121 Plato, Sophist. p. 263 A. Θεαίτητος κάθηται … Θεαίτητος πέτεται.
122 Plato, Sophist. p. 263 B. λέγει δὲ αὐτῶν (τῶν λόγων of the two propositions) ὁ μὲν ἀληθὴς τὰ ὄντα, ὡς ἐστι περὶ σοῦ … Ὁ δὲ δὴ ψευδὴς ἕτερα τῶν ὄντων … Τὰ μὴ ὄντ’ ἄρα ὡς ὄντα λέγει … Ὄντων δέ γε ὄντα ἕτερα περὶ σοῦ. Πολλὰ μὲν γὰρ ἔφαμεν ὄντα περὶ ἕκαστον εἶναί που, πολλὰ δὲ οὐκ ὄντα.
123 Plato, Sophist. p. 263 D. Περὶ δὴ σοῦ λεγόμενα μέντοι θάτερα ὡς τὰ αὐτά, καὶ μὴ ὄντα ὡς ὄντα, παντάπασιν, ὡς ἔοικεν, ἡ τοιαύτη σύνθεσις ἔκ τε ῥημάτων γιγνομένη καὶ ὀνομάτων ὄντως τε καὶ ἀληθῶς γίγνεσθαι λόγος ψευδής.
It is plain that this explanation takes no account of negative propositions: it applies only to affirmative propositions.
Imperfect analysis of a proposition — Plato does not recognise the predicate.
The foregoing is Plato’s explanation of Non-Ens. Before we remark upon it, let us examine his mode of analysing a proposition. He conceives the proposition as consisting of a noun and a verb. The noun marks the logical subject, but he has no technical word equivalent to subject: his phrase is, that a proposition must be of something or concerning something. Then again, he not only has no word to designate the predicate, but he does not even seem to conceive the predicate as distinct and separable: it stands along with the copula embodied in the verb. The two essentials of a proposition, as he states them, are — That it should have a certain subject — That it should be of a certain quality, true or false.124 This conception is just, as far as it goes: but it does not state all which ought to be known about proposition, and it marks an undeveloped logical analysis. It indicates moreover that Plato, not yet conceiving the predicate as a distinct constituent, had not yet conceived the copula as such: and therefore that the substantive verb ἔστιν had not yet been understood by him in its function of pure and simple copula. The idea that the substantive verb when used in a proposition must mark existence or essence, is sufficiently apparent in several of his reasonings.
124 Since the time of Aristotle, the quality of a proposition has been understood to designate its being either affirmative or negative: that being formal, or belonging to its form only. Whether affirmative or negative, it may be true or false: and this is doubtless a quality, but belonging to its matter, not to its form. Plato seems to have taken no account of the formal distinction, negative or affirmative.
I shall now say a few words on Plato’s explanation of Non-Ens. It is given at considerable length, and was, in the judgment of Schleiermacher, eminently satisfactory to Plato himself. Some of Plato’s expressions125 lead me to suspect that his satisfaction was not thus unqualified: but whether he was himself satisfied or not, I cannot think that the explanation ought to satisfy others.
125 Plato, Sophistês, p. 259 A-B. Schleiermacher, Einleitung zum Sophistes, vol. iv. p. 134, of his translation of Plato.
Plato’s explanation of Non-Ens is not satisfactory — Objections to it.
Plato here lays down the position — That the word Not signifies nothing more than difference, with respect to that other word to which it is attached. It does not signify (he says) what is contrary; but simply what is different. Not-great, Not-beautiful — mean what is different from great or beautiful: Non-Ens means, not what is contrary to Ens, but simply what is different from Ens.
