows and criticizes the weaknesses of the rigid Eleatic worldview, from which he has partially emancipated himself. In this, his view agrees with that of Plato, whose ontology presupposes overcoming the Eleatic - or at least ascribed to the Eleatic - concept of being and non-being. The picture of Eleatic philosophy drawn by the foreigner does not, however, faithfully reproduce the historical Parmenides' doctrine of being, but rather presents it in a version adapted to Plato's didactic objectives. Some historians of philosophy believe that the prevailing view in research that the foreigner - and thus also Plato - wanted to refute the teachings of Parmenides is based on a misunderstanding. In reality he only wanted to modify it and protect it from sophistic misinterpretation.
Whether a certain historical person is hidden behind the mysterious stranger, whose name Plato deliberately hides, is disputed in research, but the prevailing view is that it is an invented figure. In both the Sophistes and the Politikos the Eleate appears with great authority, his statements determine the course of the conversation and are received with approval. Hence, it is widely believed that he expresses Plato's own view. Proponents of this interpretation point out that Socrates, who usually takes the position of the author in Plato's dialogues, only listens and does not raise any objections in the presence of the stranger, thus apparently approving the reflections and the approach of the Eleatic. However, not all historians of philosophy share this understanding. According to another interpretation, Plato maintains a critical distance from the method of investigating the foreign and wants to show the reader its inadequacy. In this sense, Socrates' silence has even been interpreted as tacit disapproval. However, this interpretation is a minority opinion in research, it has met with emphatic opposition. The anonymous stranger shows considerable similarities with Socrates in his appearance, but there are also important differences between them. Giuseppe Agostino Roggerone believes that the stranger's point of view is not the Platonic one, but that of the young Aristotle , who was still one of his pupils during Plato's lifetime.
Theaetetus
Theaetetos is still a youth. Just as in the dialogue named after him, in the Sophist the role of the ignorant but eager to learn falls to him . His experienced interlocutor provides him with the necessary tools and uses challenging tasks to familiarize him with the examination method. He receives his first lesson in Theaetetus . There he gets to know the basics of philosophical discourse and, thanks to the didactically skillful guidance from Socrates, gains valuable knowledge. On the following day, the stranger in the Sophistes gives him further insights that deepen his understanding of the search for truth. In Theaetetus , Plato paints an extraordinarily advantageous picture of the intellect and character of the outwardly unsightly but highly gifted young mathematician who is open to philosophical questions. Theaitetos is also a valued interlocutor who enjoys respect in the Sophistes . He sometimes makes constructive contributions, but is sometimes overwhelmed by the demanding statements of the stranger. Joachim Dalfen puts forward an assessment that deviates from the usual interpretations . In the course of the conversation he believes he can recognize a tense relationship between the stranger and Theaetetos.
Theaetetus is not a figure invented by Plato, but a historical person. The representation in Theaetetus , according to which he was a mathematician a student of Theodoros of Cyrene and who joined the circle of his interlocutors at a young age shortly before the death of Socrates, is probably correct. Plato's statements on his further fate are also considered credible, at least in the main. According to the general story of Theaetetus , he later took part in an Athenian campaign as an adult, was wounded near Corinth , and there was also seriously ill with an epidemic and was therefore close to death on the journey home. What is disputed is when this happened. There are fighting from 391 or from 369 BC. In consideration. From Plato's account it can be deduced that Theaetetus around 415 BC Was born in BC. If he was wounded in 391 and survived the transport home in spite of his very poor health, or if he only fought at Corinth in 369, he may - as some researchers suspect - have belonged to the Platonic Academy , which was founded around 387.
Socrates
Socrates is an old man in dialogue, he is already seventy years old. He only takes part in the conversation briefly at the beginning, then limits himself to listening. However, he starts with the question that forms the starting point for all of the following discussions. It is thanks to him that the decisive course was set. As usual, he is humble and willing to learn.
Theodoros
Like Socrates, Theodoros only takes part in the introductory talk in the Sophistes , after which he only listens. At the time of the dialogue, he is already at an advanced age. According to the presentation in Theaetetus , he does not consider himself a philosopher, but deliberately limits himself to his subject, geometry, into which he has "saved" himself according to his words. In Plato's eyes he does not belong to the elite of wisdom lovers. He does not feel himself equal to philosophical investigations, he regards philosophers reverently as divine men.
There is no doubt about the historical existence of the mathematician Theodoros, and Plato's statements about him are largely believed to be credible. He came from Cyrene , a Greek city in what is now Libya . That he belonged to the generation of Socrates is evident not only from Plato's account, but also from the history of the geometry of Eudemos of Rhodes . The information in the sources leads to the dating of his birth around 475/460 BC. Since he survived Socrates, he is no earlier than 399 BC. Died. However, it is uncertain whether he was ever in Athens. His stay there is possibly an invention of Plato for the literary purpose of allowing him to meet Socrates.
content
Introductory talk based on the Theaitetos dialogue
At the end of the discussion on epistemology, which is reproduced in the dialogue Theaetetos , the three interlocutors Socrates, Theaetetus and Theodoros agreed to continue their joint efforts on the following day. Now, as agreed, they have come together again in the same place. Theodoros has also brought an acquaintance with him, the stranger from Elea, whom he introduces as an accomplished philosopher from the Eleatic school. On this occasion, Socrates raises the question of what is actually meant by a philosopher. There is confusion among the public about this, and judgments vary widely. Some consider philosophers politicians, some sophists, and others think they are crazy. So Socrates asks the stranger to clearly delimit the term "philosopher". For the purpose of distinguishing the philosopher from the sophist, it should first be clarified what a sophist actually is. The stranger finds himself ready to investigate this together with Theaetetus.
The process of definition
| Refused provision |
Right determination |
|---|---|
| artless activity | artful activity |
| producing art | acquiring art |
| acquiring by mutual agreement | possessive |
| fighting | adjusting |
| collecting | chasing |
| Booty on land | floating prey |
| Hunting waterfowl | fishing |
| catching | wounding |
| with firelight | by day |
| with harpoon | with fish hook |
| Angling |
Given the difficulty of the task at hand, the stranger suggests trying out the process of definition using a simple example, the angler. The procedure, the dihaíresis ("separation", "division", "distinction"), consists in dividing a general generic term into sub-terms until one arrives at the definition sought.
In the case of the angler, it is someone who is engaged in a specific activity. All activities fall into two main groups: Some are "arts" because they require special expertise, while others do not require any special knowledge. It is obvious that fishing is a technique or an art because it requires a certain skill. The angler belongs to the main group of those who practice an art. The arts, on the other hand, are divided into two classes: the creative, with which something is produced, and the acquiring, with which one takes possession of something that already exists, for example through a business deal or through fighting or hunting. Fishing is profitable. The acquisition takes place either by mutual agreement - for example by donation or purchase - or by taking possession. The possessive arts, which include fishing, are practiced either through combat or by finding or capturing what is desired. The latter type of seizure can be described as “adjusting”. It is either about objects that you look for and collect - for example as a diver - or about living prey that is hunted. According to the habitat of the prey, hunting is divided into hunting for land animals and hunting for aquatic animals, the latter into waterfowl hunting and fishing. The subdivision of fishing by method ultimately leads to the precise identification of the angler.
Some approaches to defining the term "sophist"
According to the model of the angler, the sophist is now to be defined. A first attempt at classification shows that the angler provides a suitable pattern for the sophist not only in terms of form, but also in terms of content: both practice an art that can be acquired through imitation, both are hunters. But they differ in that the angler hunts fish, the sophist tame land creatures. The sophist's prey are people: his wealthy customers. He does not hunt this prey by force, such as war, enslavement or tyranny , but by persuasion. This makes him one of the genre of persuasion artists. There are two classes of these: one is aimed at the public, the other, including the sophists, seek out individual victims. The second class can in turn be subdivided into the gift-bringing kind (the erotic desires) and the wage-demanding kind. The sophist demands a fee. He differs from the other representatives of the wage-demanding type in that he does not flatter and promise pleasure, but claims to be able to impart valuable skills.
Another approach is based on the fact that the sophist sells his knowledge, i.e. is a businessman. In contrast to other business people, he does not sell material, but spiritual goods. The more detailed definition of his line of business should result in the definition of the sophist.
Another possible dihairetic classification arises from the kind of qualification that the sophist promises to impart to his students. He teaches them to argue with skill in words, not in long speeches but in relatively short exchanges. The specific peculiarity of his martial arts is that it does not aim at a mere pleasure in talking and debating, but at the material advantages that can be obtained through skillful behavior.
Finally, the stranger points out a further classification of the arts that comes into consideration here. One main genus is singular, it consists in separating. If the better is to be separated from the bad, such as when sifting out, one speaks of cleaning. Purifying arts affect either material things including the human body or the soul , in which undesirable properties are to be cleared away. The evil in the soul that is to be removed is either a "disease" or an "ugliness". The stranger understands by mental illness the turmoil that arises when reason is at odds with desires and the striving to avoid displeasure. Those who live in such an inner conflict reveal vices such as cowardice, licentiousness and injustice. The mental ugliness consists in the "inadequacy", the lack of the right measure. This deficiency leads to improper conduct and failure of the target. There is ignorance here. The arts that are supposed to remove ignorance can be described as "instructive". If the purpose of the teaching is to free the teacher from illusions about himself, then it is education. Education consists either in mere admonition or it leads the learned to real insight and self-knowledge. The latter seems to be the task of the sophist. But the stranger warns against a hasty definition and emphasizes that one can easily be mistaken here.
The question of the right approach
The possibility of arriving at different definitions from different approaches confuses Theaetetos. The sophistic art appears to be multifaceted, it seems to elude access. You can look at it from different angles, but what is still missing is the right definition. The stranger points out that this lack of clarity is a sign that the task has not yet been properly solved. Only when what is really characteristic has been discovered does the seeker of truth have the only correct answer in mind. In any case, a particularly characteristic feature of the sophist is that he is a martial artist and teacher of the martial arts. This raises the question of what the content is that he knows how to argue about competently.
The investigation of the sophistic art of fighting
The stranger draws attention to the fact that the sophistic art is freely applicable to everything, to the hidden divine affairs as well as to the totality of that which is in heaven, on earth and especially in human conditions. A sophistically trained person is not afraid to contradict the experts in any subject. This means that the sophists claim universal competence. In reality, however, they cannot meet this claim, because it is obvious that no one can know everything. It follows that they presume a knowledge that they do not have. It has to be bogus knowledge. Thus the sophist is a juggler, a magician. Only by imitating does he give the impression of competence. The foreigner divides the imitative arts into two classes: the "depicting" arts, with which a replica of a prototype is created as faithfully as possible, and the "deceptive", whose products only simulate similarity with the prototype. The question of which of these two types of imitation the sophistry belongs to must remain open for the time being, as long as it has not been clarified what appears to be and what is false.
The problem of being and not being, appearance and falsehood
In the Eleatic School of Philosophy, foreigners were taught and inculcated from their youth on Parmenides' doctrine of beings and those that do not exist. According to this doctrine, there is only being; the nonexistent cannot exist in any way, not even as a concept, since otherwise it would be in that respect. Everything that is a “something” or a “one”, that is, an entity , something specific, expressible, must belong to beings. No non-being can be ascribed to being, no being to non-being. Therefore the non-existent so conceived cannot be expressed, indeed not even conceivable without contradiction. It's indescribable and inexplicable. If reality is such, then being and truth are given equally in all beings. Accordingly there can be nothing wrong and no deception, no deceptive imitations, because everything either counts to beings and is therefore absolutely true, or it does not exist in any way as non-being. If everything is true by virtue of its very existence, then all falsehood in ideas and speech is excluded.
Despite his respect for the authority of his spiritual “father” Parmenides, the stranger had to realize that the Eleatic doctrine of the incompatibility of being and non-being is untenable. In so doing, he seems to be committing a "patricide" of Parmenides. The Eleatic doctrine of being fails both because of the demands of logic, since it cannot think the non-existent without contradiction, and because of the obvious fact that there must be falsehood, error and deception, for example in the sophists' claim to universal competence. A solution is only possible if one admits that the nonexistent is in a certain sense and the existing is somehow not. Falsehood can only be explained as a connection between being and non-being.
