Sophist

Theo. According to our yesterday’s agreement, Socrates, we have come ourselves, as we were bound to do, and we bring also this man with us; he is a stranger from Elea, one of the followers of Parmenides and Zeno, and a real philosopher.

Soc. Are you not unwittingly bringing, as Homer says, some god, and no mere stranger, Theodorus? He says that the gods, and especially the god of strangers, enter into companionship with men who have a share of due reverence [*](A modified quotation from Hom. Od. 9.271; Hom. Od. 17.485-7) and that they behold the deeds, both violent and righteous, [*](Cf. Od. 17.485-7) of mankind. So perhaps this companion of yours may be one of the higher powers, who comes to watch over and refute us because we are worthless in argument—a kind of god of refutation.

Theo. No, Socrates, that is not the stranger’s character; he is more reasonable than those who devote themselves to disputation. And though I do not think he is a god at all, I certainly do think he is divine, for I give that epithet to all philosophers.

Soc. And rightly, my friend. However, I fancy it is not much easier, if I may say so, to recognize this class, than that of the gods. For these men—I mean those who are not feignedly but really philosophers—appear disguised in all sorts of shapes, [*](Cf. Hom. Od. 17.485-7.) thanks to the ignorance of the rest of mankind, and

visit the cities,

Theo. What matters do you mean?

Soc. Sophist, statesman, philosopher.

Theo. What particular difficulty and what kind of difficulty in regard to them is it about which you had in mind to ask?

Soc. It is this: Did they consider all these one, or two, or, as there are three names, did they divide them into three classes and ascribe to each a class, corresponding to a single name?

Theo. I think he has no objection to talking about them. What do you say, stranger?

Str. Just what you did, Theodorus; for I have no objection, and it is not difficult to say that they considered them three. But it is no small or easy task to define clearly the nature of each.

Theo. The fact is, Socrates, that by chance you have hit upon a question very like what we happened to be asking him before we came here; and he made excuses to us then, as he does now to you; though he admits that he has heard it thoroughly discussed and remembers what he heard.

Soc. In that case, stranger, do not refuse us the first favor we have asked; but just tell us this: Do you generally prefer to expound in a long uninterrupted speech of your own whatever you wish to explain to anyone, or do you prefer the method of questions? I was present once when Parmenides employed the latter method and carried on a splendid discussion. I was a young man then, and he was very old.

Str. The method of dialogue, Socrates, is easier with an interlocutor who is tractable and gives no trouble; but otherwise I prefer the continuous speech by one person.

Soc. Well, you may choose whomever you please of those present; they will all respond pleasantly to you; but if you take my advice you will choose one of the young fellows, Theaetetus here, or any of the others who suits you.

Str. Socrates, this is the first time I have come among you, and I am somewhat ashamed, instead of carrying on the discussion by merely giving brief replies to your questions, to deliver an extended, long drawn out speech, either as an address of my own or in reply to another, as if I were giving an exhibition; but I must, for really the present subject is not what one might expect from the form of the question, but is a matter for very long speech. On the other hand it seems unfriendly and discourteous to refuse a favor to you and these gentlemen, especially when you have spoken as you did. As for Theaetetus I accept him most willingly as interlocutor in view of my previous conversation with him and of your present recommendation.

Theaet. But, stranger, by taking this course and following Socrates’s suggestion will you please the others too?

Str. I am afraid there is nothing more to be said about that, Theaetetus; but from now on, my talk will, I fancy, be addressed to you. And if you get tired and are bored by the length of the talk, do not blame me, but these friends of yours.

Theaet. Oh, no, I do not think I shall get tired of it so easily, but if such a thing does happen, we will call in this Socrates, the namesake of the other Socrates; he is of my own age and my companion in the gymnasium, and is in the habit of working with me in almost everything.

Str. Very well; you will follow your own devices about that as the discussion proceeds; but now you and I must investigate in common, beginning first, as it seems to me, with the sophist, and must search out and make plain by argument what he is. For as yet you and I have nothing in common about him but the name; but as to the thing to which we give the name, we may perhaps each have a conception of it in our own minds; however, we ought always in every instance to come to agreement about the thing itself by argument rather than about the mere name without argument. But the tribe which we now intend to search for, the sophist, is not the easiest thing in the world to catch and define, and everyone has agreed long ago that if investigations of great matters are to be properly worked out we ought to practice them on small and easier matters before attacking the very greatest. So now, Theaetetus, this is my advice to ourselves, since we think the family of sophists is troublesome and hard to catch, that we first practise the method of hunting in something easier, unless you perhaps have some simpler way to suggest.

Theaet. I have not.

Str. Then shall we take some lesser thing and try to use it as a pattern for the greater?

Theaet. Yes.

Str. Well, then, what example can we set before us which is well known and small, but no less capable of definition than any of the greater things? Say an angler; is he not known to all and unworthy of any great interest?

