Marback, Richard C. 1994. "Rethinking Plato's Legacy: Neoplatonic Readings of Plato's Sophist." Rhetoric Review no. 13:30–49.

"In what follows I will historicize the reception of the terms Platonist and sophist by briefly exploring neo-Platonic discussions of sophistry and sophistic. As late Roman and early Christian exegetes of the Platonic texts, the neo-Platonists might at first seem unflinching adversaries of sophistry. While it might be unrealistic for us to expect any sympathetic treatment of Gorgias from scholars so invested in the authority of classical authors like Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero, we should not be surprised to find these same scholars promoting sophistry-the contingency of meaning in the context of expression -- in the name of Plato." (p. 31)

(...)

"To recognize that Plotinus and Proclus and Augustine discerned and grappled with issues of sophistry raised by Plato in the Sophist is, I think, to recognize their creative influence over the subsequent reception and impact of classical rhetoric.

(...)

Along these lines I have attempted to show how the Sophist, as one instance, was used and can be used to fashion sophistic or antisophistic perspectives, how readings of it by rhetoricians, logicians, and ethicists, or by Augustine, Plotinus, and Proclus, reiterate or reject an antagonism to sophistry. Reading Plato in this way, I think we benefit from finding that along with the sophist whose language skills eluded easy capture in the Stranger's philosophical net, the neo-Platonist similarly eludes well-defined historical categories. Adding the Sophist to our Plato makes more elusive, more sophistical, the contingent and contextual elements by which we fashion our rhetorical terms as historical, genealogical categories. This approach also raises questions about the kinds of textual strategies that led to the dialogue's exclusion from Plato's rhetorical canon. Discussions of why the primary rhetoric texts in the Platonic corpus have come to be the Phaedrus and Gorgias can and should inform discussions of what sophistry has meant throughout the years people have been forming this canon. Such selectivity presupposes reading and writing and talking about the dialogues in particular ways, employing strategies and making choices influenced by an inheritance of possible issues and conflicts as well as settled ways of reading and representing that reading that may or may not be identified as "sophistic." Attention to the neo-Platonists and their readings of Plato's Sophist thus points not only, as Quandahl says, to the rhetorical elements of Plato (347), such attention points as well to the contextual and contingent rhetorical strategies constantly at work in the shaping of philosophy's, rhetoric's, and sophistry's intertwined histories." (p. 47)

References

Quandahl, Ellen. "What is Plato? Inference and Allusion in Plato's Sophist", Rhetoric Review 7 (1989): 338-51.
Marcos de Pinotti, Graciela Elena. 2016. "Plato’s Argumentative Strategies in Theaetetus and Sophist." In Plato’s Styles and Characters. Between Literature and Philosophy, edited by Cornelli, Gabriele, 77–87. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.

"In Theaetetus and Sophist, Plato accomplishes a construction operation of his adversaries which leads him to associate doctrines regularly attributed to Heracliteans or Eleatic thinkers with different sophistical positions. However, his primary purpose is not to refute historical positions, but to assert fundamental theses and principles of his own philosophy. So I am not interested here in evaluating the legitimacy of such associations, or “dialectical combinations”, as Cornford (1935, p. 36) calls them. I will focus instead on the peculiar kind of argument he employs for the refutation of both kinds of opponents. This is a sort of peculiar argumentation, as I will try to show, which does not appeal to the existence of the Forms but to the conditions of the possibility of language." (p. 77)

(...)

"To conclude, I would like to emphasize once more that the resource to the conditions of possibility of language rather than to the thesis of the existence of the Forms is not a defect of the argumentative strategy displayed in the passages of Theaetetus and Sophist analyzed here. On the contrary, such resource gives rise to a special type of argument that tries to persuade every language user and not only those who defend the Forms. Despite this, Plato’s reader will inevitably find veiled references to these realities in almost all of them." (p. 86)
Marion, Florian. 2024. "The Late-Learners of the School of Names: Sph. 251a8-c6: ὁ ἀγαθὸς ἄνθρωπος (the good man) and 白馬 (white horse)." In Plato’s Sophist: Selected Papers of the Thirteenth Symposium Platonicum, edited by Luc, Brisson, Edward, Halper and Richard, Perry, 227–236.

Abstrtact: "The focus of this contribution is on the ‘late-learners’ digression. In Sph. 251a8-c6, the Eleatic Stranger briefly discusses the view of some ‘young and old late-learners’ who hold that, from a logico-metaphysical point of view, unlike ‘a man is a man’ or ‘a good is good’, the statement ‘a man is good’ is neither a well-formed nor a grammatical sentence. Usually, modern commentators devote little energy to interpreting this passage since they are content to note that it suffices to discriminate identity and predication to avoid the sophism. The aim of this paper is to show that the position of the ‘late-learners’ is in fact more subtle than it seems, since it is widely open to many readings, and that the chosen reading of the digression has a direct impact on the general interpretation of the rest of the dialogue (communication of kinds, semantic distinction between names and verbs, etc.). To this end, the view of the ‘late-learners’ will be compared with a similar position discussed in a quite different philosophical ecosystem: the White-Horse Paradox forged by Gōngsūn Lóng, a dialectician of the ‘School of Names’. This paradox states that the sentence ‘a white horse is not a horse’ is true. Many readings of the White-Horse Paradox have been offered: some of these readings are the same as those suggested for the ‘late-learners’ view, but others are absent from the scholarly literature, although they provide interesting insights into the interpretation of Sph. 251a8-c6. "
Marongiu, Laura. 2024. "The Quadratic Division in Plato’s Sophist 265e-266d." Rivista di Filosofia Neo-Scolastica:591–603.

Abstract: "In Plato’s Sophist, the Stranger proposes a division more geometrico by cutting the productive art widthwise and lengthwise (265e8-266d7). In this paper, I shall reconstruct the often-neglected mathematical background of this complex διαίρεσις. By laying emphasis on its two-dimensional, quadratic structure, I shall argue that this division is not – strictly speaking – dichotomous but represents some sort of deviation from the bifurcation pattern widely employed elsewhere. Besides exploring the advantages of choosing an alternative pattern of division from a methodological point of view, I shall assess the role of the quadratic division within the broader context of the final division and definition of the sophist."
Matthen, Mohan. 1983. "Greek Ontology and the 'Is' of Truth." Phronesis.A Journal for Ancient Philosophy no. 28:113–135.

Abstract: "This is an essay about the ontological presuppositions of a certain use of 'is' in Greek philosophy - I shall describe it in the first part and present a hypothesis about its semantics in the second.

I believe that my study has more than esoteric interest. First, it provides an alternative semantic account of what Charles Kahn has called the 'is' of truth, thereby shedding light on a number of issues in Greek ontology, including an Eleatic paradox of change and Aristotle's response to it.

Second, it finds in the semantics of Greek a basis for admitting what have been called 'non-substantial individuals' or 'immanent characters' into accounts of Greek ontology. Third, it yields an interpretation of Aristotle's talk of 'unities' which is crucial to his treatment of substance in the central books of the Metaphysics."

(...)

"I have argued in this essay for the recognition of a sort of entity that is not familiar in modem ontologies. I have argued on the basis of a syntactic and semantic analysis of certain uses of 'is', and found textual support for the analysis in certain texts of Aristotle. In addition, the recognition of predicative complexes enables us to give a unified treatment of a number of puzzling features of Greek ontology.

It is possible that the Greeks may have regarded predicative complexes not in the way I have presented them, namely as constructed entitles derivative from more basic types, but as the entities given in perception, and so epistemically and even ontologically prior. If so, we may find that in positing the Forms, Plato was making a break with an ontology of predicative complexes, not, as is usually thought, with an ontology of individual substances. Similarly, it is possible that Aristotle posited individual substances against the background of an ontology composed of predicative complexes and Platonic Forms. These possibilities offer the prospect of a richer appreciation of the development of Greek ontology than is now customary." (pp. 130-131)
Matthews, Gareth B. 2023. Why Plato Lost Interest in the Socratic Method. Cham (Switzerland): Palgrave Macmillan.

Edited by S. Marc Cohen.

Chapter 10: Philosophy Professionalized: Sophist, 101-114.

Abstract: "Plato still believes that the elenchus is valuable as a method for cleansing one’s mind of the belief that one knows things one does not know. But there are both internal and external limitations in what the elenchus can be reasonably expected to accomplish. And Plato also thought that philosophy can do more to get beyond those limitations. Only by going beyond the elenctic method will we be able to adequately address the foundational questions of philosophy."
Mazur, Zeke. 2013. "The Platonizing Sethian Gnostic Interpretation of Plato’s Sophist." In Practicing Gnosis: Ritual, Magic, Theurgy and Liturgy in Nag Hammadi, Manichaean and Other Ancient Literature. Essays in Honor of Birger A. Pearson, edited by DeConick, April D. , Shaw, Gregory and Turner, John D. , 469–493. Leiden: Brill.