Another problem that cannot be solved within the framework of Eleatism arises from the question of unity or multiplicity of beings. Here the models of the pre-Socratic thinkers lead to contradicting conclusions. The “classical” Eleates are monists , they teach that everything that exists is one . In order to avoid the difficulties that result from the Eleatic contestation of plurality, the directions that emerged later - meaning the concepts of Heraclitus and Empedocles - assume an interaction and interplay of unity and multiplicity. This introduces the idea of becoming , which is incompatible with the strict Eleatic separation of beings and non-existents. The modifications of the old unity doctrine describe the whole of reality through a polar contrast between two contrary principles such as "warm" and "cold", whereby they also understand this pair of opposites as a unity. On closer inspection, however, these concepts turn out to be just as unsuitable as Eleatic monism. Its representatives must be asked whether, in such a pair of opposites, each of the two principles has being. If only one of the two principles is existing and the other is not, this means the abolition of duality and a return to extreme monism. If both are being, then being has to be understood as something that exists as an additional given in addition to the pair of opposites. Then there is being as a third entity. However, this cannot be integrated into a polar system of the kind discussed and criticized here. If one tries to fit being into such a system, the result is that the two contrary principles must be identical with one another and with being. But then they would not be a pair of opposites, but only a monistic one would exist, which in turn would mean a return to the Eleatic monism. But also a strictly monistic concept of being, the Eleatic doctrine of the absolute unity of being, leads to a dead end. If the being - the whole universe - forms a unity, this can be described as being and as one. However, terms like “being”, “one” and “whole” already presuppose a plurality of aspects of what they refer to, and thus a multitude of them. This applies to all terms and names. Thus all statements about an absolute unity are contradictory. Consequently, no contradicting statements are possible not only about the non-existent, but also about the eleatic being. These are just a few of the myriad insurmountable difficulties faced by the Eleatic model of the separation of beings and non-being.
Two opposing concepts of being
With the level of knowledge that has now been reached, the question arises again, what is being. In this regard, the thinkers are divided into two camps, between which a " giant battle " is taking place. Some consider only material things to be and believe that everything intangible does not really exist. Others believe that changeable material objects are not to be regarded as being, but that they can only be ascribed a becoming. The true being belongs exclusively to immaterial entities - the " ideas ". Here the stranger refers to the Platonic doctrine of ideas . This teaching describes as "ideas" the intelligible (purely spiritual) archetypes of the individual perishable sense objects. According to the theory of ideas, the ideas are independent entities ontologically superordinate to the area of sensually perceptible objects. They are not mere conceptions in the human mind, but an objective metaphysical reality. The ideas, not the objects of sensory experience, represent actual reality. They are perfect and immutable. As archetypes - authoritative patterns - of the sense objects, they are the prerequisite for their existence.
The stranger regards a dialogue with consistent materialists as pointless, since they are completely inaccessible to his considerations. Moderate materialists, however, who allow the soul or a virtue like justice to exist, can be led to see that the materialistic understanding of being is insufficient. Thus, a principle of being is needed that includes immaterial being. Such a principle is the dýnamis (“strength”, “ability”, “ ability ”). Then everything is there that has the ability to act on something else or even to experience an effect - even if it is tiny.
For the stranger, a discussion with the representatives of the other camp, whom he calls "friends of ideas", is more promising than criticism of materialism. The friends of ideas identify the world of ideas with what is, the material realm with what is becoming. They strictly separate these two spheres. They consider the world of ideas to be absolutely unchangeable. Therefore, they rule out that the ideas are subject to any influence. On the other hand, the stranger objects that a knowledge of beings is then impossible. Namely, being known is an effect, because knowing is an activity which as such must have a subject and an object. In addition, one has to deny the "true being" (pantel „ s on) life, soulfulness and thinking if one regards it as absolutely static in the sense of the friends of ideas. A lifeless, soulless, thoughtless world of ideas, but a being without reason is absurd. Life cannot be static. After these statements, the stranger takes stock: The one-sided positions are to be rejected. Being cannot be limited to static or moving; rather the philosopher has to regard both as being.
Then the stranger returns to a problem discussed earlier. The question of how the being of pairs of opposites can be explained without contradiction is still open. If one considers two contrary principles such as rest and movement as well as this pair of opposites as such to be equally, one must regard being as something additional, which is different from the principles and comprises both as well as the pair as such. Such a being, which belongs to both rest and movement, can itself be neither at rest nor in motion. This creates a paradox if you only allow an either-or with regard to rest and movement. This shows the flawedness of the way of thinking criticized by the stranger, which also led to unacceptable consequences in the investigation of the relationship between being and non-being. The question of what is to be understood by what is and what is not has to be reconsidered.
The relationships between the terms
The investigation and criticism of the various models has led to an apparent hopelessness ( aporia ). One shortcoming of the discussions so far is that questions have only been asked about the ontological status of individual entities. It was based on the unchecked assumption that the entities are unrelated to each other and that each is to be considered separately in terms of being. Such thinking is common. The consequence of this is that one cannot say that a person is good, but only that the person is human and that good is good (“semantic atomism”). In addition, it was assumed that contrary qualities cannot belong to the same object at the same time, i.e. that everything must either be one or a plurality, etc. Terminology of the modern specialist literature the "late learners"). It must now be checked whether this approach is appropriate at all, because it is also conceivable that ontologically relevant relationships exist between the entities. There are two options for the latter: Either everything is mixed up with everything, or communion is possible between some entities and not between others.
An ontological position that consistently denies any community and intermingling is refutable, because it must also lead to the denial of the commonality that exists in the property of “being”. Absolutely separate entities cannot partake of being together. Then there can be absolutely nothing that exists and also no meaningful linguistic connections. This makes any discourse impossible, including that of the representatives of this position. However, it is also ruled out that everything mixes with one another, because then opposing terms such as rest and movement would coincide. It follows that the terms must be partly connected and partly separated. Some terms have community with one another, others don't, some have little in common, others have a lot in common, and there are also terms that are connected with everything. These relationships are the subject of a separate science, dialectics . The philosophers deal with it.
The five largest genera
For a satisfactory clarification of the question of beings and non-being it is not necessary to examine the totality of the concepts. It is sufficient to consider five central terms, the “greatest genres” (mégista génē) , and their relationships. Among the largest - that is, the most comprehensive - genres, the foreign ranks being (to on) or being, movement (kínēsis) , rest (stásis) , the same (tautón) or the same and the different (tháteron) or the Difference (otherness). He explains the relationships that exist between them.
The solution to the problem of being and not being
The knowledge that there is a network of relationships of different kinds between the terms or Platonic ideas enables differentiating statements about being and not being. This insight opens the way to the elimination of contradictions and to a consistent ontology. For example, the genres “movement” and “selfhood” are not identical; From this point of view, movement does not share in sameness, but in its opposite, difference. But insofar as the movement is identical with itself, it is equal. So it shows both sameness and difference, although these are contrary opposites. Likewise, movement is not identical with being, and insofar as it differs from being, it participates in the opposite - non-being. On the other hand, it exists, so it must also participate in being. Thus it is both being and non-being. This applies to all concepts except being and non-being: they are non-being not because of their own nature, but because of their difference from being, that is, because of their participation in the nature of difference; being they are because of their participation in being on which their existence is based. The nature of diversity means that everything that is not being is different from being and thus is in a certain sense non-being. From these considerations the only seemingly absurd conclusion emerges that there is also that which does not exist. It is being insofar as non-being exists in everything as a given because of the difference that exists in everything that is. Even in being there is non-being, for since being is not identical with everything, it can be said that being is not everything from which it is different and to that extent shows non-being.
The non-existent is not opposed to beings, but only something different from them. In general, a preceding “not” only expresses difference, not incompatibility. The not beautiful and the not great are just as existing as the beautiful and the great. This can even be said about non-existent things: It has its own nature and as a concept is just like being and all other concepts.
With this assertion - as the stranger realizes - the separation from the teaching of Parmenides is deepened and the break with him is even more consistent. It has been shown that there is nonexistent. But this is not to be understood in such a way that what does not exist is the opposite of what is and, paradoxically, is at the same time. Rather, it is a species like any other and distributed over all that is.
Falsehood in thinking and speaking
Before the initial question about the Sophist can be answered, it must be clarified what the falsity of ideas and statements consists of. This is necessary because sophists deny the existence of the error and thus the possibility of false statements. Even if they do not generally deny the existence of non-being in beings, they can insist on the opinion that imagining and speaking are separate from non-being and therefore a deception is impossible.
Here, too, the way out is shown by the connectedness of the concepts and the general insight that the non-existent is also a species of the existing entities. In the area of thinking and speaking there is also a mixture of being and non-being, which is different in individual cases. If there were no non-being mixed with being in this area, then all statements would be equally absolutely true, error would be impossible in principle. False statements are based on the fact that something non-existent is associated with talking. The same applies analogously to the realm of thoughts, because thinking is a silent self-talk of the soul. As an example, the stranger chooses the mixture of being and non-being in the false statement “Theaetetos, with whom I am now talking, flies”. In this proposition there is something that is, because it deals with a certain being person and with an activity which is something as such. At the same time, however, there is also something non-existent in the sentence, since it expresses something different from beings with regard to this person. The stranger comes to the conclusion that an idea or speech is wrong if it presents different things as the same and non-existent as being with regard to the object it is about.
The correct definition of the term "sophist"
| Refused provision |
Right determination |
|---|---|
| artless | artful |
| acquiring | spawning |
| divine | human |
| Creating objects | Making images |
| faithfully depicting | deceptive |
| through tools | by yourself |
| expertly imitating | imitating ignorantly |
| simple-minded | pretending |
| appearing publicly as a speaker | Discussing in a small group |
| sophist |
Now the two interlocutors can return to the point in their dialogue at which they distinguished between faithful imitation and deceptive imitation, but left open the question of which of these types of imitation the sophistry belongs to. After it has been shown that there is falsehood, that is, there is an objective difference between true and false statements, it is now possible to classify the sophist among those practicing the deceptive arts. In contrast to the first attempt at identification, when sophistry was counted among the "acquiring" arts because of its commercial aspect, it now appears in the genre of "producing", since the sophist, as an imitator, creates images of what is imitated. The producing species is divided into a divine and a human part. The human arts produce partly objects such as houses, partly reproductions of objects such as drawings of houses. Of the reproductive arts, some produce images, others only illusions. Some creators of deception use tools, others deceive with themselves, for example by imitating someone with their body or their voice. Of the latter, some know what they are imitating, others have only an inadequate idea of it, but give the impression of knowing it. There are two types of the second genre: the simple-minded, who wrongly considers himself competent, and the insincere, who disguise himself. There are two types of insincere people: some appear in public as a speaker, others demonstrate their art in a small group of creating apparent contradictions with fallacies. The latter kind of deceit are the sophists. In conclusion, the stranger states that this is the most appropriate definition of the term “sophist”. Theaetetus agrees.
interpretation
The achievement of Dihairesis
In the course of the investigation that is carried out in the Sophistes , the Dihairesis turns out to be a procedure that delivers partly better, partly worse results, but does not provide the criteria that are decisive for assessing the correctness of the results. The answer to the question why one of the dihairetically correct determinations is preferable to the others is not given by dihairetics. This cannot justify its own requirements. The establishment of the prerequisites and thus the creation of the philosophical starting point is reserved for dialectics. The succession of dihairetic approaches in dialogue illustrates the limits of what the dihairetic method can do.
The teaching of the Eleatic stranger and the theory of ideas
A central topic of research is the role of the theory of ideas in the Sophistes . It is discussed in the ongoing discussion of ontology in Plato's late work. It is controversial whether the philosopher moved away from his theory of ideas in the last phase of his work after he had encountered seemingly insurmountable obstacles in its development. Two contradicting research opinions are opposed to one another: The “Unitarians” assume that he had consistently represented a coherent point of view, the “Revisionists” ascribe a change of heart to him. Revisionist researchers distinguish between different phases of development of his ontological thinking and claim that he later abandoned the conception of ideas of his middle creative period or at least saw a serious need for revision. In this context, the ontological relevance of the dihairetic method of definition is assessed differently. From a revisionist point of view, the Dihairesis appears to be a mere instrument in the search for definition. From a unitarian point of view, it serves to investigate the relationships between independently - independent of the sense objects - existing ideas within the framework of the ontology that Plato presented in Dialog Politeia .
