Gibson, Twyla. 2009. "The Code of Ethics in Medicine: Intertextuality and Meaning in Plato's Sophist and Hippocrates' Oath." In Critical Interventions in the Ethics of Healthcare: Challenging the Principle of Autonomy in Bioethics, edited by Holmes, David and Murray, Stuart J., 183–198. London: Routledge.

"I develop a set of criteria for identifying connections between Hippocrates and Plato by drawing upon media and information theory to adapt the principles devised by researchers working on intertextuality in other ancient Greek collections. Next, I turn to Plato's Sophist, a dialogue that explains the procedure for distinguishing multiple sequences of classifications that make up the different branches of the definition of art or technique (techne). I delineate the topics in the definition of the Merchant of Learning, and then use this Platonic sequence as a template for comparing the organization of topics and ideas in the Oath. I show that the sequential order of topics in the Oath corresponds point by point to the serial order of the topics in the various classifications of the definition explained in Plato's Sophist. The presence in the Oath of the same sequence described in Plato makes it possible to line up the classifications in the two works and to cross-reference and compare information in corresponding categories. Cross-referencing of topics and ideas allows us to bring information presented in Plato to bear on the interpretation of the Oath. This new information provides the· resources for dealing with issues of interpretation that have gone unresolved due to lack of evidence concerning the meaning and context of words and ideas. The discovery of connections between Plato and Hippocrates adds to our understanding of the meanings communicated in the Oath by linking the Greek medical tradition to the wider context of ancient thought and expression.

This broadened context sheds new light on the foundations of Western medical ethics and provides the evidence and insights needed to reconstruct and reassess the history of our ethical tradition. It is my argument that the expanded horizons of meaning gained though the study of intertextual connections among Hippocratic and Platonic texts and traditions provides a rich resource for reevaluating the history of Western medical ethics, and for defending and critiquing the possibilities entailed by biomedical technologies today." (p. 184)
———. 2010. "The Fisher: Repetition and Sequence in Plato’s Sophist, Statesman, and Ion." The McNeese Review no. 48:84–112.

"In this study, I address the question of a coherent philosophical system in Plato's collected dialogues as well as the problem concerning the meaning and function of Plato's method. Is there evidence of a consistent set of principles in Plato's dialogues that pertain to all the disparate discourses in the collection?

What is the purpose of the method of division and of the sequences of topics and ideas that make up the classifications spelled out by the characters in Plato's Sophist and Statesman? This study proposes new answers to these questions." (pp. 86-87)

(...)

"Comparing passages from several important dialogues in light of one definition suggests that the Sophist does offer a technical explanation and demonstration of Plato's method. Tracing the definition of the fisher across three books highlights a number of consistencies that point to the presence of a system, and shows how repetition and sequencing are principles that may be applied to different texts in the collection. Moreover, finding the definition in four works makes it possible to transfer findings from the case studies to Plato's dialogues more generally. Generalizing from the examples to the dialogues as a whole suggests that the "Forms" are the system of rules and conventions that govern the order, shape, and organization of all of Plato's dialogues." (pp. 108-109)
———. 2011. "The Philosopher’s Art: Ring Composition and Classification in Plato’s Sophist and Hipparchus." In Orality and Literacy: Reflections across Disciplines, edited by Carlson, Keith Thor, Fagan, Kristina and Khanenko-Friesen, Natalia, 73–109. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

"With Plato, argued media theorist Marshall McLuhan, the Greeks 'flipped out of the old Homeric world of the bards into this new, rational ... civilized world.'(1) McLuhan and other scholars associated with the foundations of media studies cite Plato's writings as evidence for dating the shift from primary orality to literacy in ancient Greek culture.

Further research has demonstrated that the 'great divide' of orality versus literacy is untenable; traditional oral modes of communication persist alongside and into written texts.

This study re-examines Plato's dialogues in light of recent research concerning ring composition, an oral formulaic technique found in Homer. Comparative analysis of two exemplary dialogues - Plato's Sophist and Hipparchus - shows that these works manifest the ring pattern associated with oral traditional modes of communication. This comparative evidence suggests that the dialogues are transitional compositions, and that Plato's writings represented not a break with the oral tradition but rather its transposition to written texts. I explain the implications of these findings for the interpretation of the history and philosophy communicated in Plato's dialogues, in other ancient oral derived works, and for the study of oral histories and traditions today." (p. 73)

(1) Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Me: Lectures and Interviews, ed. Stephanie McLuhan and David Staines (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 2003), 227.
Gili, Luca. 2017. "Plato, Soph. 216 a3–4." Méthexis no. 29:171–173.

"N.-L. Cordero has persuasively argued that there is no reason to delete ἑταίρων (l. 4) if one were to choose the reading ἔτερον (l. 3), that all manuscripts preserve, instead of ἑταῖρον.(2)" (p. 171)

(...)

"My reading turns the reference to the followers of the Eleatics as a piece of Platonic irony – they are philosophers, but definitely not as good as the stranger – Plato’s alter ego? – nor, we can suppose, as their masters Parmenides and Zeno." (p. 173)

(2) Cf. N.-L. Cordero, El Extranjero de Elea, ‘compañero’ de los Parmenídeos…desde 1561, Méthexis xxiii (2013), 51–58. Cordero, however, seems to be unaware of the fact that Y, the earliest source for ἕτερον, does not have a primary status. On this issue see A. D’Acunto, “Su un’edizione platonica di Niceforo Moscopulo e Massimo Planude: il Vindobonensis Phil. Gr. 21 (Y),” Studi classici e orientali 45 (1996), 261–279. Accordingly, Cordero’s intervention, whose rationale I fully endorsed, should not be understood as an emendation ope codicum, but rather as an emendation ope ingenii that at least one Byzantine reader already suggested. The text that Cordero and I defend is not an ancient variant.
Gill, Mary Louise. 2006. "Models in Plato's Sophist and Statesman." Journal of the International Plato Society no. 6:1–9.

"Plato’s Sophist and Statesman use a notion of a model (paradeigma) quite different from the one with which we are familiar from dialogues like the Phaedo, Parmenides, and Timaeus. In those dialogues a paradeigma is a separate Form, an abstract perfect particular, whose nature is exhausted by its own character. Its participants are conceived as likenesses or images of it: they share with the Form the same character, but they also fall short of it because they exemplify not only that character but also its opposite. Mundane beautiful objects are plagued by various sorts of relativity—Helen is beautiful compared to other women, but not beautiful compared to a goddess; she is beautiful in her physical appearance, but not in her soul or her actions; she is beautiful in your eyes, but not in mine, and so on. The Form of the Beautiful, which is supposed to explain her beauty, is simply and unqualifiedly beautiful (Symp. 210e5-211d1).

In the Sophist and Statesman a model involves a mundane example whose definition is relevant to the definition of some more difficult concept under investigation, the target. The steps taken to define the example also reveal a useful procedure to be transferred to the more difficult case. This much should be fairly uncontroversial. In my view it is important to recognize that a paradeigma is not merely an example (or paradigmatic example) of some general concept." (p. 1)
———. 2010. "Division and Definition in Plato's Sophist and Statesman." In Definition in Greek Philosophy, edited by Charles, David, 172–199. New York: Oxford University Press.

"In this paper I will argue that dichotomous division yields a good definition of a target kind only in the simplest and most uncontroversial cases. Plato also uses division in defining more complex kinds, but then it serves as a preliminary strategy, which undertakes to expose some puzzle about the kind under investigation, which the enquirers must resolve in some other way, or at least in conjunction with some other method.

We have trouble catching the sophist, because we find him, not at the end of a single branch, but at many different termini, allowing multiple definitions. We find the statesman at a single terminus, but he has many rivals there, who claim to share his expertise; the definition of the statesman reached by dichotomous division, though very detailed, turns out to be much too general. These disappointing results serve a purpose. Plato wants us to see that something about the sophist explains why he turns up all over the map, and that something about the statesman explains why he has company at the terminus. In each dialogue, reflection on the peculiar outcome of division enables the enquirers to recognize something about the kind in question which helps to explain the peculiarity. The enquirers aim to discover a real definition that applies to all and only instances that fall under a kind, and which specifies its essence -- the feature or complex of features that explains why in the case of the sophist he turns up in too many places, and why in the case of the statesman he is not alone at the terminus." (p. 173)
———. 2012. Philosophos: Plato’s Missing Dialogue. New York: Oxford University Press.

Contents: Introduction 1; 1. Forms in Question 18; 2. A Philosophical Exercise 45; 3. The Contest between Heraclitus and Parmenides 76; 4. Knowledge as Expertise 101; 5. Appearances of the Sophist 138; 6. Refining the Statesman 177; 7. The Philosopher’s Object 202; Works Cited 245; Index Locorum 263; Index of Names 274; General Index 278-290.