"This essay constitutes the second part of a larger investigation into the evidence of a tacit debate between Plotinus and the Gnostics over the interpretation of Plato. In a previous part of this study, I made the case that Zostrianos drew on a number of specific passages describing the cyclical reincarnation of souls especially in the Phaedrus, but also in the Phaedo and Republic, and that Plotinus and Porphyry had tacitly responded in several locations throughout their writings.(4) Here I would like to present a similar case for the Gnostic use of the Sophist. The specific thesis of this essay is that the Platonizing Sethians drew at least in part upon the text of Plato’s Sophist for central aspects of their metaphysics, and—in relation to the topic of the present volume—they even went so far as to reconceptualize the dialectical methods described in the Sophist in terms of their praxis of visionary ascent." (pp. 469-470)

(4) Mazur, Zeke. 2016. Traces of the Competition Between the Platonizing Sethian Gnostics and Plotinus’ Circle: the Case of Zostrianos 44–46. In Estratégias anti-gnósticas nos escritos de Plotino. Actas do colóquio internacional realizado em São Paulo em 18–19 de março 2012, M.P. Marsola and L. Ferroni, eds. São Paulo: Rosari et Paulus, pp. 125-211.
McCoy, Marina. 2008. Plato on the Rhetoric of Philosophers and Sophists. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Contents: Acknowledgments VII; 1 Introduction 1; 02 Elements of Gorgianic Rhetoric and the Forensic Genre in Plato’s Apology 23; 3 The Rhetoric of Socratic Questioning in the Protagoras 56; 4 The Competition between Philosophy and Rhetoric in the Gorgias 85; 5 The Dialectical Development of the Philosopher and Sophist in the Republic 111; 6 Philosophers, Sophists, and Strangers in the Sophist 138; 7 Love and Rhetoric in Plato’s Phaedrus 167; Bibliography 197; Index 209-212.

"In this chapter, I argue that part of Plato’s purpose in the Sophist and Theaetetus is to offer two different accounts of the nature of philosophy.

Plato engages his audience in a reflection upon the nature of philosophy through the contrast between Socrates’ and the Stranger’s ways of speaking. I focus on two main questions about the Sophist. First, how is the Stranger’s character and way of speaking distinct from Socrates’ character and speech in the Theaetetus? Second, how do the divisions and collections of the Sophist illuminate some of the differences between Socrates and the Stranger? I argue that the Eleatic Stranger is deliberately presented as an enigmatic figure who may alternately be identified as either a sophist or a philosopher. While the Stranger defines sophistry in such a way that he would separate his own activity from that of the sophists, the drama of the dialogue suggests that Socrates would not consider the Stranger to be a philosopher. That is, the dialogues function to draw us into the philosophical question of what philosophy is. The Sophist and Theaetetus as a pair demonstrate that the philosopher–sophist contrast is relative to the way in which one constructs a positive understanding of philosophy.

I argue that the Stranger’s understanding of himself as a philosopher is inadequate from Socrates’ standpoint, although the Stranger seems to identify himself as a philosopher. While the Stranger identifies philosophy with a method of division and collection, and especially with applying that method to metaphysical questions, Socrates emphasizes self-knowledge and knowledge of the human soul and its moral good as central to philosophical practice.4 Both Socrates and the Stranger are interested in persuasion, but Socrates’ rhetoric is to be found in the role of a midwife who is helping others to give birth to ideas and to grow in self-knowledge, while the Stranger’s rhetoric is oriented toward making his interlocutor more compliant and dispassionate." (pp. 139-140, notes omitted)
McDowell, John. 1982. "Falsehood and Not-Being in Plato's Sophist." In Language and Logos. Studies in Ancient Greek Philosophy Presented to G. E. L. Owen, edited by Schofield, Malcolm and Nussbaum, Martha, 115–134. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

"For me, G. E. L. Owen's 'Plato on Not-Being' (1971) radically improved the prospects for a confident overall view of its topic. Hitherto, passage after passage had generated reasonable disagreement over Plato's intentions, and the disputes were not subject to control by a satisfying picture of his large-scale strategy; so that the general impression, as one read the Sophist, was one of diffuseness and unclarity of purpose. By focusing discussion on the distinction between otherness and contrariety (257B1-C4), Owen showed how, at a stroke, a mass of confusing exegetical alternatives could be swept away, and the dialogue's treatment of not-being revealed as a sustained and tightly organised assault on a single error. In what follows, I take Owen's focusing of the issue for granted, and I accept many of his detailed conclusions. Where I diverge from Owen - in particular over the nature of the difficulty about falsehood that Plato tackles in the Sophist (§§5 and 6 below) -it is mainly to press further in the direction he indicated, in the interest of a conviction that the focus can and should be made even sharper." (p. 115)
McPherran, Mark L. 1986. "Plato's Reply to the 'Worst Difficulty' Argument of the Parmenides: Sophist 248a- 249d." Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie no. 68:233–252.

"In a previous paper I have argued that the theory of relations Hector-Neri Castañeda has discovered in the Phaedo is clarified and extended in the Parmenides. In particular, the paper contains an Interpretation of the 'worst difficulty' argument (Parm. 133a —135a), an argument purporting to establish that human knowledge of the Forms is impossible. My Interpretation showed the argument to utilize the extended theory of relations in its premises. I also showed, contrary to previous interpretations, how Plato's argument was logically valid.

One consideration in favor of the Interpretation I offered is that it allows the argument at last to live up to its description as the most formidable challenge to the early theory of Forms (in a long series of tough arguments), requiring a "long and remote train of argument" by "a man of wide experience and natural ability" for its unsoundness to be exposed (Parm. 133b4 —c1).

Unfortunately, the Parmenides does not contain such a reply, even though the text at 133b seems to hint that Plato had already formulated one. Did he ever entertain and record a reply, and if so, could that reply rescue some version of the theory of Forms from the devastating consequences of the 'worst difficulty'? In the following, I present my previous reconstruction of that argument and the most plausible lines of response open to a defender of a theory of Forms. In the second section I argue that Plato gives clear recognition to one of those replies in the Sophist, and I show how that reply would save the theory of Forms. Finally, I will contend that this reply is Plato's best line of response, and I will discuss the problem of actually attributing the adoption of this solution to him." (pp. 233-234, some notes omitted)

(1) Mark McPherran, "Plato's Parmenides Theory of Relations," in F. J. Pelletier and J. King-Farlow (eds.), New Essays on Plato, Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Supplementary Volume IX (1983): 149 — 164 (hereafter, "Plato's Parmenides Theory").

(2) My Interpretation dealt explicitly only with the first half of the argument (133a11 — 134c3). The second half (134c4—135a3) attempts to establish that just as men cannot know Forms, so the gods cannot be knowers of particulars (e. g., men), but only Forms.

References to Hector-Neri Castañeda:

"Plato's Phaedo Theory of Relations," Journal of Philosophical Logic I (1972): 467—480.

"Plato's Relations, Not Essences or Accidents, at Phaedo 102b — d2," Canadian Journal of Philosophy 1 (1978): 39 — 53.

"Leibniz and Plato's Phaedo Theory of Relations and Predication," M. Hooker (ed.). Leibniz: Critical and Interpretive Essays (Minneapolis, 1982): 124—159.
Mesquita, Antonio Pedro. 2013. "Plato’s Eleaticism in the Sophist. The Doctrine of Non-Being." In Plato's Sophist Revisited, edited by Bossi, Beatriz and Robinson, Thomas M., 175–186. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.

"The aporia experienced by the interlocutors in the Sophist on the notion of non-being is, essentially, the following:

1. That which absolutely is not cannot be thought of or spoken of (238c).

2. However, every assertion concerning that which is not, even if negative in content, requires the mediation of an “is” in order to be expressed.

3. In effect, when we say that non-being is not thinkable or utterable, we are, in actual fact, uttering it and, necessarily, uttering it as being, namely, as being unutterable (239a).

4. Therefore, due not to linguistic ambiguity but to ontological requirement, to say that non-being is not utterable is the same as asserting that it is unutterable and, in general, to say that non-being is not is to say that non-being is non-being, which certainly collides with what those assertions were intended to demonstrate in the first place, that is, the absolute unutterability and the absolute non-being of non-being.

5. In fact, each of those assertions tacitly affirms the opposite of what it declares, namely, that non-being is utterable (precisely as being unutterable) and, therefore, that non-being is (precisely as being nonbeing).

The most immediate interpretation of this section would be as follows: the Eleatic notion of non-being, here patently challenged, must be superseded; and the Platonic notion of “other” (ἑτέρων), introduced through the novel doctrine of the κοινωνίᾱ των ειδων, is exactly what supersedes it.

Such an interpretation has, however, the disadvantage of being external to the argument, replacing analysis of its internal progress with the abstract assumption of the two extreme moments that structure it, namely, the two different notions of non-being. As an act of supersession, it excludes the Eleatic notion of non-being to the benefit of the Platonic one, without realizing that every act of supersession is never simply one of negation, but also one of incorporation.

Now, this is precisely what happens with the question of non-being in the Sophist.

