Sophist
Plato (428–347 BC)
Plato's Sophist in the Greek text edited by John Burnet, with Harold North Fowler's English translation.
Section 216
Section 217
Section 218
Section 219
Section 220
Section 221
Section 222
Section 223
Section 224
Section 225
Section 226
Str. Yes, and the sophist is nothing else, apparently, than the money-making class of the disputatious, argumentative, controversial, pugnacious, combative, acquisitive art, as our argument has now again stated.
Theaet. Certainly.
Str. Do you see the truth of the statement that this creature is many-sided and, as the saying is, not to be caught with one hand?
Theaet. Then we must catch him with both.
Str. Yes, we must, and must go at it with all our might, by following another track of his—in this way. Tell me; of the expressions connected with menial occupations some are in common use, are they not?
Theaet. Yes, many. But to which of the many does your question refer?
Str. To such as these: we say sift and strain and winnow and separate.
Theaet. Certainly.
Str. And besides these there are card and comb and beat the web and countless other technical terms which we know. Is it not so?
Theaet. Why do you use these as examples and ask about them all? What do you wish to show in regard to them?
Str. All those that I have mentioned imply a notion of division.
Theaet. Yes.
Str. Then since there is, accorling to my reckoning, one art involved in all of these operations, let us give it one name.
Theaet. What shall we call it?
Str. The art of discrimination.
Theaet. Very well.
Str. Now see if we can discover two divisions of this.
Theaet. You demand quick thinking, for a boy like me.
Str. And yet, in the instance of discrimination just mentioned there was, first, the separation of worse from better, and, secondly, of like from like.
Theaet. Yes, as you now express it, that is pretty clear.
Str. Now I know no common name for the second kind of discrimination; but I do know the name of the kind which retains the better and throws away the worse.
Theaet. What is it?
Str. Every such discrimination, as I think, is universally called a sort of purification.
Theaet. Yes, so it is.
Str. And could not anyone see that purification is of two kinds?
Theaet. Yes, perhaps, in time; but still I do not see it now.
Str. Still there are many kinds of purifications of bodies, and they may all properly be included under one name.
Theaet. What are they and what is the name?