Theaet. Yes.

Str. But I hope he offers us a method and is capable of a definition not unsuitable to our purpose.

Theaet. That would be good.

Str. Come now; let us begin with him in this way: Tell me, shall we say that he is a man with an art, or one without an art, but having some other power?

Theaet. Certainly not one without an art.

Str. But of all arts there are, speaking generally, two kinds?

Theaet. How so?

Str. Agriculture and all kinds of care of any living beings, and that which has to do with things which are put together or molded (utensils we call them), and the art of imitation—all these might properly be called by one name.

Theaet. How so, and what is the name?

Str. When anyone brings into being something which did not previously exist, we say that he who brings it into being produces it and that which is brought into being is produced.

Theaet. Certainly.

Str. Now all the arts which we have just mentioned direct their energy to production.

Theaet. Yes, they do.

Str. Let us, then, call these collectively the productive art.

Theaet. Agreed.

Str. And after this comes the whole class of learning and that of acquiring knowledge, and money making, and fighting, and hunting. None of these is creative, but they are all engaged in coercing, by deeds or words, things which already exist and have been produced, or in preventing others from coercing them; therefore all these divisions together might very properly be called acquisitive art.

Theaet. Yes, that would be proper.

Str. Then since acquisitive and productive art comprise all the arts, in which, Theaetetus, shall we place the art of angling?

Theaet. In acquisitive art, clearly.

Str. And are there not two classes of acquisitive art—one the class of exchange between voluntary agents by means of gifts and wages and purchases, and the other, which comprises all the rest of acquisitive art, and, since it coerces either by word or deed, might be called coercive?

Theaet. It appears so, at any rate, from what you have said.

Str. Well then, shall we not divide coercive art into two parts?

Theaet. In what way?

Str. By calling all the open part of it fighting and all the secret part hunting.

Theaet. Yes.

Str. But it would be unreasonable not to divide hunting into two parts.

Theaet. Say how it can be done.

Str. By dividing it into the hunting of the lifeless and of the living.

Theaet. Certainly, if both exist.

Str. Of course they exist. And we must pass over the hunting of lifeless things, which has no name, with the exception of some kinds of diving and the like, which are of little importance; but the hunting of living things we will call animal-hunting.

Theaet. Very well.

Str. And two classes of animal-hunting might properly be made, one (and this is divided under many classes and names) the hunting of creatures that go on their feet, land-animal hunting, and the other that of swimming creatures, to be called, as a whole, water-animal hunting?

Theaet. Certainly.

Str. And of swimming creatures we see that one tribe is winged and the other is in the water?

Theaet. Of course.

Str. And the hunting of winged creatures is called, as a whole, fowling.

Theaet. It is.

Str. And the hunting of water creatures goes by the general name of fishing.

Theaet. Yes.

Str. And might I not divide this kind of hunting into two principal divisions?

Theaet. What divisions?

Str. The one carries on the hunt by means of enclosures merely, the other by a blow.

Theaet. What do you mean, and how do you distinguish the two?

Str. As regards the first, because whatever surrounds anything and encloses it so as to constrain it is properly called an enclosure.

Theaet. Certainly.

Str. May not, then, wicker baskets and seines and snares and nets and the like be called enclosures?

Theaet. Assuredly.

Str. Then we will call this division hunting by enclosures, or something of that sort.

Theaet. Yes.

Str. And the other, which is done with a blow, by means of hooks and three pronged spears, we must now—to name it with a single word— call striking; or could a better name be found, Theaetetus?

Theaet. Never mind the name; that will do well enough.

Str. Then the kind of striking which takes place at night by the light of a fire is, I suppose, called by the hunters themselves fire-hunting.

Theaet. To be sure.

Str. And that which belongs to the daytime is, as a whole, barb-hunting, since the spears, as well as the hooks, are tipped with barbs.

Theaet. Yes, it is so called.

Str. Then of striking which belongs to barb-hunting, that part which proceeds downward from above, is called, because tridents are chiefly used in it, tridentry, I suppose.

Theaet. Yes, some people, at any rate, call it so.

Str. Then there still remains, I may say, only one further kind.

Theaet. What is that?

Str. The kind that is characterized by the opposite sort of blow, which is practised with a hook and strikes, not any chance part of the body of the fishes, as tridents do, but only the head and mouth of the fish caught, and proceeds from below upwards, being pulled up by twigs and rods. By what name, Theaetetus, shall we say this ought to be called?

Theaet. I think our search is now ended and we have found the very thing we set before us a while ago as necessary to find.

