Sophist
not-being, and now I am in great difficulties even about being.
Let us proceed first to the examination of being. Turning to the dualist
philosophers, we say to them: Is being a third element besides hot and
cold? or do you identify one or both of the two elements with being?
At any rate, you can hardly avoid resolving them into one. Let us next
interrogate the patrons of the one. To them we say: Are being and one
two different names for the same thing? But how can there be two names
when there is nothing but one? Or you may identify them; but then the
name will be either the name of nothing or of itself, i.e. of a name.
Again, the notion of being is conceived of as a whole--in the words
of Parmenides, 'like every way unto a rounded sphere.' And a whole has
parts; but that which has parts is not one, for unity has no parts. Is
being, then, one, because the parts of being are one, or shall we say
that being is not a whole? In the former case, one is made up of parts;
and in the latter there is still plurality, viz. being, and a whole
which is apart from being. And being, if not all things, lacks something
of the nature of being, and becomes not-being. Nor can being ever have
come into existence, for nothing comes into existence except as a whole;
nor can being have number, for that which has number is a whole or sum
of number. These are a few of the difficulties which are accumulating
one upon another in the consideration of being.
We may proceed now to the less exact sort of philosophers. Some of
them drag down everything to earth, and carry on a war like that of the
giants, grasping rocks and oaks in their hands. Their adversaries defend
themselves warily from an invisible world, and reduce the substances
of their opponents to the minutest fractions, until they are lost in
generation and flux. The latter sort are civil people enough; but the
materialists are rude and ignorant of dialectics; they must be taught
how to argue before they can answer. Yet, for the sake of the argument,
we may assume them to be better than they are, and able to give an
account of themselves. They admit the existence of a mortal living
creature, which is a body containing a soul, and to this they would not
refuse to attribute qualities--wisdom, folly, justice and injustice. The
soul, as they say, has a kind of body, but they do not like to assert
of these qualities of the soul, either that they are corporeal, or that
they have no existence; at this point they begin to make distinctions.
'Sons of earth,' we say to them, 'if both visible and invisible
qualities exist, what is the common nature which is attributed to them
by the term "being" or "existence"?' And, as they are incapable of
answering this question, we may as well reply for them, that being is
the power of doing or suffering. Then we turn to the friends of ideas:
to them we say, 'You distinguish becoming from being?' 'Yes,' they will
reply. 'And in becoming you participate through the bodily senses, and
in being, by thought and the mind?' 'Yes.' And you mean by the word
'participation' a power of doing or suffering? To this they answer--I
am acquainted with them, Theaetetus, and know their ways better than you
do--that being can neither do nor suffer, though becoming may. And we
rejoin: Does not the soul know? And is not 'being' known? And are not
'knowing' and 'being known' active and passive? That which is known is
affected by knowledge, and therefore is in motion. And, indeed, how
can we imagine that perfect being is a mere everlasting form, devoid of
motion and soul? for there can be no thought without soul, nor can soul
be devoid of motion. But neither can thought or mind be devoid of some
principle of rest or stability. And as children say entreatingly,
'Give us both,' so the philosopher must include both the moveable and
immoveable in his idea of being. And yet, alas! he and we are in the
same difficulty with which we reproached the dualists; for motion and
rest are contradictions--how then can they both exist? Does he who
affirms this mean to say that motion is rest, or rest motion? 'No; he
means to assert the existence of some third thing, different from them
both, which neither rests nor moves.' But how can there be anything
which neither rests nor moves? Here is a second difficulty about being,
quite as great as that about not-being. And we may hope that any light
which is thrown upon the one may extend to the other.
Leaving them for the present, let us enquire what we mean by giving many
names to the same thing, e.g. white, good, tall, to man; out of which
tyros old and young derive such a feast of amusement. Their meagre minds
refuse to predicate anything of anything; they say that good is good,
and man is man; and that to affirm one of the other would be making
the many one and the one many. Let us place them in a class with our
previous opponents, and interrogate both of them at once. Shall we
assume (1) that being and rest and motion, and all other things,
are incommunicable with one another? or (2) that they all have
indiscriminate communion? or (3) that there is communion of some and not
of others? And we will consider the first hypothesis first of all.
(1) If we suppose the universal separation of kinds, all theories alike
are swept away; the patrons of a single principle of rest or of motion,
or of a plurality of immutable ideas--all alike have the ground cut from
under them; and all creators of the universe by theories of composition
and division, whether out of or into a finite or infinite number of
elemental forms, in alternation or continuance, share the same fate.