First, then, even if we admit that Non-Ens has this latter meaning and nothing beyond — yet when we turn to Plato’s own definition of Ens, we shall find it so all-comprehensive, that there can be absolutely nothing different from Ens:— these last words can have no place and no meaning. Plato defines Ens so as to include all that is knowable, conceivable, thinkable.126 One portion of this total differs from another: but there can be nothing which differs from it all. The Form or nature of Diversum (to use Plato’s phrase) as it is among the knowable or conceivable, is already included in the total of Ens, and comes into communion (according to the Platonic phraseology) with one portion of that total as against another portion. But with Ens as a whole, it cannot come into communion, for there is nothing apart from Ens. Whenever we try to think of any thing apart from Ens, we do by the act of thought include it in Ens, as defined by Plato. Different from great — different from white (i.e. not great, not white, sensu Platonico) is very intelligible: but Different from Ens, is not intelligible: there is nothing except the inconceivable and incomprehensible: the words professing to describe it, are mere unmeaning sound. Now this is just127 what Parmenides said about Non-Ens. Plato’s definition of Ens appears to me to make out the case of Parmenides about Non-Ens; and to render the Platonic explanation — different from Ens — open to quite as many difficulties, as those which attach to Non-Ens in the ordinary sense.
126 Plato, Sophist. pp. 247-248.
127 Compare Kratylus, 430 A.
Secondly, there is an objection still graver against Plato’s explanation. When he resolves negation into an affirmation of something different from what is denied, he effaces or puts out of sight one of the capital distinctions of logic. What he says is indeed perfectly true: Not-great, Not-beautiful, Non-Ens, are respectively different from great, beautiful, Ens. But this, though true, is only a part of the truth; leaving unsaid another portion of the truth which, while equally essential, is at the same time special and characteristic. The negative not only differs from the affirmative, but has such peculiar meaning of its own, as to exclude the affirmative: both cannot be true together. Not-great is certainly different from great: so also, white, hard, rough, just, valiant, &c, are all different from great. But there is nothing in these latter epithets to exclude the co-existence of great. Theætêtus is great — Theætêtus is white; in the second of these two propositions I affirm something respecting Theætêtus quite different from what I affirm in the first, yet nevertheless noway excluding what is affirmed in the first.128 The two propositions may both be true. But when I say — Theætêtus is dead — Theætêtus is not dead: here are two propositions which cannot both be true, from the very form of the words. To explain not-great, as Plato does, by saying that it means only something different from great,129 is to suppress this peculiar meaning and virtue of the negative, whereby it simply excludes the affirmative, without affirming any thing in its place. Plato is right in saying that not-great does not affirm the contrary of great, by which he means little.130 The negative does not affirm any thing: it simply denies. Plato seems to consider the negative as a species of affirmative:131 only affirming something different from what is affirmed by the term which it accompanies. Not-Great, Not-Beautiful, Not-Just — he declares to be Forms just as real and distinct as Great, Beautiful, Just: only different from these latter. This, in my opinion, is a conception logically erroneous. Negative stands opposed to affirmative, as one of the modes of distributing both terms and propositions. A purely negative term cannot stand alone in the subject of a proposition: Non-Entis nulla sunt prædicata — was the scholastic maxim. The apparent exceptions to this rule arise only from the fact, that many terms negative in their form have taken on an affirmative signification.
128 Proklus, in his Commentary on the Parmenidês (p. 281, p. 785, Stallbaum), says, with reference to the doctrine laid down by Plato in the Sophistês, ὅλως γὰρ αἱ ἀποθάσεις ἐγγονοί εἰσι τῆς ἑτερότητος τῆς νοερᾶς· διὰ τοῦτο γὰρ οὐχ ἵππος, ὅτι ἕτερον — καὶ διὰ τοῦτο οὐκ ἄνθρωπος, ὅτι ἄλλο.
Proklus here adopts and repeats Plato’s erroneous idea of the negative proposition and its function. When I deny that Caius is just, wise, &c., my denial does not intimate simply that I know him to be something different from just, wise; for he may have fifty different attributes, co-existent and consistent with justice and wisdom.
To employ the language of Aristotle (see a pertinent example, Physic. i. 8, 191, b. 15, where he distinguishes τὸ μὴ ὂν καθ’ αὑτὸ from τὸ μὴ ὂν κατὰ συμβεβηκός), we may say that it is not of the essence of the Different to deny or exclude that from which it is different: the Different may deny or exclude, but that is only by accident — κατὰ συμβεβηκός. Plato includes, in the essence of the Different, that which belongs to it only by accident.