Str. Now, then, you and I are not only agreed about the name of angling, but we have acquired also a satisfactory definition of the thing itself. For of art as a whole, half was acquisitive, and of the acquisitive, half was coercive, and of the coercive, half was hunting, and of hunting, half was animal hunting, and of animal hunting, half was water hunting, and, taken as a whole, of water hunting the lower part was fishing, and of fishing, half was striking, and of striking, half was barb-hunting, and of this the part in which the blow is pulled from below upwards at an angle [*](Plato’s etymology—ἀσπαλιευτική from ἀνασπᾶσθαι— is hardly less absurd than that suggested in the translation. The words at an angle are inserted merely to give a reason In English for the words which follow them.) has a name in the very likeness of the act and is called angling, which was the object of our present search.

Theaet. That at all events has been made perfectly clear.

Str. Come, then, let us use this as a pattern and try to find out what a sophist is.

Theaet. By all means.

Str. Well, then, the first question we asked was whether we must assume that the angler was just a man or was a man with an art.

Theaet. Yes.

Str. Now take this man of ours, Theaetetus. Shall we assume that he is just a man, or by all means really a man of wisdom?

Theaet. Certainly not just a man; for I catch your meaning that he is very far from being wise, although his name implies wisdom.

Str. But we must, it seems, assume that he has an art of some kind.

Theaet. Well, then, what in the world is this art that he has?

Str. Good gracious! Have we failed to notice that the man is akin to the other man?

Theaet. Who is akin to whom?

Str. The angler to the sophist.

Theaet. How so?

Str. They both seem clearly to me to be a sort of hunters.

Theaet. What is the hunting of the second? We have spoken about the first.

Str. We just now divided hunting as a whole into two classes, and made one division that of swimming creatures and the other that of land-hunting.

Theaet. Yes.

Str. And the one we discussed, so far as the swimming creatures that live in the water are concerned; but we left the land-hunting undivided, merely remarking that it has many forms.

Theaet. Certainly.

Str. Now up to that point the sophist and the angler proceed together from the starting-point of acquisitive art.

Theaet. I think they do.

Str. But they separate at the point of animal-hunting, where the one turns to the sea and rivers and lakes to hunt the animals in those.

Theaet. To be sure.

Str. But the other turns toward the land and to rivers of a different kind—rivers of wealth and youth, bounteous meadows, as it were—and he intends to coerce the creatures in them.

Theaet. What do you mean?

Str. Of land-hunting there are two chief divisions.

Theaet. What are they?

Str. One is the hunting of tame, the other of wild creatures.

Theaet. Is there, then, a hunting of tame creatures?

Str. Yes, If man is a tame animal; but make any assumption you like, that there is no tame animal, or that some other tame animal exists but man is a wild one or that man is tame but there is no hunting of man. For the purpose of our definition choose whichever of these statements you think is satisfactory to you.

Theaet. Why, Stranger, I think we are a tame animal, and I agree that there is a hunting of man.

Str. Let us, then, say that the hunting of tame animals is also of two kinds.

Theaet. How do we justify that assertion?

Str. By defining piracy, man-stealing, tyranny, and the whole art of war all collectively as hunting by force.

Theaet. Excellent.

Str. And by giving the art of the law courts, of the public platform, and of conversation also a single name and calling them all collectively an art of persuasion.

Theaet. Correct.

Str. Now let us say that there are two kinds of persuasion.

Theaet. What kinds?

Str. The one has to do with private persons, the other with the community.

Theaet. Granted; each of them does form a class.

Str. Then again of the hunting of private persons one kind receives pay, and the other brings gifts, does it not?

Theaet. I do not understand.

Str. Apparently you have never yet paid attention to the lovers’ method of hunting.

Theaet. In what respect?

Str. That in addition to their other efforts they give presents to those whom they hunt.

Theaet. You are quite right.

Str. Let us, then, call this the amatory art.

Theaet. Agreed.

Str. But that part of the paid kind which converses to furnish gratification and makes pleasure exclusively its bait and demands as its pay only maintenance, we might all agree, if I am not mistaken, to call the art of flattery or of making things pleasant.

Theaet. Certainly.

Str. But the class which proposes to carry on its conversations for the sake of virtue and demands its pay in cash—does not this deserve to be called by another name?

Theaet. Of course.

Str. And what is that name? Try to tell.

Theaet. It is obvious; for I think we have discovered the sophist. And therefore by uttering that word I think I should give him the right name.

Str. Then, as it seems, according to our present reasoning, Theaetetus, the part of appropriative, coercive, hunting art which hunts animals, land animals, tame animals, man, privately, for pay, is paid in cash, claims to give education, and is a hunt after rich and promising youths, must—so our present argument concludes—be called sophistry.

Theaet. Most assuredly.

Str. But let us look at it in still another way; for the class we are now examining partakes of no mean art, but of a very many-sided one. And we must indeed do so, for in our previous talk it presents an appearance of being, not what we now say it is, but another class.

Theaet. How so?

Str. The acquisitive art was of two sorts, the one the division of hunting, the other that of exchange.

Theaet. Yes, it was.

Str. Now shall we say that there are two sorts of exchange, the one by gift, the other by sale?

Theaet. So be it.

Str. And we shall say further that exchange by sale is divided into two parts.

