The Imitative and Famtastic Arts

FOREIGNER: Using the same analytic method as before, I can discern 2 divisions of the imitative art

1. Likeness-making (imitotive) art

Here, a likeness of anything is made by producing a copy which is executed according to the proportions of the original, similar in length and breadth and depth, each thing receiving also its appropriate colour.

FOREIGNER: This is not always the aim of imitation. In sculpture or painting, there is a certain degree of deception.

Artists were to give the true proportions of their fair works, the upper part, which is farther off, would appear to be out of proportion in comparison with the lower, which is nearer; and so they give up the truth in their images and make only the proportions which appear to be beautiful, disregarding the real ones.

FOREIGNER: A likeness or image is the other which is like it.

2. Phantastic art

A phantastic art is that which produces an appearance and not an image.

FOREIGNER: And may we not, as I did just now, call that part of the imitative art which is concerned with making such images the art of likeness-making?

THEAETETUS: Let that be the name.

FOREIGNER: And what shall we call those resemblances of the beautiful, which appear such owing to the unfavourable position of the spectator, whereas if a person had the power of getting a correct view of works of such magnitude, they would appear not even like that to which they profess to be like? May we not call these ‘appearances,’ since they appear only and are not really like?

There is a great deal of this kind of thing in painting, and in all imitation.

FOREIGNER: Is the Sophist in the imitative art? Or the fantastic art?

He is a wonderful and inscrutable creature. And now in the cleverest manner he has got into an impossible place.

FOREIGNER: Do you speak advisedly, or are you carried away at the moment by the habit of assenting into giving a hasty answer?

We are engaged in a very difficult speculation—there can be no doubt of that; for how a thing can appear and seem, and not be, or how a man can say a thing which is not true, has always been and still remains a very perplexing question. Can any one say or think that falsehood really exists, and avoid being caught in a contradiction? Indeed, Theaetetus, the task is a difficult one.

THEAETETUS: Why?

FOREIGNER: He who says that falsehood exists has the audacity to assert the being of not-being; for this is implied in the possibility of falsehood. But, my boy, in the days when I was a boy, the great Parmenides protested against this doctrine, and to the end of his life he continued to inculcate the same lesson—always repeating both in verse and out of verse:

‘Keep your mind from this way of enquiry, for never will you show that not-being is.’

Such is his testimony, which is confirmed by the very expression when sifted a little. Would you object to begin with the consideration of the words themselves?

THEAETETUS: Never mind about me; I am only desirous that you should carry on the argument in the best way, and that you should take me with you.

FOREIGNER: Very good; and now say, do we venture to utter the forbidden word ’not-being’?

THEAETETUS: Certainly we do.

FOREIGNER: Let us be serious then, and consider the question neither in strife nor play: suppose that one of the hearers of Parmenides was asked, ‘To what is the term “not-being” to be applied?’—do you know what sort of object he would single out in reply, and what answer he would make to the enquirer?

THEAETETUS: That is a difficult question, and one not to be answered at all by a person like myself.

FOREIGNER: There is at any rate no difficulty in seeing that the predicate ’not-being’ is not applicable to any being.

THEAETETUS: None, certainly.

FOREIGNER: And if not to being, then not to something.

In speaking of something we speak of being, for to speak of an abstract something naked and isolated from all being is impossible.

FOREIGNER: He who says something must say some one thing.

Some in the singular (ti) you would say is the sign of one, some in the dual (tine) of two, some in the plural (tines) of many?

Then he who says ’not something’ must say absolutely nothing.

FOREIGNER: And as we cannot admit that a man speaks and says nothing, he who says ’not-being’ does not speak at all.

THEAETETUS: The difficulty of the argument can no further go.

FOREIGNER: Not yet, my friend, is the time for such a word; for there still remains of all perplexities the first and greatest, touching the very foundation of the matter.

THEAETETUS: What do you mean? Do not be afraid to speak.

FOREIGNER: To that which is, may be attributed some other thing which is?

THEAETETUS: Certainly.

FOREIGNER: But can anything which is, be attributed to that which is not?

THEAETETUS: Impossible.

FOREIGNER: And all number is to be reckoned among things which are?

THEAETETUS: Yes, surely number, if anything, has a real existence.

FOREIGNER: Then we must not attempt to attribute to not-being number either in the singular or plural?

THEAETETUS: The argument implies that we should be wrong in doing so.

FOREIGNER: But how can a man either express in words or even conceive in thought things which are not or a thing which is not without number?

When we speak of things which are not, are we not attributing plurality to not-being?

FOREIGNER: But, on the other hand, when we say ‘what is not,’ do we not attribute unity?

FOREIGNER: Nevertheless, we maintain that you may not and ought not to attribute being to not-being?

FOREIGNER: Do you see, then, that not-being in itself can neither be spoken, uttered, or thought, but that it is unthinkable, unutterable, unspeakable, indescribable?

FOREIGNER: But, if so, I was wrong in telling you just now that the difficulty which was coming is the greatest of all.

THEAETETUS: What! is there a greater still behind?

FOREIGNER: Well, I am surprised, after what has been said already, that you do not see the difficulty in which he who would refute the notion of not-being is involved. For he is compelled to contradict himself as soon as he makes the attempt.

THEAETETUS: What do you mean? Speak more clearly.