The Eleatic notion is not dissolved; it is, rather, interpreted in the light of another conception of non-being which, in absorbing it, refashions it into a different shape.

The peremptory interdiction of Parmenides, according to which non-being is not,(1) is never actually refuted: it is taken as possessing its own truth, although such truth is understood as limited, and confined within new boundaries." (pp. 175-176)

(1) In summary form, for the exact statement never appears as such. See DK B 2.5 – 8, B 6. 2, B 7. 1, etc.
Michaelides, C. P. 1975. "The concept of not-being in Plato." Diotima.Review of Philosophical Research no. 3:19–26.
Mié, Fabian. 2011. "Plato's Sophist on Negation and Not-Being." In Parmenides, 'Venerable and Awesome' (Plato, Theaetetus 183e), edited by Cordero, Néstor-Luis, 363–372. Las Vegas: Parmenides Publishing.

Summary: "This brief paper develops an interpretation of Plato’s theory of negation understood as an answer to Parmenides’ paradoxes concerning not-being. First, I consider some aspects that result from an analysis of Sophist 257b–259d, formulating some general theses which I then go on to unfold in more detail in the following section. Finally, I show what exactly Plato’s so-called overcoming of the Eleatic problem related to negation and falsehood is; and I outline some of the main semantic and metaphysical consequences that are entailed by this overcoming."
Migliori, Maurizio. 2007. Plato's Sophist: Value and Limitation on Ontology. Sankt Augustin: Academia Verlag.

Five lessons followed by a discussion with Bruno Centrone, Arianna Fermani, Lucia Palpacelli, Diana Quarantotto.

Original Italian edition: Il Sofista di Platone. Valore e limiti dell'ontologia, Brescia: Morcelliana 2006.

Contents: Preface p. 9; First Lecture – Plato’s Writings and Dialectical Dialogues p. 11; Contents: Preface p. 9; First Lecture – Plato’s Writings and Dialectical Dialogues p. 11; Second Lecture – The Sophist’s Manifold Nature p. 29; Third Lecture – The driving force of Plato’s Philosophy p. 51; Fourth Lecture – Ontology and Meta-ideas p. 69; Fifth Lecture – The relative importance of the Sophist p. 93; Appendix I – The Whole-Part relation in the Parmenides and the Theaetetus p. 103; Appendix II – The Doing-Suffering Pair p. 121; Appendix III – The Dialectics of Being in the Parmenides (161 E - 162 B) p. 125; Exchanges with the Author 127-206.

"The Philosophical Contents of the Sophist.

First of all, one should establish as closely as possible the meaning of the dialogue in its Author’s mind. With Plato this task is far from easy, for it is one of the issues that arouses the liveliest debate among critics. As elsewhere, I suggest following the classification put forward by Szlezák (1) in an attempt to single out three elements in the dialogue:

a) The overriding issue, the aggregating force that breathes life into the text and which Plato never lets his readers forget about;

b) The thematic hub of the writing, the philosophically crucial question which assesses the worth of the overriding issue and/or confers it legitimate meaning;

c) The foremost problem which the argumentative development must grapple with.

This model has always appeared to me as capable of yielding some kind of clarifying effect. It is especially helpful in showing how the various facets of the discourse are not set alongside one another but necessarily recall each other. The aim is to identify three elements, strongly-linked yet not mutually coinciding, among the wealth of opinions in Plato’s text. Weaving them into one another will provide us with the thread that can guide us through the dialogue." (pp. 93-94)

(1) T. A. Szlezák, Come leggere Platone, Rusconi, Milano 1991, pp. 126-127. [in English: Thomas A. Szlezák, Reading Plato, Translated by Graham Zanker, New York: Routledge 2003].
———. 2021. "The Use and Meaning of the Past in Plato." Plato Journal no. 21:43–58.

Abstract: "This essay is based on two premises. The first concerns the vision of writing proposed by Plato in Phaedrus and especially the conception of philosophical writing as a maieutic game.

The structurally polyvalent way in which Plato approaches philosophical issues also emerges in the dialogues. The second concerns the birth and the development of historical analysis in parallel with the birth of philosophy.

On this basis the text investigates a series of data about the relationship between Plato and “the facts”.

1) If we compare the Apology of Socrates with other sources, we discover a series of important “games” that Plato performs to achieve the results he proposes.

2) The famous passage of Phd. 96A-102A, which concludes with the Ideas and with a reference to the Principles, expresses definite judgments on the Presocratics.

3) In his works Plato attributes to the sophists some merits, even if the outcome of their contribution is overall negative.

4) However, in the fourth complicated diairesis of the Sophist, there is a “sophist of noble stock”, an educator who can only be Socrates.

5) Plato in the Sophist shows the weakness of the Gigantomachy, and proposes an adequate definition of the beings: the power of undergoing or acting. This reveals, before the Philebus and the Timaeus, the dynamic and dialectical nature of his philosophy

In summary, a multifocal vision emerges, adapted to an intrinsically complex reality."
Miller, Dana. 2004. "Fast and Loose about Being: Criticism of Competing Ontologies in Plato's Sophist." Ancient Philosophy no. 24:339–363.

"In the Sophist, in the context of an argument designed t0 demonstrate that being (τὸ ὄν) is as puzzling as non-being, the Eleatic Visitor embarks on a discussion of competing views about being. It is generally thought that this discussion (242b6-250e4) establishes a number of significant claims that are made in the course of the Visitor's argument. The argument proceeds on two levels: (i) a general argument that focuses on what the Visitor regards to be a muddle about being and the consequences of this muddle, and (ii) specific argun1ents against specific views, where these arguments seek both (a) to refute these views and (b) to shed light on the muddle and consequences that are the concern of (i). Scholarship has been largely concerned with the claims made under (iia), as for example, the claim made in the argument against the Friends of the Forms that the objects of knowledge are somehow moved or changed by their being known. My intent, however, is chiefly to set out (i), the general argument, and then to examine the particular arguments from the perspective of (iib), that is, how these arguments relate to the general argument. Yet to get at (iib). it is necessary to examine the Visitor's arguments in some detail and this requires approaching them from the perspective of (iia). Because the claims made in the discussion should be understood with reference to their context, I begin by situating the general argument within the larger argument of the Sophist and explain the dialectical purpose that the discussion is meant to serve. Then, in brief, l argue that the puzzle about being derives from muddled thinking about the notion of being and that this muddled thinking lies at the base of the various earlier views about being that the Visitor undertakes to refute. To show how this is the case, I examine the argument against these views." (p. 339)
Miller, Mitchell. 2016. "What the Dialectician Discerns: a new reading of Sophist 253d-e." Ancient Philosophy no. 36:321–352.

"At Sophist 253d-e the Eleatic Visitor offers a notoriously obscure schematic description of the kinds of eidetic field that the philosopher practicing dialectic ‘adequately discerns’ (ἱκανῶς διαισθάνεται, 253d7). My aim is to propose a fresh reading of that obscure passage. For all of their impressive thoughtfulness and ingenuity, the major lines of interpretation pursued so far have missed, I will argue, the full context of the passage. As a consequence, the proponents of these lines Statesman of interpretation have failed to avail themselves of resources that would have freed them from otherwise unavoidable moments of force or neglect in their readings. The key is to recognize the place of the Sophist within the trilogy of the Theaetetus, Sophist, and, accordingly, to expand the context of Sophist 253d-e to include the Theaetetus and the Statesman. In his schematic description at Sophist 253d-e, the Visitor refers to the eidetic fields traced by two distinct modes of logos. At the end of the Theaetetus, Socrates offers anticipatory sketches of each of these modes; but in the body of the Sophist the Visitor restricts his practice of dialectic to just one of the two—only in the second half of the Statesman does he take up the other mode. As a consequence, only a reader who is oriented by the close of the Theaetetus and who lets this orientation guide her in a reading of the Sophist and the Statesman together is well positioned to recognize the referents of the Visitor’s remarks at Sophist 253d-e." (p. 321)
Mohr, Richard D. 1982. "The Relation of Reason to Soul in the Platonic Cosmology: "Sophist" 248e-249c." Apeiron no. 16:21–26.

Reprinted as Chapter X in R. D. Mohr, The Platonic Cosmology, Leiden: Brill, 1985, pp. 178-183.