Theaet. How so?

Str. We make this distinction—calling the part which sells a man’s own productions the selling of one’s own, and the other, which exchanges the works of others, exchange.

Theaet. Certainly.

Str. Well, then, that part of exchange which is carried on in the city, amounting to about half of it, is called retailing, is it not?

Theaet. Yes.

Str. And that which exchanges goods from city to city by purchase and sale is called merchandising?

Theaet. Certainly.

Str. And have we not observed that one part of merchandising sells and exchanges for cash whatever serves the body for its support and needs, and the other whatever serves the soul?

Theaet. What do you mean by that?

Str. Perhaps we do not know about the part that has to do with the soul; though I fancy we do understand the other division.

Theaet. Yes.

Str. Take, therefore, the liberal arts [*](The word μουσική, here rendered liberal arts, is much more inclusive than the English word music, designating, as it does, nearly all education and culture except the purely physical. In the Athens of Socrates’ day many, possibly most, of the teachers of music in this larger sense were foreigners, Greeks, of course, but not Athenians.) in general that constantly go about from city to city, bought in one place and carried to another and sold—painting, and conjuring, and the many other things that affect the soul, which are imported and sold partly for its entertainment and partly for its serious needs; we cannot deny that he who carries these about and sells them constitutes a merchant properly so called, no less than he whose business is the sale of food and drink.

Theaet. Very true.

Str. Then will you give the same name to him who buys up knowledge and goes about from city to city exchanging his wares for money?

Theaet. Certainly.

Str. One part of this soul-merchandising might very properly be called the art of display, might it not? But since the other part, though no less ridiculous than the first, is nevertheless a traffic in knowledge, must we not call it by some name akin to its business?

Theaet. Certainly.

Str. Now of this merchandising in knowledge the part which has to do with the knowledge of the other arts should be called by one name, and that which has to do with virtue by another.

Theaet. Of course.

Str. The name of art-merchant would fit the one who trades in the other arts, and now do you be so good as to tell the name of him who trades in virtue.

Theaet. And what other name could one give, without making a mistake, than that which is the object of our present investigation—the sophist?

Str. No other. Come then, let us now summarize the matter by saying that sophistry has appeared a second time as that part of acquisitive art, art of exchange, of trafficking, of merchandising, of soul-merchandising which deals in words and knowledge, and trades in virtue.

Theaet. Very well.

Str. But there is a third case: If a man settled down here in town and proposed to make his living by selling these same wares of knowledge, buying some of them and making others himself, you would, I fancy, not call him by any other name than that which you used a moment ago.

Theaet. Certainly not.

Str. Then also that part of acquisitive art which proceeds by exchange, and by sale, whether as mere retail trade or the sale of one’s own productions, no matter which, so long as it is of the class of merchandising in knowledge, you will always, apparently, call sophistry.

Theaet. I must do so, for I have to follow where the argument leads.

Str. Let us examine further and see if the class we are now pursuing has still another aspect, of similar nature.

Theaet. Of what nature?

Str. We agreed that fighting was a division of acquisitive art.

Theaet. Yes, we did.

Str. Then it is quite fitting to divide it into two parts.

Theaet. Tell what the parts are.

Str. Let us call one part of it the competitive and the other the pugnacious.

Theaet. Agreed.

Str. Then it is reasonable and fitting to give to that part of the pugnacious which consists of bodily contests some such name as violent.

Theaet. Yes.

Str. And what other name than controversy shall we give to the contests of words?

Theaet. No other.

Str. But controversy must be divided into two kinds.

Theaet. How?

Str. Whenever long speeches are opposed by long speeches on questions of justice and injustice in public, that is forensic controversy.

Theaet. Yes.

Str. But that which is carried on among private persons and is cut up into little bits by means of questions and their answers, we are accustomed to call argumentation, are we not?

Theaet. We are.

Str. And that part of argumentation which deals with business contracts, in which there is controversy, to be sure, but it is carried on informally and without rules of art—all that must be considered a distinct class, now that our argument has recognized it as different from the rest, but it received no name from our predecessors, nor does it now deserve to receive one from us.

Theaet. True; for the divisions into which it falls are too small and too miscellaneous.

Str. But that which possesses rules of art and carries on controversy about abstract justice and injustice and the rest in general terms, we are accustomed to call disputation, are we not?

Theaet. Certainly.

Str. Well, of disputation, one sort wastes money, the other makes money.

Theaet. Certainly.

Str. Then let us try to tell the name by which we must call each of these.

Theaet. Yes, we must do so.

Str. Presumably the kind which causes a man to neglect his own affairs for the pleasure of engaging in it, but the style of which causes no pleasure to most of his hearers, is, in my opinion, called by no other name than garrulity.

Theaet. Yes, that is about what it is called.

Str. Then the opposite of this, the kind which makes money from private disputes—try now, for it is your turn, to give its name.