Although Plato uses terms in Sophistes which elsewhere have an ontological meaning in the context of the doctrine of ideas, it is not a matter of course that they should also be understood in this way in this dialogue. One line of research sees them as mere logical tools. If the ontological meaning for the Sophist is rejected (apart from the term “idea” in the passage about the “Idea Friends”), there are two possible interpretations: either Plato distanced himself from the doctrine of ideas or it is irrelevant for his argumentation in the Sophistes . Since the second possibility exists, one can negate the ontological meaning of the terms for this dialogue without necessarily being a revisionist. It is particularly controversial whether the five largest genres are to be understood as Platonic ideas or “meta-ideas”, that is, as ontological givens, as some researchers assume, or whether they are just terms without an ontological background.
Another topic is the question of whether there are "forms" (depending on the interpretation, terms or Platonic ideas), the negative predicates - that is, the predicates in statements of the form "x is not y" - correspond. In the dialogue Politeia the existence of an idea for “ barbarian ” (non-Greeks) seems to be denied, and Aristotle reports that the Platonists rejected ideas for negative predicates. In the Sophistes, on the other hand, negative "forms" are apparently adopted. Michael Frede is of the opinion that this does not mean platonic ideas, but meanings of expressions.
The "interweaving of terms"
The question of how the “mutual interweaving of terms” (symplokḗ eidṓn) is meant is controversial . In the dialogue, the stranger realizes that a meaningful statement (lógos) can only arise through such an interweaving . There are different interpretations for this:
- According to one direction of interpretation, the stranger claims here that every meaningful statement is a description of a relationship between concepts. Accordingly, every single sentence makes it possible to read off the interrelationship on which it is based. This also applies to sentences that contain statements about individual things, because each individual thing can be traced back to terms by presenting it as the sum of its properties.
- An alternative interpretation means that the existence of an interweaving of terms is a general prerequisite for statements to be meaningful, although there are many meaningful statements that do not express or describe any association of terms. For example, the meaningful sentence “Theaitetos sits” does not contain an explicit statement about a relationship between terms, since “Theaitetos” is not a term but a proper name. However, such a relationship is implicitly presupposed, because the sentence makes sense because between “sitting” and terms such as “standing” or “flying” there is a relationship of incompatibility: One cannot sit, stand and fly at the same time, and this gives facts the sentence makes sense. However, it is controversial whether a relationship of incompatibility can be understood as "entanglement" in the sense of the Sophist . It is also doubtful whether it can be clearly established for each term that it is either compatible or incompatible with a certain other term.
- According to a further interpretation, both subject and predicate denote individual things in sentences . For example, in the sentence “Theaitetos is sitting”, sitting stands like a proper name for “this sitting there”. With this connection of “proper names”, one of associated ideas is also achieved, whereby in the case of the example sentence Theaetetos stands for the idea of man.
- According to a further approach, it is not concepts but only classes of language elements that are interwoven.
It is also controversial whether the interweaving is created by human discourse or whether the discourse is made possible by an already existing interdependence. If the latter is the case, there are again various possibilities: One can imagine that the interweaving is primarily a given in a purely spiritual realm of ideas that is completely withdrawn from sense perception, which is secondarily reflected in the area of the sense objects, or one can assume that it is is an interweaving of ideas that are intrinsic to individual things .
Francis J. Pelletier distinguishes four types of interpretations of “entanglement”. The first group of interpreters (“nonstarters”) represent different hypotheses, which ultimately have in common that the entanglement concept cannot be regarded as a valid response from Plato to the historical Parmenides' doctrine of being. The second group ("correspondence theorists") assumes that Plato circumvents the threat to rational discourse through the Eleatic understanding of being and non-being by translating every sentence of normal language into a philosophical expression in such a way that the actual meaning is correctly reproduced and absurd consequences are avoided. The third group ("backdrop theorists") thinks that Plato regards the interweaving as a general fact "behind" language, which enables a meaningful use of language. The fourth group, to which Pelletier belongs, advocates a mixture of components from the second and third approaches.
Truth and falsehood
A particular problem arises when explaining false statements such as “Theaetetos, with whom I am now talking, flies” in the context of the interweaving concept. Here Plato deliberately chose an example that contains both a contingent and a necessary falsehood. The sentence is contingently wrong because at this point Theaetetus happens to be sitting and therefore cannot do something at the same time that is incompatible with sitting. It is also necessarily wrong because Theaetetus is human and as such cannot fly. Plato's example for a true sentence, “Theaetetus is seated”, like the example for falsehood, does not have a concept but a proper name as the subject. So it's not just about the truth in the realm of ideas, but also about contingent truths that concern individual things and are time-dependent.
Various ways of interpreting Plato's concept of falsehood are discussed in research. According to one direction of interpretation (“Oxford interpretation”) the sentence “Theaetetos flies” is wrong because it says something about Theaetetos that is different from everything that is the case about him. According to another direction ("incompatibility interpretation"), the sentence is wrong because it says something about Theaetetus that is incompatible with what is the case with regard to him. A third direction (“incompatibility range interpretation” or “quasi-incompatibility interpretation”) is a variant of the incompatibility interpretation; it should combine advantages of the first two directions. The fourth direction (“extensional interpretation”) determines the falsehood in such a way that the sentence “Theaetetos flies” is wrong if Theaetetos is different from every entity to which the statement that she flies applies. There are also other suggestions for interpretation.
If one assumes an image theory to Plato in which the parts of the sentence correspond to "facts" - components of the world described by the sentences - difficulties arise in explaining wrong sentences. Different speculative assumptions have been introduced to remedy these difficulties. One such assumption is the hypothesis that the ideas are to be viewed as the meanings of the predicates. This also gives meaning to wrong sentences; this is supposed to justify the existence of such sentences, although no “facts” correspond to them. Another proposed solution is that not ideas, but only individual things should be chosen as the meanings of the predicates, i.e. predicates should be treated like proper names. According to this interpretation, a connection of such "proper names" is wrong if the associated individual things are not so connected "in reality". Another hypothesis is that every statement is entirely about ideas; For Plato there are no proper names in the modern sense, only names of ideas. Accordingly, “Theaitetos” is a label for those who have a combination of properties that only occur in him. Using this combination, meaningful statements - including wrong ones - should then be possible due to the interwoven ideas.
Kuno Lorenz and Jürgen Mittelstraß have dealt with this problem and the older proposed solutions in detail. You have examined the relationship between the interlacing of words and the interlacing of ideas and made the following considerations. If one assumes Plato's conception of the Eleatic stranger and reproduces it in the usual way, then Plato puts forward the thesis that every meaningful statement is the result of an interweaving of ideas. Accordingly, wrong sentences such as “Theaetetos flies” also arise because they have a meaning through interweaving of ideas. It follows from this that every formally correct interweaving of words results in a meaningful sentence, that with every such interweaving of words there is also an interweaving of the ideas represented by the words. If this is the case, then in the sentence “Theaitetos flies” the ideas “man” (or “Theaitetos”) and “flies” must be intertwined. But then the question arises as to how true and false statements can be distinguished in this model. The truth criterion cannot be derived from the interweaving of words. A distinction must therefore be made between correct and incorrect interlinking of ideas. This must be independent of the interweaving of words despite the coupling of interwoven words and interwoven ideas. It must show that the interweaving of the ideas “man” and “flies” is incorrect, although the interweaving of the words “Theaetetos” and “flies” is permissible. There is a problem here, however, since the truth criterion given by the Eleatic stranger is unsuitable for this purpose. Its truth criterion is that a true sentence about its subject expresses being, as it is with regard to this subject. This criterion cannot be applied to entanglements of ideas, unless these are inadmissibly equated with entangled words. If one proceeds from the understanding of the truth of the stranger, it follows that the ideas “human” and “flying” are not incorrectly intertwined, but are not intertwined at all. However, this leads to a self-contradiction if every meaningful statement presupposes an entanglement of ideas. Lorenz and Mittelstraß want to avoid the self-contradiction by giving the statement of the foreign, a meaningful statement “arises” through the “interweaving” of ideas with one another, a different meaning than the one previously assumed. They believe that the meaningful statement (logos) is to be understood as a verifiable one and that the interrelationship is compatibility. What is meant is: "The compatibility of the ideas makes the logos true or false."
In research, the fact that the stranger and Theaetetos rate the sentence “movement rests” as an expression of an evidently false statement is considered puzzling. This seems to contradict an assumption that belongs to the core of Plato's philosophy: the thesis that forms (ideas) are stable and in this sense dormant objects of knowledge. Various possible explanations have been discussed. After a detailed analysis of the older hypotheses, Benedikt Strobel proposed a new explanation. According to Strobel's interpretation, Plato understands the form of movement as something that is denoted by the predicate term "moved" and is therefore something moving, but not a moving individual. If one defines the form of the movement as an object of the type “something like that” in the sense of the terminology of Aristotle, the judgment about the falseness of the statement becomes understandable. The form is then not understood as a property of moving individuals, but as something that they are as moving individuals, whereby the “are” is to be understood as a copula .
Denis O'Brien thinks that Plato's criterion for differentiating between truth and falsehood is the participation or non-participation of the entity to which a statement relates in certain ideas. According to this interpretation, each entity is characterized by having a share in certain ideas and not in others. Statements are wrong if they are based on a misunderstanding of the respective relationships of being conditioned by the participation.
The friends of ideas
The question of how the “friends of ideas”, the opponents of the materialists in the “giants' battle”, should be classified in terms of the history of philosophy has long been controversial. An older hypothesis that they are megarics is no longer supported in more recent research. Three options are still being discussed:
- that they are Italian Pythagoreans .
- that it is Plato's students who advocate a variant of the theory of ideas that he disapproves of and that is strongly influenced by Eleatic thinking.
- that the model of the friends of ideas is Plato's own ontology, which he used to advocate but has now rejected as contradicting itself.
In favor of the often expressed self-criticism hypothesis is asserted that the idea of friends attributed concept conspicuously with the view of Plato's Socrates in previous dialogues such as the Phaidon matches. The interpretation that Plato means himself or a direction of his students, however, does not fit with his statement that the “gigantic battle ” takes place “always” (aeí) , that is, since time immemorial; the struggle can hardly be called permanent if one of the two doctrines was introduced relatively recently by Plato himself.
To be, not to be and to become
Dealing with the Eleatic understanding of being and not being is a central concern of Plato in the Sophistes . The stranger's criticism of the way of thinking of those who love ideas belongs in this context. With them, a strong influence of eleatism is evident in the fact that they strictly separate being and becoming and do not ascribe any being to the changeable. From a Platonic point of view, this results in unacceptable consequences, to which the stranger points out: There is no room for soulfulness and life in the static world of ideas of the friends of ideas, since life is dynamic. A purely static understanding of metaphysical reality means that the world of ideas appears lifeless and soulless. Soul and life including the rational activity are excluded from being, restricted to the subordinate area of becoming and thus massively devalued. The foreigner opposes this “isolationist” understanding of the theory of ideas with his moderate position, according to which movement - just like rest - cannot be denied to beings and life belongs to the purely spiritual realm.
The question that remains open, however, is what role the dynamic principle of soulfulness and liveliness can play in the area of unchangeable Platonic ideas. The Eleatic stranger claims that the “true being” (pantelṓs on) must also include movement, life and soul. This can be interpreted as a change in Plato's purely static understanding of the spiritual world, which is known from earlier dialogues. In addition, according to the argumentation of the foreigner, knowing is an action of the knower on what is known, and if what is known is subject to such an action, it is not absolutely free from influence and insofar not absolutely unchangeable. Here the question arises whether this corresponds to Plato's own view. If this is the case, there is a contradiction to the classical Platonic concept of the earlier dialogues Phaidon and Politeia , according to which the ideas are recognizable but beyond any influence. Some researchers believe that Plato radically modified the idea concept of his middle creative period in the Sophistes and now declared the ideas to be changeable. According to one research hypothesis, Plato held fast to the principle that the essence of ideas is immutable, but admitted in the Sophist that they are subject to influence in their quality as objects of knowledge. Since he did not see this influencing as a becoming, he was able to hold on to the principle that there is no becoming in the realm of pure being. Accordingly, the cognitive process affects the ideas, but not with regard to their unchangeable nature. By being recognized, the idea is “influenced” (Greek páschei ), but not changed. According to a further interpretation, the assumption that knowing represents an influence on what has been known is not Plato's own position, but only an argument with which the stranger combats the doctrine of the friends of ideas.