Aristotle in more than one place distinguishes διαφορὰ from ἐναντίωσις — not always in the same language. In Metaphysic. I. p. 1055 a. 33, he considers that the root of all ἐναντίωσις is ἕξις and στέρησις, understood in the widest sense, i.e. affirmative and negative. See Bonitz, not. ad loc., and Waitz, ad Categor. p. 12, a. 26. The last portion of the treatise Περὶ Ἑρμηνείας was interpreted by Syrianus with a view to uphold Plato’s opinion here given in the Sophistes (Schol. ad Aristot. p. 136, a. 15 Brandis).
129 Plato, Sophist. p. 258 B. οὐκ ἐναντίον ἐκείνῳ σημαίνουσα, ἀλλὰ τοσοῦτον μόνον, ἕτερον ἐκείνου.
If we look to the Euthydêmus we shall see that this confusion between what is different from A, and what is incompatible with or exclusive of A, is one of the fallacies which Plato puts into the mouth of the two Sophists Euthydêmus and Dionysodôrus, whom he exhibits and exposes in that dialogue. Ἄλλο τι οὖν ἕτερος, ἦ δ’ ὅς (Dionysodorus), ὢν λίθου, οὐ λίθος εἶ; καὶ ἕτερος ὢν χρυσοῦ, οὐ χρυσὸς εἶ; Ἔστι ταῦτα. Οὐκοῦν καὶ ὁ Χαιρέδημος, ἔφη, ἕτερος ὢν πατρός, οὐκ ἂν πατὴρ εἴη; (Plat. Euthydem. p. 298 A).
130 Plato, Sophist. p. 257 B.
131 Plato, Sophist. pp. 257 E, 258 A.
Ὄντος δὴ πρὸς ὂν ἀντίθεσις, ὡς ἔοικ’, εἶναι ξυμβαίνει τὸ μὴ καλόν.…
Ὁμοίως ἄρα τὸ μὴ μέγα, καὶ τὸ μέγα αὐτὸ εἶναι λεκτέον.
Plato distinctly recognises here Forms or Ideas τῶν ἀποφάσεων, which the Platonists professed not to do, according to Aristotle, Metaphys. A. 990, b. 13 — see the instructive Scholia of Alexander, p. 565, a. Brandis.
Plato’s view of the negative is erroneous. Logical maxim of contradiction.
The view which Plato here takes of the negative deserves the greater notice, because, if it were adopted, what is called the maxim of contradiction would be divested of its universality. Given a significant proposition with the same subject and the same predicate, each taken in one and the same signification — its affirmative and its negative cannot both be true. But if by the negative, you mean to make a new affirmation, different from that contained in the affirmative — the maxim just stated cannot be broadly maintained as of universal application: it may or may not be valid, as the case happens to stand. The second affirmation may be, as a matter of fact, incompatible with the first: but this is not to be presumed, from the mere fact that it is different from the first: proof must be given of such incompatibility.
Examination of the illustrative propositions chosen by Plato — How do we know that one is true, the other false?
We may illustrate this remark by looking at the two propositions which Plato gives as examples of true and false. Theætêtus is sitting down — Theætêtus is flying. Both the examples are of affirmative propositions: and it seems clear that Plato, in all this reasoning, took no account of negative propositions: those which simply deny, affirming nothing. The second of these propositions (says Plato) affirms what is not, as if it were, respecting the subject But how do we know this to be so? In the form of the second proposition there is nothing to show it: there is no negation of any thing, but simply affirmation of a different positive attribute. Although it happens, in this particular case, that the two attributes are incompatible, and that the affirmation of the one includes the negation of the other — yet there is nothing in the form of either proposition to deny the other:— no formal incompatibility between them. Both are alike affirmative, with the same subject, but different predicates. These two propositions therefore do not serve to illustrate the real nature of the negative, which consists precisely in this formal incompatibility. The proper negative belonging to the proposition — Theætêtus is sitting down — would be, Theætêtus is not sitting down. Plato ought to maintain, if he followed out his previous argument, that Not-Sitting down is as good a Form as Sitting-down, and that it meant merely — Different from Sitting down. But instead of doing this Plato gives us a new affirmative proposition, which, besides what it affirms, conceals an implied negation of the first proposition. This does not serve to illustrate the purpose of his reasoning — which was to set up the formal negative as a new substantive attribute, different from its corresponding affirmative. As between the two, the maxim of contradiction applies: both cannot be true. But as between the two propositions given in Plato, that maxim has no application: they are two propositions with the same subject, but different predicates; which happen in this case to be, the one true, the other false — but which are not formally incompatible. The second is not false because it differs from the first; it has no essential connection with the first, and would be equally false, even if the first were false also.
