Sophist
STRANGER: And there is something which you call 'being'?
THEAETETUS: 'Yes.'
STRANGER: And is being the same as one, and do you apply two names to
the same thing?
THEAETETUS: What will be their answer, Stranger?
STRANGER: It is clear, Theaetetus, that he who asserts the unity of
being will find a difficulty in answering this or any other question.
THEAETETUS: Why so?
STRANGER: To admit of two names, and to affirm that there is nothing but
unity, is surely ridiculous?
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
STRANGER: And equally irrational to admit that a name is anything?
THEAETETUS: How so?
STRANGER: To distinguish the name from the thing, implies duality.
THEAETETUS: Yes.
STRANGER: And yet he who identifies the name with the thing will be
compelled to say that it is the name of nothing, or if he says that it
is the name of something, even then the name will only be the name of a
name, and of nothing else.
THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: And the one will turn out to be only one of one, and being
absolute unity, will represent a mere name.
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
STRANGER: And would they say that the whole is other than the one that
is, or the same with it?
THEAETETUS: To be sure they would, and they actually say so.
STRANGER: If being is a whole, as Parmenides sings,--
'Every way like unto the fullness of a well-rounded sphere, Evenly
balanced from the centre on every side, And must needs be neither
greater nor less in any way, Neither on this side nor on that--'
then being has a centre and extremes, and, having these, must also
have parts.
THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: Yet that which has parts may have the attribute of unity in
all the parts, and in this way being all and a whole, may be one?
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
STRANGER: But that of which this is the condition cannot be absolute
unity?
THEAETETUS: Why not?
STRANGER: Because, according to right reason, that which is truly one
must be affirmed to be absolutely indivisible.
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
STRANGER: But this indivisible, if made up of many parts, will
contradict reason.
THEAETETUS: I understand.
STRANGER: Shall we say that being is one and a whole, because it has the
attribute of unity? Or shall we say that being is not a whole at all?
THEAETETUS: That is a hard alternative to offer.
STRANGER: Most true; for being, having in a certain sense the attribute
of one, is yet proved not to be the same as one, and the all is
therefore more than one.
THEAETETUS: Yes.
STRANGER: And yet if being be not a whole, through having the attribute
of unity, and there be such a thing as an absolute whole, being lacks
something of its own nature?
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
STRANGER: Upon this view, again, being, having a defect of being, will
become not-being?
THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: And, again, the all becomes more than one, for being and the
whole will each have their separate nature.
THEAETETUS: Yes.
STRANGER: But if the whole does not exist at all, all the previous
difficulties remain the same, and there will be the further difficulty,
that besides having no being, being can never have come into being.
THEAETETUS: Why so?
STRANGER: Because that which comes into being always comes into being as
a whole, so that he who does not give whole a place among beings, cannot
speak either of essence or generation as existing.
THEAETETUS: Yes, that certainly appears to be true.
STRANGER: Again; how can that which is not a whole have any quantity?
For that which is of a certain quantity must necessarily be the whole of
that quantity.
THEAETETUS: Exactly.
STRANGER: And there will be innumerable other points, each of them
causing infinite trouble to him who says that being is either one or
two.
THEAETETUS: The difficulties which are dawning upon us prove this; for
one objection connects with another, and they are always involving what
has preceded in a greater and worse perplexity.
STRANGER: We are far from having exhausted the more exact thinkers who
treat of being and not-being. But let us be content to leave them, and
proceed to view those who speak less precisely; and we shall find as
the result of all, that the nature of being is quite as difficult to
comprehend as that of not-being.
THEAETETUS: Then now we will go to the others.
STRANGER: There appears to be a sort of war of Giants and Gods going
on amongst them; they are fighting with one another about the nature of
essence.
THEAETETUS: How is that?
STRANGER: Some of them are dragging down all things from heaven and from
the unseen to earth, and they literally grasp in their hands rocks and
oaks; of these they lay hold, and obstinately maintain, that the things
only which can be touched or handled have being or essence, because they
define being and body as one, and if any one else says that what is not
a body exists they altogether despise him, and will hear of nothing but
body.
THEAETETUS: I have often met with such men, and terrible fellows they
are.
STRANGER: And that is the reason why their opponents cautiously defend
themselves from above, out of an unseen world, mightily contending that
true essence consists of certain intelligible and incorporeal ideas; the
bodies of the materialists, which by them are maintained to be the very
truth, they break up into little bits by their arguments, and affirm
them to be, not essence, but generation and motion. Between the
two armies, Theaetetus, there is always an endless conflict raging
concerning these matters.
THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: Let us ask each party in turn, to give an account of that
which they call essence.
THEAETETUS: How shall we get it out of them?
STRANGER: With those who make being to consist in ideas, there will be
less difficulty, for they are civil people enough; but there will be
very great difficulty, or rather an absolute impossibility, in getting
an opinion out of those who drag everything down to matter. Shall I tell
you what we must do?