Various explanations have been proposed for the existence of movement in the realm of “true being”. One of them is that movement concerns only the relationships between ideas and not their nature. Another interpretation is that ideas are inherently dormant; they are only moved from the perspective of a human observer, insofar as they are immanent in the sense objects and thus affected by their changeability. According to another suggested interpretation, it is the movement of an animated spirit in which the ideas are inherent. A metaphorical meaning of “movement” and “rest” has also been considered in this context. In any case, it should be noted that the term “movement” (kínēsis) , when it refers to the temporal and non-spatial realm of ideas, cannot be meant in the spatial and temporal sense that is present when referring to the physical world. It is disputed whether the movement in the metaphysical realm emanates from the soul or from the ideas themselves.
The meaning of “not being” and “difference” is interpreted differently in the discourse of the foreign. The stranger traces nonbeing back to the species of difference. According to one hypothesis, the difference in the relevant passage is to be understood consistently as non-identity. Then “a is not beautiful” always has the meaning “No attribute of a is identical with beautiful”. Another interpretation suggests that difference is to be understood as incompatibility. This means that the statement "a is not beautiful" means "a is incompatible with beauty". This interpretation, however, cannot be applied to non-being and difference itself, since, according to the understanding of the foreign, non-being is not incompatible with being and difference is not incompatible with self. The suggestion to interpret the difference or non-being as a qualitative difference is also problematic. Another suggestion is that in this passage by the Sophist , “diversity” denotes the relationship between predicates and their negative counterparts (“a is F” and “a is not F”). According to another interpretation, “the not beautiful” is a collective term for all forms except the form of the beautiful.
The language-analytical aspect of Plato's conception of being
From a language analytical point of view, it is about the different ways of using the verb eínai (to be). These are examined with the means of formal logic. The subject of a lively debate is the question of which uses of “is” in the Sophistes play a role, whether a distinction is made between them and to what extent their differences are relevant for the argument. An existential use (“existentialist interpretation”) or a use in a predicative sense (“predicationalistic interpretation”) come into consideration. In existential usage, “is” means that something exists. In predicative use, the "is" is the copula that connects the subject with the predicate noun , either in the sense of an identity claim ("A is B" means "A is identical to B") or in the sense of a characteristic ("A is B" means "B comes to A").
One controversy revolves around the question of whether an existential use of “is” in the Sophistes is even verifiable and relevant. According to the existentialist interpretation of Francis Macdonald Cornford , Plato is primarily concerned with the existential aspect of being, while “predicationalists” among philosophical historians such as Michael Frede, Gwilym EL Owen , John Malcolm and Michael Bordt mean the existential use of “is “Is irrelevant to Plato's argument. The predicationalists reduce the sophist's conception of being to a conception of predication . From their point of view, it is not about beings as metaphysical reality in the sense of the theory of ideas, but only about the consistency of statements about relations. In addition, the predicationalist side asserts that the existential use of “is” is only a special case of the predicative. Critics of the predicationalist way of thinking object that this interpretation transforms existence into a predicate and thus dissolves the Platonic idea of being. That would not do justice to the metaphysical concerns of the ancient philosopher. Stanley Rosen and Lambert Marie de Rijk are well-known opponents of the predicationalist interpretation of Sophistes . Jan Szaif is of the opinion that the existential and the predicative “is” are inseparable in Plato, his concept of beings encompasses both the existential and the copulative aspect. Robert Heinaman also opposes the assumption that the existential aspect does not play a role in the Sophistes . Denis O'Brien makes a strong case for the existential use of “is” in the Sophistes .
In addition, the question arises whether Plato actually intended to analyze the different meanings of “is”. There are considerable doubts in research about this. It is also disputed how Plato subdivided, if he differentiates between types of use of “is” in his argumentation. In the course of the research discussion, three hypotheses were in the foreground:
- For his argumentation he only needs the difference between existential and identifying use of “is” and therefore limits his considerations to this (Francis Macdonald Cornford, Norman Gulley).
- He differentiates between three types of use: the existential, the identifying and the type “A is B” in the sense of “B comes to A” (John L. Ackrill, Julius ME Moravcsik).
- He ignores existential use and differentiates within predicative use by delimiting identity sentences as a special type (Michael Bordt, John Malcolm).
Michael Frede believes that the widespread view that Plato distinguished different meanings of “is” and “is not” for the first time in history is wrong. Rather, he was able to solve the problems connected with being and non-being without introducing such a distinction. He did not differentiate between meanings, but only between two uses of "is". The first is when a sentence of the form “x is y” states that x (a concept) is not different from y. Standard cases of this use are definitions. The second use is in a sentence of the form “a is b”, where a can be a term or a single thing, “is b” about a, without b necessarily belonging to a. Frank A. Lewis doubts that Plato introduced the identifying “is” as a special category. Lesley Brown believes that he was able to solve the problem of "late learners" without having to distinguish between different meanings of "is". William J. Prior also denies the distinction between different meanings or uses of "is".
Emergence
What is certain is that the Sophist is a late work by Plato. Since it is presented as a continuation of Theaetetus , research has suggested that it was written after this dialogue. If so, it is likely not before the early 360s BC. Has been completed. However, there are no clear indications for determining the time of origin, and the reverse order of the origin of Theaetetus and Sophistes also has proponents.
Text transmission
The direct ancient text transmission is limited to two small fragments of a papyrus from the 3rd century BC. Chr.
The oldest surviving medieval Sophistes manuscript was made in 895 in the Byzantine Empire for Arethas of Caesarea .
reception
Antiquity
The sophist's aftermath was apparently small in the epoch of Hellenism and the first three centuries of the Roman Empire , but interest intensified markedly in late antiquity .
Plato's student Aristotle wrote two dialogues with the titles Sophistes and Politikus . With this choice of title he probably wanted to suggest competition with the two corresponding dialogues of Plato. In his metaphysics , Aristotle criticized Plato's plan in the Sophist to show the being of the non-existent and thus to oppose Eleatism.
In the tetralogical order of the works of Plato, which apparently in the 1st century BC Was introduced, the Sophistes belongs to the second tetralogy. The historian of philosophy, Diogenes Laertios , counted it among the “logical” writings and gave the alternative title Über das sein . In doing so, he referred to a now-lost work by the scholar Thrasyllos .
In the epoch of Middle Platonism (1st century BC to 3rd century AD) the Sophist seems to have received little attention, and nothing is known of a Middle Platonic commentary on the dialogue.
The Neoplatonists , a tendency that arose in the 3rd century and dominated the philosophical discourse in late antiquity , showed great interest in the Sophist . A central theme for her was the distinction between the one and the being and the determination of their relationship to one another. In addition to the dialogue Parmenides , the main text on this subject, Sophistes also offered them hints.
Plotinus († 270), the founder of Neoplatonism, criticized Aristotle's theory of categories with the argument that it was devised only to describe the sensually perceptible world; the Aristotelian scheme of ten categories is not applicable to the much more important spiritual world. For the spiritual world Plotinus adopted a scheme of five categories, which correspond to the five "greatest genera" in the Sophistes . However, he modified Plato's concept by adapting it to the requirements of his system. He tried to show that there must be five categories, although Plato did not want to rule out the possibility of a larger number of "largest genera". Plotinus emphatically advocated the Eleatic stranger's view that “that which is truly existent” cannot be anything dead; one has to imagine it as living.
Plotin's pupil Porphyry wrote a commentary on Sophists that has not survived. Also Iamblichos († around 320/325), who played a pioneering role in the late ancient Neo-Platonism seems to have commented on the dialogue. Iamblichus had the Sophist studied in his philosophy school as one of the twelve most important dialogues of Plato.
In late ancient Neo-Platonism, the dialogues between Sophistes and Politikos were viewed as a description of the cosmic order and interpreted allegorically in this sense . The Neo-Platonists Proclus († 485) and Damascius († after 538) made various references to the Sophistes ; whether they also wrote comments on the dialogue is not clear from the sources. Proclus drew on the Sophist in his work Platonic Theology . He considered it a preparation for Parmenides and used it to support his doctrine of the One (Henology). Simplikios († around 560) quoted and analyzed passages by the Sophist as part of his Aristotle commentary . A contemporary of Simplikios, Olympiodorus († after 565), is ascribed a commentary on a sophist in an Arabic source of the 10th century, the kitāb al-Fihrist of the scholar ibn an-Nadīm .
Middle Ages and Early Modern Times
In the Middle Ages, the Sophist's manuscripts were accessible to some Byzantine scholars, but the educated in the West did not know the text because there was no Latin translation. In the West, dialogue was not rediscovered until the age of Renaissance humanism .
The humanist Marsilio Ficino created the first Latin translation . He published it in Florence in 1484 in the complete edition of his Plato translations and preceded it with an introduction (argumentum) . In doing so, he made the dialogue accessible to a wider reading public. Ficino also wrote a Latin commentary on Sophist , which - albeit in an unfinished state - was printed in 1496. In describing the “greatest genres”, which he dealt with in depth, he took Plotin's categories as a starting point. In contrast to Plotinus, he also discussed the philosophical issues. Ficino identified the Eleatic stranger with the pre-Socratic Melissus . In a controversy that took place in the 1490s between Ficino and the philosopher Giovanni Pico della Mirandola , the Sophist played a key role. Pico, who was inclined to Aristotelianism , turned against Ficino's Neoplatonic interpretation of Plato. However, he himself was also influenced by the Neoplatonic view.
The first edition of the Greek text appeared in Venice in September 1513 by Aldo Manuzio as part of the first complete edition of Plato's works. The editor was Markos Musuros .
Renaissance poetry theorists dealt with Plato's division of the imitative arts into the two classes of depicting ("ikastischen") and deceptive ("fantastic"). It was about the advantages and disadvantages of these two types of fabric treatment in poetry. 16th century literary theorists such as Francesco Patrizi , Lodovico Castelvetro and Jacopo Mazzoni commented on this. Most theoreticians preferred ikastic poetry because it was closer to reality than fantastic. The epic Orlando furioso by Ludovico Ariosto was considered a prime example of fantastic poetry, and the epic Gerusalemme liberata by Torquato Tasso for ikastic poetry . Tasso published his work Apologia in difesa della sua Gerusalemme liberata in 1585 , in which he defended his work against criticism, whereby he also referred to the Sophistes .
Philosophical reception in the modern age
19th century
In the introduction to his translation of the dialogue published in 1807, the influential Plato translator Friedrich Schleiermacher wrote that “the essence of all true philosophy is indeed expressed”. Schleiermacher was of the opinion that in the Sophist "almost first in the writings of Plato the innermost sanctuary of philosophy opens up purely philosophically".
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel dealt in his lectures on the history of philosophy and in the second edition of his Science of Logic published posthumously in 1832 with the Sophist . He interpreted Plato's ontology from the perspective of his own speculative dialectic. Hegel interpreted the thesis of the ancient philosopher about the being of non-being as something different as the identity of being and non-being. By this he meant an absolute identity in which contradicting determinations are united. He understood the relationship between the same and the different in a way that is diametrically opposed to Plato's view in the Sophist . Plato's Stranger takes the position in the dialogue that the different is only different in relation to the other, never in relation to itself. Hegel, on the other hand, assumed an “other of himself”, something different with regard to himself, that in a negative relation stands by itself and denies its own existence. For him this is precisely what constitutes the “own nature” of the other. According to his understanding, that which is identical with itself and the other merge into one another in their opposition, and there is thus a unity in opposition and contradiction. Hegel believed that the unity of the same and the other in one and the same respect necessarily belong to truth. With this he did not want to contradict Plato; rather, he was convinced that his concept coincided with the Platonic one. In doing so, he relied on a mistranslation of a relevant passage by the Sophist , which turned its meaning into the opposite. Despite the translation error and the contradiction between Plato's position and its interpretation by Hegel, the view is held in research that Hegel's concept is a legitimate continuation of the Platonic dialectic.
Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling held the Sophist in high esteem ; in his Erlangen lecture in the winter semester of 1820/1821 he recommended it as an exposition of the first basic concepts of philosophy. Plato shows there in the highest generality how necessary the non-existent is, "without which truth is inseparable from error". According to Schelling's assessment, the Sophist is “a true song of consecration for science, since the concepts of what is and what is not are the pivotal points of all science”.
In 1874, Hermann Lotze referred to Plato's remarks in the Sophistes in his discussion of the transcendental philosophy , but without naming this dialogue. He referred to Plato, who taught that ideas do not have a being, but only “validity”.
Early 20th century
In 1909, Nicolai Hartmann presented an analysis of the ontology of the Sophist in his treatise Plato's Logic of Being , which he regarded as a bold move by Plato. According to Hartmann's understanding, the “antithesis”, the “opposition of one being against another”, produces a being. Non-being is no less a principle of being than being itself. The emphasis is on non-being, because in it the idea becomes alive and active and the community of ideas arises. The non-being causes the mutual interpenetration of being and non-being, their “going through each other”. In non-being there is nothing more and nothing less than the origin of being. The ideas “are” in that they are linked. The connection is brought about by non-being and logically means being. So it turns out that only non-being leads to being. Non-being is the condition for the possibility of Plato's “interweaving of concepts” and being is its implementation. “The dialectic of the community of concepts is the logic of being”.
The Neo-Kantian Emil Lask expressed himself in a lecture in the winter semester of 1911/12, which was published in 1924. He said that Plato's definition of falsehood as a confusion between two existing entities was completely unsuccessful. In the case of error, one not only grabs the store of beings, but creates a non-being in a completely different sense. There is a disagreement that is a "deprivation" of all reality. It is a matter of putting together elements that are “at a distance from the surface of being in general”.
Paul Natorp , a leading exponent of Neo-Kantianism, went into detail on the Sophist in the revised second edition of his monograph Plato's theory of ideas published in 1922 . He saw an essential result of Plato's considerations in the recognition of the structural similarity between the Logos (the "judgments" in Natorp's terminology) and the ideas. Natorp did not regard the Platonic ideas as things, but as methods, "the pure method concepts of knowledge"; it is not a question of absolute existences, but of pure positing of thinking. Based on his understanding of the doctrine of ideas, Natorp stated that Plato had logically started the positive structure of his doctrine of being with a doctrine of judgment, a general theory of predication in the Sophist .
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For Martin Heidegger the Sophist was one of the few dialogues that provided the textual basis for his interpretation of Plato's philosophy. In the winter semester of 1924/25 he gave a lecture on the work in Marburg, the edition of which forms an extensive volume of the Heidegger Complete Edition . The focus was on the relationship between truth and being. Heidegger found that Plato's demonstration of the being of the non-being was “the more radical version of the meaning of being itself and the characters of the not contained therein”. In doing so, Plato turned away from the view of being that was prevalent at the time and which he himself had previously represented. Despite the appreciation of this achievement, Heidegger considered the consequences of the sophist's understanding of being to be fatal. From his point of view, the decisions that the interlocutors make in dialogue set the course for the further course of the history of philosophy. Plato wanted to show that philosophy is possible and that sophistry is a position against which one can validly and effectively argue. The price for this, however, was the establishment of a problematic theory of the connection between being and thinking. Immediate experience came under the control of a thinking that can only open up the level of experience in the cognitive process by conceiving the experience as an objectified being. In the Sophistes lecture, Heidegger wanted to understand the Platonic decision in order to show the possibility of a fundamental alternative at the same time. Heidegger was convinced that Plato had dealt with the young Aristotle in the Sophistes . His interpretation of the dialogue came from an Aristotelian perspective, as he believed this to be the appropriate approach. He believed that Aristotle had overcome Plato's dialectic.
Alfred Edward Taylor found that the Sophistes treated logic as an independent science for the first time in the history of philosophy. With this investigation Plato had rendered an invaluable service to both logic and metaphysics.
From the 1930s to the present
In more recent times the Sophist is one of the works of Plato that have been intensely received from a philosophical perspective. It has received special attention from representatives of analytical philosophy , as it can be interpreted non-metaphysically and offers approaches to criticize the “classical” ontology of Platonism. From the point of view of analytically oriented philosophers, the linguistic-philosophical aspects of the dialogue are also interesting, in particular the statements on the falsity of statements and the treatment of the problem of non-being and non-existence.
In 1935 Francis Macdonald Cornford published the Commentary on Sophistes . Although it received numerous criticisms from the later interpreters, it forms the starting point of the philosophical-historical discussion of the work since then.
Wilhelm Kamlah , a proponent of the revisionist understanding of Plato's philosophy, dedicated a monograph to the Sophist in 1963. In it he wrote that Plato made a change in the doctrine of ideas in this dialogue in that he no longer understood the relation of things to ideas as an archetype-copy relationship. He had not given up the doctrine of ideas, but took it up again in critical preservation. However, he had not succeeded in bridging the gap between the definition of the non-existent as difference and his analysis of the wrong sentence; there is a gap there.
Kuno Lorenz and Jürgen Mittelstraß stated in 1966 that the Sophistes could rightly be “regarded as an indispensable part of the prolegomena to logic” even today. Plato thinks about true and false essentially no differently “than one does today”. He was able to clarify when minimum sentences should mean true or false. Modern logic has no fundamentally different basis to offer.
In 1968 Helmut Meinhardt addressed the difficulties modern readers encounter when reading the Sophist . The reason for this is historical: The modern way of thinking is based on Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason . It presupposes a strong separation of thinking and being, of concept and what is meant by it. In this context, Plato's approach, with which he deduces ontological conditions from linguistic conditions, is not plausible. In order to understand Plato and to do justice to his arguments, one must take into account that for him there is no sharp separation from Kant, but that, from his point of view, meaningful speech and thinking always focus on what is. In Platonic epistemology, the knowing subject is treated as a component of the objective world. Meinhardt assessed as an achievement of Plato in the Sophistes that for the first time the insight was clearly formulated that being different is a continuous essential determination of all finite beings. This dialogue is at the beginning of the long history of the concept of "otherness".
Gilles Deleuze dealt with the Sophist as part of his "Inversion of Platonism", with which he challenged the priority of an archetype over the image. In 1968 he wrote in his study Différence et répétition (Difference and Repetition) that Plato himself was the first to reverse Platonism or at least to indicate the direction of such a reversal. This shows the “grandiose end” of the Sophist : There the division (Dihairesis) turns against itself and works against the grain. By continually deepening the illusion, she demonstrates the impossibility of distinguishing it from the original or archetype. After all, the stranger gives a definition of the sophist that can no longer differ from Socrates himself. The following year Deleuze returned to this idea in his study Logique du sens (Logic of Sense) . There he found that the end of the Sophist contained perhaps the most extraordinary adventure of Platonism: while Plato was looking in the world of the illusion and bending over its abyss, he discovered in a flash that the illusion was not simply a false image, but that Question the concepts of the image and the archetype.
In 1986, Burkhard Mojsisch expressed his appreciation for the Sophist , whom he described as Plato's most important dialogue on the theory of language. However, he raised objections to the linguistic theory and "theory of the dialectic of speaking to oneself" presented there. First, it is not possible to subject the factual truth or falsity of sentences to a dialectical test. Second, a hierarchization of the contents is carried out, which, although not in Plato himself, has proven to be problematic in the later history of philosophy. They have led to disastrous "excesses" such as the idea that substance before relation enjoy a priority. This in turn led to the fact that the human being was conceived as a substance "analogously unrelated" and that the idealistic models of thought of the modern age had come to an unjustified systematic closeness. Thirdly, Plato had indeed distinguished linguistic thinking, the "talking to oneself" of the soul, from the spoken or imagined sentence and thus made a "known" differentiation, but did not recognize this differentiation itself as an object of knowledge and not for talking to oneself let them become thematic. Fourthly, Plato in the Sophist did theoretically adequately analyze nonbeing and movement, but his static concept of the soul and an “unmixed” mind prevented him from adequately grasping and appreciating the processuality of thinking. He misunderstood that, precisely because of non-existence, mind and soul are always in opposition to themselves.
Hans-Georg Gadamer dealt with the Sophistes in his work Dialektik ist nicht Sophistik, published in 1990 . Among other things, he dealt with Heidegger's interpretation of dialogue. According to Gadamer's understanding, Plato shows that the distinction between the philosopher and the sophist is about life choices and attitudes. The stranger accomplishes “a true masterpiece of soul guidance” on the young Theaetetos. Everything is full of subtle twists and turns and allusions. For Gadamer, the Sophist is probably Plato's most versatile dialogue.
Michael Bordt highlighted Plato's “downright revolutionary method” in the Sophistes in 1999. This consists in exploring the relationships between ideas through the use of terms in sentences. In this way he attains knowledge of the ideas by analyzing sentences about concepts and also about objects of the physical world of experience, i.e. without recourse to a metaphysical experience such as the mythical view of ideas.
In 2011, Andreas Eckl judged that the basic dialectical theory developed in the Sophistes was relevant for contemporary philosophy. According to Eckl, their advantage lies in the fact that the basic concepts of this theory form an open system of the foundation of scientific knowledge, which can be critically revised and supplemented and which is self-justifying. Eckl regarded the renunciation of parts of contemporary philosophy on the justification of his own theoretical basic assumptions as a defect with which Plato's theory was not afflicted.
Modern literary reviews
From a literary point of view, the sophist has received relatively little attention, since he is one of those dialogues in which the dramatic aspect plays a comparatively minor role. In 1919 the renowned Graecist and Plato connoisseur Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff made an unfavorable assessment of the literary quality. He stated that Plato had no intention of having an artistic effect, because he had written this work only for his students, not for a wider audience. He wrote a strictly scientific book to which the form of dialogue does not fit. Olof Gigon made a similar statement in 1974 . He found that the conversation was almost entirely reduced to a monotonous, school-like game of questioning and answering, the form of conversation becoming almost annoying. Plato had to make an almost unbearable compromise between the demands of the subject and the style of urban conversation. The speculative abstraction of thought in the eleatic stranger's statements has little to do with Socratic philosophizing.
In 1996 Michael Frede examined the question of why Plato wrote the Sophistes , the “most dogmatic” of all his dialogues, in the form of a conversation, instead of letting the stranger give a long speech. In Plato's late works, readers often find the dialogue form unhelpful and ask about its meaning. Frede saw one reason for adhering to this form in the fact that Plato continued to reject the implicit claim to authority made by the author of a treatise. As a further reason he cited Plato's intention to provide the reader with information about the nature of the philosopher by examining the nature of the sophist in the context of such a conversation.
