Sophist

Str. Good; for perhaps later something else may occur to them and to us. As between them and us, then, let us asume that this is for the present agreed upon and settled.

Theaet. It is settled.

Str. Then let us go to the others, the friends of ideas; and do you interpret for us their doctrines also.

Theaet. I will.

Str. You distinguish in your speech between generation and being, do you not? [*](i.e., between the process of coming into existence and existence itself. It is difficult to determine exactly who the idealists are whose doctrines are here discussed. Possibly Plato is restating or amending some of his own earlier beliefs.)

Theaet. Yes, we do.

Str. And you say that with the body, by means of perception, we participate in generation, and with the soul, by means of thought, we participate in real being, which last is always unchanged and the same, whereas generation is different at different times.

Theaet. Yes, that is what we say.

Str. But, most excellent men, how shall we define this participation which you attribute to both? Is it not that of which we were just speaking?

Theaet. What is that?

Str. A passive or active condition arising out of some power which is derived from a combination of elements. Possibly, Theaetetus, you do not hear their reply to this, but I hear it, perhaps, because I am used to them.

Theaet. What is it, then, that they say?

Str. They do not concede to us what we said just now to the aboriginal giants about being.

Theaet. What was it?

Str. We set up as a satisfactory sort of definition of being, the presence of the power to act or be acted upon in even the slightest degree.

Theaet. Yes.

Str. It is in reply to this that they say generation participates in the power of acting and of being acted upon, but that neither power is connected with being.

Theaet. And is there not something in that?

Str. Yes, something to which we must reply that we still need to learn more clearly from them whether they agree that the soul knows and that being is known.

Theaet. They certainly assent to that.

Str. Well then, do you say that knowing or being known is an active or passive condition, or both? Or that one is passive and the other active? Or that neither has any share at all in either of the two?

Theaet. Clearly they would say that neither has any share in either; for otherwise they would be contradicting themselves.

Str. I understand; this at least is true, that if to know is active, to be known must in turn be passive. Now being, since it is, according to this theory, known by the intelligence, in so far as it is known, is moved, since it is acted upon, which we say cannot be the case with that which is in a state of rest.

Theaet. Right.