Page - 744 - in The Complete Plato

STRANGER: The latter should have two names,—one descriptive of the sale of the knowledge of virtue, and the other of the sale of other kinds of knowledge. THEAETETUS: Of course. STRANGER: The name of art-seller corresponds well enough to the latter; but you must try and tell me the name of the other. THEAETETUS: He must be the Sophist, whom we are seeking; no other name can possibly be right. STRANGER: No other; and so this trader in virtue again turns out to be our friend the Sophist, whose art may now be traced from the art of acquisition through exchange, trade, merchandise, to a merchandise of the soul which is concerned with speech and the knowledge of virtue. THEAETETUS: Quite true. STRANGER: And there may be a third reappearance of him;—for he may have settled down in a city, and may fabricate as well as buy these same wares, intending to live by selling them, and he would still be called a Sophist? THEAETETUS: Certainly. STRANGER: Then that part of the acquisitive art which exchanges, and of exchange which either sells a man’s own productions or retails those of others, as the case may be, and in either way sells the knowledge of virtue, you would again term Sophistry? THEAETETUS: I must, if I am to keep pace with the argument. STRANGER: Let us consider once more whether there may not be yet another aspect of sophistry. THEAETETUS: What is it? STRANGER: In the acquisitive there was a subdivision of the combative or fighting art. THEAETETUS: There was. STRANGER: Perhaps we had better divide it. THEAETETUS: What shall be the divisions? STRANGER: There shall be one division of the competitive, and another of the pugnacious. THEAETETUS: Very good. 744