"The only thing that does not exist is something indescribable, something with no features at all: nothing—or to use Owen’s colorful phrase, “a subject with all the being knocked out of it and so unidentifiable.”(12) I take it that not-being, so understood, is the focus of the first three puzzles about not-being in the Sophist and of the sixth deduction in the Parmenides, so it could be that Plato restricts non-existence to an unidentifiable non-thing: Plato’s notion of existence need not correspond to our own. Even so, he talks about fictional entities in several dialogues (centaurs and other mythical creatures), and the Sophist itself begins and ends with a discussion of production, defined by the Stranger as bringing into being something that previously was not (219b4–6, 265b8–10).(13) Furthermore, the Battle of the Gods and Giants at the center of the dialogue treats two distinct views about what is real (tangible things or immaterial forms), a dispute that surely concerns actual being or existence (a monadic property), what things have it and what things do not. The items rejected on each side are describable, even as the opponents on the other side (Gods or Giants) deny their being. The Stranger tries to settle the feud with his definition of being as dunamis (the capacity to act on or to be affected by something else). Moreover, this same monadic being—the nature of being (250c6–7)—is the property that becomes mysterious in the Aporia about Being (249d9–250d4) directly following the Battle of the Gods and Giants.14 Plato is clearly interested in monadic being in the Sophist — what things have this feature, and what things, though describable, do not. In Chapter 5 I take the first steps toward an alternative interpretation of being, one indebted to Lesley Brown and Michael Frede, which aims to preserve the virtues of their different proposals without the shortcomings." (p. 176)

(12) Owen (1971: 247).

(13) Cf. E. N. Lee (1972: 300) and Heinaman (1983: 12).

14 Discussed below in Chapter 7 secs. 7.2 and 7.6.

References

Heinaman, R. 1983. “Being in the Sophist.” Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 65: 1–17.

Lee, E. N. 1972. “Plato on Negation and Not-Being in the Sophist.” Philosophical Review 81: 267–304.

Owen, G. E. L. 1971. “Plato on Not-Being.” In G. Vlastos (ed.), Plato 1: Metaphysics and Epistemology. Garden City: Doubleday. 223–67. Repr. in G. E. L. Owen, 1986. 104–137.

Owen, G. E. L. 1986. Logic, Science and Dialectic. M. C. Nussbaum (ed.). London: Duckworth/Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
———. 2021. "Images of Wisdom in the Prologue of Plato’s Sophist." The Journal of Greco-Roman Studies no. 60:137–152.

Abstract: "This paper examines the prologue of Plato’s Sophist in light of interpretive claims by Proclus, and revived by Myles Burnyeat,[*] that Plato imaged in the opening scene of his dialogues the main philosophical themes of the work.

This paper applies that insight to the prologue of the Sophist and argues that Proclus is right but that the work in which this prologue is embedded is much larger than the dialogue it introduces. A close reading of the Sophist’s prologue reveals it to image, in a literary way, the whole series of dialogues—Theaetetus, Sophist, Statesman, and missing Philosopher—of which the Sophist is a member. At the end of the Sophist, the sophist is identified as imitator of the wise man. The paper explores the sophist in relation to the kinds it imitates, including two sorts of wise men, the philosopher and the statesman, and asks whether there is a wide kind covering all of them, both genuine experts and their benign and dangerous imitators. If there is such a kind, what is its status as a kind? The paper considers a genealogical family, descended from a common ancestor (intelligence or cleverness) with derivative kinds differentiated from one another by their object and their aims, either beneficial or harmful."

[*] Burnyeat, M. F., 1997, “First Words,” Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society 43, 1-20. (reprinted as Chapter 16 in F. M. Burnyeat, Explorations in Ancient and Modern Philosophy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2012, p. 305-326.
———. 2024. "Knowledge and Forms in Plato’s Parmenides and Sophist." In Platonism: Proceedings of the 43rd International Wittgenstein Symposium, edited by Hrachovec, Herbert and Mácha, Jakub, 9–30. Berlin: de Gruyter.

Abstract: "Platonic forms explain certain features of perceptible things and equip us to know them. This paper examines three passages: the Greatest Difficulty in the Parmenides shows that Socrates’ failure to explain participation, the relation between sensible things and forms, renders forms unknowable to us. The Battle of Gods and Giants in the Sophist treats forms as immutable, but their immutability apparently rules out their intelligibility. The Stranger offers a path forward by defining being as power, a solution then undermined in the Aporia about Being, which reveals that the form of being is neither immutable nor intelligible. This paper shows where the Aporia goes wrong and opens a way back to the constructive proposal in the Battle of Gods and Giants. The paper finally considers how forms are affected in being known and gestures toward Plato’s solution to the problem of participation."
Giovannetti, Lorenzo. 2021. "Between Truth and Meaning. A Novel Interpretation of the Symploke in Plato’s Sophist." Elenchos.Rivista di Studi sul Pensiero Antico no. 42:261–290.

Abstract: "In this paper, I provide an interpretation of the symploke ton eidon at Soph. 259e. My goal is to show that the specific metaphysical view expressed by the interweaving of forms best accounts for Plato’s explanation of truth and falsehood.

In the first section, I introduce the fundamentals of the interpretation of the greatest kinds and their functions. After that, I propose an interpretation of the assertion at 259e, the upshot of which is that the interweaving of forms only deals with extra-linguistic items, that it is related to both truth and meaning of linguistic items, in a very complex way which I aim to explain throughout the paper, and that it never involves sensible particulars. In the second section, I put forward my reading of the Stranger’s description of how logoi are structured and how they work. I pay particular attention to the view that words reveal being when they intertwine to form a statement. In the third section, I interpret the statements concerning Theaetetus. My goal is to advance a new reading of the specific role that kinds and their interweaving play with regard to the truth and falsehood of the statements concerning Theaetetus. The result is the very specific view that the kinds, which are the separated ontological cause of what happens in space and time, are the grounds of both the truth and the meaning of statements."
Gómez-Lobo, Alfonso. 1977. "Plato's Description of Dialectic in the Sophist 253d1-e2." Phronesis.A Journal for Ancient Philosophy no. 22:29–47.

"In the Sophist there is an obscure and much disputed passage (253 d 1-e 2) which professes to say something about what is proper to the science of Dialectic (... μῶν οὐ τῆς διαλεκτικῆς φήσομεν ἐπιστήμης εἶναι ; 253 d 2-3). The communis opinio is that we are offered there a description of the Method of Division. The facts that the passage is introduced by the expression τὸ κατὰ γένη διαιρεῖσθαι , that it appears in a late dialogue and moreover in a dialogue where that method is explicitly practiced (218 b 5-236 c 8 and 264 b 9-268 d 5) seem to be very strong reasons for suspecting that here Plato must have in mind the Diaeretic Method. This conviction seems to be almost unavoidable when one takes the lines as an "ausführliche Definition des Dialektikers" (Stenzel). (2) If it is such an exhaustive definition, how could Division be missing from it? I would like to challenge the generally accepted view and show that another quite different interpretation gives a better sense to the text and solves some problems which otherwise must remain puzzling. Since nearly all recent interpretations depend on Stenzel's, I shall discuss it first (I). Then (II) I shall put forward the main theses of my interpretation and lastly (III) I shall paraphrase the whole text." (p. 29)

(...)

"Summary: Soph. 253 d 1-e 2 does not describe Division, it anticipates the comparison Being and Not-Being with other Forms which will ultimately provide Plato's answer to the dilemma of Parmenides." (p. 47)

(2) Julius Stenzel, Studien zur Entwicklung der platonischen Dialektik von Sokrates zu Aristoteles, 2. Auf., Leipzig, 1931 (reprint Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1961), English translation by D. J. Allan, Plato's Method of Dialectic, Oxford, 1940. Quotations or my own translations from the German original will be identified by 'orig.' Quotations from Allan's translation are identified by 'trans.' Occasionally Allan's version is inaccurate; in such cases I have referred to the original German text.
———. 1981. "Dialectic in the Sophist: a reply to Waletzki." Phronesis.A Journal for Ancient Philosophy no. 26:80–83.

Reply to Waletzki (1979).

"In "Platons ldeenlehre und Dialektik im Sophistes 253d" (Phronesis 24 (1979) 241-252) Wolfgang Waletzki has criticized an earlier article of mine on that passage (Phronesis 22 (1977) 29-47). Although I have benefitted from a number of his observations, I am not in a position to accept his interpretation as a whole. Instead of arguing piecemeal against each of his claims, I would here like to embark first on a task which I believe to be more rewarding: the working out of criteria which would have to be satisfied by a correct interpretation of the disputed passage. In the light of these criteria I hope to show that Waletzki's approach is unsatisfactory, thus vitiating his specific claims." (p. 80)
Gonzalez, Francisco J. 1997. "On the Way to Sophia: Heidegger on Plato's Dialectic, Ethics, and Sophist." Research in Phenomenology no. 27:16–60.

"The great lacuna in the Heideggerian Gesamtausgabe has been a detailed interpretation of an entire Platonic dialogue. This situation has changed with the publication of the lecture course on Plato's Sophist ( 1924/25) .(1) This text does not disappoint for lack of thoroughness or scope: Heidegger takes the task of interpreting this major Platonic dialogue so seriously that he devotes over two hundred pages to preparing his interpretation and almost four hundred pages to detailed, almost line by line exegesis of the text, from the dramatic prologue to the explanation of the possibility of falsehood. With this course, therefore, we are finally in a position to assess the extent to which Heidegger succeeded in coming to terms with Plato's thought.

