Sophist (216-220)

Theo. According to our yesterday’s agreement, Socrates, we have come ourselves, as we were bound to do, and we bring also this man with us; he is a stranger from Elea, one of the followers of Parmenides and Zeno, and a real philosopher.

Soc. Are you not unwittingly bringing, as Homer says, some god, and no mere stranger, Theodorus? He says that the gods, and especially the god of strangers, enter into companionship with men who have a share of due reverence [*] and that they behold the deeds, both violent and righteous, [*] of mankind. So perhaps this companion of yours may be one of the higher powers, who comes to watch over and refute us because we are worthless in argument—a kind of god of refutation.

Theo. No, Socrates, that is not the stranger’s character; he is more reasonable than those who devote themselves to disputation. And though I do not think he is a god at all, I certainly do think he is divine, for I give that epithet to all philosophers.

Soc. And rightly, my friend. However, I fancy it is not much easier, if I may say so, to recognize this class, than that of the gods. For these men—I mean those who are not feignedly but really philosophers—appear disguised in all sorts of shapes, [*] thanks to the ignorance of the rest of mankind, and

visit the cities,

Hom. Od. 17.485-7 beholding from above the life of those below, and they seem to some to be of no worth and to others to be worth everything. And sometimes they appear disguised as statesmen and sometimes as sophists, and sometimes they may give some people the impression that they are altogether mad. But I should like to ask our stranger here, if agreeable to him, what people in his country thought about these matters, and what names they used.

Theo. What matters do you mean?

Soc. Sophist, statesman, philosopher.

Theo. What particular difficulty and what kind of difficulty in regard to them is it about which you had in mind to ask?

Soc. It is this: Did they consider all these one, or two, or, as there are three names, did they divide them into three classes and ascribe to each a class, corresponding to a single name?

Theo. I think he has no objection to talking about them. What do you say, stranger?

Str. Just what you did, Theodorus; for I have no objection, and it is not difficult to say that they considered them three. But it is no small or easy task to define clearly the nature of each.

Theo. The fact is, Socrates, that by chance you have hit upon a question very like what we happened to be asking him before we came here; and he made excuses to us then, as he does now to you; though he admits that he has heard it thoroughly discussed and remembers what he heard.

Soc. In that case, stranger, do not refuse us the first favor we have asked; but just tell us this: Do you generally prefer to expound in a long uninterrupted speech of your own whatever you wish to explain to anyone, or do you prefer the method of questions? I was present once when Parmenides employed the latter method and carried on a splendid discussion. I was a young man then, and he was very old.

Str. The method of dialogue, Socrates, is easier with an interlocutor who is tractable and gives no trouble; but otherwise I prefer the continuous speech by one person.

Soc. Well, you may choose whomever you please of those present; they will all respond pleasantly to you; but if you take my advice you will choose one of the young fellows, Theaetetus here, or any of the others who suits you.

Str. Socrates, this is the first time I have come among you, and I am somewhat ashamed, instead of carrying on the discussion by merely giving brief replies to your questions, to deliver an extended, long drawn out speech, either as an address of my own or in reply to another, as if I were giving an exhibition; but I must, for really the present subject is not what one might expect from the form of the question, but is a matter for very long speech. On the other hand it seems unfriendly and discourteous to refuse a favor to you and these gentlemen, especially when you have spoken as you did. As for Theaetetus I accept him most willingly as interlocutor in view of my previous conversation with him and of your present recommendation.

Theaet. But, stranger, by taking this course and following Socrates’s suggestion will you please the others too?

Str. I am afraid there is nothing more to be said about that, Theaetetus; but from now on, my talk will, I fancy, be addressed to you. And if you get tired and are bored by the length of the talk, do not blame me, but these friends of yours.

Theaet. Oh, no, I do not think I shall get tired of it so easily, but if such a thing does happen, we will call in this Socrates, the namesake of the other Socrates; he is of my own age and my companion in the gymnasium, and is in the habit of working with me in almost everything.

Str. Very well; you will follow your own devices about that as the discussion proceeds; but now you and I must investigate in common, beginning first, as it seems to me, with the sophist, and must search out and make plain by argument what he is. For as yet you and I have nothing in common about him but the name; but as to the thing to which we give the name, we may perhaps each have a conception of it in our own minds; however, we ought always in every instance to come to agreement about the thing itself by argument rather than about the mere name without argument. But the tribe which we now intend to search for, the sophist, is not the easiest thing in the world to catch and define, and everyone has agreed long ago that if investigations of great matters are to be properly worked out we ought to practice them on small and easier matters before attacking the very greatest. So now, Theaetetus, this is my advice to ourselves, since we think the family of sophists is troublesome and hard to catch, that we first practise the method of hunting in something easier, unless you perhaps have some simpler way to suggest.

