Sophist

Str. Well, there is a very marked seam. For some of these imitators are simple-minded and think they know that about which they have only opinion, but the other kind because of their experience in the rough and tumble of arguments, strongly suspect and fear that they are ignorant of the things which they pretend before the public to know.

Theaet. Certainly the two classes you mention both exist.

Str. Then shall we call one the simple imitator and the other the dissembling imitator?

Theaet. That is reaonable, at any rate.

Str. And shall we say that the latter forms one class or two again?

Theaet. That is your affair.

Str. I am considering, and I think I can see two classes I see one who can dissemble in long speeches in public before a multitude, and the other who does it in private in short speeches and forces the person who converses with him to contradict himself.

Theaet. You are quite right.

Str. And what name shall we give to him who makes the longer speeches? Statesman or popular orator?

Theaet. Popular orator.

Str. And what shall we call the other? Philosopher or sophist?

Theaet. We cannot very well call him philosopher, since by our hypothesis he is ignorant; but since he is all imitator of the philosopher, he will evidently have a name derived from his, and I think I am sure at last that we must truly call him the absolutely real and actual sophist.

Str. Shall we then bind up his name as we did before, winding it up from the end to the beginning?

Theaet. By all means.

Str. The imitative kind of the dissembling part of the art of opinion which is part of the art of contradiction and belongs to the fantastic class of the image-making art, and is not divine, but human, and has been defined in arguments as the juggling part of productive activity—he who says that the true sophist is of this descent and blood will, in my opinion, speak the exact truth.

Theaet. Yes, he certainly will.