In this paper I argue that, despite some important insights, this attempted "philosophical appropriation of Plato"(2) fails. I also suggest that this failure exposes certain limitations of Heidegger's thought, specifically with regard to the relation between ethics and ontology." (p. 16)

(1) Platon: Sophistes, vol. 19 of Gesamtausgabe, ed. Ingeborg Schussler am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, hereafter GA 19.

(2) To use Heidegger's own characterization of what Friedrich Schleiermacher failed to achieve: "die philosophische Aneignung Plato" (GA 19: 313). All translations of Heidegger and Plato in this paper are my own.
———. 2000. "The Eleatic Stranger: His Master's Voice? ." In Who Speaks for Plato? Studies in Platonic Anonymity, edited by Press, Gerald A., 161–181. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield.

"Interpreters of the Sophist and the Statesman almost universally assume that the Eleatic Stranger speaks for Plato. This is surprising, given how little speaks in favor of this assumption and even how intuitively implausible it is." (p. 161)

(...)

"Yet, interpreters are apparently willing to live with some implausibility here because they consider it even more implausible that the Stranger should not speak for Plato. Their argument, insofar as it can be reconstructed, assumes that the only positive assertions made in the two dialogues are the Strangers and that therefore one could, without losing anything essential, eliminate the dialogue form by putting what the Stranger says into the form of a treatise authored by Plato. The aim of the present chapter is to refute this specific assumption and therefore the interpretation that depends on it. Socrates does speak in both dialogues, and what he says is of extraordinary importance; furthermore, a major, perhaps the major event of Socrates' life, namely, his trial, forms the dramatic context. These words and deeds of Socrates are not peripheral curiosities added to relieve the tedium of an otherwise highly abstract discussion. Instead, as I will show, what Socrates says and who he is, even his silence in the dialogue, expose serious problems in what the Stranger says. If Plato in this way uses Socrates against the Stranger, the assumption that the Stranger speaks for Plato, already implausible on the surface, is rendered untenable. On the other hand, we are not thereby required to conclude that Plato rejects everything the Stranger says and chooses Socrates instead as his mouthpiece. What we have here, as elsewhere, is not a disguised author expounding doctrines in a disguised treatise, but rather a drama in which two opposed and limited perspectives confront each other and in that confrontation leave us with a problem." (pp. 161-162, notes omitted)
———. 2003. "Confronting Heidegger on Logos and Being in Plato's Sophist." In Platon und Aristoteles - sub ratione veritatis. Festschrift für Wolfgang Wieland zum 70. Geburstag, edited by Damschen, Gregor, Enskat, Rainer and Vigo, Alejandro G., 102–133. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.

"In his WS 1924-25 lecture course on Plato's Sophist, Heidegger charges that, because in this dialogue the method of separation and division is applied not only to objects in the world, such as the angler, but also to Being itself and its structures, Plato recognized no distinction between the way of dealing with beings (Behandlungsart des Seienden) and the way of dealing with Being (Behandlungsart des Seins). What underlies this charge is Heidegger's conviction, which he seeks to support in the present course, that to address Being by way of λόγος and its structure, which is what the method of διαίρεσις does, is inevitably to collapse the distinction between Being and beings. Heidegger further suggests that Plato's Ideas or Forms are a product of this approach to Being and the confusion it produces (287). The goal of this paper is to defend Plato against this charge by arguing the following: 1) Plato fully recognizes both the ontological difference itself and the inability of λόγος, and any λόγος-centered approach, to preserve and do justice to this difference; 2) Plato's response to this "weakness" of λόγος is, in the Sophist, to distance himself from the λόγος of Being (and non-being) presented there by means of various strategies, most generally the dialogue

form itself; 3) though the εἰδη are unavoidably objectified in discourse, Plato did not understand the εἰδη as objectively present things: indeed, it was precisely in order to avoid objectifying the εἰδη that Plato refrained from offering a "theory of Forms"; 4) Heidegger's attempt to reduce the dialogue's characterization of Being as δύναμις to a characterization of Being as presence is unacceptable; 5) despite Heidegger's insistence to the contrary, even the account of Being as δύναμις is presented in the dialogue not as final, but as aporetic and necessarily so. In pursuing this goal it is neither my intention nor even possible in the present context to give a detailed, step-by-step exposition of Heidegger's course, much less of the Sophist itself. Instead. I will assume some acquaintance with both in focusing on only those moments where Heidegger explicitly sets himself apart from Plato, with the aim of encouraging us to set ourselves apart from Heidegger's reading of Plato." (pp. 102-103, notes omitted)
———. 2011. "Being as Power in Plato's Sophist and Beyond." In Plato's Sophist: Proceedings of the Seventh Symposium Platonicum Pragense, edited by Havlíček, Aleš and Karfík, Filip, 63–95. Praha: Oikoymenh.

"In the literature on Plato's metaphysics one finds much discussion of what kinds of beings exist for Plato, what makes one class of beings 'more real' than another, what relation exists between these different levels of beings, and what ultimate principles or causes can be invoked to explain the nature of these beings. What is much harder to find is reflection on what this word 'being' actually means for Plato. If both sensible objects and the Forms can be said to be, if the latter must nevertheless be said to be more truly, or 'more beingly', than the former, then what exactly is meant by this word 'be'? If this fundamental question has been neglected in the literature, the reason is not that Plato fails to address it In the Sophist this question is not only addressed, but given an answer. Since the passage in question (247d8-e4) is the only place in the Platonic corpus where this question is directly raised and answered - and this in a context that stresses the great importance and indispensability of the question - one would expect it to be the subject of a voluminous literature. Strangely, the exact opposite is the case. Not only the literature on Plato's ontology, but even the literature devoted specifically to the Sophist, displays little interest in the definition of being this dialogue offers. Those scholars who have discussed the definition at all have tended to dismiss it as purely provisional, ad hominem, and in the end unPlatonic. Other scholars, particularly in more recent works on the Sophist, quickly pass over the definition with little or no comment.' What explains this neglect? The first set of scholars presumably have interpretative grounds for denying that the definition is Plato's, but many devote little effort to making this case and all fail to suggest what might be a better definition in Plato's eyes.

The second set of scholars, in simply passing over the definition with no comment, perhaps have deeper philosophical reasons for just not being interested in the question, though these reasons are left unarticulated.

Ironically, many scholars writing on the Sophist today are in this way like those tellers of muthoi or those figures of muthos (the Giants and Gods) which the Eleatic Visitor criticizes for only talking about the number and kinds of beings without addressing the more fundamental question of what it means for any of these things to be.

My object in the present paper is to go against this trend by showing that the definition of being, far from being merely provisional and negligible, is absolutely indispensable not only to the argument of the Sophist, but to a proper understanding of Plato's metaphysics in both this and other dialogues. Specifically I wish to show that the characterization of being as "nothing other than dunamis" is incompatible with attributing to Plato a conception of the "really real" as static and immutable." (pp. 63-65, notes omitted)
———. 2024. "The Kinêsis of Being in Plato’s Sophist and the Motivation for Aristotle’s Notion of Energeia." In Plato’s Sophist: Selected Papers of the Thirteenth Symposium Platonicum, edited by Luc, Brisson, Edward, Halper and Richard, Perry, 249–256.

Abstract: "Many scholars have proven as resistant as the ‘Friends of the Forms’ to the Visitor’s protest in the Sophist that life and intelligence should not be excluded from what most fully or completely is. The reason is the assumption that life and intelligence are motions and that motion is incompatible with something being complete and therefore unchanging. Yet Plato’s characterization of the soul as a ‘self-moving motion’ would suggest a different conception of motion while, on the other hand, his explicit analysis of motion restricts it to being either ‘alteration’ or movement from place to place. This problem of how to understand a motion that both defines life and can be attributed to what completely is, a problem seemingly left unsolved by Plato, is arguably the motivation for Aristotle’s distinction between motion, as by definition incomplete, and ‘activity’ (energeia) as by definition ‘complete’ in possessing its own end. Attributing ‘life’ interpreted as ‘activity’ rather than motion to what ‘completely is’ avoids the difficulties raised by the Sophist, as is evident in Aristotle’s account of the active but unmoved mover. motion, life, activity,"
Gooch, Paul W. 1971. ""Vice is ignorance": The interpretation of Sophist 226a-231b." Phoenix no. 25:124–133.

"It is often held by Plato's commentators that the famous Socratic paradox "Virtue is Knowledge" has as its complement the doctrine that vice is ignorance. While Plato's readers never find such an aphorism as "Vice is Ignorance" stated categorically in the texts, it is interpreted to mean that in Plato's view moral evil is the result of ignorance. And from this it is an easy step to the "intellectualist" Plato, who thought that knowledge of the right thing to do was a sufficient condition of virtue." (p. 124, notes omitted)

(...)