Editions and translations
Editions (partly with translation)
- Gunther Eigler (Ed.): Plato: Works in eight volumes . Vol. 6, 4th edition, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 2005, ISBN 3-534-19095-5 , pp. 219-401 (reprint of the critical edition by Auguste Diès, 3rd edition, Paris 1955, with the translation by Friedrich Schleiermacher , 2nd, improved edition, Berlin 1824)
- Helmut Meinhardt (ed.): Plato: The Sophist . Reclam, Stuttgart 1990, ISBN 3-15-006339-6 (non-critical edition with translation and commentary)
- Donald B. Robinson, William SM Nicoll (Eds.): Sophistes . In: Elizabeth A. Duke et al. (Ed.): Platonis opera , Vol. 1, Oxford University Press, Oxford 1995, ISBN 0-19-814569-1 , pp. 383-471 (authoritative critical edition)
- Reiner Wiehl (Ed.): Plato: The Sophist . Meiner, Hamburg 1967 (reprint of the critical edition by John Burnet , Oxford 1900, without the critical apparatus, with the translation by Otto Apelt, 2nd, revised edition, Leipzig 1922, revised and annotated by Wiehl)
- Ursula Wolf (Ed.): Plato: Sophistes . Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-518-27004-2 (reprint of the edition by Auguste Diès, 6th edition, Paris 1985, without the critical apparatus, with the translation by Friedrich Schleiermacher, 2nd, improved edition, Berlin 1824, edited, and a detailed commentary by Christian Iber)
Translations
- Otto Apelt : Plato: Sophistes . In: Otto Apelt (Ed.): Platon: Complete Dialogues , Vol. 6, Meiner, Hamburg 2004, ISBN 3-7873-1156-4 (with introduction and explanations; reprint of the 2nd, revised edition, Leipzig 1922)
- Rudolf Rufener: Plato: Spätdialoge I (= anniversary edition of all works , vol. 5). Artemis, Zurich / Munich 1974, ISBN 3-7608-3640-2 , pp. 125–221 (with introduction by Olof Gigon pp. XXVI – XXXIV)
- Friedrich Schleiermacher : The Sophist . In: Erich Loewenthal (Hrsg.): Platon: All works in three volumes , Vol. 2, unchanged reprint of the 8th, revised edition, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 2004, ISBN 3-534-17918-8 , pp. 663-740
literature
Overview representations
- Michael Erler : Platon ( Outline of the history of philosophy . The philosophy of antiquity , edited by Hellmut Flashar , Vol. 2/2). Schwabe, Basel 2007, ISBN 978-3-7965-2237-6 , pp. 238–244, 641–645
Comments
- Seth Benardete : The Being of the Beautiful. Plato's Theaetetus, Sophist, and Statesman. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago / London 1984, ISBN 0-226-67037-6
- Christian Iber: Comment . In: Ursula Wolf (Ed.): Plato: Sophistes . Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-518-27004-2 , pp. 179-496
- Giancarlo Movia: Apparenze, essere e verità. Commentario storico-filosofico al “Sofista” di Platone . Vita e Pensiero, Milano 1991, ISBN 88-343-0533-7 (representation from the perspective of the "Tübingen and Milan School")
- Lambert Marie de Rijk: Plato's Sophist. A Philosophical Commentary . North-Holland Publishing Company, Amsterdam 1986, ISBN 0-444-85627-7
- Gustav Adolf Seeck : Plato's Sophistes. A critical comment . Beck, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-406-62558-9 (Seeck does not go into the scientific controversies, but only wants to ensure that the wording is immediately understood)
Investigations
- David Ambuel: Image and Paradigm in Plato's Sophist . Parmenides Publishing, Las Vegas 2007, ISBN 978-1-930972-04-9
- Paolo Crivelli: Plato's Account of Falsehood. A Study of the Sophist . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2012, ISBN 978-0-521-19913-1 (investigation from the perspective of modern philosophy of language)
- Andreas Eckl: Language and Logic in Plato , Part 2: Logic of ideas and the logic of grammatical form in Sophistes . Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-8260-4403-8
- Christoph Hochholzer: Share and participation. An investigation into Plato's "Sophistes". De Gruyter, Berlin / Boston 2016, ISBN 978-3-11-045170-2
- Peter Kolb: Plato's Sophistes. Theory of Logos and Dialectics . Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 1997, ISBN 3-8260-1294-1
- Fabián Mié: Dialéctica, predicación y metafísica en Platón. Investigations about the Sofista and the diálogos tardíos . Ediciones del Copista, Córdoba 2004, ISBN 987-563-032-2 (illustration from the perspective of the "Tübingen and Milan School")
- Noburu Notomi: The Unity of Plato's Sophist. Between the Sophist and the Philosopher . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1999, ISBN 0-521-63259-5
- Stanley Rosen: Plato's Sophist. The Drama of Original and Image . Yale University Press, New Haven 1983, ISBN 0-300-02964-0
- Paul Seligman: Being and Not-being. An Introduction to Plato's Sophist . Nijhoff, The Hague 1974, ISBN 90-247-1580-6
Collections of articles
- Pierre Aubenque (ed.): Etudes sur le Sophiste de Platon . Bibliopolis, Naples 1991, ISBN 88-7088-250-0
- Beatriz Bossi, Thomas M. Robinson (Ed.): Plato's Sophist Revisited . De Gruyter, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-11-028695-3
reception
- Markus J. Brach: Heidegger - Plato. From neo-Kantianism to the existential interpretation of the "sophist" . Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 1996, ISBN 3-8260-1136-8
Web links
Original text and translations
- Sophistes , Greek text after the edition by John Burnet, 1900
- Sophistes , German translation after Friedrich Schleiermacher, edited (PDF file)
- Sophistes , German translation by Friedrich Schleiermacher, 1807
- Sophistes , German translation by Friedrich Schleiermacher
- Sophistes , German translation after Friedrich Schleiermacher
literature
- Mary Louise Gill: Method and Metaphysics in Plato's Sophist and Statesman. In: Edward N. Zalta (Ed.): Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy .
- Kang Liu: Being and Knowing. Plato's doctrine of ideas in Parmenides and Sophistes . Dissertation, Berlin 2011
Remarks
- ↑ Plato, Theaetetus 210d.
- ↑ On the differences between the approach of the alien and that of Socrates see Marina McCoy: Plato on the Rhetoric of Philosophers and Sophists , Cambridge 2008, pp. 138–166.
- ↑ Plato, Sophist 217d.
- ↑ The common term "Eleatic School" is criticized by Néstor-Luis Cordero: L'invention de l'école éléatique. Plato, sophist, 242 D . In: Pierre Aubenque (ed.): Etudes sur le Sophiste de Platon , Naples 1991, pp. 91–124.
- ↑ Plato, Sophist 216a. The passage is, however, controversial in terms of text; see Michel Narcy: Sophiste . In: Richard Goulet (ed.): Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques , Vol. 5/1, Paris 2012, pp. 700–706, here: 701 f.
- ↑ Michael Erler: Platon , Basel 2007, pp. 241 f., 244; Friedo Ricken : Plato: Politicians. Translation and commentary , Göttingen 2008, pp. 87 f.
- ↑ See the relevant articles in the collection of essays Plato's Sophist Revisited , Berlin 2013, pp. 117–201 and John A. Palmer: Plato's Reception of Parmenides , Oxford 1999, pp. 91–93, edited by Beatriz Bossi and Thomas M. Robinson , 118-124, 145-147, 181, 185; Denis O'Brien: A form that 'is' of what 'is not'. Existential one in Plato's Sophist . In: George Boys-Stones et al. (Ed.): The Platonic art of philosophy , Cambridge 2013, pp. 221–248, here: 240–243; Denis O'Brien: Le Non-Être , Sankt Augustin 1995, pp. 10-13, 87 f.
- ^ Francisco J. Gonzalez: The Eleatic Stranger. His Master's Voice? In: Gerald A. Press (Ed.): Who Speaks for Plato? , Lanham 2000, pp. 161-181; Moth Stygermeer: While Socrates is silent , Berlin 2005, p. 111 f .; Brigitte Theophila Schur: “From here to there” , Göttingen 2013, pp. 333–338, 352–358. Cf. Friedo Ricken: Plato: Politikos. Translation and Commentary , Göttingen 2008, p. 234, note 1.
- ↑ Thomas Alexander Szlezák : The image of the dialectician in Plato's late dialogues , Berlin 2004, pp. 129-133.
- ↑ See Ruby Blondell's analysis, The Man with No Name: Socrates and the Visitor from Elea . In: Ann N. Michelini (Ed.): Plato as Author , Leiden 2003, pp. 247–266, here: 255–266.
- ^ Giuseppe Agostino Roggerone: La crisi del Platonismo nel Sofista e nel Politico , Lecce 1983, pp. 45-79, 126-131.
- ↑ See on the dialogue figure Theaetetos Thomas Alexander Szlezák: The image of the dialectician in Plato's late dialogues , Berlin 2004, pp. 135-138, 141-145.
- ↑ Joachim Dalfen: Platonic Intermezzi - Discourses on Communication . In: Grazer Contributions 16, 1989, pp. 71–123, here: 99–104.
- ↑ See the historical Theaetetos Debra Nails: The People of Plato , Indianapolis 2002, pp. 274–278.
- ↑ Plato, Theaetetus 165a.
- ↑ Plato, Theaetetus 146b.
- ^ Plato, Sophistes 216b – c.
- ↑ Eudemos of Rhodes, fragment DK 43 A 2.
- ^ Kurt von Fritz : Theodoros (31) . In: Pauly-Wissowa RE, Vol. 5 A / 2, Stuttgart 1934, Col. 1811-1825, here: 1811; Leonid Zhmud: Theodoros from Cyrene . In: Hellmut Flashar et al. (Ed.): Frühgriechische Philosophie , Basel 2013, pp. 420 f., Here: 420; Leonid Zhmud: Pythagoras and the Early Pythagoreans , Oxford 2012, p. 128.
- ↑ Plato, Sophist 216a-218c.
- ↑ Plato, Sophist 218c-219a.
- ^ Plato, Sophistes 219a – 221c.
- ↑ Plato, Sophist 221c-223b.
- ^ Plato, Sophistes 223b-224e.
- ↑ Plato, Sophistes 224e – 226a.
- ↑ Plato, Sophistes 226a – 231b. See Alberto Bernabé: The Sixth Definition (Sophist 226a – 231c): Transposition of Religious Language . In: Beatriz Bossi, Thomas M. Robinson (eds.): Plato's Sophist Revisited , Berlin 2013, pp. 41–56; José Solana: Socrates and 'Noble' Sophistry (Sophist 226b-231c) . In: Beatriz Bossi, Thomas M. Robinson (eds.): Plato's Sophist Revisited , Berlin 2013, pp. 71–85; Paul W. Gooch: "Vice is Ignorance": The Interpretation of Sophist 226a-231b . In: Phoenix 25, 1971, pp. 124-133.
- ↑ Plato, Sophistes 231b – 232b.
- ↑ Plato, Sophist 232b-237a. See Paul Seligman: Being and Not-being. An Introduction to Plato's Sophist , Den Haag 1974, pp. 12-14.
- ↑ Plato, Sophist 236d-241b. See Paul Seligman: Being and Not-being. An Introduction to Plato's Sophist , Den Haag 1974, p. 15 f.
- ↑ On the use of the term "parricide" in this context, see Georgia Mouroutsou: The Metaphor of Mixing in the Platonic Dialogues Sophistes and Philebos , Sankt Augustin 2010, pp. 62–73.
- ↑ Plato, Sophistes 241b-242b; see. 238a-239a. See Paul Seligman: Being and Not-being. An Introduction to Plato's Sophist , Den Haag 1974, pp. 17-21.
- ↑ See Enrique Hülsz: Plato's Ionian Muses: Sophist 242d – e . In: Beatriz Bossi, Thomas M. Robinson (ed.): Plato's Sophist Revisited , Berlin 2013, pp. 103–115.
- ↑ Plato, Sophistes 242b – 245e. See Michael Frede: The question of beings: Sophistes . In: Theo Kobusch , Burkhard Mojsisch (Ed.): Platon. His dialogues in the perspective of new research , Darmstadt 1996, pp. 181–199, here: 186–191; Paul Seligman: Being and Not-being. An Introduction to Plato's Sophist , Den Haag 1974, pp. 22-29. Cf. Anton Friedrich Koch: Predicates of and relationships between ideas in Plato's Sophistes and Parmenides . In: Ulrike Bruchmüller (Ed.): Plato's hermeneutics and principled thinking in the light of dialogues and ancient tradition , Hildesheim 2012, pp. 345–361, here: 353 f.
- ↑ Plato, Sophistes 245e – 246c.
- ↑ Plato, Sophist 246c-248a. See Paul Seligman: Being and Not-being. An Introduction to Plato's Sophist , Den Haag 1974, p. 31 f. On dynamis, see William Lentz: The Problem of Motion in the Sophist . In: Apeiron 30, 1997, pp. 89-108; Georgia Mouroutsou: The Metaphor of Mixing in the Platonic Dialogues Sophistes and Philebos , Sankt Augustin 2010, pp. 74-100; Fiona Leigh: Being and Power in Plato's Sophist . In: Apeiron 43, 2010, pp. 63-85.