"Since Cherniss' Aristotle's Criticism of Plato and the Academy I, there has been nearly universal agreement among critics that Plato's God or divine Demiurge is a soul.(1) Yet the prima facie evidence is that the Demiurge is not. In all three of Plato's major cosmological works the Timaeus, the Statesman myth, and the Philebus (28c-30e), the Demiurge is fairly extensively described and yet not once is he described as a soul. Rather souls, and especially the World-Soul, and what rationality souls have are viewed as products of the Demiurge (Timaeus 35a, 36d-e, Philebus 30c-d, Statesman 269c-d). Nonetheless, the overwhelming critical opinion is that since the demiurgic God of these works is described as rational, this entails that God is a soul. Three texts are adduced to prove this, Timaeus 30b3, Philebus 30c9-10, and Sophist 249a. These texts are taken as claiming A) that if a thing is rational, then it is a soul. Proclus saw that at least the Timaeus passage can mean only B) that when reason is in something else, what it is in must be an ensouled thing. The rhetoric of the Timaeus sentence strongly suggests that reading Β is correct and the argumentative context of the Philebus sentence (properly understood) requires sense B. This leaves (as Cherniss is willing to admit, ACPA, p. 606) the Sophist passage alone as bearing the whole weight of Plato's alleged commitment to the view A) that everything that is rational is a soul. I wish to give a new, tentative interpretation to this passage which shows that it is, like the Timaeus and Philebus, committed only to the weaker claim B) that when reason is in something, it is so along with soul. This leaves the Demiurge who is not in anything free to be rational without being a soul and to serve rather as a maker of souls." (p. 21, notes omitted)

(1) H.F. Cherniss, ACPA l (Baltimore, 1944), appendix XI, which is in part an attack on Hackforth's "Plato's Theism" (1936) rpt. in R.E. Allen (ed.), Studies in Plato's Metaphysics (London, 1965), pp. 439-447.
Mojsisch, Burkhard. 1998. "Logos and Episteme. The Constitutive Role of Language in Plato's Theory of Knowledge." Bochumer Philosophisches Jahrbuch für Antike und Mittelalter no. 3:19–28.

Abstract: "This essay first differentiates the various meanings of the term logos as it appears in Plato's dialogues Theaetetus and The Sophist. These are: the colloque of the soul with itself, a single sentence, a proposing aloud, the enumeration of the constitutive elements of a whole and the giving of a specific difference; further, opinion and imagination. These meanings are then related to Plato's determination of knowledge (episteme) and therewith truth and falsity. One can be said to possess knowledge only when the universal contents of thought -- dialogical thought -- are set in relation to the perceivable, imagination or opinion. Reflections on the principle significance of possibility as such -- a thematic not addressed by Plato -- conclude the essay."
Monserrat Molas, Josep, and Sandoval Villarroel, Pablo. 2013. "Plato’s Enquiry Concerning the Sophist as a Way Towards “Defining” Philosophy." In Plato's Sophist Revisited, edited by Bossi, Beatriz and Robinson, Thomas M., 29–39. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.

"The Sophist discloses the urgency of the question concerning being, and it is only in pondering this question that the essence of philosophising comes to light and is realised. In other words, the dialogue does not deal with the question of being simply because the problem of the sophist requires that it do so, but rather it deals and has to deal with the question concerning being in that its fundamental concern, its σκοπός, which consists in moving towards the essence of philosophy, not by way of a formal, abstract “definition”, but rather through the consummation of philosophising.

For this reason the Stranger of Elea later on poses the question: καὶ κινδυνεύομεν ζητοῦντες τὸν σοφιστὴν πρότερον ἀνηυρηκέναι τὸν φιλόσοφον [253c8 – 9], “and have we unwittingly found the philosopher while we were looking for the sophist?”. Who, then, is the philosopher?

He is that human being who has devoted himself fully, through thinking, to enquiring again and again into the essence of being: ὁ δέ γε φιλόσοφος, τῇ τοῦ ὄντος ἀεὶ διὰ λογισμῶν προσκείμενος ἰδέᾳ [254a8 – 9]." (pp. 38-39, note omitted)
Moravcsik, Julius M. E. 1958. "Mr. Xenakis on Truth and Meaning." Mind no. 67:533–537.

"In a somewhat breathless article Mr. J. Xenakis has presented us with a new interpretation of Plato's theory of truth and meaning in Sophist, pp. 260-263.(1) In this brief note I shall show that the theory which Xenakis champions is objectionable, and toward the end I shall suggest that Plato need not be burdened with it. Xenakis claims that all statements must satisfy four rules. According to the third of these, all statements - if they are to be statements - must be about something.(2) Little can be found in the article that pertains to the status of the four rules. We are told, however, that two of them are formation rules, and two are truth-conditions. Since Xenakis insists that all statements must satisfy the truth-conditions, one can assume that he excludes the possibility of there being statements which are neither true nor false. I am not sure whether he would go on to say that any utterance which does not satisfy one of the truth-conditions is meaningless. It may be that he would restrict himself to maintaining that if any utterance does not meet one of the truth-conditions, then meaningful as it may be, it cannot be true or false - and hence it cannot be a statement. In order to be on the safe side, I shall examine rule [3] first as a criterion of meaningfulness, and then as a mere truth-condition." (p. 533)

(1) Mind (April 1957), pp. 165-172.

(2) Ibid. pp. 168-169.
———. 1960. "ΣΥΜΠΛΟΚΗ ΕΙΔΩΝ and the Genesis of ΛΟΓΟΣ." Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie no. 42:117–129.

"Διὰ γὰρ τὴν ἀλλήλων τῶν εἰδῶν συμπλοκὴν ὁ λόγος γέγονεν ἡμῖν [For our power of discourse is derived from the interweaving of the classes or ideas with one another. (Translation added)] (Sophist 259e5—6)*. In these lines Plato states that rational discourse is made possible by the interwovenness of the Forms. The task of the Interpreter is to discover what the nature of this interwovenness is, and to ascertain the exact nature of the relationship between the interwovenness of the Forms and the structure of rational discourse. At present there is considerable disagreement concerning these issues. In this paper the main difficulties of 259e5—6 will be outlined, and some recent attempts to overcome these difficulties will be surveyed. It will be indicated where and why I dissent from the positions taken by several contemporary authors, and a new Interpretation will be presented which attempts to show that a plurality of Forms, woven into a pattern, underlies each meaningful sentence, and that the interwovenness can be explained by reference to formal concepts. The importance which — in my opinion — Plato attaches to formal concepts in the Sophist has implications for the Interpretation of the theory of Forms as found in the later dialogues." (p. 117)

(...)

"In conclusion let me sum up the most important implications of what Plato says in 259e5—6. Plato believes that the changing dynamic combination of words, yielding meaningful discourse, is based on the static interwovenness of the Forms. For discourse is changing, man-made; and the language of 262d2—6 shows that Plato regards it s such. But he also believes that one of the essential tasks of meaningful discourse is to convey Information. Fundamental to the conveying of Information is the ability to order the elements of reality according to concepts (23). What makes this ordering possible, according to Plato, is the general fact that the elements of reality are identifiable and describable." (p. 129)

(*) Burnet's numbering of lines is followed throughout the paper.
———. 1962. "Being and Meaning in the Sophist." Acta Philosophica Fennica no. 14:23–78.

From the Conclusion: "Communion and interweaving are the key concepts of the Sophist. They are used on two levels; the ontological and the semantic. The two are not sharply separated, and each helps to explain the other. The Communion of the Forms parallels the interwovenness of words, and thus 253-256 parallels 260-262. A similar parallel and relations of dependence are presented between the discussions of Not-being and falsehood. Thus 257-258 and 263 go together. This interrelatedness not only brings out the nature of Plato's philosophizing in this period, but it also presents the interpreter with the task of working out the whole passage as a unit, for the interpretations of the parts are interdependent. This justifies and necessitates my lengthy analysis.

Plato's arguments show that truth and falsehood are not matters of mental sight or blindness. Thus one should not conceive of the objects of knowledge as self-sufficient atomic units. Philosophical atomism is denied on all levels. The paradigm-case of how not to read Plato therefore is: "each element in the statement has now a meaning; and so the statement as a whole has meaning". (1) The notion of Communion and the analogy with vowels lead to the conception of the Forms as functions, as something incomplete, something which need arguments in order really to express something. At least some of the Forms are shown to be like functions in this dialogue. If we are willing to pursue Plato's line of thought beyond the point to which it is carried in the dialogue, we see that what Plato says leads to construing all Forms as functions. For what we know are truths and falsehoods, and these are complexes which contain Forms. The constituents of these complexes are not 'simples', or metaphysical atoms of some sort. In order to understand them we have to know into what complexes they fit. We do not grasp them prior to all completions.

It is small wonder that modern commentators of this dialogue have not made much progress with it. They approach it with the 'part-sum, division-collection, genus-species' distinctions in mind. Merely because one aspect of dialectic is said to be the method of division they identify all of Plato's methodology with this notion, and seek to explain the middle part of the Sophist within this framework. But these are the wrong tools and the wrong questions. When seen in proper light, the suggestions of the Sophist present themselves as topics the further exploration of which is one of the more important philosophical tasks today." (p. 77-78)

(1) F. M. Cornford, Plato's Theory of Knowledge. The Theaetetus and the Sophist of Plato translated with a running commentary, p. 315.
Morgan, Michael L. 1993. ""Philosophy" in Plato's Sophist." Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy no. 9:83–111.