"My own reading of this section [Sophist 226a-231b] is that Plato, not popular opinion, is responsible for the division of evils into two branches, and that the division therefore cannot be considered unimportant for his ethics. Yet I cannot feel as sure as Dodds that the classification places ignorance and vice into two watertight compartments; there are indications that at least one kind of ignorance is a vice, and that its treatment cannot leave the irrational parts of the soul untouched. This in turn means that while Hackforth is probably right to say that Plato's real belief was that wrongdoing always involves ignorance, I hope to provide some evidence that this belief is not as obscured by the Sophist passage as Hackforth seems to think. With these claims in mind we may now turn to an analysis of the passage. After purification has been introduced as a negative art whose function is to throw out the evil and undesirable, the discussion develops various divisions within the art until the following schema becomes evident." (p. 126)

References

E. R. Dodds says that Plato "no longer makes ignorance the sole cause of wrongdoing, or increased knowledge its sole cure" ("Plato and the Irrational," Journal of Hellenic Studies 65 [1945] 18).

R. Hackforth claims that for Plato all moral evil involves ignorance ("Moral Evil and Ignorance in Plato's Ethics," Classical Quarterly 40 [1946] 118.
Grams, Laura W. 2012. "The Eleatic Visitor’s Method of Division." Apeiron no. 45:130–156.

"The method of division (diairesis) employed by the Visitor from Elea in Plato’s Sophist and Statesman is often interpreted as a hierarchical classification, in which each cut divides a kind (genos) into smaller parts that are fully contained within it and each subsequent kind entails all of the previous kinds in the sequence. On this view, division begins with one large class and continues separating it into successively smaller portions, until no further cuts can be made and an infima species is reached. I argue that a strictly hierarchical interpretation of diairesis cannot adequately explain the Visitor’s method for several reasons. First, division often produces kinds that are neither determined by nor fully contained within the intension or extension of the previous kinds, and division occasionally separates pairs of kinds that overlap in scope. In addition, division does not always move from general to more particular kinds, so the order in which a series of divisions is made often has no effect on the outcome. The same kinds may be divided in different ways in different contexts, which means that multiple paths may lead from a given starting point to the destination." (p. 130, note omitted)
Granieri, Roberto. 2019. "Xenocrates and the Two-Category Scheme." Apeiron:1–25.

Abstract: "Simplicius reports that Xenocrates and Andronicus reproached Aristotle for positing an excessive number of categories, which can conveniently be reduced to two: τὰ καθ᾽αὑτά and τὰ πρός τι. Simplicius, followed by several modern commentators, interprets this move as being equivalent to a division into substance and accidents. I aim to show that, as far as Xenocrates is concerned, this interpretation is untenable and that the substance-accidents contrast cannot be equivalent to Xenocrates’ per se-relative one. Rather, Xenocrates aimed to stress the primacy of Plato’s binary distinction of beings, as presented at Sophist 255c13–4, over Aristotle’s list of the categories."
———. 2023. "Being and the Philosopher’s Object in Plato’s Sophist." Apeiron no. 56:723–737.

Abstract: "In the Sophist, Plato claims that the philosopher is always engaged through reasonings with the idea tou ontos (254a4–b1). I argue that, contrary to appearances and to what various commentators believe, this phrase does not refer to the Kind Being singled out in the Sophist as one of the so-called ‘greatest’ or ‘most important’ Kinds, but to the whole intelligible realm. The proposed reading better accounts for Plato’s exact wording at Sophist 254a4–b1 and preserves the consistency of Plato’s view on the object of philosophical knowledge. I conclude with some broader considerations on the relationship between this passage, Platonic dialectic and Aristotle’s conception of a science of being qua being."
———. 2023. "Not-Being, Contradiction and Difference. Simplicius vs. Alexander of Aphrodisias on Plato’s Conception of Not-Being." Méthexis no. 35:185–200.

Abstract: "In explicating a passage from Physics A 3, Simplicius reports a criticism by Alexander of Aphrodisias against Plato’s conception of not-being in the Sophist. Alexander deems this conception contradictory, because it posits that unqualified not-being is. Simplicius defends Plato and gives a diagnosis of what he regards as Alexander’s interpretative mistake in raising his objection. I unpack this debate and bring out ways in which it sheds light on important aspects of Plato’s project in the Sophist and of Simplicius’ own philosophical background, notably in Damascius’ De principiis."
———. 2024. "Monism and Difference: Syrianus, Aristotle, and the Sophist." Revue de Philosophie Ancienne no. 42:313–349.

Abstract: "In Metaphysics N 2, Aristotle criticizes Plato and the Academics for setting up the problem of principles “in an obsolete way”. For they thought all things would be one (viz. Being itself) if they did not demonstrate, against Parmenides, that not-being is. And this assumption, for Aristotle, betrays a more fundamental and questionable Eleatic debt in their ontology, namely their commitment to the obsolete view that being, taken in its own right, is one. By contrast, Aristotle believes being is originally multiple and said in many ways, so there is no need to demonstrate that not-being is, to justify as much. In his commentary on Book N, Syrianus replies to Aristotle and argues, among other things, both that his criticisms are flawed and that his own ontology can only stand if the Platonist account of multiplicity, difference and not-being is also endorsed. I scrutinize these counterobjections and argue that this debate reflects two essentially different ways of explaining fundamental facts in the structure of reality."
———. 2024. "The Referents of ‘Being’ in Plato’s Sophist." In Plato’s Sophist: Selected Papers of the Thirteenth Symposium Platonicum, edited by Luc, Brisson, Edward, Halper and Richard, Perry, 349–356.

Abstract: "I argue that part of Plato’s strategy to neutralize the paradox of falsehood is to pin down various referents of the name ‘being’, τὸ ὄν. I focus on four and track their role in the dialogue’s argument. They are: (1) any primary being; (2) the Kind Being; (3) any participant in the Kind Being; (4) a set of participants in the Kind Being."
———. 2025. "Plato’s Isolation of a Kind Being or Why in the Sophist to Be Is Not to Be Something." Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy no. 64:1–52.

Abstract: "In the Sophist Plato singles out Being (on, ousia) as just one among the Kinds or Forms. This paper argues that the exploration of one main implication of Plato’s isolation of a Kind Being enables us to question aspects of an entrenched scholarly consensus about Plato’s conception of being, namely that for Plato ‘to be is always to be something’. By scrutinizing various passages from the second half of the Sophist, starting from 250 a 8–d 3, it defends the view that when Plato metaphysically analyses ‘X is’ in terms of X’s participation in or combination with the Kind or Form of Being, he does not mean that X is something, or is itself, or is variously characterized (or similar), but that it exists."
Greenstine, Abraham Jacob. 2019. "Accounting for Images in the Sophist." In Plato and the Moving Image, edited by Biderman, Shai and Weinman, Michael, 19–36. Leiden - Boston: Brill Rodopi.

Abstract: "Plato’s Sophist is a critical dialogue for the question of images, for here the interlocutors divide images into two kinds – likenesses and apparitions – in their hunt for an account of sophistry. Yet much of the recent scholarship on the Sophist does not make much of this division. This chapter defends the continuing significance of the distinction between likeness and apparition. It argues for its importance in Plato’s analysis of images, in his theory of accounts, and in his endeavor to differentiate philosophy from sophistry. It further contends that one can only distinguish likenesses from apparitions by establishing a correct perspective on both the image and the original. Thus, the Sophist exhorts us differentiate likenesses from apparitions, even as we struggle to consistently find the right perspective for this task. Living in the cinematic age only intensifies the need to distinguish likeness from apparition. Over the course of this chapter, we consider two films that advance our questions about perspectives, images, and falsity: Carol Reed’s The Third Man (1949) and Orson Welles’ F for Fake (1974). Like the Sophist, both films reveal a world of apparitions, where names are confused, lies are constant, and the truth is elusive."
Griswold, Charles. 1977. "Logic and Metaphysics in Plato's Sophist." Giornale di Metafisica no. 6:555–570.

Abstract: "In part one of this essay I defend the thesis that the "greatest genera" of the "Sophist" are not the metaphysical ideas of the earlier dialogues, and that the "participation" of these genera in each other is to be understood from a linguistic or logical, rather than metaphysical, perspective. The genera are like concepts, not essences. In part two I argue that the Stranger's doctrine of the genera means that they cannot be unified, self-predicative, separable, and stable; the doctrine deteriorates for reasons internal to itself. I suggest throughout that the Stranger's philosophical orientation is more "subjectivistic" than that of (Plato's) Socrates; unlike the ideas, the genera are subject to the soul's intellectual motion and productive capacity. finally, I suggest that there is no convincing reason for holding that the Stranger's views are superior to those of Socrates."
Grönroos, Gösta. 2013. "Two Kinds of Belief in Plato." Journal of The History of Philosophy no. 51:1–19.

"In the Sophist (263e10–264b4), Plato distinguishes between two kinds of belief.

On the one hand, there is a kind of belief that occurs “according to thinking” (κατὰ διάνοιαν), being “the completion of thinking” (διανοίας ἀποτελεύτησις). This kind is called ‘doxa.’ On the other hand, there is another kind of belief that occurs “through sense perception” (δι αἰσθήσεως). This kind is called 'phantasia,’ perhaps best rendered as “appearing.” The purpose of this paper is to uncover the distinction between these two different kinds of belief." (p. 1)

(...)

"The failure to recognize this distinction between two kinds of belief in Plato, despite the enormous scholarly effort devoted to the Theaetetus and the Sophist, is probably due to the fact that we do not operate with such a distinction any longer.

