Sophist

Str. Let us, then, again bisect the fantastic art.

Theaet. How?

Str. One kind is that produced by instruments, the other that in which the producer of the appearance offers himself as the instrument.

Theaet. What do you mean?

Str. When anyone, by employing his own person as his instrument, makes his own figure or voice seem similar to yours, that kind of fantastic art is called mimetic.

Theaet. Yes.

Str. Let us, then, classify this part under the name of mimetic art; but as for all the rest, let us be so self-indulgent as to let it go and leave it for someone else to unify and name appropriately.

Theaet. Very well, let us adopt that classification and let the other part go.

Str. But it is surely worth while to consider, Theaetetus, that the mimetic art also has two parts; and I will tell you why.

Theaet. Please do.

Str. Some who imitate do so with knowledge of that which they imitate, and others without such knowledge. And yet what division can we imagine more complete than that which separates knowledge and ignorance?

Theaet. None.

Str. The example I just gave was of imitation by those who know, was it not? For a man who imitates you would know you and your figure.

Theaet. Of course.

Str. But what of the figure of justice and, in a word, of virtue in general? Are there not many who have no knowledge of it, but only a sort of opinion, and who try with the greatest eagerness to make this which they themselves think is virtue seem to exist within them, by imitating it in acts and words to the best of their ability?

Theaet. Yes, there are very many such people.

Str. Do all of them, then, fail in the attempt to seem to be just when they are not so at all? Or is quite the opposite the case?

Theaet. Quite the opposite.

Str. Then I think we must say that such an imitator is quite distinct from the other, the one who does not know from the one who knows.

Theaet. Yes.

Str. Where, then, can the fitting name for each of the two be found? Clearly it is not an easy task, because there was, it seems, among the earlier thinkers a long established and careless indolence in respect to the division of classes or genera into forms or species, so that nobody even tried to make such divisions; therefore there cannot be a great abundance of names. However, even though the innovation in language be a trifle bold, let us, for the sake of making a distinction, call the imitation which is based on opinion, opinion-imitation, and that which is founded on knowledge, a sort of scientific imitation.

Theaet. Agreed.

Str. We mat therefore apply ourselves to the former, for we found that the sophist was among those who imitate but was not among those who know.

Theaet. Very true.

Str. Then let us examine the opinion-imitator as if he were a piece of iron, and see whether he is sound or there is still some seam in him.

Theaet. Let us do so.