"In this paper I want to use a different approach to understand Plato's primary task in the Sophist. I want to ask a rather large set of questions about the dialogue. These questions arise out of the dialogue when it is viewed in terms of its relation to the Theaetetus and Politicus, to issues Plato discusses in the Phaedo, Republic, and Phaedrus, and to a consideration of Plato's place in fourth century Athenian culture. Once I have stated these questions and clarified them, I shall consider how the Sophist might be taken to answer them. All of this will be somewhat programmatic and provisional. The Sophist is a puzzling, demanding, complex text, and to make my case regarding the issues I have in mind would require much more evidence, interpretation, and argument than I can provide here. This is a beginning, with a promissory note for future development.

The questions that I want to ask about the Sophist are these: where, in the dialogue, do we find what Plato would think of as philosophy? Where - if anywhere - does he engage in it? Where does he refer to it or describe it, either directly or indirectly?

Who is a philosopher in the Sophist-Socrates, the visitor from Elea, Plato, all or none of these? And why does Plato here seek to articulate what sophistry is and how it differs from philosophy?" (p. 84)

(...)

"Philosophy, then, differs from sophistry in purpose—as well as in method and object, for philosophy is essential to the best human life. It is a form of intellectual and religious transcendence that is divine because its objects are divine and hence because its cognitive goal is pure, permanent, and comprehensive.

As the philosopher's understanding of the map of the world of Forms increases, so does the clarity, purity, and stability of the soul.

To Isocrates Parmenides is a sophist; to Plato he is a philosopher and divine, epithets that transfer to his followers, one a visitor to Athens, another Plato himself. Eleatic in spirit, the visitor advocates views that are Platonic in letter, for Plato is himself an Athenian with Eleatic convictions, and like the visitor a parricide and disciple all at once." (p. 110)
Morgenstern, Amy S. 2001. "Leaving the Verb 'To Be' Behind: An Alternative Reading of Plato's Sophist." Dionysius no. 19:27–50.

"Equating the terms esti, to on, and ta onta with the verb "to be", understood existentially, predicatively, or as an identity sign, cannot serve as a basis of an illuminating approach to the Eleatic Stranger's investigation in Plato's Sophist. An alternative reading of esti at 256 A 1, Esti de ghe dia to methexein tou ontos, allows a more comprehensive analysis of the limitations and accomplishments of this investigation. Here esti should be interpreted as rhema, i.e. a name that, in this instance, says something about kinesis, the implied subject."
Mourelatos, Alexander. 1979. "'Nothing' as 'Not-Being': Some Literary Contexts that Bear on Plato." In Arktouros. Hellenic studies presented to Bernard M. W. Knox on the occasion of his 65th birthday, edited by Bowersock, Glen, Burkert, Walter and Putnam, Michael, 319–329. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.

Reprinted in: J. P. Anton, A. Preus (eds.), Essays in Ancient Greek philosophy, Volume Two, Albany: State University of New York Press, 1983, pp. 59-69.

"It has often been noticed that Plato, and before him Parmenides, assimilates "what is not" (to me ón) to "nothing" (medén or oudén).' Given that the central use of "nothing" has important ties with the existential quantifier ("Nothing is here" ---- "It is not the case that there is anything here"), it has widely been assumed that contexts that document this assimilation also count as evidence that both within them and in cognate ontological contexts the relevant sense of "being" or "to be" is that of existence. That this assumption is not to be granted easily, has been compellingly argued by G. E. L. Owen [Plato on Not-being, 1971]. His main concern was to show that the assumption is particularly mischievous in the interpretation of the Sophist, where he found it totally unwarranted. My own concern is to attack the assumption on a broader plane. "Nothing" in English has uses that do not depend on a tie with the existential quantifier. So too in Greek: medén or oudén can be glossed as "what does not exist," but it can also be glossed as "not a something," or in Owen's formulation, "what is not anything, what not-in-any-way is': a subject with all the being knocked out of it and so unidentifiable, no subject." In effect, the assimilation of "what is not" to "nothing" may-in certain contexts-work in the opposite direction: not from "nothing" to "non-being" in the sense of non-existence; rather from "non-being" as negative specification or negative determination to "nothing" as the extreme of negativity or indeterminacy. To convey the sense involved in this reverse assimilation I borrow Owen's suggestive translation "not-being" for me on, a rendering which makes use of an incomplete participle, rather than the complete gerund, of the verb "to be"." (p. 59 of the reprint)

(...)

"Observations made in this paper can be read as providing support, in yet a different way, for a thesis advanced by Charles H. Kahn (22) and others. In a formulation I prefer, the thesis is that the dialectic of Being in classical Greek speculation focuses not on "What there is" but on "What it is" or "How it is"; not on existence but on physis, constitution, or form. (23)" (p. 67 of the reprint)

(22) See "Why Existence Does Not Emerge as a Distinct Concept in Greek Philosophy," Arch. f. Gesch. d. Philos. 58 (1976): 323-34; cf. Kahn, The Verb 'Be' in Ancient Greek, Foundations of Language, suppl. ser., 16 (Dordrecht and Boston, 1973): 394-419.
Mouzala, Melina. 2019. "Logos as "weaving together or communion of indications about ousia" in Plato' s Sophist." Platonic Investigations no. 10:35–75.

Abstract: "In this paper, we set out to show that in the Sophist the interweaving of Forms (sumplokē tōn eidōn) is the substantial presupposition of the existence of logos, because what we do when we think and produce vocal speech is understanding by our dianoia the way in which the Forms are interwoven, and what we weave together in our speech are indications about ousia (peri tēn ousian delōmata). Dianoia conceives of the relations between the Forms, and these relations are reflected in our thought and its natural image, vocal speech. We support the idea that we cannot interpret the Platonic conception of the relationship between language and reality through the Aristotelian semiotic triangle, because according to it the relation between pragmata or onta and logos becomes real through the medium of thought (noēmata). On the contrary, logos in Plato has an unmediated relation with reality and is itself reckoned among beings.

In parallel, we set out to show the difference between the Platonic conception of logos and the Gorgianic approach to it, as well as the approaches of other Sophists and Antisthenes.

Logos itself in Plato is a weaving which reflects the interweaving of Forms, while vocal speech is a natural image of thought. Logos in its dual meaning, dianoia and vocal speech, is illustrated in Dialectic, because as vocal speech is a mirror to dianoia, so Dialectic is a means which clearly reflects the thinking procedures of dianoia."
Mouzala, Melina G. 2023. "Pursuing Self-Knowledge in Plato’s Sophist. The Communion of the Sophistic and Socratic Dialectic in the Sixth Definition of the Sophist: A Reading Based on Proclus’ Interpretation of Dialectic in the Sophist." In Ancient Greek Dialectic and Its Reception edited by Mouzala, Melina G., 157–188. Berlin: de Gruyter.

"The aim of this paper is to draw a line of interpretation that claims that when the fifth definition places the emphasis on logos (λόγος), it paves the way to the sixth; logos is a human characteristic which brings to the fore and realizes the manifestation of all thinking and specifically of controversies and disputations in which our thought is involved and expressed. The same subject is reserved and developed in the sixth definition. Moreover, my aim is to show that the sixth definition, apart from the explicit discussion of purification or cathartic dialectic, actually thematizes division itself. Based on Proclus’ interpretation of

eristic in the Sophist, I will show that the notion of communion (κοινωνία) is implicitly examined for the first time in the dialogue within the sixth definition of the sophist, where the Sophistic and the Socratic dialectic are commingled. Finally, I maintain that from the analysis of the crucial passage 230 b–d, we can infer that the basic characteristic of Socrates’ cathartic method is a specific emotional attitude of the person who is subjected to elenchus, which due to its reflexive and self-referent character, leads to self-knowledge. This kind of self-knowledge is a way of self-recovery or self-recollection that also proves to have a collective or non-individual character, since the same emotional attitude, in cooperation with the cohesive and therapeutic intervention of the unificatory logos, binds again the person who is subjected to elenchus with the latent commonality of an intersubjective wisdom that has been forgotten." (pp. 157-158)
Moya, Keylor Murillo. 2022. "A footote on Alain Badiou's critique of Plato's Sophist." Síntesis. Revista de Filosofía no. 5:98–115.

Abstract: "In his second book on being and event, Logics of Worlds, Alain Badiou describes Plato’s late dialogue, The Sophist as “one of the first transcendental inquiries in the history of thought”. In this dialogue, Plato introduces what he calls the Idea of the Other, the possibility of a being of nonbeing, an inevitable break with the Parmenidean tradition. However, according to Badiou, Plato fails to provide an example of how this Idea of the Other can manifest itself or be effective in a world, or in other words, appear. This paper argues that not only there is such an example in Plato’s Sophist, namely, the phantasma, but also that it can be strongly related to Badiou’s philosophical system."
Muckelbauer, John. 2001. "Sophistic Travel: Inheriting the Simulacrum through Plato's The Sophist." Philosophy and Rhetoric no. 34:225–244.