We may admit that beliefs are more or less justified, but this observation suggests that beliefs differ in degree (of justification), rather than in kind. Moreover, if we embrace the view that the formation of any belief requires the possession of concepts and the capacity for propositional thought, and that these capacities are the hallmarks of thinking and rationality at large, then it is difficult to escape the conclusion that even a phantasia is formed through thinking, and that it is a disposition of reason in precisely that sense. But attributing such an anachronistic starting point to Plato overshadows a more specific notion of thinking, and a different way of accounting for the role of thinking in belief formation. As Plato’s unfolding of the disguise of the sophist shows, this kind of thinking, giving rise to a qualified kind of belief, may well be worth serious consideration." (p. 18)
Gulley, Norman. 1962. Plato's Theory of Knowledge. London: Metheuen & Co.

Chapter III: Knowledge and Belief; § 4: The Sophist's Account of Statement and Belief, pp. 148-168.
Guthrie, William Keith Chambers. 1978. A History of Greek Philosophy V: The later Plato and the Academy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

On the Sophist: Chapter II, 3, pp. 122-163.
Hackforth, Reginald. 1945. "False Statement in Plato's Sophist." The Classical Quarterly no. 39:56–58.

"Plato's examination of False Statement (Sophist 259 D-263 D) is, like many of his discussions in the later dialogues, a mixture of complete lucidity with extreme obscurity. Any English student who seeks to understand it will of course turn first to Professor Cornford's translation and commentary(1); and if he next reads what M. Diès has to say in the Introduction to his Budé edition of the Sophist he will, I think, have sufficient acquaintance with the views of modern Platonic scholars on the subject. For myself, at least, I have not gained any further understanding from other writers than these two." (p. 56)

(...)

(1) Plato's Theory of Knowledge, pp. 298-317.
Hamlyn, David W. 1955. "The Communion of Forms and the Development of Plato's Logic." The Philosophical Quarterly no. 5:289–302.

"The impression given by many accounts of Plato's philosophy is that the doctrine of the communion of forms (or kinds) which is introduced in the Sophist is new and revolutionary. It may well be true that the use to which Plato puts this doctrine is revolutionary, but there are unmistakable hints of it much earlier. In the Republic 476a we are told of the communion of forms with actions, bodies, and one another, and, as Ross points out,(1) the doctrine is implicit in the account of the theory of forms given in the Phaedo 102b ff., in the sense that we are told that certain forms exclude each other." (p. 289)

(...)

"The doctrine of the communion of forms is an attempt to do two things at once - to characterise predicates as names referring to a kind of particular, and also to relate such names to those occurring as the subjects of assertions by means other than that of identity and difference. Consequently the assertion that Plato looked on proper names as disguised descriptions should be qualified by saying that for him descriptions were only another kind of name-names of forms rather than names of sensible particulars. Hence the doctrine of ' communion ' is still vitiated by the fault from which Plato was trying to free himself. That it was an important advance nevertheless is clear." (p. 302)
Harte, Verity. 2002. Plato on Parts and Wholes: The Metaphysics of Structure. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Contents: 1. The Problem of Composition 1; 2. Composition as Identity in the Parmenides and the Sophist 48; 3. A New Model of Composition 117; 4. Composition and Structure 158; 5. Plato's Metaphysics of Structure 267; References 293; General Index 300; Index of Names 300; Index Locorum 304-311.

"In my view—a view for which the book as a whole constitutes a defence—Plato's discussions of part and whole in the works I shall consider may be divided into two distinct groups: those in which Plato explores a model of composition which he does not endorse; and those which work towards building an alternative to the rejected model. This book is organized around discussion of these two groups. §1.6 to Chapter 2 examine the discussions of the first group, Chapters 3 and 4 those of the second.

The division between these two groups does not coincide with the division between different works. To the first group—those which focus on the model which Plato does not endorse—belong passages of the Parmenides, the Theaetetus, and a passage of the Sophist. To the second group—those which develop an alternative to the rejected model—belong other passages of the Parmenides and of the Sophist, and passages of the Philebus and Timaeus. The Parmenides as a whole enacts the contrast between the two groups and provides an illustration of the framework I propose for understanding their relation. Over the course of the Parmenides arguments involving the rejected model of composition are used to expose the problems that arise from its adoption; problems to which the alternative model of composition is framed as a solution." (pp. 2-3)
———. 2024. "Dialectical Know-How: A Deflationary Approach to Sophist 253b-254a." In Plato’s Sophist: Selected Papers of the Thirteenth Symposium Platonicum, edited by Luc, Brisson, Edward, Halper and Richard, Perry, 107–124.

Abstract: "The paper offers a deflationary approach to the description of dialectical knowledge at Sophist 253b-254a, arguing that its focus is dialectical knowing, the condition of a dialectical knower, and that this condition is best understood as a form of know-how, constituted by the ability to individuate kinds and a grasp of the permissible ways kinds combine, the permissible relations between them. It is a mistake to expect to be able to identify specific kinds as referents for designations such as “a single character”. Instead, what we find here are placeholders for any kind standing in the relevant relation. The paper concludes with a speculative suggestion that in two of the four distinguished relations we find two different part-whole relations."
Havlíček, Aleš, and Karfík, Filip, eds. 2011. Plato's Sophist: Proceedings of the Seventh Symposium Platonicum Pragense. Praha: Oikoymenh.

Contents: Preface 7; Thomas Alexander Szlezák: Die Aufgabe des Gastes aus Elea Zur Bedeutung der Eingangsszene des Sophistes (216a–218a) 11; Francesco Fronterotta: Some Remarks on the Senses of Being in the Sophist 35; Francisco J. Gonzalez: Being as Power in Plato’s Sophist and Beyond 63; Walter Mesch, Die Bewegung des Seienden in Platons Sophistes 96; Filip Karfík: Pantelôs on and megista genê (Plato, Soph. 242C–259b) 120; Noburo Notomi: Dialectic as Ars Combinatoria: Plato’s Notion of Philosophy in the Sophist 146; Luc Brisson: Does Dialectic always Deal with the Intelligible? A Reading of the Sophist (253d5–e1) 156; Aleš Havlíček: Die Aufgabe der Dialektik für die Auslegung des Seins des Nichtseienden 173; Nestor-Luis Cordero: Une conséquence inattendue de l’assimilation du non-être à « l’Autre » dans le Sophiste 188; Denis O’Brien, The Stranger’s “Farewell” (258e6–259a1) 199; Štěpán Špinka: Das Sein des Nicht-Seins. Einige Thesen zur strukturellen Ontologie im Dialog Sophistes 221; Christoph Ziermann: La négativité de l’être chez Platon 240; David Ambuel: The Coy Eristic: Defining the Image that Defines the Sophist 278; Francisco Lisi: Ποιητικη τέχνη in Platons Sophistes 311; Jakub Jinek: Die Verschiedenheit der Menschentypen in Platons Sophistes 328; T. D. J. Chappell: Making Sense of the Sophist: Ten Answers to Ten Questions 344; Index locorum 377.
Heidegger, Martin. 1997. Plato's Sophist. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Heidegger's lecture course at the University of Marburg in the Winter Semester of 1924-25.

Translated by Richard Rojcewicz and André Schuwer.

Original German edition: Platon, Sophistes, Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 1992, edited by Ingeborg Schüssler (Gesamtausgabe, II, 19).
Heinaman, Robert E. 1981. "Being in the Sophist." Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie no. 65:1–17.

"There is an influential view, developed during the last fifteen years, concerning the relationship between the concept of existence and the notion of Being in Plato's Sophist. (a)

Three distinguishable claims are involved in this account:

(1) Plato does not wish to isolate the existential use of 'to be' from its other uses.

(2) Plato's discussion of being concerns syntactically incomplete uses of 'to be,' not syntactically complete uses of the verb. (b)

(3) The concept of existence plays no role in the philosophical problems discussed or their solutions. Plato operates with a "scheme of concepts which lacks or ignores an expression for 'exist.' (c)

I have no quarrel with (1). But (1) must be clearly distinguished from (3) since Plato may have failed to mark out the existential use of 'to be' while nevertheless using the word to mean existence with this latter concept playing an important role in the argument. In this paper I will try to show that there are no good reasons to accept (2) or (3). Although I shall deal with points raised by John Malcolm and Michael Frede, the focus will be on Professor Owen's paper. The first section will argue that Owen's interpretation of the Sophist is untenable and the second section will show that his arguments for (2) and (3) are unsuccessful. Finally, the third section explains how the position I defend is compatible with Plato's employment of negative existentials.

The position I defend is that the concept of existence does not monopolize but is part of the notion of Being in the Sophist." (pp. 1-2)

(a) G. E. L. Owen, "Plato on Not-Being," in G. Vlastos (ed.) Plato I (New York, 1971), pp. 223-67; Michael Frede, Prädikation und Existenzaussage (Göttingen, 1967); J. Malcolm, "Plato's Analysis of tò ón and tò me ón in the Sophist," Phronesis (1967), pp. 130-46. Also cf. W. Bondeson, "Some Problems about Being and Predication in the Sophist," Journal of the History of Philosophy (1976), p.7, n. 15; A. P. D. Mourelatos, " 'Nothing' as 'Not-Being'," in G. Bowersock, W. Burkert, M. Putnam (eds.) Arktouros (New York, 1979), pp. 319-29.