Theaet. What other answer could one give without making a mistake, than that now again for the fourth time that wonderful being whom we have so long been pursuing has turned up—the sophist!

Str. Yes, and the sophist is nothing else, apparently, than the money-making class of the disputatious, argumentative, controversial, pugnacious, combative, acquisitive art, as our argument has now again stated.

Theaet. Certainly.

Str. Do you see the truth of the statement that this creature is many-sided and, as the saying is, not to be caught with one hand?

Theaet. Then we must catch him with both.

Str. Yes, we must, and must go at it with all our might, by following another track of his—in this way. Tell me; of the expressions connected with menial occupations some are in common use, are they not?

Theaet. Yes, many. But to which of the many does your question refer?

Str. To such as these: we say sift and strain and winnow and separate. [*](Apparently a term descriptive of some part of the process of weaving; cf. Plat. Crat. 338b.)

Theaet. Certainly.

Str. And besides these there are card and comb and beat the web and countless other technical terms which we know. Is it not so?

Theaet. Why do you use these as examples and ask about them all? What do you wish to show in regard to them?

Str. All those that I have mentioned imply a notion of division.

Theaet. Yes.

Str. Then since there is, accorling to my reckoning, one art involved in all of these operations, let us give it one name.

Theaet. What shall we call it?

Str. The art of discrimination.

Theaet. Very well.

Str. Now see if we can discover two divisions of this.

Theaet. You demand quick thinking, for a boy like me.

Str. And yet, in the instance of discrimination just mentioned there was, first, the separation of worse from better, and, secondly, of like from like.

Theaet. Yes, as you now express it, that is pretty clear.

Str. Now I know no common name for the second kind of discrimination; but I do know the name of the kind which retains the better and throws away the worse.

Theaet. What is it?

Str. Every such discrimination, as I think, is universally called a sort of purification.

Theaet. Yes, so it is.

Str. And could not anyone see that purification is of two kinds?

Theaet. Yes, perhaps, in time; but still I do not see it now.

Str. Still there are many kinds of purifications of bodies, and they may all properly be included under one name.

Theaet. What are they and what is the name?

Str. The purification of living creatures, having to do with impurities within the body, such as are successfully discriminated by gymnastics and medicine, and with those outside of the body, not nice to speak of, such as are attended to by the bath-keeper’s art; and the purification of inanimate bodies, which is the special care of the fuller’s art and in general of the art of exterior decoration; this, with its petty subdivisions, has taken on many names which seem ridiculous.

Theaet. Very.

Str. Certainly they do, Theaetetus. However, the method of argument is neither more nor less concerned with the art of medicine than with that of sponging, but is indifferent if the one benefits us little, the other greatly by its purifying. It endeavors to understand what is related and what is not related in all arts, for the purpose of acquiring intelligence; and therefore it honors them all equally and does not in making comparisons think one more ridiculous than another, and does not consider him who employs, as his example of hunting, the art of generalship, any more dignified than him who employs the art of louse-catching, but only, for the most part, as more pretentious. And now as to your question, what name we shall give to all the activities whose function it is to purify the body, whether animate or inanimate, it will not matter at all to our method what name sounds finest; it cares only to unite under one name all purifications of everything else and to keep them separate from the purification of the soul. For it has in our present discussion been trying to separate this purification definitely from the rest, if we understand its desire.

Theaet. But I do understand and I agree that there are two kinds of purification and that one kind is the purification of the soul, which is separate from that of the body.

Str. Most excellent. Now pay attention to the next point and try again to divide the term.

Theaet. In whatever way you suggest, I will try to help you in making the division.

Str. Do we say that wickedness is distinct from virtue in the soul?

Theaet. Of course.

Str. And purification was retaining the one and throwing out whatever is bad anywhere?

Theaet. Yes, it was.

Str. Hence whenever we find any removal of evil from the soul, we shall be speaking properly if we call that a purification.

Theaet. Very properly.

Str. We must say that there are two kinds of evil in the soul.

Theaet. What kinds?

Str. The one is comparable to a disease in the body, the other to a deformity.

Theaet. I do not understand.

Str. Perhaps you have not considered that disease and discord are the same thing?

Theaet. I do not know what reply I ought to make to this, either.

Str. Is that because you think discord is anything else than the disagreement of the naturally related, brought about by some corruption?

Theaet. No; I think it is nothing else.

Str. But is deformity anything else than the presence of the quality of disproportion, which is always ugly?

Theaet. Nothing else at all.

Str. Well then; do we not see that in the souls of worthless men opinions are opposed to desires, anger to pleasures, reason to pain, and all such things to one another?

Theaet. Yes, they are, decidedly.

Str. Yet they must all be naturally related.

Theaet. Of course.

Str. Then we shall be right if we say that wickedness is a discord and disease of the soul.

Theaet. Yes, quite right.

