Complete Works (61 page)

V
ISITOR
: So think about the man who promises he can make everything by means of a single kind of expertise. Suppose that by being expert at drawing he produces things that have the same names as real things. Then we know that when he shows his drawings from far away he’ll be able to fool the more mindless young children into thinking that he can actually produce anything he wants to.

T
HEAETETUS
: Of course. [c]

V
ISITOR
: Well then, won’t we expect that there’s another kind of expertise—this time having to do with words—and that someone can use it to trick young people when they stand even farther away from the truth about things? Wouldn’t he do it by putting words in their ears, and by showing them spoken copies of everything, so as to make them believe that the words are true and that the person who’s speaking to them is the wisest person there is?

T
HEAETETUS
: Yes, why shouldn’t there be that kind of expertise too? [d]

V
ISITOR
: So, Theaetetus, suppose enough time has passed and the sophist’s hearers have gotten older, and that they approach closer to real things and are forced by their experiences to touch up palpably against them. Won’t most of them inevitably change their earlier beliefs, which made large things appear small and easy things appear hard? And won’t the facts they’ve encountered in the course of their actions completely overturn [e] all the appearances that had come to them in the form of words?

T
HEAETETUS
: Yes—at least as far as what someone my age can tell. But I think I’m one of the young people who are still standing far away from real things.

V
ISITOR
: That’s why all of us here will keep trying to take you as close to them as possible, but without your needing those experiences to force you. But tell me about the sophist. Is it obvious by now that he’s a kind of cheat who imitates real things? Or are we still in any doubt about
[235]
whether he truly knows all the things that he seems to be able to engage in controversies about?

T
HEAETETUS
: But, sir, how could we be in any doubt? By this time it’s pretty obvious from what we’ve said that he’s one of those people who play games.

V
ISITOR
: So we have to regard him as a cheat and an imitator.

T
HEAETETUS
: How could we avoid it?

V
ISITOR
: Well, now it’s our job not to let the beast escape. We’ve almost hemmed him in with one of those net-like devices that words [b] provide for things like this. So anyway he won’t get away from this next point.

T
HEAETETUS
: What is it?

V
ISITOR
: From being taken to be a kind of magician.

T
HEAETETUS
: That’s what he seems to me to be too.

V
ISITOR
: So it’s settled. We’ll divide the craft of copy-making as quickly as we can and we’ll go down into it. Then if the sophist gives up right away we’ll obey the royal command and we’ll capture him and hand our [c] catch over to the king. But if the sophist slips down somewhere into the parts of the craft of imitation, we’ll follow along with him and we’ll divide each of the parts that contain him until we catch him. Anyway, neither he nor any other kind will ever be able to boast that he’s escaped from the method of people who are able to chase a thing through both the particular and the general.

T
HEAETETUS
: Good. That’s how we have to do it.

V
ISITOR
: Going by the method of division that we’ve used so far, I think [d] I see two types of imitation here too. But I don’t think I can clearly tell yet which one the type or form we’re looking for is in.

T
HEAETETUS
: Well, first tell us what distinction you mean.

V
ISITOR
: One type of imitation I see is the art of likeness-making. That’s the one we have whenever someone produces an imitation by keeping to [e] the proportions of length, breadth, and depth of his model, and also by keeping to the appropriate colors of its parts.

T
HEAETETUS
: But don’t all imitators try to do that?

V
ISITOR
: Not the ones who sculpt or draw very large works. If they reproduced the true proportions of their beautiful subjects, you see, the
[236]
upper parts would appear smaller than they should, and the lower parts would appear larger, because we see the upper parts from farther away and the lower parts from closer.

T
HEAETETUS
: Of course.

V
ISITOR
: So don’t those craftsmen say goodbye to truth, and produce in their images the proportions that seem to be beautiful instead of the real ones?

T
HEAETETUS
: Absolutely.

V
ISITOR
: So can’t the first sort of image be called a likeness, since it’s like the thing?

T
HEAETETUS
: Yes.

[b] V
ISITOR
: And as we said before, the part of imitation that deals with that should be called likeness-making.

T
HEAETETUS
: Yes.

V
ISITOR
: Now, what are we going to call something that appears to be like a beautiful thing, but only because it’s seen from a viewpoint that’s not beautiful, and would seem unlike the thing it claims to be like if you came to be able to see such large things adequately? If it appears the way the thing does but in fact isn’t like it, isn’t it an appearance?

T
HEAETETUS
: Of course.

[c] V
ISITOR
: And this part of imitation covers a great deal of painting and of the rest of imitation.

T
HEAETETUS
: Of course.

V
ISITOR
: Wouldn’t appearance-making be the right thing to call expertise in producing appearances that aren’t likenesses?

T
HEAETETUS
: Yes, definitely.

V
ISITOR
: Well, these are the two types of copy-making I meant, likeness-making and appearance-making.

T
HEAETETUS
: You were right about that.

V
ISITOR
: But still I can’t see clearly the thing I was in doubt about then, namely, which type we should put the sophist in. He’s really an amazing man—very hard to make out. He’s still escaped neatly into an impossibly [d] confusing type to search through.

T
HEAETETUS
: It seems that way.

V
ISITOR
: Are you agreeing with me because you know that, or is the current dragging you, so to speak, into agreement so quickly because the discussion has given you a habit of agreeing?