(b) Owen, pp. 225, 236, 240-41. Frede makes the still stronger claim that every use of 'to be' in the Sophist is incomplete (Frede, pp. 37, 40, 51). I discuss Frede's interpretation in an appendix.

(c) Owen, p. 263.
———. 1981. "Self-Predication in the Sophist." Phronesis.A Journal for Ancient Philosophy no. 26:55–66.

"A major problem in the interpretation of Plato's metaphysics is the question of whether he abandoned self-predication as a result of the Third Man Argument in the Parmenides. In this paper I will argue that the answer to this question must be 'no' because the self-predication assumption is still present in the Sophist.(1)" (p. 55)

(...)

"It has often been said that 250c confuses identity and predication. But since 255 establishes Plato's commitment to self-predication, it is preferable to see the mistake as occurring a few lines later (250c 12-d3) where the Stranger concludes that, since Being does not rest or move according to its own nature, it does not rest or move at all (cf. Parm. 139c6-d1). It is plausible to suppose that Plato believes that this error is corrected by the doctrine of the communion of Forms (cf. 252b8-10, 255e4-6, 258b9-c3)." (p. 63)

(1) The claim that the Sophist is committed to self-predication has been made before. W. F. Hicken, "Knowledge and Forms in Plato's 'Theaetetus'," in R. E. Allen (ed.) Studies in Plato's Metaphysics (London, 1965), p. 192; R. S. Bluck, "False Statement in the Sophist, " Journal of Hellenic Studies (1957), p. 186, n. 2; G. Striker, Peras und Apeiron (Gottingen, 1970), p. 37; W. K. C. Guthrie, A History of Greek Philosophy V (Cambridge, 1978), p. 43, n. 1. Cf. W. G. Runciman, Plato's Later Epistemology (Cambridge. 1962), pp. 80,95, 102; R. Marten, Der Logos der Dialektik (Berlin, 1965), p. 214, n. 134.
———. 1983. "Communion of Forms." Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society no. 83:175–190.

"At Sophist 259e5-6 Plato says: 'Logos exists for us on account of the interweaving of Forms'. It appears to be an important claim, and various suggestions have been made as to why Plato believed logos depends on the communion of Forms. It has often been thought that the communion of Forms referred to in 259e5-6 lays down conditions for meaning, not truth. Thus, in a well known paper Professor Ackrill has suggested that the communion of Forms covers relations of compatibility, incompatibility, and presumably other relations which determine the meaning of words. (1) I believe that such an interpretation is too optimistic and that Plato's view is less sophisticated than scholars would like to admit. I will argue that the communion of Forms does not provide an explanation of meaning but of an entity's being characterized by a property. It is simply the relation of participation which in earlier dialogues related individuals to Forms. (But I make no claims about resemblance.)

259e5-6 occurs in a context (259d9-260a3) where the Eleatic Stranger refers back to an earlier argument for the conclusion that some Forms combine and some do not (25 1d5-252e8). And that earlier passage had been followed by a discussion where five 'Great Kinds' had been distinguished (254d4-255e1) and some relations of communion had been pointed out (255e8-257a12; cf. 254c4-5). If we want to determine what Plato means by 'communion of Forms' we must examine 251d-252e where Plato presents his arguments in support of the claim that some Forms combine and some do not.

One preliminary problem is the question of how to translate 'logos' in the statement that logos has come to be on account of the communion of Forms. The answer is provided by the context. 'Logos' also occurs in 260a5 and 260a7 where it possesses the same sense as 'logos' in 259e6. 260a7 says that we must determine what logos is, and when the explanation of logos is finally given (261d-262e) an explanation of statements is provided. So 259e5-6 is saying that statements exist because of the communion of Forms." (pp. 175-176)

(1) J. L. Ackrill, 'XYMJI-AOKHE IAQN', in G. Viastos (ed.) Plato I (New York, 1971), pp. 201-9. Also cf. his 'In Defense of Platonic Division', in 0. Wood and G. Pitcher (eds.) Ryle (London, 1971), pp. 376, 391-92.
———. 1986. "Once More: Being in the Sophist." Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie no. 68:121–125.

"According to what I will call the 'new' interpretation, the meaning of 'being' which plays an important role in the philosophical argument of the Sophist is not 'existence' but 'being such and such,' what is expressed by syntactically incomplete uses of 'to be. (a) In an earlier paper I claimed, to the contrary, that 'being' is used to mean existence in the Sophist's argument, although its meaning corresponds to the other uses of the verb as well. (b) Against the new interpretation I argued as follows:

(1) The aporiai of 237-41 are solved in 251-59 by rejecting 237-41's assumption that 'not-being' means 'contrary to being' and claiming that 'not-being' instead means 'different from being.'

(2) On the new interpretation, 'the contrary of being' means 'what is (predicatively) nothing.'

(3) The aporia of 240c-241b cannot be given a coherent interpretation if 'not-being', as there used, is understood to mean 'what is (predicatively) nothing.'

(4) Hence the meaning of 'not-being' required by the new interpretation is unacceptable, and the new interpretation should be rejected.

In a recent note John Malcolm has replied to this argument and raised some other objections to my paper. (c) Here, I will limit myself to explaining why Malcolm's objections have no force, and why his reply to my argument. simply exchanges one absurdity for others." (p. 121)

(a) Its main proponents are G. E. L. Owen, "Plato on Not-Being," in G. Vlastos (ed.) Plato I (New York, 1971), pp. 223-67); Michael Frede, Prädikation und Existenzaussage (Göttingen, 1967); J. Malcolm, "Plato's Analysis of tò on and tò mé on in the Sophist," Phronesis (1967), pp. 130-46.

(b) "Being in the Sophist," Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie (1983), pp. 1-17.

(c) "Remarks on an Incomplete Rendering of Being in the Sophist," Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie (1985), pp. 162-65. Ensuing references to Malcolm will be to this paper.
Hermann, Arnold. 2011. "Parricide or Heir? Plato’s Uncertain Relationship to Parmenides." In Parmenides, 'Venerable and Awesome' (Plato, Theaetetus 183e), edited by Cordero, Néstor-Luis, 147–165. Las Vegas: Parmenides Publishing.

Summary: "Most scholars view Plato’s critique of Parmenides in the Sophist, particularly the observations surrounding the “parricide” remark, as quite apt and justified. The theory is that Parmenides deserves to be rebuked for failing to recognize that “What Is Not” can be understood in more ways than one, namely, not only in an existential sense, but also predicatively or, in the language of the Sophist, as indicating “difference.” I aim to show, nevertheless, that Plato’s indictment of Parmenides misses the mark in significant ways, allowing Parmenides to escape the so-called threat of parricide not once but twice.

For example, Parmenides' abundant use of alpha-privatives (e.g., ἀγένητον)—as well as the negative οὐ (or οὐκ) when there is no a-privative form available—indicates that he was well aware of the difference between indicating “is not” predicatively versus existentially. Moreover, the Poem nowhere suggests that his strictures regarding the use of What Is Not are to be taken in the broadest possible sense, disallowing, in effect, the discrimination between the existential and the predicative case. Only when sought after as a “way of inquiry” does What Is Not—in contrast to the Way of What Is—fail to provide us with a graspable, expressible object. After all, the “Way of What Is Not,” lacks any sort of sēmata, or signs, that can be used to navigate it. As a “way of inquiry for thinking” (B2), it leads nowhere, lacking any sort of expressible or knowable object or goal. The complete absence of an object or result, however, does not hinder us from making statements to this effect, nor from uttering the words “What Is Not” or “Not Being.” Yet this fine distinction is lost to many who have criticized Parmenides for being inconsistent, careless, or simply ignorant. The move from the intellectual unavailability of an object that marks a defunct way of inquiry, to the claim that to even speak of such a “way” is both illegitimate and impossible—all the while insisting that Parmenides himself is to be blamed for such a monstrous fallacy—seems an egregious gloss-over, even if the perpetrator is someone of Plato’s stature. If my arguments prove sound, then Parmenides should be absolved of the charges leveled against him."
Hermann, Fritz Gregor. 1998. "On Plato's 'Sophist' 226b-231b " Hermes no. 126:109–117.

"The sixth attempt to show what it is to be a sophist (226 b-231 b) marks a fresh starting point in the discussion by Theodorus' guest-friend from Elea and Theodorus' young pupil Theaetetus. The first five attempts were closely modelled on the exemplary search for the angler (218 e-221 c), and started from the division, διαίρεσις, of all the arts and crafts into acquisitive, κτητική, and productive, ποιητική. Unlike the previous sections whose divisions were arrived at by abstract consideration, the passage commencing at 226 b starts with the enumeration of concrete examples of household activities. Adduced by the Elean, they serve as illustrations of the art of separation, διακριτική (1)." (p. 109)

(1) Cf. e.g. F.M. Cornford, Plato's Theory of Knowledge, London 1935, p. 177f
Hestir, Blake E. 2003. "A "Conception" of Truth in Plato's Sophist." Journal of The History of Philosophy no. 41:1–24.