THEAETETUS: What?
STRANGER: Let us, if we can, really improve them; but if this is not
possible, let us imagine them to be better than they are, and more
willing to answer in accordance with the rules of argument, and then
their opinion will be more worth having; for that which better men
acknowledge has more weight than that which is acknowledged by inferior
men. Moreover we are no respecters of persons, but seekers after truth.
THEAETETUS: Very good.
STRANGER: Then now, on the supposition that they are improved, let us
ask them to state their views, and do you interpret them.
THEAETETUS: Agreed.
STRANGER: Let them say whether they would admit that there is such a
thing as a mortal animal.
THEAETETUS: Of course they would.
STRANGER: And do they not acknowledge this to be a body having a soul?
THEAETETUS: Certainly they do.
STRANGER: Meaning to say that the soul is something which exists?
THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: And do they not say that one soul is just, and another unjust,
and that one soul is wise, and another foolish?
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
STRANGER: And that the just and wise soul becomes just and wise by
the possession of justice and wisdom, and the opposite under opposite
circumstances?
THEAETETUS: Yes, they do.
STRANGER: But surely that which may be present or may be absent will be
admitted by them to exist?
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
STRANGER: And, allowing that justice, wisdom, the other virtues, and
their opposites exist, as well as a soul in which they inhere, do
they affirm any of them to be visible and tangible, or are they all
invisible?
THEAETETUS: They would say that hardly any of them are visible.
STRANGER: And would they say that they are corporeal?
THEAETETUS: They would distinguish: the soul would be said by them to
have a body; but as to the other qualities of justice, wisdom, and the
like, about which you asked, they would not venture either to deny their
existence, or to maintain that they were all corporeal.
STRANGER: Verily, Theaetetus, I perceive a great improvement in them;
the real aborigines, children of the dragon's teeth, would have been
deterred by no shame at all, but would have obstinately asserted that
nothing is which they are not able to squeeze in their hands.
THEAETETUS: That is pretty much their notion.
STRANGER: Let us push the question; for if they will admit that any,
even the smallest particle of being, is incorporeal, it is enough; they
must then say what that nature is which is common to both the corporeal
and incorporeal, and which they have in their mind's eye when they say
of both of them that they 'are.' Perhaps they may be in a difficulty;
and if this is the case, there is a possibility that they may accept a
notion of ours respecting the nature of being, having nothing of their
own to offer.
THEAETETUS: What is the notion? Tell me, and we shall soon see.
STRANGER: My notion would be, that anything which possesses any sort
of power to affect another, or to be affected by another, if only for a
single moment, however trifling the cause and however slight the effect,
has real existence; and I hold that the definition of being is simply
power.
THEAETETUS: They accept your suggestion, having nothing better of their
own to offer.
STRANGER: Very good; perhaps we, as well as they, may one day change our
minds; but, for the present, this may be regarded as the understanding
which is established with them.
THEAETETUS: Agreed.
STRANGER: Let us now go to the friends of ideas; of their opinions, too,
you shall be the interpreter.
THEAETETUS: I will.
STRANGER: To them we say--You would distinguish essence from generation?
THEAETETUS: 'Yes,' they reply.
STRANGER: And you would allow that we participate in generation with the
body, and through perception, but we participate with the soul through
thought in true essence; and essence you would affirm to be always the
same and immutable, whereas generation or becoming varies?
THEAETETUS: Yes; that is what we should affirm.
STRANGER: Well, fair sirs, we say to them, what is this participation,
which you assert of both? Do you agree with our recent definition?
THEAETETUS: What definition?
STRANGER: We said that being was an active or passive energy, arising
out of a certain power which proceeds from elements meeting with one
another. Perhaps your ears, Theaetetus, may fail to catch their answer,
which I recognize because I have been accustomed to hear it.
THEAETETUS: And what is their answer?
STRANGER: They deny the truth of what we were just now saying to the
aborigines about existence.
THEAETETUS: What was that?
STRANGER: Any power of doing or suffering in a degree however slight was
held by us to be a sufficient definition of being?
THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: They deny this, and say that the power of doing or suffering
is confined to becoming, and that neither power is applicable to being.
THEAETETUS: And is there not some truth in what they say?
STRANGER: Yes; but our reply will be, that we want to ascertain from
them more distinctly, whether they further admit that the soul knows,
and that being or essence is known.
THEAETETUS: There can be no doubt that they say so.
STRANGER: And is knowing and being known doing or suffering, or both,
or is the one doing and the other suffering, or has neither any share in
either?
THEAETETUS: Clearly, neither has any share in either; for if they say
anything else, they will contradict themselves.
STRANGER: I understand; but they will allow that if to know is active,
then, of course, to be known is passive. And on this view being, in
so far as it is known, is acted upon by knowledge, and is therefore in