- ^ Plato, Sophistes 248a-249c. See Paul Seligman: Being and Not-being. An Introduction to Plato's Sophist , Den Haag 1974, pp. 33-38.
- ↑ Plato, Sophistes 249c-d. See Paul Seligman: Being and Not-being. An Introduction to Plato's Sophist , Den Haag 1974, pp. 36-38, 40.
- ↑ Plato, Sophist 249d-251a. See Paul Seligman: Being and Not-being. An Introduction to Plato's Sophist , Den Haag 1974, pp. 41-43.
- ↑ Plato, Sophist 250d-251e.
- ↑ Plato, Sophist 251e-254c. Cf. Monique Dixsaut: Métamorphoses de la dialectique dans les dialogues de Platon , Paris 2001, pp. 221-230; Alfonso Gómez-Lobo: Plato's description of Dialectic in the Sophist 253d1 – e2 . In: Phronesis 22, 1977, pp. 29-47; Wolfgang Waletzki: Plato's theory of ideas and dialectics in Sophistes 253d . In: Phronesis 24, 1979, pp. 241-252; Robert Heinaman: Self-Predication in the Sophist . In: Phronesis 26, 1981, pp. 55-66.
- ↑ Plato, Sophist 254c-255e. See Paul Seligman: Being and Not-being. An Introduction to Plato's Sophist , Den Haag 1974, pp. 58-63.
- ↑ Plato, Sophist 255e-257a. See Job van Eck: Not-Being and Difference: On Plato's Sophist 256 D 5–258 E 3 . In: Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 23, 2002, pp. 63–84, here: 63–72, 84; Paul Seligman: Being and Not-being. An Introduction to Plato's Sophist , Den Haag 1974, pp. 73-80.
- ↑ Plato, Sophist 257b-258c. See Job van Eck: Not-Being and Difference: On Plato's Sophist 256 D 5–258 E 3 . In: Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 23, 2002, pp. 63–84, here: 63 f., 73–84; Edward N. Lee: Plato on Negation and Not-Being in the Sophist . In: The Philosophical Review 81, 1972, pp. 267-304; Paul Seligman: Being and Not-being. An Introduction to Plato's Sophist , Den Haag 1974, pp. 81-84.
- ↑ Plato, Sophist 258c-e.
- ↑ Plato, Sophistes 258e – 259d, 260b.
- ↑ Plato, Sophistes 259d – 261c. See Paul Seligman: Being and Not-being. An Introduction to Plato's Sophist , Den Haag 1974, pp. 87-97.
- ↑ Plato, Sophist 261c-264b. See Paul Seligman: Being and Not-being. An Introduction to Plato's Sophist , Den Haag 1974, pp. 98-118.
- ↑ Plato, Sophistes 264b – 268d. Cf. Monique Dixsaut: La dernière définition du Sophiste . In: Marie-Odile Goulet-Cazé u. a. (Ed.): Sophies maietores, “Chercheurs de sagesse”. Hommage à Jean Pépin , Paris 1992, pp. 45–75.
- ↑ Margarita Kranz: The knowledge of the philosopher , Tübingen 1986, pp. 64–68.
- ^ Nicholas P. White (translator): Plato: Sophist , Indianapolis 1993, pp. IX-XIV.
- ↑ Among the advocates of ontological interpretation are Giancarlo Movia: Apparenze, essere e verità , Milano 1991, p. 180; Alan Robert Lacey: Plato's Sophist and the Forms . In: The Classical Quarterly New Series 9, 1959, pp. 43-52; William Lentz: The Problem of Motion in the Sophist . In: Apeiron 30, 1997, pp. 89-108; Paul Seligman: Being and Not-being. An Introduction to Plato's Sophist , Den Haag 1974, pp. 2 f .; John R. Trevaskis: The μέγιστα γένη and the vowel analogy of Plato, Sophist 253 . In: Phronesis 11, 1966, pp. 99-116, here: 104; Robert Heinaman: Self-Predication in the Sophist . In: Phronesis 26, 1981, pp. 55-66, here: 60.
- ↑ Jason Xenakis: Plato's Sophist: A defense of negative expressions and a doctrine of sense and of truth . In: Phronesis 4, 1959, pp. 29-43; Richard J. Ketchum: Participation and Predication in the Sophist . In: Phronesis 23, 1978, pp. 42-62; Henry Teloh: The Development of Plato's Metaphysics , University Park 1981, pp. 189-199; Charles Griswold: Logic and Metaphysics in Plato's "Sophist" . In: Giornale di Metafisica 32, 1977, pp. 555-570. Peter Kolb offers a research report on the discussion about the “largest genres”: Platons Sophistes , Würzburg 1997, pp. 233–246.
- ↑ Michael Frede: Predication and Existence Statement , Göttingen 1967, pp. 92–94. Compare Fabián Mié: Dialéctica, predicación y metafísica en Platón , Córdoba 2004, pp. 94-100; Jan Szaif: Plato's Concept of Truth , Freiburg 1996, pp. 434–445; Richard S. Bluck: Plato's Sophist , Manchester 1975, pp. 167-170; Lambert Marie de Rijk: Plato's Sophist , Amsterdam 1986, pp. 173-180.
- ↑ Plato, Sophistes 259e5–6.
- ^ Kuno Lorenz, Jürgen Mittelstraß: Theaitetos flies. On the theory of true and false sentences in Plato (Soph. 251d - 263d) . In: Archive for the History of Philosophy 48, 1966, pp. 113–152, here: 114–128 (critical research overview); Nicholas P. White (translator): Plato: Sophist , Indianapolis 1993, p. XIV; Julius ME Moravcsik: Συμπλοκὴ εἰδῶν and the Genesis of λόγος . In: Archive for the history of philosophy 42, 1960, pp. 117–129; Antonia Soulez: La grammaire philosophique chez Plato , Paris 1991, pp. 165-178.
- ↑ Lambert Marie de Rijk: Plato's Sophist , Amsterdam 1986, pp. 140-143.
- ^ Francis J. Pelletier: Plato on Not-Being . In: Peter A. French et al. (Ed.): Contemporary Perspectives on the History of Philosophy , Minneapolis 1983, pp. 35–65.
- ↑ Georgia Mouroutsou: The Metaphor of Mixing in the Platonic Dialogues Sophistes and Philebos , Sankt Augustin 2010, p. 169.
- ^ Lesley Brown: The Sophist on Statements, Predication, and Falsehood . In: Gail Fine (ed.): The Oxford Handbook of Plato , Oxford 2008, pp. 437–462, here: 455–458; Paolo Crivelli: Plato's Account of Falsehood , Cambridge 2012, pp. 184-196, 238-241.
- ↑ See the research overview in Kuno Lorenz, Jürgen Mittelstraß: Theaitetos flies. On the theory of true and false sentences in Plato (Soph. 251d - 263d) . In: Archive for the history of philosophy 48, 1966, pp. 113–152, here: 114–128. A review of the problems and proposed solutions also provides Patricia Clarke: The Interweaving of the Forms with One Another: Sophist 259 E . In: Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 12, 1994, pp. 35-62. See Paul Seligman: Being and Not-being. An Introduction to Plato's Sophist , Den Haag 1974, pp. 88-118.
- ^ Kuno Lorenz, Jürgen Mittelstraß: Theaitetos flies. On the theory of true and false sentences in Plato (Soph. 251d - 263d) . In: Archive for the history of philosophy 48, 1966, pp. 113–152, here: 114–134.
- ^ Kuno Lorenz, Jürgen Mittelstraß: Theaitetos flies. On the theory of true and false sentences in Plato (Soph. 251d - 263d) . In: Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 48, 1966, pp. 113–152, here: 134–150.
- ↑ Benedikt Strobel: “This” and “So something” , Göttingen 2007, pp. 57–88. On this question, see Paolo Crivelli: Plato's Account of Falsehood , Cambridge 2012, pp. 161–166.
- ↑ Denis O'Brien: La forma del non essere nel Sofista di Platone . In: Francesco Fronterotta, Walter Leszl (ed.): Eidos - Idea , 2nd edition, Sankt Augustin 2011, pp. 115–159, here: 156.
- ↑ Theodor Ebert : Who are the friends of ideas in Plato's Sophistes? In: Rainer Enskat (ed.): Amicus Plato magis amica veritas , Berlin 1998, pp. 82-100 (advocates the Pythagorean hypothesis); Hermann Schmitz : The theory of ideas of Aristoteles , vol. 2: Platon and Aristoteles , Bonn 1985, pp. 5f., 42–53, 56–59, 146 (sees the idea friends as a group in the academy); Wilhelm Kamlah: Plato's Selbstkritik im Sophistes , Munich 1963, pp. 34–37 (considers the idea friends to be representatives of the “classical” theory of ideas of the middle dialogue group); Michael Erler: Platon , Basel 2007, p. 241 f.
- ^ Christian Iber: Commentary . In: Ursula Wolf (Ed.): Platon: Sophistes , Frankfurt am Main 2007, pp. 271–274.
- ↑ Lidia Palumbo, Giovanni Casertano: Discorso e realtà nel Sofista platonico offer a brief overview . In: Atti dell'Accademia di Scienze Morali e Politiche (Naples) 105 (1994), 1995, pp. 281–296, here: p. 291 note 25. Cf. Giancarlo Movia: Apparenze, essere e verità , Milano 1991, Pp. 258-261; C. David C. Reeve: Motion, Rest, and Dialectic in the Sophist . In: Archive for the history of philosophy 67, 1985, pp. 47–64, here: 52–54; Georgia Mouroutsou: The Metaphor of Mixing in the Platonic Dialogues Sophistes and Philebos , Sankt Augustin 2010, pp. 90–92.
- ↑ See Christoph Ziermann: Platons negative Dialektik , Würzburg 2004, pp. 83–88; Hans-Eberhard Pester: Platons moved Usia , Wiesbaden 1971, p. 19 ff. (Detailed investigation of the concepts “movement of ideas” and “movement of the soul”); William Lentz: The Problem of Motion in the Sophist . In: Apeiron 30, 1997, pp. 89-108; Lambert Marie de Rijk: Plato's Sophist , Amsterdam 1986, pp. 13-21; Christian Iber: Comment . In: Ursula Wolf (Ed.): Platon: Sophistes , Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 398 f.
- ^ Julius ME Moravcsik: Being and Meaning in the Sophist . In: Acta philosophica Fennica 14, 1962, pp. 23-78, here: 66-69. See John McDowell : Falsehood and not-being in Plato's Sophist . In: Malcolm Schofield, Martha C. Nussbaum (eds.): Language and Logos , Cambridge 1982, pp. 115-134, here: 119 f .; Richard S. Bluck: Plato's Sophist , Manchester 1975, pp. 164-167. Cf. Denis O'Brien: Speaking of Sophiste de Platon . In: Les Études philosophiques , 1996, pp. 375-380.
- ↑ An overview is provided by Christian Iber: Commentary . In: Ursula Wolf (Ed.): Platon: Sophistes , Frankfurt am Main 2007, pp. 179–496, here: 392–397. See also Lidia Palumbo: Il non essere e l'apparenza , Napoli 1994, pp. 142-187.
- ^ Francis M. Cornford: Plato's Theory of Knowledge , London 1935, pp. 295 f.
- ↑ Michael Frede: Predication and Existence Statement , Göttingen 1967, pp. 37–58.
- ^ Gwilym EL Owen: Plato on Not-Being . In: Gregory Vlastos (ed.): Plato. A Collection of Critical Essays , Vol. 1, Garden City 1971, pp. 223-267.
- ^ John Malcolm: Plato's analysis of τὸ ὄν and τὸ μὴ ὄν in the Sophist . In: Phronesis 12, 1967, pp. 130-146.
- ↑ Michael Bordt: The concept of being in Plato's 'Sophistes' . In: Theologie und Philosophie 66, 1991, pp. 493-529.
- ↑ Stanley Rosen: Plato's Sophist , New Haven 1983, pp. 29-48, 229-244.
- ↑ Lambert Marie de Rijk: Plato's Sophist , Amsterdam 1986, p. 74 f.
- ↑ Jan Szaif: Plato's Concept of Truth , Freiburg 1996, pp. 344–355.