" Plato's solution to the problem of falsehood carries a notorious reputation which sometimes overshadows a variety of interesting developments in Plato's philosophy. One of the less-noted developments in the Sophist is a nascent conception of truth which casts truth as a particular relation between language and the world. Cornford and others take Plato's account of truth to involve something like correspondence; some find the origin of Aristotle's "correspondence" account of truth in Plato's Sophist. But all this assumes a lot about Plato, much less Aristotle. For one, it assumes that to claim that the statement 'Theaetetus is sitting' is true is to claim that it is true because it corresponds with the fact that Theaetetus is sitting. Other scholars have been reluctant to accept Cornford's view, but few offer any explanation of what sort of account of truth we might ascribe to Plato by the end of the Sophist. Tarski has argued that truth is a simpler notion than that of correspondence. In fact, he claims his own "conception" of truth is similar to the classical conception we find in Aristotle's Metaphysics -- a conception of truth formulated in Greek in much the same way Plato formulates it in the Sophist. Unfortunately, Tarski never sufficiently explains what it is about the classical conception that makes it closer to his own. I argue that Tarski is generally right about the ancient conception of truth, but this is not to claim that Tarski's own conception is in Plato. By interpreting Plato's solution to the paradox of not-being and his solution to the problem of falsehood, I argue that Plato's account of truth implies a simpler notion of truth than correspondence. I outline various types of correspondence theory and show that none of these fits what Plato says about truth, syntax, and meaning in the Sophist." (pp. 1-2)
———. 2016. Plato on the Metaphysical Foundation of Meaning and Truth. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Contents: Acknowledgments page IX; Note on the text XII; List of abbreviations XIII; 1 Introduction 1; Part I Stability 17; 2 Strong Platonism, restricted Platonism, and stability 19; 3 Concerns about stability in the Cratylus 39; 4 Flux and language in the Theaetetus 57; 5 The foundation exposed: Parmenides 135bc 84; Part II Combination 105; 6 Being as capacity and combination: a challenge for the Friends of the Forms 107; 7 The problem of predication: the challenge of the Late-Learners 144; Part III Truth 181; 8 Predication, meaning, and truth in the Sophist 183; 9 Plato’s conception of truth 209; 10 Truth as being and a substantive property 234; Bibliography 243; Index locorum 259; General index 265.

"My project is motivated by my interest in understanding the following two passages from Plato’s Sophist. In the first passage, the so-called Stranger from Elea presents Theaetetus with an account of true and false statement.

In the second, he relates that account to thought and judgment, although my project concerns only that aspect of it that is an extension of the first.(2) He describes thought as “discourse without voice” (dialogos aneu phônês) and judgment as the end result of thought. Statement and judgment involve doing something with words and thoughts, respectively, namely asserting or denying, and assertions and denials are either true or false:

I [Sophist (263b4–12)]

II [Sophist (263e3–264b4)]

"Together these passages stand as what I consider to be the quintessential expression of Plato’s account of truth and falsehood, yet they do not by themselves constitute a complete account of his conception of truth. I am interested in that conception and its relation to Plato’s semantics and metaphysics.

This project aims to fill several gaps in the current scholarship on ancient Greek conceptions of truth, meaning, and language. What is missing is a detailed investigation into how the development of Plato’s understanding of the metaphysical foundation of meaning plays an integral role in his conception of truth in the Sophist. The two aforementioned passages follow on the heels of a discussion of language and signification that emerges, I argue, from a systematic approach to semantics that Plato commences in the Cratylus and continues through the Parmenides and Theaetetus, each of which is commonly taken to precede the Sophist. The Sophist supplies something of an explanation of how being grounds meaning and truth. However, more needs to be said about the mechanism of being, its relation to meaning and truth, the relation between the latter two, and what sort of conception of truth emerges from all this. It is also the case that more could be said about how this conception of truth complements the account of truth as being in “middle-period” dialogues such as the Phaedo and Republic. Moreover, there has not been a detailed treatment of the striking parallels between Plato’s and Aristotle’s conceptions of meaning and truth. This book contributes to the developing scholarship in these areas. (pp. 2-3)

(2) So, for example, I will not be discussing Plato’s account of concept acquisition and cognition.
Hopkins, Burt C. 2013. "The Génos of Lógos and the Investigation of the Greatest Genê in Plato’s Sophist." The New Yearbook for Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy no. 13:353–362.

Abstract: "It is argued that once the negative criterion for distinguishing eikones from phantasmata in lógos about the originals in the intelligible realm appears in the Sophist, the Stranger’s claim in the final divisions that “we now indisputably count off the kind of image-making as two” (266e), i.e., likeness making and semblance making, becomes problematical.

Specifically, what becomes a problem is whether the distinction in question is a mathesis (learning matter) and therefore something capable of becoming epistême. Consequent this, it is also argued that the eidetic-arithmoí that appear in the dialectical investigation of the greatest kinds rule out precisely the power of lógos to make the kind of clean cut the Stranger proposes regarding the sophist and philosopher belonging to different gene, given the incomparable nature of the gené and eidê being divided."
Horan, David. 2019. "Plato’s Parmenides in Plato’s Sophist." Etudes platoniciennes no. 15:1–23.

Abstract: "I wish to argue in this article that Plato, in considering the position of the monists in the Sophist, relies heavily upon arguments carried forward from the Parmenides. Accordingly, I argue, he invokes, in turn, three understandings of what one means, imported from the Parmenides, and finds that all of them fall short, and generate aporiai, when they are used in the Sophist as the basis for an account, not of the one, as in the Parmenides, but of being, or “what is”. In fact I shall argue in this paper that an entirely coherent reading of the overall challenge to the monists in the Sophist, beginning with the naming argument, or names’ argument, through to the argument about the whole, only emerges if we take account of the arguments of the Parmenides, and three conceptions of what “one” is, taken from that dialogue."
Hoseup, Rhee. 2021. "The Division of Images and the Deception of the Sophist." The Journal of Greco-Roman Studies no. 60:153–167.

Abstract: "This article discusses the division of images (eidōla) presented in Sophist, and explores how the sophist’s verbal deception is made based on this division. In Sophist, the Eleatic Stranger distinguishes between two types of images: likenesses (eikones) and apparitions (phantasmata). If the likeness is an image that actually resembles the original, the apparition is an image that does not actually resemble the original but appears to resemble it. How exactly should this distinction be understood? Cornford’s argument that the distinction between likenesses and apparitions is made according to the ‘degree of reality’ leads to the conclusion that Plato uses the concept of ‘image’ inconsistently. Bluck criticizes Cornford on the grounds that likenesses and apparitions are both related to falsehood as branches of images.

This criticism is reasonable but does not help us to understand the distinction.

According to Notomi, given the metaphysical distinction between reality and appearance, if the likeness is a correct image that truly resembles the original and represents its appearance, then the apparition is an incorrect image that only appears to resemble it by points of view. I basically agree with Notomi’s view, but his interpretation does not accurately reveal the falsehood particular to the apparition, nor does it accurately account for the deception of sophists, other than painters. It is because, according to Notomi’s interpretation, apparitions will appear as likenesses, i.e., they will represent the same appearance as likenesses even in the ‘unbeautiful point of view.’ This, contrary to Notomi’s assertion that the apparition is an incorrect image, seems to allow for the possibility that it can represents ‘true appearances.’

Moreover, unlike painters, the deception of sophists occurs when the original is not well known, and therefore it is difficult for the observer to determine which is a likeness, that is, when he does not know which image represents true appearances. For this reason, I argue that the falsehood particular to the apparition arise on the one hand by accidental resemblance irrelevant of the essence of the original and, on the other hand, by aesthetic and emotional effect. Thus, the sophist’s verbal deception can be achieved by stimulating the emotions of the audience with flashy rhetoric unrelated to the truth, and by imitating the appearance of a wise person in terms of performing discourses. Furthermore, the deception of the sophist can be discriminated into two types, according to the view on the relation between language and Forms."

References

Cornford, F. M., 1935, Plato’s Theory of Knowledge, London: Routledge and K. Paul.

Notomi, N., 1999, The Unity of Plato’s Sophist: Between the Sophist and the Philosopher, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hull, Andrew. 2022. "The Modal Definition of Being in Plato’s Sophist." Melita Classica. Journal of the Malta Classics Association no. 8:26–50.

"One of the more understudied elements of the Sophist lies in the nature of the definition offered to the Giants and rejected by the Gods at 247d8-e5:

Stranger: I say, then, that a thing genuinely is if it has some capacity, of whatever sort, either to act on another thing, of whatever nature, or to be acted on, even to the slightest degree and by the most trivial of things, and even if it is just the once. That is, what marks off the things that are as being, I propose, is nothing other than capacity.

The common view is that, whatever the exact nature of the definition (from now on called the ‘modal definition of being’ after Crivelli),(4) it disappears from the dialogue entirely after the Friends reject it. Against this, I will argue that the modal definition is still present in the dialogue because it is necessary for both communion between the Forms and knowledge of the Forms. Following Crivelli, I will argue that the modal definition of being means that any being possesses the power to affect something or to be affected by something. If the modal definition is indeed tacitly affirmed by Plato in the Sophist, then we have a unified definition for being that describes both Forms and the soul, finally answering the question of what unites these seemingly disparate types of entities.