"A single question marks our departure, a question that, while apparently straightforward, has assumed so many shapes and disguises that it would not be unjust to claim it has infected all of Western history. In its current manifestation, however, we will take our cue from Plato in phrasing it thus: What is a Sophist? When Plato first formulated the question in these terms, he well understood that its self-evident simplicity could be deceptive and that its effects might proliferate uncontrollably. As Jacques Derrida comments, “The question of what the Sophists really were is an enormous question” (Olson 17). In Plato’s case, attempting to “hunt down” the Sophist led from a disturbing journey through the world of images to an unsettling encounter with the existence of nonbeing." (p. 225)

References

Olson, Gary. 1990. “Jacques Derrida on Rhetoric and Composition: A Conversation,” Journal of Advanced Composition, 10.1: 1–21.
Muniz, Fernando, and Rudebusch, George. 2018. "Dividing Plato’s Kinds." Phronesis.A Journal for Ancient Philosophy no. 63:392–407.

Abstract: "A dilemma has stymied interpretations of the Stranger’s method of dividing kinds into subkinds in Plato’s Sophist and Statesman. The dilemma assumes that the kinds are either extensions (like sets) or intensions (like Platonic Forms). Now kinds divide like extensions, not intensions. But extensions cannot explain the distinct identities of kinds that possess the very same members. We propose understanding a kind as like an animal body—the Stranger’s simile for division—possessing both an extension (in its members) and an intension (in its form). We find textual support in the Stranger’s paradigmatic four steps for collecting a subkind."
Murphy, David J. 2023. "The sophist’s puzzling epistêmê in the Sophist." Classcal Quarterly no. 73:53–65.

Abstract: "Against prevailing interpretations, this article contends that Plato’s Sophist and Statesman accord the sophist a kind of ‘knowing-how’ (epistêmê). In Soph. 233c10‒d2, the Visitor and Theaetetus agree that the sophist has not truth but a δοξαστικὴ ἐπιστήμη. This phrase cannot mean ‘a seeming knowledge’, for –ικός adjectives formed from verbs express the ability to perform the action denoted by the verb—here, δοξάζω.

Although not a first-order, subject-area knowledge, sophistry is a second-order knowledge of how to form and use judgements (doxai). Other acknowledgements of the sophist’s epistêmê and the ascription to him of τέχνη, ‘craft/expertise’, confirm that the Visitor’s conclusion is not to be dismissed as irony. To critics who argue from the Gorgias and from other works that Plato must consider the Visitor’s conclusion an error, the author replies: 1) other dialogues do not control the Visitor dialogues; 2) the Visitor does not validly demonstrate that the sophist lacks all knowledge; 3) by admitting sensibles into Being, the Visitor and Theaetetus allow the objects of epistêmê to include things in the embodied world, even likenesses. Non-philosophers’ epistêmê in the Visitor dialogues is not implicated in the difficulties that critics have raised about epistemology in the so-called Two Worlds dialogues. On this new ontology, even the sophist, if guided by philosophical rulers, can benefit citizens by employing his elenctic expertise as Socrates did, aiding their growth toward virtue."
———. 2024. "Σκοπός and the Unity of the Sophist." In Plato’s Sophist: Selected Papers of the Thirteenth Symposium Platonicum, edited by Luc, Brisson, Edward, Halper and Richard, Perry, 365–371.

Abstract: "Although like Noburu Notomi I defend the thematic unity of the Sophist, I locate the unifying subject or “target,” skopos, not in “the sophist” but in “Being and Not-Being on every level.” Against Notomi’s case that the skopos is the sophist: most of the dialogue concerns questions about Being; to define an unknown via bifurcation is a flawed method; the final definition does not fit known sophists; schools were Plato’s rivals by the time of writing. My proposed unifying target comes close to Marsilio Ficino’s “Being and Not-Being.” Although Being is not discussed in every part of the dialogue, sections can have subsidiary skopoi, which all serve the whole. My interpretation helps illuminate connections between the search for the sophist in the “frame” part of the dialogue and discussions about Being in the dialogue’s core."
Murr, Dimitri El. 2006. "Paradigm and diairesis: a response to M. L. Gill's 'Models in Plato's Sophist and Statesman'." Plato Journal no. 6:1–9.

"In her interesting and stimulating paper, Mary-Louise Gill addresses one of the central issues in Plato’s Sophist and Statesman: what is a model (paradeigma) and how does one become useful in a dialectical inquiry? Gill’s main thesis is clear: a paradeigma becomes truly useful when not only the sameness between the example and the target but also their difference are recognized (“the inquirers need to recognize, not only the feature that is the same in the example and the target, but also the difference between the two embodiments and the procedural difference those different embodiments entail.”

(...)

"At the start, I have to say I am sympathetic with most of the conclusions Gill has drawn from the important issues she tackles in this paper. So it will come as no surprise that my response to her will consist of a series of reflections on certain points she has singled out rather than a proper response built on an alternative interpretation.

I choose to focus on three distinct points, all of which I take to be crucial to Gill’s argument as well as to our understanding of the Sophist and the Statesman in general." (p. 1)
Myers, Bess H. R. 2021. "Platonic Synergy: A Circular Reading of the Sophist and Timaeus." Journal for the History of Rhetoric no. 24:251–273.

Abstract: "The Sophist, with its ostensible goal of locating and defining the sophist, is among the Platonic dialogues often read by rhetoricians. Plato’s Timaeus, less so. This has been an oversight because the Timaeus provides a metaphysical explanation for Plato’s anxieties about sophistry and rhetoric. When read together, the Sophist and Timaeus warn of the dangers of sophistry, though they do so in contrasting ways. The Sophist directs us to the external world while the Timaeus directs us inward toward an eternal, unchanging reality. We learn from the Timaeus that sophistry causes both corporeal and metaphysical wandering, a type of motion which runs counter to that of the natural order of the universe and which Plato associates with opportunism and instability. He contrasts wandering with the circular motion associated with philosophical steadfastness. Reading these dialogues in tandem reveals a set of overlapping dichotomies which connect the Timaeus to other dialogues in which Plato addresses sophistry and rhetoric."
Naas, Michael. 2003. "For the Name's Sake." Epoché: A Journal for the History of Philosophy no. 7:199–221.

Abstract: "In Plato's later dialogues, and particularly in the Sophist, there is a general reinterpretation and rehabilitation of the name (onoma) in philosophy. No longer understood rather vaguely as one of potentially dangerous and deceptive elements of everyday language or of poetic language, the world onoma is recast in the Sophist and related dialogues into one of the essential elements of a philosophical language that aims to make claims or propositions about the way things are. Onoma, now understood as name, is thus coupled with rhema, or verb, to form the two essential elements of any logos, that is, any claim, statements, or proposition.

This paper follows Plato's gradual rehabilitation and reinscription of the name from early dialogues through late ones in order to demonstrate the new role Plato fashions for language in these later works."
Narcy, Michel. 2013. "Remarks on the First Five Definitions of the Sophist (Soph. 221c-235a)." In Plato's Sophist Revisited, edited by Bossi, Beatriz and Robinson, Thomas M., 57–70. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.

"The Sophist is explicitly dedicated to the question of getting to know what constitutes a sophist. It is, however, far from being the only dialogue where one finds a definition of one. This is natural enough, given that, from the Apology to the Theaetetus, a good part of Plato’s work is devoted to pointing out the difference between Socrates and the sophists who were his contemporaries, considered less for who they were as individuals or for the particular positions they adopted than as representatives of a manner of thinking which Plato himself calls ‘sophistry’.(2) So it is normal that, as part of the enterprise, Plato would have been led to clarify just what the manner of thinking is which he condemns through the character Socrates. The question one ought rather to answer, however, is: Why, after so many repeated condemnations of sophistry, does Plato feel the need to devote a dialogue to it? After the Theaetetus, and the antithesis there – which takes up the central part of the dialogue – between the frequenter of the law courts and the philosopher,(3) is it still necessary to ask the question whether the sophist and the philosopher are or are not the same thing?" (p. 57)

(2) Cf. Gorg. 463b6, 465c2, 520b2; the Protagoras (316d3 – 4) talks of the σοφιστική τέχνη. (I naturally leave aside from the calculation the occurrences of the word in the Sophist).

(3) Theaetet. 172c3 –177b7.
Nehamas, Alexander. 1982. "Participation and Predication in Plato's Later Thought." The Review of Metaphysics no. 36:343–374.

Reprinted in: A. Nehamas, Virtues of Authenticity. Essays on Plato and Socrates, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1999, pp. 196-223.

"One of the central characteristics of Plato's later metaphysics is his view that Forms can participate in other Forms. At least part of what the Sophist demonstrates is that though not every Form participates in every other (252d2-11), every Form participates in some Forms (252d12-253a2), and that there are some Forms in which all Forms participate (253cl-2, 256a7-8). This paper considers some of the reasons for this development, and some of the issues raised by it." (p. 343)

(...)

"Having many properties is not being many subjects. Beauty is many things in virtue of participating in them, in virtue of bearing to them that relation which Plato had earlier introduced in order to account for the claim of some things which are not beautiful to be called "beautiful" nonetheless. But Plato came to see that the phrase "are not" is illegitimate in this context.