Most ridiculous is the discomfiture which attends the opponents of
predication, who, like the ventriloquist Eurycles, have the voice that
answers them in their own breast. For they cannot help using the words
'is,' 'apart,' 'from others,' and the like; and their adversaries are
thus saved the trouble of refuting them. But (2) if all things have
communion with all things, motion will rest, and rest will move; here is
a reductio ad absurdum. Two out of the three hypotheses are thus seen to
be false. The third (3) remains, which affirms that only certain things
communicate with certain other things. In the alphabet and the scale
there are some letters and notes which combine with others, and some
which do not; and the laws according to which they combine or are
separated are known to the grammarian and musician. And there is a
science which teaches not only what notes and letters, but what classes
admit of combination with one another, and what not. This is a noble
science, on which we have stumbled unawares; in seeking after the
Sophist we have found the philosopher. He is the master who discerns
one whole or form pervading a scattered multitude, and many such wholes
combined under a higher one, and many entirely apart--he is the true
dialectician. Like the Sophist, he is hard to recognize, though for the
opposite reasons; the Sophist runs away into the obscurity of not-being,
the philosopher is dark from excess of light. And now, leaving him, we
will return to our pursuit of the Sophist.
Agreeing in the truth of the third hypothesis, that some things have
communion and others not, and that some may have communion with all, let
us examine the most important kinds which are capable of admixture; and
in this way we may perhaps find out a sense in which not-being may be
affirmed to have being. Now the highest kinds are being, rest, motion;
and of these, rest and motion exclude each other, but both of them are
included in being; and again, they are the same with themselves and
the other of each other. What is the meaning of these words, 'same' and
'other'? Are there two more kinds to be added to the three others? For
sameness cannot be either rest or motion, because predicated both of
rest and motion; nor yet being; because if being were attributed to both
of them we should attribute sameness to both of them. Nor can other be
identified with being; for then other, which is relative, would have the
absoluteness of being. Therefore we must assume a fifth principle, which
is universal, and runs through all things, for each thing is other than
all other things. Thus there are five principles: (1) being, (2) motion,
which is not (3) rest, and because participating both in the same and
other, is and is not (4) the same with itself, and is and is not (5)
other than the other. And motion is not being, but partakes of being,
and therefore is and is not in the most absolute sense. Thus we have
discovered that not-being is the principle of the other which runs
through all things, being not excepted. And 'being' is one thing, and
'not-being' includes and is all other things. And not-being is not the
opposite of being, but only the other. Knowledge has many branches,
and the other or difference has as many, each of which is described by
prefixing the word 'not' to some kind of knowledge. The not-beautiful is
as real as the beautiful, the not-just as the just. And the essence of
the not-beautiful is to be separated from and opposed to a certain kind
of existence which is termed beautiful. And this opposition and negation
is the not-being of which we are in search, and is one kind of being.
Thus, in spite of Parmenides, we have not only discovered the existence,
but also the nature of not-being--that nature we have found to be
relation. In the communion of different kinds, being and other mutually
interpenetrate; other is, but is other than being, and other than each
and all of the remaining kinds, and therefore in an infinity of ways 'is
not.' And the argument has shown that the pursuit of contradictions is
childish and useless, and the very opposite of that higher spirit which
criticizes the words of another according to the natural meaning
of them. Nothing can be more unphilosophical than the denial of all
communion of kinds. And we are fortunate in having established such a
communion for another reason, because in continuing the hunt after the
Sophist we have to examine the nature of discourse, and there could be
no discourse if there were no communion. For the Sophist, although he
can no longer deny the existence of not-being, may still affirm that
not-being cannot enter into discourse, and as he was arguing before that
there could be no such thing as falsehood, because there was no such
thing as not-being, he may continue to argue that there is no such thing
as the art of image-making and phantastic, because not-being has no
place in language. Hence arises the necessity of examining speech,
opinion, and imagination.
And first concerning speech; let us ask the same question about words
which we have already answered about the kinds of being and the letters
of the alphabet: To what extent do they admit of combination? Some words
have a meaning when combined, and others have no meaning. One class of
words describes action, another class agents: 'walks,' 'runs,' 'sleeps'
are examples of the first; 'stag,' 'horse,' 'lion' of the second. But
no combination of words can be formed without a verb and a noun, e.g. 'A
man learns'; the simplest sentence is composed of two words, and one
of these must be a subject. For example, in the sentence, 'Theaetetus
sits,' which is not very long, 'Theaetetus' is the subject, and in the
sentence 'Theaetetus flies,' 'Theaetetus' is again the subject. But the
two sentences differ in quality, for the first says of you that which
is true, and the second says of you that which is not true, or, in other
words, attributes to you things which are not as though they were. Here
is false discourse in the shortest form. And thus not only speech,
but thought and opinion and imagination are proved to be both true and