Achieving this level of unity in Plato’s ontology introduces a new way to consider Platonic psychology that fully recognizes the soul’s (and human life as a whole) place in between being and becoming." (pp. 26-27, some notes omitted)

(4) Crivelli (2011) Plato’s Account of Falsehood: A Study of the Sophist. (Cambridge University Press) 87.
Hülsz, Enrique. 2013. "Plato’s Ionian Muses: Sophist 242d-e." In Plato's Sophist Revisited, edited by Bossi, Beatriz and Robinson, Thomas M., 103–115. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.

"The focus of this short paper will be a couple of very famous lines at Sophist 242d–e, which constitute one of the precious few certain references to Heraclitus within the Platonic corpus. It will be well to recall from the outset that there are virtually no full quotations of Heraclitus in Plato’s works, with the possible exception of two consecutive passages in Hippias Maior (289a – b) usually counted as sources for Heraclitus fragments (DK22) B82 and (DK22) B83, which do not qualify as verbatim quotations but are at best mere paraphrases. What looks like the dominant trend in current scholarship concerning Plato’s views on Heraclitus is largely based on the Cratylus and the Theaetetus, which seem to provide a basic sketch for the official image of the Ephesian as the main representative of the Universal flux theory (the famous but apocryphal dictum, πάντα ῥεῖ). In spite of the popularity of this view, surely also based on Aristotle’s authority, if Universal flux is what allegedly defines Heracliteanism, Heraclitus was no Heraclitean." (p. 103, notes omitted)
Ionescu, Cristina. 2013. "Dialectic in Plato's Sophist: Division and the Communion of Kinds " Arethusa no. 46:41–64.

Abstract: "This paper explores the Eleatic Stranger's use of the method of division in the Sophist and attempts to reveal it to be a dialectical method of discovery, not of demonstration, that proceeds tentatively while it ultimately aims to ground its discoveries in the communion of the very great kinds. To illuminate this view, I argue for three main theses: first, that the method of division is a method of discovery, not of demonstration; secondly, that the much discussed passage at Sophist 253d-e is about both the method of division and the communion of kinds; and thirdly, that the method cannot succeed to discover natural articulations of reality as long as it ignores considerations of value."
———. 2020. "Images and Paradigms in Plato’s Sophist and Statesman." Ancient Philosophy no. 40:1–22.

"At the heart of two Platonic dialogues, one of which is the sequel of the other, the Eleatic Stranger draws two distinctions: one between two types of images (είδωλα): είκασια (likenesses) and ϕαντάσματα (appearances), Sophist 234a-236d, and the other between two kinds of paradigms (παραδείγματα): perceptible and verbal paradigms, Statesman 277a-c, 285d-286b. My present aim is to examine the relevance of each of these distinctions in its respective context, and to suggest a way to understand the relation between them." (p. 1)
Irani, Tushar. 2022. "Perfect Change in Plato's 'Sophist'." Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy no. 60:45–93.

Abstract: "This paper examines how Plato’s rejection of the friends of the forms at 248 A–249 B in the Sophist is continuous with the arguments that he develops shortly after this part of the dialogue for the interrelatedness of the forms. I claim that the interrelatedness of the forms implies that they are changed, and that this explains Plato’s rejection of the friends of the forms. Much here turns on the kind of change that Plato wants to attribute to the forms. I distinguish my view of the sort of change that the forms experience from other kinds of change—such as ‘Cambridge change’—that scholars have believed Plato has in mind in rejecting the friends of the forms. On the view that I advance, a form experiences a change (which I call‘perfect change’) in its association with another form that distinguishes it as the distinctive being that it is—that is, through its possession of its distinctive properties."
Isenberg, Meyer W. 1951. "Plato's Sophist and the Five Stages of Knowing." Classical Philology no. 46:201–211.

"in a well known passage in the Seventh Epistle (342 A ff.) Plato describes the five stages (1) which one traverses on the road to the knowledge of what is real. If this epistle was written about 353 B.C., its explanation of Plato's method, whether it is primarily directed to the beginner or the advanced student, (2) should have an intimate connection with the method pursued not only in the early and middle dialogues, but especially in the works of Plato's old age. Since the Sophist is one of the latest dialogues and has been generally considered one of the most difficult it may not be too far from the mark to inquire whether a right understanding of Plato's five stages of knowing in the Seventh Epistle may not be of use in the interpretation of that dialogue. In this way, perhaps, some difficulties which that work has raised may be solved and a more intimate acquaintance made with Plato's dialectical method.

It is, then, the purpose of the present paper to show that the movement of thought in the Sophist follows closely the description of method in the passage of the Seventh Epistle referred to above. All descriptions of method, however, tend to be more simple and more rigid than the actual application of the method itself." (p. 201)

(1) Plato does not use the word "stages." δι' ὃν (342 A 7) should be translated "instruments." But only "name," "discourse," and "image" are instruments.

The term "stages" in the present paper is used in a loose sense to indicate the unfolding of the dialectic.

It has no ontological significance. Various "stages" can only become definite in the context of the Sophist and its interpretation. It is important to note, then, that the various stages listed in this passage do not have even the apparent fixity of the levels of the divided line in the Republic, but are rather extremely fluid terms which flow into one another as the dialectic twists and turns. Note the term διαγωνή (343 E 1).

(2) Harward in his excellent edition of the Epistles states that Plato is "quoting material from some discourse addressed to a single learner, apparently a beginner in philosophy, who has already had a grounding in mathematics" (The Platonic Epistles [Cambridge, 1932], p. 213, n. 95). This may well be the case, but many an advanced student may be benefited by an elementary exposition. The importance of the passage on either count is not diminished.
Jeng, I-Kai. 2017. "Plato’s Sophist on the Goodness of Truth." Epoché: A Journal for the History of Philosophy no. 21:335–349.

Abstract: " “Late” Platonic dialogues are usually characterized as proposing a “scientific” understanding of philosophy, where “neutrality” is seen favorably, and being concerned with the honor of things and/or their utility for humans is considered an attitude that should be overcome through dialectical training. One dialogue that speaks strongly in favor of this reading is the Sophist, in which the stance of neutrality is explicitly endorsed in 227b-c. This paper will propose a reading of the Sophist showing that this common view of late Plato is misleading. It will argue for three things. First, 227b-c, when contextually understood, actually shows the limitation of being neutral. Second, that limitation compels the interlocutors in the rest of the conversation to pursue a non-neutral way of philosophizing about the sophist, contrary to the advice put forward in 227b-c. Finally, the non-neutral definition of the sophist that concludes the dialogue does not signal Plato’s preference for a non-neutral conception of philosophical knowledge either. A careful consideration of the dramatic ending suggests that he has reservations about it no less than he does about a neutral conception. The fact that both these conceptions had limitations perhaps explains why Plato, even in his late years, did not turn to the treatise format but remained within the dialogue: only in this form is it possible to retain both in philosophical logos."
———. 2019. "On the Final Definition of the Sophist: Sophist 265A10–268D5." The Review of Metaphysics no. 72:661–684.

Abstract: "This paper defends the closing definition of the sophist in Plato’s Sophist as a modest success. It first argues that it consistently articulates the sophist’s class structure as someone who resembles someone wise without being in the same class as that being. Then it explains why this structuring principle satisfies the demands of a successful definition as stated in the Sophist 232a1-6, and how the earlier definitions, despite being informative, nevertheless are failures. Since a number of scholars consider the final definition to fail no less than the earlier ones, the paper then turns to address four common objections in the literature. The conclusion briefly discusses how this reading affects our understanding of the method of division (diaeresis) in Plato."
———. 2023. "Elenchos in Plato's Sophist." History of Philosophy & Logical Analysis no. 26:1–27.

Abstract: "This paper examines the terms ‘elenchos’ and ‘elenchō’ as they occur in the Sophist in order to reveal a refined view of elenchos as a philosophical method. The explicit discussion of elenchos as a method in 226a6–231b8 must be read together with other passages described by these terms. Once this is done, it shall be seen that there are two types of elenchus employed in several ways. The first type, which I identify with the familiar Socratic elenchus, is used to purge false opinions or to arrive at plausible answers to philosophical difficulties. The second type, which appears to be the Stranger’s own method, is used to positively disclose relations between Forms. On this reading, elenchos is not merely destructive or preparatory for dialectic; it also forms a part of it."
Johnson, Patricia Ann. 1978. "Keyt on ἕτερον in the Sophist." Phronesis.A Journal for Ancient Philosophy no. 23:151–157.

"In his article, "Plato on Falsity: Sophist 263B,"' David Keyt introduces a crucial question for understanding the definition of false statement given by Plato in the Sophist: What is the relation of flying to Theaetetus (or, to the attributes which belong to Theaetetus)? The response given to this question will amount to an interpretation of the key line, 263B11-13. Keyt mentions five interpretations and argues briefly against each, but the major argument of his paper is devoted to showing that the definition of falsity is vague and therefore defies specific translation. I shall not discuss all of these possible interpretations because my concern here is in defending what Keyt calls the Oxford interpretation. He argues directly against this view as raising serious epistemological problems, but he also challenges it as an interpretation by presenting counter arguments to the two most persuasive reasons for choosing this interpretation over the others. I shall try to respond to the more significant of these challenges." (p. 151)

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