The function of the negative is to deny. Now denial is not a species of affirmation, but the reversal or antithesis of affirmation: it nullifies a belief previously entertained, or excludes one which might otherwise be entertained, — but it affirms nothing. In particular cases, indeed, the denial of one thing may be tantamount to the affirmation of another: for a man may know that there are only two suppositions possible, and that to shut out the one is to admit the other. But this is an inference drawn in virtue of previous knowledge possessed and contributed by himself: another man without such knowledge would not draw the same inference, nor could he learn it from the negative proposition per se. Such then is the genuine meaning of the negative; from which Plato departs, when he tells us that the negative is a kind of affirmation, only affirming something different — and when he illustrates it by producing two affirmative propositions respecting the same subject, affirming different attributes, the one as matter of fact incompatible with the other.
Necessity of accepting the evidence of sense.
But how do we know that the first proposition — Theætêtus is sitting down — affirms what is:— and that the second proposition — Theætêtus is flying — affirms what is not? If present, our senses testify to us the truth of the first, and the falsehood of the second: if absent, we have the testimony of a witness, combined with our own past experience attesting the frequency of facts analogous to the one, and the non-occurrence of facts analogous to the other. When we make the distinction, then, — we assume that what is attested by sense or by comparisons and inductions from the facts of sense, is real, or is: and that what is merely conceived or imagined, without the attestation of sense (either directly or by way of induction), is not real, or is not. Upon this assumption Plato himself must proceed, when he takes it for granted, as a matter of course, that the first proposition is true, and the second false. But he forgets that this assumption contradicts the definition which, in this same dialogue,132 he had himself given of Ens — of the real or the thing that is. His definition was so comprehensive, as to include not only all that could be seen or felt, but also all that had capacity to be known or conceived by the mind: and he speaks very harshly of those who admit the reality of things perceived, but refuse to admit equal reality to things only conceived. Proceeding then upon this definition, we can allow no distinction as to truth or falsehood between the two propositions — Theætêtus is sitting down — Theætêtus is flying: the predicate of the second affirms what is, just as much as the predicate of the first: for it affirms something which, though neither perceived nor perceivable by sense, is distinctly conceivable and conceived by the mind. When Plato takes for granted the distinction between the two, that the first affirms what is, and the second what is not — he unconsciously slides into that very recognition of the testimony of sense (in other words, of fact and experience), as the certificate of reality, which he had so severely denounced in the opposing materialist philosophers: and upon the ground of which he thought himself entitled, not merely to correct them as mistaken, but to reprove them as wicked and impudent.133
132 Plato, Sophist. pp. 247 D-E, 248 D-E.
133 Plato, Sophist. p. 246 D.
Errors of Antisthenes — depended partly on the imperfect formal logic of that day.
I have thus reviewed a long discussion — terminating in a conclusion which appears to me unsatisfactory — of the meaning and function of the negative. I hardly think that Plato would have given such an explanation of it, if he had had the opportunity of studying the Organon of Aristotle. Prior to Aristotle, the principles and distinctions of formal logic were hardly at all developed; nor can we wonder that others at that time fell into various errors which Plato scornfully derides, but very imperfectly rectifies. For example, Antisthenes did not admit the propriety of any predication, except identical, or at most essential, predication: the word ἔστιν appeared to him incompatible with any other. But we perceive in this dialogue, that Plato also did not conceive the substantive verb as performing the simple function of copula in predication: on the contrary he distinguishes ἔστιν, as marking identity between subject and predicate — from μετέχει, as marking accidental communion between the two. Again, there were men in Plato’s day who maintained that Non-Ens (τὸ μὴ ὂν) was inconceivable and impossible. Plato, in refuting these philosophers, gives a definition of Ens (τὸ ὂν), which puts them in the right — fails in stating what the true negative is — and substitutes, in place of simple denial, a second affirmation to overlay and supplant the first.