Str. But if things which partake of motion and aim at some particular mark pass beside the mark and miss it on every occasion when they try to hit it, shall we say that this happens to them through right proportion to one another or, on the contrary, through disproportion? [*](The connection between disproportion and missing the mark is not obvious. The explanation that a missile (e.g. an arrow) which is not evenly balanced will not fly straight, fails to take account of the words πρὸς ἄλληλα. The idea seems rather to be that moving objects of various sizes, shapes, and rates of speed must interfere with each other.)

Theaet. Evidently through disproportion.

Str. But yet we know that every soul, if ignorant of anything, is ignorant against its will.

Theaet. Very much so.

Str. Now being ignorant is nothing else than the aberration of a soul that aims at truth, when the understanding passes beside the mark.

Theaet. Very true.

Str. Then we must regard a foolish soul as deformed and ill-proportioned.

Theaet. So it seems.

Str. Then there are, it appears, these two kinds of evils in the soul, one, which people call wickedness, which is very clearly a disease.

Theaet. Yes.

Str. And the other they call ignorance, but they are not willing to acknowledge that it is vice, when it arises only in the soul.

Theaet. It must certainly be admitted, though I disputed it when you said it just now, that there are two kinds of vice in the soul, and that cowardice, intemperance, and injustice must all alike be considered a disease in us, and the widespread and various condition of ignorance must be regarded as a deformity.

Str. In the case of the body there are two arts which have to do with these two evil conditions, are there not?

Theaet. What are they?

Str. For deformity there is gymnastics, and for disease medicine.

Theaet. That is clear.

Str. Hence for insolence and injustice and cowardice is not the corrective art the one of all arts most closely related to Justice?

Theaet. Probably it is, at least according to the judgement of mankind.

Str. And for all sorts of ignorance is there any art it would be more correct to suggest than that of instruction?

Theaet. No, none.

Str. Come now, think. Shall we say that there is only one kind of instruction, or that there are more and that two are the most important?

Theaet. I am thinking.

Str. I think we can find out most quickly in this way.

Theaet. In what way?

Str. By seeing whether ignorance admits of being cut in two in the middle; for if ignorance turns out to be twofold, it is clear that instruction must also consist of two parts, one for each part of ignorance.

Theaet. Well, can you see what you are now looking for?

Str. I at any rate think I do see one large and grievous kind of ignorance, separate from the rest, and as weighty as all the other parts put together.

Theaet. What is it?

Str. Thinking that one knows a thing when one does not know it. Through this, I believe, all the mistakes of the mind are caused in all of us.

Theaet. True.

Str. And furthermore to this kind of ignorance alone the name of stupidity is given.

Theaet. Certainly.

Str. Now what name is to be given to that part of instruction which gets rid of this?

Theaet. I think, Stranger, that the other part is called instruction in handicraft, and that this part is here at Athens through our influence called education.

Str. And so it is, Theaetetus, among nearly all the Hellenes. But we must examine further and see whether it is one and indivisible or still admits of division important enough to have a name.

Theaet. Yes, we must see about that.

Str. I think there is still a way in which this also may be divided.

Theaet. On what principle?

Str. Of instruction in arguments one method seems to be rougher, and the other section smoother.

Theaet. What shall we call each of these?

Str. The venerable method of our fathers, which they generally employed towards their sons, and which many still employ, of sometimes showing anger at their errors and sometimes more gently exhorting them—that would most properly be called as a whole admonition.

Theaet. That is true.

Str. On the other hand, some appear to have convinced themselves that all ignorance is involuntary, and that he who thinks himself wise would never be willing to learn any of those things in which he believes he is clever, and that the admonitory kind of education takes a deal of trouble and accomplishes little.

Theaet. They are quite right.

Str. So they set themselves to cast out the conceit of cleverness in another way.

Theaet. In what way?

Str. They question a man about the things about which he thinks he is talking sense when he is talking nonsense; then they easily discover that his opinions are like those of men who wander, and in their discussions they collect those opinions and compare them with one another, and by the comparison they show that they contradict one another about the same things, in relation to the same things and in respect to the same things. But those who see this grow angry with themselves and gentle towards others, and this is the way in which they are freed from their high and obstinate opinions about themselves. The process of freeing them, moreover, affords the greatest pleasure to the listeners and the most lasting benefit to him who is subjected to it. For just as physicians who care for the body believe that the body cannot get benefit from any food offered to it until all obstructions are removed, so, my boy, those who purge the soul believe that the soul can receive no benefit from any teachings offered to it until someone by cross-questioning reduces him who is cross-questioned to an attitude of modesty, by removing the opinions that obstruct the teachings, and thus purges him and makes him think that he knows only what he knows, and no more.

Theaet. That is surely the best and most reasonable state of mind.

Str. For all these reasons, Theaetetus, we must assert that cross-questioning is the greatest and most efficacious of all purifications, and that he who is not cross-questioned, even though he be the Great King, has not been purified of the greatest taints, and is therefore uneducated and deformed in those things in which he who is to be truly happy ought to be most pure and beautiful.

