Page - 769 - in The Complete Plato

THEAETETUS: ‘Yes.’ STRANGER: And is being the same as one, and do you apply two names to the same thing? THEAETETUS: What will be their answer, Stranger? STRANGER: It is clear, Theaetetus, that he who asserts the unity of being will find a difficulty in answering this or any other question. THEAETETUS: Why so? STRANGER: To admit of two names, and to affirm that there is nothing but unity, is surely ridiculous? THEAETETUS: Certainly. STRANGER: And equally irrational to admit that a name is anything? THEAETETUS: How so? STRANGER: To distinguish the name from the thing, implies duality. THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: And yet he who identifies the name with the thing will be compelled to say that it is the name of nothing, or if he says that it is the name of something, even then the name will only be the name of a name, and of nothing else. THEAETETUS: True. STRANGER: And the one will turn out to be only one of one, and being absolute unity, will represent a mere name. THEAETETUS: Certainly. STRANGER: And would they say that the whole is other than the one that is, or the same with it? THEAETETUS: To be sure they would, and they actually say so. STRANGER: If being is a whole, as Parmenides sings,— ‘Every way like unto the fullness of a well-rounded sphere, Evenly balanced from the centre on every side, And must needs be neither greater nor less in any way, Neither on this side nor on that—’ then being has a centre and extremes, and, having these, must also have parts. THEAETETUS: True. STRANGER: Yet that which has parts may have the attribute of unity in all 769