Doctrine of the Sophistês — contradicts that of other Platonic dialogues.
To complete the examination of this doctrine of the Sophistês, respecting Non-Ens, we must compare it with the doctrine on the same subject laid down in other Platonic dialogues. It will be found to contradict, very distinctly, the opinion assigned by Plato to Sokrates both in the Theætêtus and in the fifth Book of the Republic:134 where Sokrates deals with Non-Ens in its usual sense as the negation of Ens: laying down the position that Non-Ens can be neither the object of the cognizing Mind, nor the object of the opining (δοξάζων) or cogitant Mind: that it is uncognizable and incogitable, correlating only with Non-Cognition or Ignorance. Now we find that this doctrine (of Sokrates, in Theætêtus and Republic) is the very same as that which is affirmed, in the Sophistês, to be taken up by the delusive Sophist: the same as that which the Eleate spends much ingenuity in trying to refute, by proving that Non-Ens is not the negation of Ens, but only that which differs from Ens, being itself a particular variety of Ens. It is also the same doctrine as is declared, both by the Eleate in the Sophistês and by Sokrates in the Theætêtus, to imply as an undeniable consequence, that the falsehood of any proposition is impossible. “A false proposition is that which speaks the thing that is not (τὸ μὴ ὄν). But this is an impossibility. You can neither know, nor think, nor speak, the thing that is not. You cannot know without knowing something: you cannot speak without speaking something (i. e. something that is).” Of this consequence — which is expressly announced as included in the doctrine, both by the Eleate in the Sophistês and by the Platonic Sokrates in the Theætêtus — no notice is taken in the Republic.135
134 Plato, Republic, v. pp. 477-478. Theætêt. pp. 188-189. Parmenidês, pp. 160 C, 163 C. Euthydêmus, p. 284 B-C.
Aristotle (De Interpretat. p. 21, a. 22) briefly expresses his dissent from an opinion, the same as what is given in the Platonic Sophistês — that τὸ μὴ ὄν is ὄν τι. He makes no mention of Plato, but Ammonius in the Scholia alludes to Plato (p. 129, b. 20, Schol. Bekk.).
We must note that the Eleate in the Sophistês states both opinions respecting τὸ μὴ ὄν: first that which he refutes — next that which he advances. The Scholiast may, therefore, refer to both opinions, as stated in the Sophistês, though one of them is stated only for the purpose of being refuted.
We may contrast with these views of Plato (in the Sophistês) respecting τὸ μὴ ὄν, as not being a negation τοῦ ὄντος, but simply a something ἕτερον τοῦ ὄντος, the different views of Aristotle about τὸ μὴ ὄν, set forth in the instructive Commentary of M. Ravaisson, Essai sur la Métaphysique d’Aristote, p. 360.
“Le non-être s’oppose à l’être, comme sa négation: ce n’est donc pas, non plus que l’être, une chose simple; et autant il y a de genres de l’être, autant il faut que le non-être ait de genres. Cependant l’opposition de l’être et du non-être, différente, en realité, dans chacune des catégories, est la même dans toutes par sa forme. Dans cette forme, le second terme n’exprime pas autre chose que l’absence du premier. Le rapport de l’être et du non-être consiste donc dans une pure contradiction: dernière forme à laquelle toute opposition doit se ramener.”
Aristotle seems to allude to the Sophistês, though not mentioning it by its title, in three passages of the Metaphysica — E. 1026, b. 14; K. 1064, b. 29; N. 1089, a. 5 (see the note of Bonitz on the latter passage) — perhaps also elsewhere (see Ueberweg, pp. 153-154). Plato replied in one way, Leukippus and Demokritus in another, to the doctrine of Parmenides, who banished Non-Ens as incogitable. Leukippus maintained that Non-Ens equivalent to τὸ κενόν, and that the two elements of things were τὸ πλῆρες and τὸ κενόν, for which he used the expressions δὲν and οὐδέν. Plato replied as we read in the Sophistês: thus both he and Leukippus tried in different ways to demonstrate a positive nature and existence for Non-Ens. See Aristot. Metaph. A. 985, b. 4, with the Scholia, p. 538, Brandis. The Scholiast cites Plato ἐν τῇ Πολιτείᾳ, which seems a mistake for ἐν τῷ Σοφίστῃ.
