Superphysics
The Sophists Dispute About All Things
6 minutes • 1111 words
The discerning art leads to purification. From purification let there be separated off a part which is concerned with the soul;
Of this mental purification instruction is a portion, and of instruction education, and of education, that refutation of vain conceit which has been discovered in the present argument; and let this be called by you and me the nobly-descended art of Sophistry.
THEAETETUS: Yet, I do not know to describe the real nature of the Sophist.
In the first place, the Sophist was discovered to be a paid hunter after wealth and youth.
In the second place, he was a merchant in the goods of the soul.
In the third place, he has turned out to be a retailer of the same sort of wares.
THEAETETUS: Yes. In the fourth place, he himself manufactured the learned wares which he sold.
The fifth belonged to the fighting class, and was further distinguished as a hero of debate, who professed the eristic art.
The sixth point was doubtful. He was a purger of souls who cleared away notions obstructive to knowledge.
When the professor of any art has one name and many kinds of knowledge, there must be something wrong.
The multiplicity of names which is applied to him shows that the common principle to which all these branches of knowledge are tending, is not understood.
We said that he was a disputer. He also teaches others the art of disputation.
FOREIGNER: When any universal assertion is made about generation and essence, Sophists are:
- tremendous argufiers
- able to impart their own skill to others.
FOREIGNER: They profess to make men able to dispute about law and politics in general.
FOREIGNER: In all and every art, the craftsman should answer any question in written form, and he who likes may learn.
THEAETETUS: I suppose that you are referring to the precepts of Protagoras about wrestling and the other arts?
FOREIGNER: Yes, my friend, and about a good many other things.
The art of disputation is a power of disputing about all things.
FOREIGNER: But oh! my dear youth, do you suppose this possible? for perhaps your young eyes may see things which to our duller sight do not appear.
Can anybody understand all things?
THEAETETUS: Happy would mankind be if such a thing were possible!
SOCRATES: But how can any one who is ignorant dispute in a rational manner against him who knows?
THEAETETUS: He cannot.
FOREIGNER: Then why has the sophistical art such a mysterious power? How do the Sophists make young men believe in their supreme and universal wisdom?
For if they neither disputed nor were thought to dispute rightly, or being thought to do so were deemed no wiser for their controversial skill, then, to quote your own observation, no one would give them money or be willing to learn their art. But they are willing because they are supposed to have knowledge of those things about which they dispute. But they are not; for that was shown to be impossible.
FOREIGNER: Then the Sophist has a sort of conjectural or apparent knowledge only of all things, which is not the truth.
Suppose that a person said that he knew how to make and do all things in creation, even you and me, by a single art.
FOREIGNER: He is the maker of the sea, the earth, and the heavens, and the gods, and of all other things; and, further, that he can make them in no time, and sell them to you for a few pence.
FOREIGNER: He who professes by one art to make all things is really a painter, and by the painter’s art makes resemblances of real things which have the same name with them; and he can deceive the less intelligent sort of young children, to whom he shows his pictures at a distance, into the belief that he has the absolute power of making whatever he likes.
FOREIGNER: And may there not be supposed to be an imitative art of reasoning? Is it not possible to enchant the hearts of young men by words poured through their ears, when they are still at a distance from the truth of facts, by exhibiting to them fictitious arguments, and making them think that they are true, and that the speaker is the wisest of men in all things?
THEAETETUS: Yes; why should there not be another such art?
FOREIGNER: But as time goes on, and their hearers advance in years, and come into closer contact with realities, and have learnt by sad experience to see and feel the truth of things, are not the greater part of them compelled to change many opinions which they formerly entertained, so that the great appears small to them, and the easy difficult, and all their dreamy speculations are overturned by the facts of life?
THEAETETUS: That is my view, as far as I can judge, although, at my age, I may be one of those who see things at a distance only.
FOREIGNER: And the wish of all of us, who are your friends, is and always will be to bring you as near to the truth as we can without the sad reality. And now I should like you to tell me, whether the Sophist is not visibly a magician and imitator of true being; or are we still disposed to think that he may have a true knowledge of the various matters about which he disputes?
THEAETETUS: But how can he, FOREIGNER? Is there any doubt, after what has been said, that he is to be located in one of the divisions of children’s play?
FOREIGNER: Then we must place him in the class of magicians and mimics.
FOREIGNER: And now our business is not to let the animal out, for we have got him in a sort of dialectical net, and there is one thing which he decidedly will not escape.
FOREIGNER: The inference that he is a juggler.
THEAETETUS: Precisely my own opinion of him.
FOREIGNER: Then, we should as soon as possible divide the image-making art, and go down into the net.
If the Sophist does not run away from us, to seize him according to orders and deliver him over to reason, who is the lord of the hunt, and proclaim the capture of him.
If he creeps into the recesses of the imitative art, and secretes himself in one of them, to divide again and follow him up until in some sub-section of imitation he is caught. For our method of tackling each and all is one which neither he nor any other creature will ever escape in triumph.
