Image and Paradigm in Plato's Sophist

K. Ambuel David

Description

The Sophist sets out to explain what the sophist does by defining his art. But the sophist has no art. Plato lays out a challenging puzzle in metaphysics, the nature of philosophy, and the limitation of philosophy that is unraveled in this new and unconventional interpretation. The Sophist is presented now not as an artefact of the intellectual past or precursor of late 20th century philosophical theories, but as living philosophy. In a new translation and interpretation, this late dialogue is shown to be a defense of not a departure from Plato's metaphysics. The book is intended to provide a complete interpretation of Plato's Sophist as a whole. Central to the methodology adopted is the assumption that all elements of the dialogue to be understood must be understood in the context of the dialogue as a whole and in its relation to other works in the Platonic corpus.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie

Informations

• Publié par: Parmenides Publishing
• Date de parution: 15 juin 2007
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781930972520
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Also available from Parmenides Publishing:
PRE-SOCRATICS
By Being, It Is: The Thesis of Parmenides by N stor-Luis Cordero To Think Like God: Pythagoras and Parmenides. The Origins of Philosophy. Scholarly and Fully annotated edition by Arnold Hermann The Illustrated To Think Like God: Pythagoras and Parmenides. The Origins of Philosophy. Over 200 full color illustrations; by Arnold Hermann The Legacy of Parmenides: Eleatic Monism and Later Presocratic Thought by Patricia Curd Parmenides and the History of Dialectic: Three Essays by Scott Austin The Route of Parmenides: A new edition, revised, with four additional essays by Alexander P. D. Mourelatos
PLATO
God and Forms in Plato by Richard D. Mohr Image and Paradigm in Plato s Sophist by David Ambuel Interpreting Plato s Dialogues by J. Angelo Corlett The Philosopher in Plato s Statesman by Mitchell Miller Plato s Late Ontology: A Riddle Resolved by Kenneth M. Sayre Plato s Parmenides: A New Translation by Arnold Hermann and Sylvana Chrysakopoulou Plato s Universe by Gregory Vlastos
ARISTOTLE
One and Many in Aristotle s Metaphysics-Volume 1: Books Alpha-Delta by Edward C. Halper One and Many in Aristotle s Metaphysics-Volume 2: The Central Books by Edward C. Halper
ETHICS
Sentience and Sensibility: A Conversation about Moral Philosophy by Matthew R. Silliman
AUDIOBOOKS
The Iliad (unabridged) by Stanley Lombardo The Odyssey (unabridged) by Stanley Lombardo The Essential Homer by Stanley Lombardo The Essential Iliad by Stanley Lombardo
IMAGE PARADIGM IN PLATO S SOPHIST
IMAGE PARADIGM IN PLATO S SOPHIST
DAVID AMBUEL
PARMENIDES PUBLISHING Las Vegas Zurich Athens
2007 by Parmenides Publishing All rights reserved
Published 2007 Printed in the United States of America
ISBN-10: 1-930972-04-0 ISBN-13: 978-1-930972-04-9

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ambuel, David.
Image and paradigm in Plato s Sophist / David Ambuel.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
ISBN-13: 978-1-930972-04-9 (hardcover : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 1-930972-04-0 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Plato. Sophist. I. Plato. Sophist. English. II. Title.
B384.A43 2007 184-dc22
2007005040