135 Socher (Ueber Platon’s Schriften, pp. 264-265) is upon this point more satisfactory than the other Platonic commentators. He points out — not only without disguise, but even with emphasis — the discrepancies and contradictions between the doctrines ascribed to the Eleate in the Sophistês, and those ascribed to Sokrates in the Republic, Phædon, and other Platonic dialogues. These are the main premisses upon which Socher rests his inference, that the Sophistês is not the composition of Plato. I do not admit his inference: but the premisses, as matters of fact, appear to me undeniable. Stallbaum, in his Proleg. to the Sophistês, p. 40 seq., attempts to explain away these discrepancies — in my opinion his remarks are obscure and unsatisfactory. Various other commentators, also holding the Sophistês to be a genuine work of Plato, overlook or extenuate these premisses, which they consider unfavourable to that conclusion. Thus Alkinous, in his Εἰσαγωγή, sets down the explanation of τὸ μὴ ὂν which is given in the Sophistês, as if it were the true and Platonic explanation, not adverting to what is said in the Republic and elsewhere (Alkin. c. 35, p. 189 in the Appendix Platonica annexed to the edition of Plato by K. F. Hermann). The like appears in the Προλεγόμενα τῆς Πλάτωνος φιλοσοφίας: c. 21, p. 215 of the same edition. Proklus, in his Commentary on the Parmenidês, speaks in much the same manner about τὸ μὴ ὂν — considering the doctrine advanced and defended by the Eleate in the Sophistês, to represent the opinion of Plato (p. 785 ed. Stallbaum; see also the Commentary of Proklus on the Timæus, b. iii. p. 188 E, 448 ed. Schneid.). So likewise Simplikius and the commentators on Aristotle, appear to consider it — see Schol. ad Aristotel. Physica, p. 332, a. 8, p. 333, b., 334, a., 343, a. 5. It is plain from these Scholia that the commentators were much embarrassed in explaining τὸ μὴ ὄν. They take the Sophistês as if it delivered Plato’s decisive opinion upon that point (Porphyry compares what Plato says in the Timæus, but not what he says in the Republic or in Theætêtus, p. 333, b. 25); and I think that they accommodate Plato to Aristotle, in such manner as to obscure the real antithesis which Plato insists upon in the Sophistês — I mean the antithesis according to which Plato excludes what is ἐναντίον τοῦ ὄντος and admits only what is ἕτερον τοῦ ὄντος.
Ritter gives an account (Gesch. der Philos. part ii. pp. 288-289) of Plato’s doctrine in the Sophistês respecting Non-Ens; but by no means an adequate account. K. F. Hermann also omits (Geschichte und System der Platonischen Philos. pp. 504-505-507) to notice the discrepancy between the doctrine of the Sophistês, and the doctrine of the Republic, and Theætêtus, respecting τὸ μὴ ὄν — though he pronounces elsewhere that the Republic is among the most indisputably positive of all Plato’s compositions (p. 536).
Again, the doctrine maintained by the Eleate in the Sophistês respecting Ens, as well as respecting Ideas or Forms, is in other ways inconsistent with what is laid down in other Platonic dialogues. The Eleate in the Sophistês undertakes to refute two different classes of opponents; first, the Materialists, of whom he speaks with derision and antipathy — secondly, others of very opposite doctrines, whom he denominates the Friends of Ideas or Forms, speaking of them in terms of great respect. Now by these Friends of Forms or Ideas, Schleiermacher conjectures that Plato intends to denote the Megaric philosophers. M. Cousin, and most other critics (except Ritter), have taken up this opinion. But to me it seems that Socher is right in declaring the doctrine, ascribed to these Friends of Ideas, to be the very same as that which is laid down by Plato himself in other important dialogues — Republic, Timæus, Phædon, Phædrus, Kratylus, &c. — and which is generally understood as that of the Platonic Ideas.136 In all these dialogues, the capital contrast and antithesis is that between Ens or Entia on one side, and Fientia (the transient, ever generated and ever perishing), on the other: between the eternal, unchangeable, archetypal Forms or Ideas — and the ever-changing flux of particulars, wherein approximative likeness of these archetypes is imperfectly manifested. Now it is exactly this antithesis which the Friends of Forms in the Sophistês are represented as upholding, and which the Eleate undertakes to refute.137 We shall find Aristotle, over and over again, impugning the total separation or demarcation between Ens and Fientia (εἴδη — γένεσις — χωριστά), both as the characteristic dogma, and the untenable dogma, of the Platonic philosophy: it is exactly the same issue which the Eleate in the Sophistês takes with the Friends of Forms. He proves that Ens is just as full of perplexity, and just as difficult to understand, as Non-Ens:138 whereas, in the other Platonic dialogues, Ens is constantly spoken of as if it were plain and intelligible. In fact, he breaks down the barrier between Ens and Fientia, by including motion, change, the moving or variable, among the world of Entia.139 Motion or Change belongs to Fieri; and if it be held to belong to Esse also (by recognising a Form or Idea of Motion or Change, as in the Sophistês), the antithesis between the two, which is so distinctly declared in other Platonic dialogues, disappears.140