Theaet. I have not.

Str. Then shall we take some lesser thing and try to use it as a pattern for the greater?

Theaet. Yes.

Str. Well, then, what example can we set before us which is well known and small, but no less capable of definition than any of the greater things? Say an angler; is he not known to all and unworthy of any great interest?

Theaet. Yes.

Str. But I hope he offers us a method and is capable of a definition not unsuitable to our purpose.

Theaet. That would be good.

Str. Come now; let us begin with him in this way: Tell me, shall we say that he is a man with an art, or one without an art, but having some other power?

Theaet. Certainly not one without an art.

Str. But of all arts there are, speaking generally, two kinds?

Theaet. How so?

Str. Agriculture and all kinds of care of any living beings, and that which has to do with things which are put together or molded (utensils we call them), and the art of imitation—all these might properly be called by one name.

Theaet. How so, and what is the name?

Str. When anyone brings into being something which did not previously exist, we say that he who brings it into being produces it and that which is brought into being is produced.

Theaet. Certainly.

Str. Now all the arts which we have just mentioned direct their energy to production.

Theaet. Yes, they do.

Str. Let us, then, call these collectively the productive art.

Theaet. Agreed.

Str. And after this comes the whole class of learning and that of acquiring knowledge, and money making, and fighting, and hunting. None of these is creative, but they are all engaged in coercing, by deeds or words, things which already exist and have been produced, or in preventing others from coercing them; therefore all these divisions together might very properly be called acquisitive art.

Theaet. Yes, that would be proper.

Str. Then since acquisitive and productive art comprise all the arts, in which, Theaetetus, shall we place the art of angling?

Theaet. In acquisitive art, clearly.

Str. And are there not two classes of acquisitive art—one the class of exchange between voluntary agents by means of gifts and wages and purchases, and the other, which comprises all the rest of acquisitive art, and, since it coerces either by word or deed, might be called coercive?

Theaet. It appears so, at any rate, from what you have said.

Str. Well then, shall we not divide coercive art into two parts?

Theaet. In what way?

Str. By calling all the open part of it fighting and all the secret part hunting.

Theaet. Yes.

Str. But it would be unreasonable not to divide hunting into two parts.

Theaet. Say how it can be done.

Str. By dividing it into the hunting of the lifeless and of the living.

Theaet. Certainly, if both exist.

Str. Of course they exist. And we must pass over the hunting of lifeless things, which has no name, with the exception of some kinds of diving and the like, which are of little importance; but the hunting of living things we will call animal-hunting.

Theaet. Very well.

Str. And two classes of animal-hunting might properly be made, one (and this is divided under many classes and names) the hunting of creatures that go on their feet, land-animal hunting, and the other that of swimming creatures, to be called, as a whole, water-animal hunting?

Theaet. Certainly.

Str. And of swimming creatures we see that one tribe is winged and the other is in the water?

Theaet. Of course.

Str. And the hunting of winged creatures is called, as a whole, fowling.

Theaet. It is.

Str. And the hunting of water creatures goes by the general name of fishing.

Theaet. Yes.

Str. And might I not divide this kind of hunting into two principal divisions?

Theaet. What divisions?

Str. The one carries on the hunt by means of enclosures merely, the other by a blow.

Theaet. What do you mean, and how do you distinguish the two?

Str. As regards the first, because whatever surrounds anything and encloses it so as to constrain it is properly called an enclosure.

Theaet. Certainly.

Str. May not, then, wicker baskets and seines and snares and nets and the like be called enclosures?

Theaet. Assuredly.

Str. Then we will call this division hunting by enclosures, or something of that sort.

Theaet. Yes.

Str. And the other, which is done with a blow, by means of hooks and three pronged spears, we must now—to name it with a single word— call striking; or could a better name be found, Theaetetus?

Theaet. Never mind the name; that will do well enough.

Str. Then the kind of striking which takes place at night by the light of a fire is, I suppose, called by the hunters themselves fire-hunting.

Theaet. To be sure.

Str. And that which belongs to the daytime is, as a whole, barb-hunting, since the spears, as well as the hooks, are tipped with barbs.

Theaet. Yes, it is so called.

Str. Then of striking which belongs to barb-hunting, that part which proceeds downward from above, is called, because tridents are chiefly used in it, tridentry, I suppose.

Theaet. Yes, some people, at any rate, call it so.

Str. Then there still remains, I may say, only one further kind.

Theaet. What is that?