(...)

In arriving at this realization and in extending the ability to have many names, that is, to bear predicates, to Forms as well as to their participants, Plato finally left behind the tradition from which he had emerged. This tradition, he realized, was common to thinkers ranging from the sophists to the sage he most venerated and who was, astonishingly, discovered in the many-headed sophist's hiding place-a place which, even more astonishingly, he had himself supplied. In the Sophist Plato liberated himself from that tradition and showed that to have a characteristic is not an imperfect way of being that characteristic. In this, I think, he offered us the first solid understanding of the metaphysics of predication in western philosophy." (p. 374)
Nikulin, Dmitri. 2025. Non-Being in Ancient Thought. New York: Oxford University Press.

Contents: Preface VII; Acknowledgments XV; Permissions XVII; 1. Parmenides: Being and Nothing 1; 2.Democritus: Non-Being as the Void 42; 3. Plato: Non-Being as the Other of Being 73; 4. Diogenes [the Cynic]: Non-Being as Convention 116; 5. Aristotle: Non-Being as Thought in Many Ways 148; 6. Plotinus: Non-Being as the One 187; 7. Simplicius: Non-Being Voided 231; Conclusion 257; Bibliography 259; Index 269-286.

"Plato. Plato’s Sophist is central to his dialogical and dialectical reasoning about being and non-being. Here, the interlocutors discuss and attempt to refute Parmenides’ claim that non-being is not.

In order to do so, Plato makes the Stranger from Elea establish an account of being that would then justify and corroborate an account of non-being. Plato accepts Parmenides’ insight that being is thinkable and is thought. Thinking-being is the reason-nous, which differs from the dialectical, discursive logos that unfolds itself throughout the dialogue, making turns and twists of the pros and contras through the dialogue’s speakers. The nous thinks itself as and in many different forms or ideas, each of which is and is being as being thought. Yet, since all forms are being and are thinkable and thought, they are not mutually isolated but instead comprise an entire intelligible, beautiful cosmos of beings where they always actually, and not potentially, communicate and reflect each other and thus connect into a system of forms." (Preface, pp. XVI-XVII)
Noriega-Olmos, Simon. 2012. "Plato’s Sophist 259E4-6." Journal of Ancient Philosophy no. 6.

Abstract: "There are at least seven different well-known interpretations of Sophist 259E4-6. In this paper I show them to be either misleading, in conflict with the context, or at odds with Plato’s project in the dialogue. I argue that 259E4-6 tells us that in view of the fact that statements consist in the weaving of different linguistic terms that stand for different extra-linguistic items, if there is to be statements, then reality must consist in a plurality of items some of which mix with some and some of which do not mix with some according to certain ontological rules. My argument for this construal of Sophist 259E4-6 involves an analysis of the passage as well as an assessment of how that text fits into its context."
———. 2018–2019. "'Not-Being', 'Nothing', and Contradiction in Plato's "Sophist" 236D–239C." Archiv für Begriffgeschichte no. 60-61:7–46.

Abstract: "At 236D-239C, Sophist presents three arguments to the conclusions, that the expression 'not-being' does not say or express anything, that we cannot even conceive of the alleged entity of not- being and that we contradict ourselves when claiming that not-being is not and that the expression 'not-being' does not express anything at all. I intend to answer five questions concerning these arguments: (Question 1) What does Plato mean when he says that the expression 'not-being' does not say any- thing at all? (Q2) What sort of semantic relation does he think the expression 'not-being' involves? (Q3) How could he possibly explain that 'not-being' is, after all, an expression? (Q4) What does he think we are to learn about the contradictions ensued by our talk of not-being? (Q5) And what does he think is the ontological status of not- being? My motivation for considering these questions is that the arguments against not-being in Sophist 236D-239C have not been charitably discussed and therefore have not been fully explored."
———. 2024. "The Enigmatic Locus Desperatus at Sophist 244d11–12." In Plato’s Sophist: Selected Papers of the Thirteenth Symposium Platonicum, edited by Luc, Brisson, Edward, Halper and Richard, Perry, 237–246.

Abstract: "Sph. 244d11–12 is a locus desperatus. Editors have suspected these lines to be corrupted. Accordingly, they have proposed multiple emendations. In my view, however, the passage does not need emendation but only interpretation and Schleiermacher’s construal. I argue that Sph. 244d11–12 shows that the one is not identical to a name. It shows this by analyzing what a name is and proving that the terms ‘name’ and ‘one’ are not intersubstitutable salva veritate. "
Notomi, Noburu. 1999. The Unity of Plato's Sophist: Between the Sophist and the Philosopher. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

"The aim of this work is to clarify the topic with which the Sophist is mainly concerned, and I do not discuss other hotly debated topics, such as the senses of the verb 'to be', and the dialogue's relation to the theory of Forms." (p. XIV)

"About the philosopher only a few passing reflections are offered in the Middle Part, as we saw in Chapter 7. It is a philosopher's attitude to value intelligence, wisdom, and knowledge (249cro-d5), and it was also philosophical to admit the proper combination of kinds, since it saved discourse, and therefore philosophy (26oar-7). The more important passage is in the midst of the Middle Part (253c6-254b6), where knowledge of dialectic is said to be rightly ascribed to the philosopher. In that digression, the Eleatic visitor wonders whether the inquirers, in searching for the sophist, may by chance have stumbled on the philosopher (Passage 38: 253c6-9; cf. e4-6). Yet clearly the description of dialectic in that digression (Passage 39) is not decisive, but rather, proleptic, and the mention of the philosopher is just an anticipation which needs further investigation. In this way, the question of what the philosopher is is not explicitly discussed in the Sophist. However, this does not imply that Plato intended another dialogue, the Philosopher, to give a fuller account and definition of the philosopher. On the contrary, the whole project of the Sophist has already shown the philosopher in three ways." (p. 297)

"The Sophist says little about the philosopher, but the dialogue as a whole shows something of what the philosopher really is. The inquirers try to be philosophers in defining the sophist, by performing dialectic. Apart from this way, there does not seem to be any other proper way of revealing the essence of the philosopher; for it is by our confronting the sophist within ourselves that philosophy can be secured and established." (p. 299)
———. 2007. "Plato on What Is Not." In Maieusis. Essays on Ancient Philosophy in Honour of Myles Burnyeat, edited by Scott, Dominic, 254–275. New York: Oxford University Press.

"What is not (τὸ μὴ ὄν) was scarcely discussed in ancient philosophy before Plato.

Although this phrase, or concept, made occasional appearances in philosophical arguments, it did not figure as their primary subject." (p. 254)

(...)

"Modern philosophers often assume that Plato treats what is not merely as the privation of being and that he dismisses the idea of absolute nothingness from the inquiry altogether, although the latter always remains a real philosophical problem. Pointing to the way in which Plato in the Sophist describes what is not as ‘different from what is’, these philosophers fault him for reducing the problem of absolute nothingness to that of something lacking particular properties. Against this interpretation, which at first sight seems to give an adequate account of the argument of the dialogue, I suggest that Plato tackles a more profound problem.

What is not is no more trivial or easy to deal with than its counterpart, what is. It is perhaps a more perplexing concept, since it seems to prevent any discussion (λόγος). This feature takes us to the heart of the problem that Plato faces in the Sophist. There he works out a new strategy to overcome the difficulty: what is not can only be clarified together with what is. The purpose of my paper is to clarify the implication of this strategy." (pp. 255-256)
———. 2008. "Plato Against Parmenides: Sophist 236d-242b." In Reading Ancient Texts: Vol. I: Presocratics and Plato. Essays in Honour of Denis O'Brien, edited by Stern-Gillet, Suzanne and Corrigan, Kevin, 167–187. Leiden: Brill.

"Parmenides, one of the greatest and most influential Greek thinkers, is not mentioned in Plato’s earlier dialogues. His name appears only n four dialogues: Symposium, Parmenides, Theaetetus, and Sophist. This peculiar fact by no means implies that Parmenides had little influence on Plato’s earlier thinking. On the contrary, it is generally agreed that Republic V bases the theory of forms on the Parmenidean scheme of what is and what is not. Nevertheless, that passage contains no reference to its source. (p. 167)

(...)

"It is noteworthy that Parmenides is never mentioned again after the Sophist." (p. 168)

(...)

"In presenting his own view, O’Brien criticises my reading of the Sophist on philological and philosophical grounds.(8)" (p. 169)

(...)

"Our disagreement concerns how we view Plato’s attitude toward Parmenides.

O’Brien suggests that Plato introduces a new distinction between two ‘kinds’ of what is not, which is unknown to Parmenides. Consequently, according to him, Plato’s response is oblique. From one point of view, Plato can agree with Parmenides, while from another he is in disagreement; but from the standpoint of Parmenides himself, Plato’s criticism is irrelevant or unanswerable. By contrast, my reading is straightforward: Plato tackles the same philosophical difficulty that Parmenides faces, and criticises him so forcefully in order to secure the possibility of logos and philosophy.