Theaet. Perfectly true.

Str. Well then, who are those who practise this art? I am afraid to say the sophists.

Theaet. Why so?

Str. Lest we grant them too high a meed of honor.

Theaet. But the description you have just given is very like someone of that sort.

Str. Yes, and a wolf is very like a dog, the wildest like the tamest of animals. But the cautious man must be especially on his guard in the matter of resemblances, for they are very slippery things. However, let us agree that they are the sophists; for I think the strife will not be about petty discriminations when people are sufficiently on their guard.

Theaet. No, probably not.

Str. Then let it be agreed that part of the discriminating art is purification, and as part of purification let that which is concerned with the soul be separated off, and as part of this, instruction, and as part of instruction, education; and let us agree that the cross-questioning of empty conceit of wisdom, which has come to light in our present discussion, is nothing else than the true-born art of sophistry.

Theaet. Let us agree to all that; but the sophist has by this time appeared to be so many things that I am at a loss to know what in the world to say he really is, with any assurance that I am speaking the truth.

Str. No wonder you are at a loss. But it is fair to suppose that by this time he is still more at a loss to know how he can any longer elude our argument; for the proverb is right which says it is not easy to escape all the wrestler’s grips. So now we must attack him with redoubled vigor.

Theaet. You are right.

Str. First, then, let us stop to take breath and while we are resting let us count up the number of forms in which the sophist has appeared to us. First, I believe, he was found to be a paid hunter after the young and wealthy.

Theaet. Yes.

Str. And secondly a kind of merchant in articles of knowledge for the soul.

Theaet. Certainly.

Str. And thirdly did he not turn up as a retailer of these same articles of knowledge?

Theaet. Yes, and fourthly we found he was a seller of his own productions of knowledge.

Str. Your memory is good; but I will try to recall the fifth case myself. He was an athlete in contests of words, who had taken for his own the art of disputation.

Theaet. Yes, he was.

Str. The sixth case was doubtful, but nevertheless we agreed to consider him a purger of souls, who removes opinions that obstruct learning.

Theaet. Very true.

Str. Then do you see that when a man appears to know many things, but is called by the name of a single art, there is something wrong about this impression, and that, in fact, the person who labors under this impression in connexion with any art is clearly unable to see the common principle of the art, to which all these kinds of knowledge pertain, so that he calls him who possesses them by many names instead of one?

Theaet. Something like that is very likely to be the case.

Str. We must not let that happen to us in our search through lack of diligence. So let us first take up again one of our statements about the sophist. For there is one of them which seemed to me to designate him most plainly.

Theaet. Which was it?

Str. I think we said he was a disputer.

Theaet. Yes.

Str. And did we not also say that he taught this same art of disputing to others?

Theaet. Certainly.

Str. Now let us examine and see what the subjects are about which such men say they make their pupils able to dispute. Let us begin our examination at the beginning with this question: Is it about divine things which are invisible to others that they make people able to dispute?

Theaet. That is their reputation, at any rate.

Str. And how about the visible things of earth and heaven and the like?

Theaet. Those are included, of course.

Str. And furthermore in private conversations, when the talk is about generation and being in general, we know (do we not?) that they are clever disputants themselves and impart equal ability to others.

Theaet. Certainly.

Str. And how about laws and public affairs in general? Do they not promise to make men able to argue about those?

Theaet. Yes, for nobody, to speak broadly, would attend their classes if they did not make that promise.

Str. However in all arts jointly and severally what the professional ought to answer to every opponent is written down somewhere and published that he who will may learn.

Theaet. You seem to refer to the text-books of Protagoras on wrestling and the other arts.

Str. Yes, my friend, and to those of many other authors. But is not the art of disputation, in a word, a trained ability for arguing about all things?

Theaet. Well, at any rate, it does not seem to leave much out.

Str. For heaven’s sake, my boy, do you think that is possible? For perhaps you young people may look at the matter with sharper vision than our duller sight.

Theaet. What do you mean and just what do you refer to? I do not yet understand your question.

Str. I ask whether it is possible for a man to know all things.

Theaet. If that were possible, Stranger, ours would indeed be a blessed race.

Str. How, then, can one who is himself ignorant say anything worth while in arguing with one who knows?

Theaet. He cannot at all.

Str. Then what in the world can the magical power of the sophistical art be?

Theaet. Magical power in what respect?

Str. In the way in which they are able to make young men think that they themselves are in all matters the wisest of men. For it is clear that if they neither disputed correctly nor seemed to the young men to do so, or again if they did seem to dispute rightly but were not considered wiser on that account, nobody, to quote from you, [*](Cf. Plat. Theaet. 232d.) would care to pay them money to become their pupil in these subjects.

Theaet. Certainly not.

Str. But now people do care to do so?

Theaet. Very much.

