SOPHIST by Plato - Complete text

Page 71

Str. When the affirmation or denial takes Place in silence and in the mind only, have you any other name by which to call it but opinion?

Theaet. There can be no other name.

Str. And when opinion is presented, not simply, but in some form of sense, would you not call it imagination?

Theaet. Certainly.

Str. And seeing that language is true and false, and that thought is the conversation of the soul with herself, and opinion is the end of thinking, and imagination or phantasy is the union of sense and opinion, the inference is that some of them, since they are akin to language, should have an element of falsehood as well as of truth?

Theaet. Certainly.

Str. Do you perceive, then, that false opinion and speech have been discovered sooner than we expected? - For just now we seemed to be undertaking a task which would never be accomplished.

Theaet. I perceive.

Str. Then let us not be discouraged about the future; but now having made this discovery, let us go back to our previous classification.

Theaet. What classification?

Str. We divided image - making into two sorts; the one likeness - making, the other imaginative or phantastic.

Theaet. True.

Str. And we said that we were uncertain in which we should place the Sophist.

Theaet. We did say so.

Str. And our heads began to go round more and more when it was asserted that there is no such thing as an image or idol or appearance, because in no manner or time or place can there ever be such a thing as falsehood.

Theaet. True.

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