136 Socher, p. 266; Schleiermacher, Einleitung zum Sophistes, p. 134; Cousin, Œuvres de Platon, vol. xi. 517, notes.
Schleiermacher gives this as little more than a conjecture; and distinctly admits that any man may easily suppose the doctrine ascribed to these Friends of Forms to be Plato’s own doctrine — “Nicht zu verwundern wäre es, wenn Mancher auf den Gedanken käme, Platon meinte hier sich selbst und seine eigene Lehre,” &c.
But most of the subsequent critics have taken up Schleiermacher’s conjecture (that the Megarici are intended), as if it were something proved and indubitable.
It is curious that while Schleiermacher thinks that the opinions of the Megaric philosophers are impugned and refuted in the Sophistês, Socher fancies that the dialogue was composed by a Megaric philosopher, not by Plato. Ueberweg (Aechtheit der Platon. Schr. pp. 275-277) points out as explicitly as Socher, the discrepancy between the Sophistês and several other Platonic dialogues, in respect to what is said about Forms or Ideas. But he draws a different inference: he infers from it a great change in Plato’s own opinion, and he considers that the Sophistês is later in its date of composition than those other dialogues which it contradicts. I think this opinion about the late composition of the Sophistês, is not improbable; but the premisses are not sufficient to prove it.
My view of the Platonic Sophistês differs from the elaborate criticism on it given by Steinhart (Einleitung zum Soph. p. 417 seq.) Moreover, there is one assertion in that Einleitung which I read with great surprise. Steinhart not only holds it for certain that the Sophistes was composed after the Parmenidês, but also affirms that it solves the difficulties propounded in the Parmenidês — discusses the points of difficulty “in the best possible way” (“in der wünschenwerthesten Weise” (pp. 470-471).
I confess I cannot find that the difficulties started in the Parmenidês are even noticed, much less solved, in the Sophistês. And Steinhart himself tells that the Parmenidês places us in a circle both of persons and doctrines entirely different from those of the Sophistês (p. 472). It is plain also that the other Platonic commentators do not agree with Steinhart in finding the Sophistês a key to the Parmenidês: for most of them (Ast, Hermann, Zeller, Stallbaum, Brandis, &c.) consider the Parmenidês to have been composed at a later date than the Sophistês (as Steinhart himself intimates; compare his Einleitung zum Parmenides, p. 312 seq.). Ueberweg, the most recent enquirer (posterior to Steinhart), regards the Parmenidês as the latest of all Plato’s compositions — if indeed it be genuine, of which he rather doubts. (Aechtheit der Platon. Schrift. pp. 182-183.)
M. Mallet (Histoire de l’École de Megare, Introd. pp. xl.-lviii., Paris, 1845) differs from all the three opinions of Schleiermacher, Ritter, and Socher. He thinks that the philosophers, designated as Friends of Forms, are intended for the Pythagoreans. His reasons do not satisfy me.
137 Plato, Sophist. pp. 246 B, 248 B. The same opinion is advanced by Sokrates in the Republic, v. p. 479 B-C. Phædon, pp. 78-79. Compare Sophist, p. 248 C with Symposion, p. 211 B. In the former passage, τὸ πάσχειν is affirmed of the Ideas: in the latter passage, τὸ πάσχειν μηδέν.