In this paper, I present my arguments against O’Brien’s criticisms, first by focusing on the key text, secondly by reconsidering Plato’s strategy, and finally in respect of philosophical interpretation.(9)" (p. 170)

(8) O’Brien (2000), 56, 68–75, 79, 84, 93–94, 96, takes up and criticises my 1999 (esp. pp. 173–179).

(9) I have also discussed Plato’s argument on what is not, in Notomi (forthcoming).

References

Notomi, N. (1999), The Unity of Plato’s Sophist: between the sophist and the philosopher, Cambridge.

Notomi, N. (forthcoming), ‘Plato on what is not’, D. Scott ed., Maieusis: Festschrift for Myles Burnyeat, Oxford. [2007]

O'Brien D. (2000), ‘Parmenides and Plato on what is not’, M. Kardaun and J. Spruyt eds., The Winged Chariot, Collected Essays on Plato and Platonism in Honour of L.M. de Rijk, Leiden: 19–104.
———. 2011. "Where is the Philosopher? A single project of the Sophist and the Statesman." In Formal Structures in Plato's Dialogues: Theaetetus, Sophist and Statesman, edited by Lisi, Francesco Leonardo, Migliori, Maurizio and Monserrat-Molas, Josep, 216–236. Sankt Augustin: Academia Verlag.
———. 2011. "Dialectic as Ars combinatoria: Plato's Notion of Philosophy in the Sophist." In Plato's Sophist: Proceedings of the Seventh Symposium Platonicum Pragense, edited by Havlíček, Aleš and Karfík, Filip, 146–195. Praha: Oikoymenh.
———. 2011. "Image-Making in Republic X and the Sophist. Plato’s Criticism of the Poet and the Sophist." In Plato and the Poets, edited by Destrée, Pierre and Herrmann, Fritz-Gregor, 299–326. Leiden: Brill.

"The famous phrase, ‘the ancient quarrel between philosophy and poetry’ (Rep. X, 607b), represents Plato’s critical attitude towards poetry. However, this phrase might mislead us, the modern readers, in multiple ways.

I believe it as yet a matter in need of clarification what the real target of Plato’s criticism is and how he deals with it. To re-examine his treatment of poetry reveals how Plato conceptualizes his own pursuit, namely philosophy, in contrast to its rivals." (p. 299)

(...)

"The Sophist is the later dialogue which finally defines the sophist as ‘the imitator (mimêtês) of the wise’ (Soph. 268c). While this dialogue does not deal with a poet or poetry in a direct way, it nevertheless examines the foundation of Plato’s earlier criticism of poetry in Republic X: namely the ontological basis of the art of image-making. Plato’s implicit intention can be seen in remarkable correspondences between the two dialogues."

(...)

"Republic X presents the ontological argument to criticise the poet; poetry is treated as a special kind of making, i.e. image-making or imitation.

In a parallel way, the Sophist defines the sophist as a specific kind of making, i.e. image-making and apparition-making in particular. Finally we should consider some differences between the two treatments of image-making.

First of all, while, as we saw in the previous section, the Sophist confronts the difficult challenge concerning the problematic notions of ‘image’ and ‘making’, the Republic does not seem to worry about such a metaphysical danger. Whereas the Sophist clarifies the concept of image in the course of defining the sophist, the Republic simply uses it." (p. 324, notes omitted)
———. 2017. "Reconsidering the Relations between the Statesman, the Philosopher, and the Sophist." In Plato’s Statesman: Dialectic, Myth, and Politics, edited by Sallis, John, 183–195. Albany: State University of New York Press.

"In the opening conversation of the Sophist, Socrates (just before the trial in 399 BC) raises a crucial problem about the philosopher: how to distinguish between three kinds of people, a philosopher, a sophist, and a statesman." (p. 184)

(...)

"From this initial problem, the Sophist first engages in definition of the sophist and finally clarifies what the sophist is. The Statesman next discusses and defines the statesman." (p. 184)

(...)

"In the Sophist, the philosopher surprisingly appears in the middle of the inquiry. When the art of discerning combinations and separations of kinds is discussed, the Eleatic Visitor abruptly suggests that they may have come across the philosopher before finding the sophist (253c), and he gives a description of the art of dialectic, which belongs to philosophy. However, when he says that they will see the philosopher more clearly if they wish (254b), this is far from clear indication of a plan for another dialogue.

Rather, it is more important that the inquirers may have encountered the philosopher already in search for the sophist; for they are like two sides of one coin, or, more precisely, the original and its image." (p. 185)

The Sophist does not present the definition of the philosopher, but it finally shows the philosopher through definition of the sophist in three ways (11):

(1) First, since each feature of the sophist illuminates its opposite characteristic, the definitions of the sophist show what the philosopher should be. In addition to the contrast between apparition making (φανταστική) and likeness making (εἰκαστική), which we shall see, the sophist is characterized as “ironical” in consciously concealing his ignorance (267e–268a), while the philosopher sincerely admits it.

(2) Second, the inquiry into the sophist discusses dialectic (διαλεκτική), the art of the philosopher, in the middle part of the dialogue. The inquirers actually practice and demonstrate dialectical arguments, and thereby show what philosophers should do.

(3) Third, the project of the whole dialogue, namely, to define the sophist and thereby to show the philosopher, is itself a pre-eminent task of the philosopher. In this way, the Sophist represents the philosopher in stark contrast to the sophist. As for the problematic sixth definition, the “sophist of noble lineage” eventually turns out to represent more Socrates than the sophist." (pp. 185, 186 a note omitted)

(11) Cf. Notomi, The Unity of Plato’s Sophist, 296–301.
———. 2021. "Images and Imagination in Plato’s Republic and Sophist." The Journal of Greco-Roman Studies no. 60:12–31.

Abstract: "Images are familiar to us, but if asked what they are, philosophical difficulties emerge. This paper examines how Plato dealt with the difficultiesconcerning images.

Plato faced the basic question about the image because the Sophist insists that images do not exist, based on the Parmenidean prohibition of combination between what is and what is not, in the Sophist. This treatment of images should be considered along with the Republic because the Sophistic counterattack in the Sophist is closely related to the critical treatment of images in the Republic, and we can detect the Parmenidean backgrounds in these two dialogues.

In these dialogues, Plato treated the notion of the image in two ways. First, the image is not simply an inferior entity but a transforming factor. Images guide philosophical inquiry by visualising the target of discussion. Second, by distinguishing between true and false images, we can investigate the truth by means of the former. To consider the role that images play in philosophical inquiry, this paper discusses three examples: two are from the Republic and one is from the Sophist. Firstly, two opposite figures, one of the most just and the other of the most unjust, are presented by Glaucon in Republic II. They serve as a model of opposite personality for considering what justice and injustice are. Secondly, the Ideal City is depicted in words, in Republic V, as a model of the Form of justice. Thirdly, the Sophist of Noble Lineage, in the Sophist, shows that the same image appears differently to different observers. From an improper point of view, this person looked like a sophist at first, but at the final examination, it turned out to be a philosopher.

Thus, this paper shows the correct philosophical attitude towards images.

If the Sophist rejects the existence of images and attempt to undo the distinctions between the original and the image and between true and false images, philosophical inquirers should prove the existence of images and try to distinguish between true and false images to contemplate the original, that is, reality. Thus, the correct use of images will make us philosophers."
———. 2024. "Similarities between the Sophist and the Philosopher." In Plato’s Sophist: Selected Papers of the Thirteenth Symposium Platonicum, edited by Luc, Brisson, Edward, Halper and Richard, Perry, 39–54.

Abstract: "Plato’s Sophist primarily addresses the most important question, ‘What is a sophist?’ The difference between a sophist and a philosopher is hardly obvious, and in this dialogue, Plato attempts to resolve the problem of how to dissociate the sophist from the philosopher by raising a fundamental question about the similarity between the two. This paper revisits this problematized notion of similarity and proposes a further reflection on this issue. First, I carefully examine the initial exchange between Theodorus and Socrates, which focuses on the various images of philosopher, especially in relation to the Phaedrus. The allusions to the Phaedrus point to the real issue of the confusion of philosopher and god. Next, in the first outer part of the dialogue, when six definitions are completed, the Eleatic visitor points out the slippery nature of the concept of similarity. This theme is related to the rhetoric of the sophist, discussed in the Phaedrus. I suggest that the problem of similarity has already been examined in the Parmenides, which offers important suggestions on how to understand ‘similar’ as affection that participates in ‘the same’. In the Sophist, this consideration suggests that the art of dialectic, by dealing with sameness and difference, can distinguish between similarity and dissimilarity. It is on this basis that the sophist and the philosopher are ultimately distinguished in relation to god in the second outer part. Finally, I suggest that the sophist and the philosopher are distinguished at three levels: theoretical, performative, and philosophical. The dialogue Sophist aims to make us, the readers of the dialogue, true philosophers, by confronting the ‘sophist within us’."

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