- ↑ Robert Heinaman: Being in the Sophist . In: Archive for the history of philosophy 65, 1983, pp. 1–17; Robert Heinaman: Once more: Being in the Sophist . In: Archive for the History of Philosophy 68, 1986, pp. 121–125.
- ↑ Denis O'Brien: A form that 'is' of what 'is not'. Existential one in Plato's Sophist . In: George Boys-Stones et al. (Ed.): The Platonic art of philosophy , Cambridge 2013, pp. 221–248.
- ^ Christian Iber: Commentary . In: Ursula Wolf (Ed.): Platon: Sophistes , Frankfurt am Main 2007, pp. 179–496, here: 392 f .; John L. Ackrill: Plato and the Copula: Sophist 251-59 . In: Gregory Vlastos (ed.): Plato. A Collection of Critical Essays , Vol. 1, Garden City 1971, pp. 210-222; Michael Bordt: The concept of being in Plato's 'Sophistes' . In: Theologie und Philosophie 66, 1991, pp. 493-529; John Malcolm: Plato's analysis of τὸ ὄν and τὸ μὴ ὄν in the Sophist . In: Phronesis 12, 1967, pp. 130-146; Norman Gulley: Plato's Theory of Knowledge , London 1962, p. 153; Paolo Crivelli: Plato's Account of Falsehood , Cambridge 2012, pp. 154-159.
- ↑ Michael Frede: Predication and Existence Statement , Göttingen 1967, pp. 9–12, 30–35, 95; Michael Frede: Plato's Sophist on false statements . In: Richard Kraut (ed.): The Cambridge Companion to Plato , Cambridge 1992, pp. 397-424, here: 401 f.
- ^ Frank A. Lewis: Did Plato Discover the Estin of Identity? In: California Studies in Classical Antiquity 8, 1975, pp. 113-143.
- ^ Lesley Brown: The Sophist on Statements, Predication, and Falsehood . In: Gail Fine (ed.): The Oxford Handbook of Plato , Oxford 2008, pp. 437–462, here: 439–451.
- ^ William J. Prior: Unity and Development in Plato's Metaphysics , London 1985, p. 149.
- ↑ Michael Erler: Platon , Basel 2007, p. 239. Cf. Christian Iber: Comment . In: Ursula Wolf (Ed.): Platon: Sophistes , Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 210.
- ^ Corpus dei Papiri Filosofici Greci e Latini (CPF) , Part 1, Vol. 1 ***, Firenze 1999, pp. 373-375.
- ↑ Oxford, Bodleian Library , Clarke 39 (= "Codex B" of the Plato textual tradition).
- ↑ Aristotle, Metaphysics 1088b35-1089b24. See Michel Narcy: La lecture aristotélicienne du Sophiste et ses effets . In: Pierre Aubenque (ed.): Etudes sur le Sophiste de Platon , Naples 1991, pp. 417–448, here: 428–438.
- ↑ Diogenes Laertios 3: 56–58.
- ↑ On the Sophistes reception at Plotinus see María Isabel Santa Cruz: L'exégèse plotinienne des μέγιστα γένη du Sophiste de Plato . In: John C. Cleary (Ed.): The Perennial Tradition of Neoplatonism , Leuven 1997, pp. 105-118; Jean-Michel Charrue: Plotin lecteur de Platon , Paris 1978, pp. 205-229; Michele Abbate : The interpretation of the pre-Socratic Parmenides in Plotinus: The foundation of the identity of being and thinking . In: Würzburg Yearbooks for Classical Studies New Series 30, 2006, pp. 188–191, here: 190 f.
- ↑ John M. Dillon (ed.): Iamblichi Chalcidensis in Platonis dialogos commentariorum fragmenta , Leiden 1973, pp. 90 f., 245-247. See Bent Dalsgaard Larsen: Jamblique de Chalcis. Exégète et philosophe , Aarhus 1972, pp. 357-361.
- ^ Heinrich Dörrie , Matthias Baltes : The Platonism in the Antike , Vol. 2, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt 1990, pp. 106-109, 367-369.
- ↑ See on the reception by Proklos and Damaskios Marc-Antoine Gavray: Simplicius lecteur du Sophiste , Paris 2007, pp. 17–22 (on Proklos) and 22–32 (on Damascius); Carlos Steel: Le Sophiste comme texte théologique dans l'interprétation de Proclus . In: Egbert P. Bos, Pieter A. Meijer (eds.): On Proclus and His Influence in Medieval Philosophy , Leiden 1992, pp. 51–64, here: p. 53 and note 11; Concetta Luna , Alain-Philippe Segonds, Gerhard Endress : Proclus de Lycie . In: Richard Goulet (ed.): Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques , Vol. 5, Part 2 (= V b), Paris 2012, pp. 1546–1674, here: 1572 f .; Philippe Hoffmann: Damascius . In: Richard Goulet (ed.): Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques , Vol. 2, Paris 1994, pp. 541-593, here: 582; Jesús de Garay: Difference and Negation: Plato's Sophist in Proclus . In: Beatriz Bossi, Thomas M. Robinson (eds.): Plato's Sophist Revisited , Berlin 2013, pp. 225–245; Annick Charles-Saget: Lire Proclus, lecteur du Sophiste . In: Pierre Aubenque (ed.): Etudes sur le Sophiste de Platon , Naples 1991, pp. 475–508 (with appendix by Christian Guérard).
- ^ Marc-Antoine Gavray: Simplicius lecteur du Sophiste , Paris 2007, pp. 35–53 (and compilation of the texts with French translation pp. 95–201).
- ↑ Leendert G. Westerink (Ed.): The Greek commentaries on Plato's Phaedo , Vol. 1: Olympiodorus , Amsterdam 1976, p. 22.
- ↑ Michael JB Allen (Ed.): Icastes: Marsilio Ficino's Interpretation of Plato's Sophist , Berkeley 1989 (critical edition with English translation and extensive research).
- ↑ Burkhard Mojsisch: Plato, Plotin, Ficino. 'Most important genres' - a theory from Plato's 'Sophistes' . In: Olaf Pluta (ed.): Philosophy in the 14th and 15th centuries , Amsterdam 1988, pp. 19–38, here: 30–38.
- ↑ Michael JB Allen (ed.): Icastes: Marsilio Ficino's Interpretation of Plato's Sophist , Berkeley 1989, p. 11, p. 12, note 3, pp. 35-48, 73.
- ↑ Plato, Sophist 236c.
- ↑ Arthur F. Kinney: Humanist Poetics , Amherst 1986, pp. 28 f .; Baxter Hathaway: The Age of Criticism , Ithaca 1962, pp. 23-64.
- ↑ Friedrich Schleiermacher: The Sophist. Introduction . In: Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher: About the philosophy of Plato , ed. by Peter M. Steiner, Hamburg 1996, pp. 244–260, here: 250.
- ↑ Friedrich Schleiermacher: The Sophist. Introduction . In: Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher: About the philosophy of Plato , ed. by Peter M. Steiner, Hamburg 1996, pp. 244-260, here: 248.
- ^ See on Hegel's interpretation of Sophistes Klaus Düsing: Ontology and Dialectic in Plato and Hegel . In: Hegel-Studien 15, 1980, pp. 95-150, here: 135-148.
- ↑ Hans-Georg Gadamer: Hegel and the ancient dialectic . In: Gadamer: Gesammelte Werke , Vol. 3, Tübingen 1987, pp. 3–28, here: 18–20; Klaus Düsing: Ontology and Dialectics in Plato and Hegel . In: Hegel-Studien 15, 1980, pp. 95–150, here: p. 139 note 95; Vittorio Hösle : Truth and History , Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt 1984, p. 529 f.
- ↑ Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling: Initia philosophiae universae , ed. von Horst Fuhrmans, Bonn 1969, pp. 130, 144. See Thomas Leinkauf : Schelling as an interpreter of the philosophical tradition , Münster 1998, pp. 17–31.
- ^ Markus J. Brach: Heidegger - Plato. From Neo-Kantianism to the existential interpretation of the “Sophist” , Würzburg 1996, pp. 82–89.
- ↑ Plato, Sophist 257E.
- ↑ Nicolai Hartmann: Plato's Logic of Being , 2nd, unchanged edition, Berlin 1965 (first published in 1909), pp. 133 f., 138–141.
- ^ Emil Lask: Gesammelte Schriften , Vol. 3, Tübingen 1924, p. 34. Cf. Markus J. Brach: Heidegger - Platon. From Neo-Kantianism to the existential interpretation of the “Sophist” , Würzburg 1996, pp. 129–131.
- ^ Paul Natorp: Plato's theory of ideas , 3rd edition, Darmstadt 1961 (reprint of the 2nd edition from 1922), pp. 278-312.
- ^ Paul Natorp: Plato's theory of ideas , 3rd edition, Darmstadt 1961 (reprint of the 2nd edition from 1922), pp. 292, 296. See Markus J. Brach: Heidegger - Platon. From Neo-Kantianism to the existential interpretation of the “Sophist” , Würzburg 1996, pp. 185–189. Cf. Alan Kim: Plato in Germany , Sankt Augustin 2010, pp. 142–147.
- ^ Martin Heidegger: Plato: Sophistes (= Martin Heidegger: Gesamtausgabe , Vol. 19), Frankfurt am Main 1992, p. 192.
- ^ Markus J. Brach: Heidegger - Plato. From Neo-Kantianism to the existential interpretation of the “Sophist” , Würzburg 1996, pp. 35–38. On Heidegger's interpretation of Sophistes see also Alan Kim: Plato in Germany , Sankt Augustin 2010, pp. 231–269.
- ↑ Barbara Peron offers a critical examination of Heidegger's view: With Aristotle to Plato. Heidegger's ontological interpretation of the dialectic in “Sophistes” , Frankfurt am Main 2008, p. 35 ff.
- ^ Alfred Edward Taylor: Plato. The Man and his Work , 3rd edition, London 1929 (first edition 1926), p. 392.
- ^ Nicholas P. White (translator): Plato: Sophist , Indianapolis 1993, pp. VII – IX.
- ^ Francis M. Cornford: Plato's Theory of Knowledge , London 1935.
- ↑ Wilhelm Kamlah: Plato's Selbstkritik im Sophistes , Munich 1963, pp. 8-18, 35, 45.
- ^ Kuno Lorenz, Jürgen Mittelstraß: Theaitetos flies. On the theory of true and false sentences in Plato (Soph. 251d - 263d) . In: Archive for the History of Philosophy 48, 1966, pp. 113–152, here: 113, 150 f.
- ↑ Helmut Meinhardt: Teilhabe bei Platon , Freiburg 1968, pp. 30 f., 58.
- ↑ Gilles Deleuze: Difference and Repetition , Munich 1992 (French original edition Paris 1968), p. 97.
- ↑ Gilles Deleuze: Logic of Meaning , Frankfurt am Main 1993 (French original edition Paris 1969), p. 313 f.
- ↑ Burkhard Mojsisch: Plato's philosophy of language in Sophistes . In: Burkhard Mojsisch (Hrsg.): Sprachphilosophie in Antike und Mittelalter , Amsterdam 1986, pp. 35–62, here: 35 f., 48–54.
- ↑ Hans-Georg Gadamer: Dialectics is not sophistry. Theätet learns this in 'Sophistes' (1990) . In: Hans-Georg Gadamer: Gesammelte Werke , Vol. 7, Tübingen 1991, pp. 338–369, here: 348, 350, 353, 368.
- ↑ Michael Bordt: Platon , Freiburg 1999, p. 164 f.
- ↑ Andreas Eckl: Language and Logic in Plato , Part 2, Würzburg 2011, p. 406 f.
- ^ Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff: Platon. His life and his works , 5th edition, Berlin 1959 (1st edition Berlin 1919), p. 442.
- ↑ Olof Gigon: Introduction . In: Plato: Spätdialoge I (= anniversary edition of all works , vol. 5), Zurich 1974, pp. V – LI, here: XXVII, XXXIV.
- ↑ Michael Frede: The Literary Form of the Sophist . In: Christopher Gill, Mary Margaret McCabe (Eds.): Form and Argument in Late Plato , Oxford 1996, pp. 135–151.
