Résumé
Résumé de Sophist
À qui s’adresse-t-il ?
For readers who like to watch an argument being built step by step, and for anyone curious about how Western philosophy first handled truth, lies and appearances.
De quoi parle ce livre ?
Sophist is a dialogue written by Plato in Athens in the fourth century BC, most likely in the later part of his life. It follows the dialogue Theaetetus and comes just before Statesman. Socrates is present, but he says little. The talk is led by an unnamed visitor from Elea, a Greek city in southern Italy, who belongs to the school of Parmenides. The stated aim is simple: to say clearly what a sophist is, and how he differs from a philosopher.
The real task is harder. To catch the sophist, the visitor must solve a puzzle about falsehood, images and the meaning of the words is not. He must also challenge the great Parmenides, who taught that what is not cannot be spoken of at all. Along the way he builds ideas about being, sameness, difference and speech that philosophers still argue over. This summary gives you the route through the text: the method of the search, the many portraits of the sophist, the puzzle at the center, and the answer. We begin with the setting, the method, and the first attempt at a definition.
Dans ce résumé
- 1A stranger from Elea leads the searchFree
- 2Define by dividing: the angler as practice
- 3The sophist appears in many disguises
- 4False speech seems impossible, and that is the trouble
- 5What is real? Giants, gods and the five kinds
- 6Not-being as difference, and the sophist caught
Point clé 1 sur 6
A stranger from Elea leads the search
The dialogue opens on the day after the conversation recorded in Theaetetus. Theodorus, a mathematician, arrives with a guest whom he calls a philosopher from Elea. Socrates greets the visitor with some wit. He wonders whether this man might be a god in disguise, sent to test and refute the weak arguments of mortals. Theodorus laughs the idea off and says the Stranger is gentler than that.
Socrates then asks a practical question. In the Stranger's country, do people treat the sophist, the statesman and the philosopher as one kind of person, as two, or as three? The Stranger says they are three, though defining each is no small job. He agrees to take them in turn, and he starts with the sophist. Socrates lets him choose how to speak, either in a long lecture or in short question and answer. The Stranger prefers a partner who answers, and he picks young Theaetetus, who has just shown his skill in the earlier dialogue.
Why begin with such a guest? Part of the reason is that the dialogue will soon confront Parmenides, the thinker of Elea, and Plato wants a speaker who belongs to that tradition and can criticise it from inside. The Stranger is polite but unafraid. He will say later that he must treat his intellectual father roughly.
Socrates stays in the room as a silent listener. His absence from the lead role marks a shift in Plato's work. The questions are now less about how to live and more about what words and thoughts are, and how they can match or miss the world. Keep that shift in mind as the argument grows more technical.
That’s 1 of 6 key points.
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Who’s who
- The Stranger
- The unnamed visitor from Elea leads the discussion, questioning Theaetetus about sophists, being, and false speech.
- Theaetetus
- A young student of mathematics, Theaetetus becomes the Stranger's principal partner in the philosophical inquiry.
- Socrates
- Socrates welcomes the visitor introduced by Theodorus but leaves the main discussion to the Stranger and Theaetetus.
- Theodorus
- Theodorus is a mathematician and teacher of Theaetetus who introduces his visiting acquaintance from Elea.
About this edition
Every format is free to start, and print and large print are at cost.
- LengthAbout 46,000 words
- Reading timeAbout 3 h 5 min
- FormatseBook, large-print eBook, audiobook, 15-minute summary; paperback, hardcover and large print at cost
- LanguagesEnglish and 13 other languages
Questions about Sophist
What is Plato's Sophist about?
It tries to define the sophist, a paid teacher of persuasion, and separate him from the philosopher. To do so, it has to solve a puzzle about how false statements and images can exist, and it reworks the idea of being.
Who is the Eleatic Stranger in Sophist?
He is an unnamed visitor from Elea, a Greek city in southern Italy, who follows the school of Parmenides. He leads the talk, with Theaetetus answering, while Socrates mostly listens. He also appears in Statesman.
What does parricide mean in Plato's Sophist?
The Stranger says he must commit a kind of parricide, meaning the killing of a father. He means he must challenge Parmenides, his school's founder, who taught that what is not cannot be spoken of or thought.
Is Sophist hard to read?
No. The Stranger starts with a simple exercise, catching an angler by dividing one kind of skill into two, step by step. Then he uses two plain sentences, Theaetetus sits and Theaetetus flies, to show how true and false speech work.
What is the main message of Sophist?
The dialogue argues that falsehood is possible because not-being means difference, not nothing. It also warns that a skilled imitator of wisdom can look like a wise person, so we need careful method to tell them apart.