1-888-PARMENIDES www.parmenides.com
to Patinya
( Tim. 37d)
CONTENTS
Preface
Introduction
PART ONE
Dramatic setting
Statement of the problem (216a-217b)
Paradigms (217b-219a)
Diaeresis: The method of division
Speusippus
Diaeresis in Aristotle
Diaeresis in the dialogues
Diaeresis in the Phaedrus
Diaeresis in the Statesman
Diaeresis in the Philebus
Preliminary summary of Platonic diaeresis
The angler (219a-221c)
Diaeresis in the Sophist
and (art and knack)
The attributes of sophistry
First definition: The sophist as hunter (221c-223b)
Second, third, and fourth definitions: The sophist as huckster (223c-224e)
Fifth definition: The sophist as verbal athlete (224e-226a)
Sixth definition: The sophist as educator (226a-231c)
A (opinionative knowledge) (231c-233d)
PART TWO
Images
The image-making art (233d-236c)
The vocabulary of imitation
(image)
(appearance)
(likeness)
The theory of participation
Image and imitation in the Sophist
Not-being (236d-239e)
Opposition
Not-being and images (239e-240c)
False opinion (240c-242b)
The more accurate analysis of being (242b-244d)
(what is)
The Sophist and the Parmenides
Whole and part (244d-246a)
The senses of being
Being and difference
The less accurate analysis of being (246a-248a)
The earth-born
(power)
The friends of the forms (248a-249d)
Recapitulation: The perplexity of being (249d-251a)
PART THREE
The modes of combination (251a-252e)
The definition of dialectic (252e-254b)
The communion of kinds (254b-255e)
The five greatest kinds, in outline
and
The definition of not-being (255e-257a)
The reductio ad absurdum
Kinds and forms
Oppositions again
False statement (259b-264b)
Being as truth
Truth and falsity, truth and ignorance
On saying, saying something, and saying something that is
Conclusion (264b-268a)
PART FOUR
Sophist translation
Appendix: On Owen and some others
Selected bibliography
PREFACE
Platonic dialectic was regarded by Aristotle more as a training tool than a philosophical method. Plato does not pretend to present a set of premises identified as known truths for a basis from which to derive true conclusions. Inevitably, the starting point for inquiry is an agreed-upon belief that appears, at least to one person, plausible.
The student of Plato will not find philosophical questions sorted into neat packages: a treatise on ethics, another on ontology, then epistemology and philosophy of mind in separate books. Nor will he or she find a uniformly direct and systematic method of inquiry into these questions. Myth and metaphor are employed alongside rational account, sequential argument next to argument by analogy, methodical discourse placed within carefully crafted dramatic settings, good arguments and bad arguments examined, assumptions clarified and assumptions hidden.
The Sophist is a rather technical piece. The myth and drama are at their minimum, and Plato introduces a set of plodding definitions that evolves into a discussion of terms of highest abstraction: being, rest, motion, sameness, otherness.
And yet it is not only a technical piece. This volume aims to give an interpretation of the Sophist as a whole, with sensitivity to its subtleties and implications. The philosophical commentary is followed by a translation. As R. E. Allen remarked on translating Plato, Plato, as a writer, stands with Shakespeare, but his translators do not, so this task is all but impossible. There have been several translations of the Sophist, and I have learned from them all. The goal here is not to add one to their number, but to add clarity to the interpretation. Those familiar with other interpretations will quickly apprehend that the reading presented here sets out with an approach distinct from many. The intent is not to make a definitive statement of doctrine; where there is such philosophical richness, there is no finality. Instead, the intent is to overcome the barriers that keep us from the Sophist s philosophical depths. As the Philebus states, discussing analysis and definition by divisions, when improperly done, is the cause of impasse; properly done, it is the entry to an open path. The Sophist presented here is not an artifact of our intellectual past or a notable historical point marking the ancestry of later developments; it is living philosophy.
The text used for this translation is the edition of Duke, Hicken, Nicoll, Robinson, and Strachan in the Oxford Classical Text (OCT) Series, alongside the earlier OCT text of Burnet. The text and philological notes by Campbell also proved very valuable.
I am very fortunate to have benefited from the assistance of many. Above all, I am especially grateful to R. E. Allen, to whom I am indebted in so many ways. His suggestions, questions, encouragement, and counsel, as well as his kindness and cherished friendship, have helped more than anything to bring this book about.
I am also very grateful to all others who, at various stages of the manuscript, have offered their thoughts and made helpful suggestions, including John Anton, Dougal Blyth, Luc Brisson, David J. Marshall Jr., John McCumber, Debra Nails, Apostolos Pierris, and David White. David Marshall in particular went over the entire manuscript with great care, corrected many errors and made many valuable suggestions. Gale Carr and the staff at Parmenides Publishing are treasures for their cheerful dedication and professionalism. I must also thank my students over the years, who have been an inspiration in most unexpected ways.
Finally, I could accomplish nothing without the indulgence, support, balance, and love of my entire family.
INTRODUCTION
Aristotle, Metaphysics 1028b
Early grammarians supplied a subtitle for the Sophist : about being, logical. Ancient though this description may be, it touches a critical issue in contemporary thought. The Sophist does discuss being, and plainly it is a work in logic: the dialogue distinguishes between nouns and verbs for the first time, and it concludes with an account of false statement. But does the logic derive from and hinge on the ontology? Or have questions about the metaphysics of being been overridden, to be rejected in favor of the interest in logical analysis and in the linguistic constitution of our world of experience? Must the ancient be made to yield to a modern , the battle of gods and giants over being supplanted by a battle over the copula?
The study that follows approaches the Sophist as a work of metaphysics. To say it is fundamentally metaphysical does not, of course, deny that the dialogue raises logical issues, but it does assert that the logic and grammar is embedded in the metaphysics. As is implied by the arguments of Parmenides and reaffirmed by Aristotle, in the Sophist , the law of contradiction is a law of being. It is in the first instance not a law of thought but a law of reality, rooted in the nature of things. And the Sophist is so structured that the success of the concluding analysis of truth and falsity is made to rest on the adequacy of the underlying ontology.
The Sophist is framed as an inquiry led by an Eleatic philosopher into the nature of the sophist in contrast to those of the statesman and the philosopher. The proposal that the sophist be defined as a contriver of images, a kind of deceiver, incurs theoretical difficulties. An image appears to be what it is not, so if the Eleatic denial of the intelligibility of not-being holds, images (and therefore deception and falsity) cannot be. To speak of images would be to say there is what is not, an apparent contradiction. A definition of the sophist capable of demonstrating the possibility of the image and of