138 Plato, Sophist. p. 245 E. Yet he afterwards talks of τὸ λαμπρὸν τοῦ ὄντος ἀεὶ as contrasted with τὸ σκοτεινὸν τοῦ μὴ ὄντος, p. 254 A, which seems not consistent.
139 Plato, Sophist. p. 249 B. “Ipsæ ideæ per se simplices sunt et immutabiles: sunt æternæ, ac semper fuerunt ab omni liberæ mutatione,” says Stallbaum ad Platon. Republ. v. p. 476; see also his Prolegg. to the Parmenidês, pp. 39-40. This is the way in which the Platonic Ideas are presented in the Timæus, Republic, Phædon, &c., and the way in which they are conceived by the εἰδῶν φίλοι in the Sophistês, whom the Eleate seeks to confute.
Zeller’s chapter on Plato seems to me to represent not so much what we read in the separate dialogues, as the attempt of an able and ingenious man to bring out something like a consistent and intelligible doctrine which will do credit to Plato, and to soften down all the inconsistencies (see Philos. der Griech. vol. ii. pp. 394-415-429 ed. 2nd).
140 See a striking passage about the unchangeableness of Forms or Ideas in the Kratylus, p. 439 D-E; also Philêbus, p. 15.
In the Parmenidês (p. 132 D) the supposition τὰ εἴδη ἐστάναι ἐν τῇ φύσει is one of those set up by Sokrates and impugned by Parmenides. Nevertheless in an earlier passage of that dialogue Sokrates is made to include κίνησις and στάσις among the εἴδη (p. 129 E). It will be found, however, that when Parmenides comes to question Sokrates, What εἴδη do you recognise? attributes and subjects only (the latter with hesitation) are included: no such thing as actions, processes, events — τὸ ποιεῖν καὶ πάσχειν (p. 130). In Republic vii. 529 D, we find mention made of τὸ ὂν τάχος and ἡ οὖσα βραδύτης, which implies κίνησις as among the εἴδη. In Theætêt. pp. 152 D, 156 A, κίνησις is noted as the constituent and characteristic of Fieri — τὸ γιγνόμενον — which belongs to the domain of sensible perception, as distinguished from permanent and unchangeable Ens.
The persons whom Plato here attacks as Friends of Forms are those who held the same doctrine as Plato himself espouses in Phædon, Republic, &c.
If we examine the reasoning of the Eleate, in the Sophistês, against the persons whom he calls the Friends of Forms, we shall see that these latter are not Parmenideans only, but also Plato himself in the Phædon, Republic, and elsewhere. We shall also see that the ground, taken up by the Eleate, is much the same as that which was afterwards taken up by Aristotle against the Platonic Ideas. Plato, in most of his dialogues, declares Ideas, Forms, Entia, to be eternal substances distinct and apart from the flux and movement of particulars: yet he also declares, nevertheless, that particulars have a certain communion or participation with the Ideas, and are discriminated and denominated according to such participation. Aristotle controverts both these doctrines: first, the essential separation of the two, which he declares to be untrue: next, the participation or coming together of the two separate elements — which he declares to be an unmeaning fiction or poetical metaphor, introduced in order to elude the consequences of the original fallacy.141 He maintains that the two (Entia and Fientia — Universals and Particulars) have no reality except in conjunction and implication together; though they are separable by reason (λόγῳ χωριστὰ — τῷ εἰναι, χωριστά) or abstraction, and though we may reason about them apart, and must often reason about them apart.142 Now it is this implication and conjunction of the Universal with its particulars, which is the doctrine of the Sophistês, and which distinguishes it from other Platonic dialogues, wherein the Universal is transcendentalized — lodged in a separate world from particulars. No science or intelligence is possible (says the Eleate in the Sophistês) either upon the theory of those who pronounce all Ens to be constant and unchangeable, or upon that of those who declare all Ens to be fluent and variable. We must recognise both together, the constant and the variable, as equally real and as making up the totality of Ens.143 This result, though not stated in the language which Aristotle would have employed, coincides very nearly with the Aristotelian doctrine, in one of the main points on which Aristotle distinguishes his own teaching from that of his master.