Seite - 759 - in The Complete Plato

making likenesses, and phantastic or the art of making appearances? THEAETETUS: True. STRANGER: I was doubtful before in which of them I should place the Sophist, nor am I even now able to see clearly; verily he is a wonderful and inscrutable creature. And now in the cleverest manner he has got into an impossible place. THEAETETUS: Yes, he has. STRANGER: Do you speak advisedly, or are you carried away at the moment by the habit of assenting into giving a hasty answer? THEAETETUS: May I ask to what you are referring? STRANGER: My dear friend, 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? STRANGER: 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. STRANGER: Very good; and now say, do we venture to utter the forbidden word ‘not-being’? THEAETETUS: Certainly we do. STRANGER: 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 759