Str. Yes, for they are supposed, I fancy, to have knowledge themselves of the things about which they dispute.

Theaet. Of course.

Str. And they do that about all things, do they not?

Theaet. Yes.

Str. Then they appear to their pupils to be wise in all things.

Theaet. To be sure.

Str. Though they are not; for that was shown to be impossible.

Theaet. Of course it is impossible.

Str. Then it is a sort of knowledge based upon mere opinion that the sophist has been shown to possess about all things, not true knowledge.

Theaet. Certainly; and I shouldn’t be surprised if that were the most accurate statement we have made about him so far.

Str. Let us then take a clearer example to explain this.

Theaet. What sort of an example?

Str. This one; and try to pay attention and to give a very careful answer to my question.

Theaet. What is the question?

Str. If anyone should say that by virtue of a single art he knew how, not to assert or dispute, but to do and make all things—

Theaet. What do you mean by all things?

Str. You fail to grasp the very beginning of what I said; for apparently you do not understand the word all.

Theaet. No, I do not.

Str. I mean you and me among the all, and the other animals besides, and the trees.

Theaet. What do you mean?

Str. If one should say that he would make you and me and all other created beings.

Theaet. What would he mean by making? Evidently you will not say that he means a husbandman; for you said he was a maker of animals also.

Str. Yes, and of sea and earth and heaven and gods and everything else besides; and, moreover, he makes them all quickly and sells them for very little.

Theaet. This is some joke of yours.

Str. Yes? And when a man says that he knows all things and can teach them to another for a small price in a little time, must we not consider that a joke?

Theaet. Surely we must.

Str. And is there any more artistic or charming kind of joke than the imitative kind?

Theaet. Certainly not; for it is of very frequent occurrence and, if I may say so, most diverse. Your expression is very comprehensive.

Str. And so we recognize that he who professes to be able by virtue of a single art to make all things will be able by virtue of the painter’s art, to make imitations which have the same names as the real things, and by showing the pictures at a distance will be able to deceive the duller ones among young children into the belief that he is perfectly able to accomplish in fact whatever he wishes to do.

Theaet. Certainly.

Str. Well then, may we not expect to find that there is another art which has to do with words, by virtue of which it is possible to bewitch the young through their ears with words while they are still standing at a distance from the realities of truth, by exhibiting to them spoken images of all things, so as to make it seem that they are true and that the speaker is the wisest of all men in all things?

Theaet. Why should there not be such another art?

Str. Now most of the hearers, Theaetetus, when they have lived longer and grown older, will perforce come closer to realities and will be forced by sad experience [*](Apparently a reference to a proverbial expression. Cf. Hes. WD 216 ἔγνω παθών; Herodotus, 1.207 τὰ παθήματα μαθήματα.) openly to lay hold on realities; they will have to change the opinions which they had at first accepted, so that what was great will appear small and what was easy, difficult, and all the apparent truths in arguments will be turned topsy-turvy by the facts that have come upon them in real life. Is not this true?

Theaet. Yes, at least so far as one of my age can judge. But I imagine I am one of those who are still standing at a distance.

Str. Therefore all of us elders here will try, and are now trying, to bring you as near as possible without the sad experience. So answer this question about the sophist: Is this now clear, that he is a kind of a juggler, an imitator of realities, or are we still uncertain whether he may not truly possess the knowledge of all the things about which he seems to be able to argue?

Theaet. How could that be, my dear sir? Surely it is pretty clear by this time from what has been said that he is one of those whose business is entertainment.

Str. That is to say, he must be classed as a juggler and imitator.

Theaet. Of course he must.

Str. Look sharp, then; it is now our business not to let the beast get away again, for we have almost got him into a kind of encircling net of the devices we employ in arguments about such subjects, so that he will not now escape the next thing.

Theaet. What next thing?

Str. The conclusion that he belongs to the class of conjurers.

Theaet. I agree to that opinion of him, too.

Str. It is decided, then, that we will as quickly as possible divide the image-making art and go down into it, and if the sophist stands his ground against us at first, we will seize him by the orders of reason, our king, then deliver him up to the king and display his capture. But if he tries to take cover in any of the various sections of the imitative art, we must follow him, always dividing the section into which he has retreated, until he is caught. For assuredly neither he nor any other creature will ever boast of having escaped from pursuers who are able to follow up the pursuit in detail and everywhere in this methodical way.

Theaet. You are right. That is what we must do.

Str. To return, then, to our previous method of division, I think I see this time also two classes of imitation, but I do not yet seem to be able to make out in which of them the form we are seeking is to be found.

Theaet. Please first make the division and tell us what two classes you mean.

Str. I see the likeness-making art as one part of imitation. This is met with, as a rule, whenever anyone produces the imitation by following the proportions of the original in length, breadth, and depth, and giving, besides, the appropriate colors to each part.

Theaet. Yes, but do not all imitators try to do this?