Sophist

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.