T
HEAETETUS
: What do you mean? Why do you say that?

V
ISITOR
: Really, my young friend, this is a very difficult investigation we’re engaged in. This appearing, and this seeming but not being, and [e] this saying things but not true things—all these issues are full of confusion, just as they always have been. It’s extremely hard, Theaetetus, to say what form of speech we should use to say that there really is such a thing as false saying or believing, and moreover to utter this without being caught
[237]
in a verbal conflict.

T
HEAETETUS
: Why?

V
ISITOR
: Because this form of speech of ours involves the rash assumption that that which is not is, since otherwise falsity wouldn’t come into being. But when we were boys, my boy, the great Parmenides testified to us from start to finish, speaking in both prose and poetic rhythms, that

Never shall this force itself on us, that that which is not may be;
While you search, keep your thought far away from this path.
⁸

So we have his testimony to this. And our own way of speaking itself [b] would make the point especially obvious if it we examined it a little. So if it’s all the same to you, let’s look at that first.

T
HEAETETUS
: As far as I’m concerned you can do what you want. But as far as our way of speaking is concerned, think about how it will go best, and follow along with it and take me along the road with you.

V
ISITOR
: That’s what we have to do. Tell me: do we dare to utter the sound
that which in no way is
?

T
HEAETETUS
: Of course.

V
ISITOR
: But suppose one of our listeners weren’t debating or playing a game but had to think seriously and answer the following question: What [c] should the name,
that which is not
, be applied to? Why do we think he’d use it, and in what connection, and for what kind of purpose? And what would he indicate by it to someone else who wanted to find out about it?

T
HEAETETUS
: That’s a hard question. In fact, it’s just about completely, impossibly confusing for someone like me to answer.

V
ISITOR
: But anyway this much is obvious to us, that
that which is not
can’t be applied to any of those which are.

T
HEAETETUS
: Of course not.

V
ISITOR
: So if you can’t apply it to that which is, it wouldn’t be right either to apply it to
something
.

T
HEAETETUS
: Why not?

[d] V
ISITOR
: It’s obvious to us that we always apply this
something
to a being, since it’s impossible to say it by itself, as if it were naked and isolated from all beings. Isn’t that right?

T
HEAETETUS
: Yes.

V
ISITOR
: Are you agreeing because you’re thinking that a person who says
something
has to be saying some
one
thing?

T
HEAETETUS
: Yes.

V
ISITOR
: Since you’d say that
something
is a sign of
one
, and that
a couple
of things
is a sign of
two
, and
somethings
is a sign of a
plurality
?

T
HEAETETUS
: Of course.

[e] V
ISITOR
: And it’s absolutely necessary, it seems, that someone who does not say
something
says
nothing
⁹
at all.

T
HEAETETUS
: Yes.

V
ISITOR
: Therefore don’t we have to refuse to admit that a person like that speaks but says nothing? Instead, don’t we have to deny that anyone who tries to utter
that which is not
is even speaking?

T
HEAETETUS
: Then our way of speaking would have reached the height of confusion.

[238]
V
ISITOR
: Don’t do any boasting yet. There are still more confusions to come, including the primary and most fundamental one, which actually happens to be at the source of the whole problem.

T
HEAETETUS
: What do you mean? Don’t hold back. Tell me.

V
ISITOR
: To that which is there might belong some other of those which are.

T
HEAETETUS
: Of course.

V
ISITOR
: But shall we say that any of those which are can ever belong to that which is not?

T
HEAETETUS
: How could they?

V
ISITOR
: Now then, we take all the numbers to be beings.

[b] T
HEAETETUS
: Yes, if we take anything else to be.

V
ISITOR
: Then let’s not even try to apply either plurality of number or one to that which is not.

T
HEAETETUS
: Our way of speaking itself tells us that it would be wrong to try to.

V
ISITOR
: Then how would anyone try either to say
those which are not
or
that which is not
out loud, or even grasp them in thought, apart from number?

T
HEAETETUS
: Tell me.

V
ISITOR
: Whenever we speak of
those which are not
, aren’t we trying to apply numerical plurality to them? [c]

T
HEAETETUS
: Of course.

V
ISITOR
: And when we speak of
that which is not
aren’t we applying
one
to it?

T
HEAETETUS
: Obviously.

V
ISITOR
: But we say it isn’t either right or correct to try to attach
that
which is
to that which is not.

T
HEAETETUS
: That’s absolutely true.

V
ISITOR
: Do you understand, then, that it’s impossible to say, speak, or think
that which is not
itself correctly by itself? It’s unthinkable, unsayable, unutterable, and unformulable in speech.

T
HEAETETUS
: Absolutely.

V
ISITOR
: So was I wrong just now when I said that I would formulate [d] the biggest confusion about it, when we have this other one to state which is even bigger?

T
HEAETETUS
: What is it?

V
ISITOR
: My good young friend, don’t you notice on the basis of the things we said that
that which is not
even confuses the person who’s refuting it in just this way, that whenever someone tries to refute it, he’s forced to say mutually contrary things about it?

T
HEAETETUS
: What do you mean? Say it more clearly.

V
ISITOR
: You shouldn’t expect more clarity from me. I was the one who made the statement that
that which is not
should not share either in
one
or [e] in
plurality
. But even so I’ve continued after all that to speak of it as
one
, since I say
that which is not
. You understand?