Plato - Sophist.pdf

(128 KB) Pobierz
655629847 UNPDF
360 BC
SOPHIST
by Plato
translated by Benjamin Jowett
SOPHIST
PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE: THEODORUS; THEAETETUS; SOCRATES An ELEATIC.
STRANGER, whom Theodorus and Theaetetus bring with them.
The younger SOCRATES, who is a silent auditor.
Theodorus. Here we are, Socrates, true to our agreement of
yesterday; and we bring with us a stranger from Elea, who is a
disciple of Parmenides and Zeno, and a true philosopher.
Socrates. Is he not rather a god, Theodorus, who comes to us in
the disguise of a stranger? For Homer says that all the gods, and
especially the god of strangers, are companions of the meek and
just, and visit the good and evil among men. And may not your
companion be one of those higher powers, a cross-examining deity,
who has come to spy out our weakness in argument, and to cross-examine
us?
Theod. Nay, Socrates, he is not one of the disputatious sort-he is
too good for that. And, in my opinion, he is not a god at all; but
divine he certainly is, for this is a title which I should give to all
philosophers.
Soc. Capital, my friend! and I may add that they are almost as
hard to be discerned as the gods. For the true philosophers, and
such as are not merely made up for the occasion, appear in various
forms unrecognized by the ignorance of men, and they "hover about
cities," as Homer declares, looking from above upon human life; and
some think nothing of them, and others can never think enough; and
sometimes they appear as statesmen, and sometimes as sophists; and
then, again, to many they seem to be no better than madmen. I should
like to ask our Eleatic friend, if he would tell us, what is thought
about them in Italy, and to whom the terms are applied.
Theod. What terms?
Soc. Sophist, statesman, philosopher.
Theod. What is your difficulty about them, and what made you ask?
Soc. I want to know whether by his countrymen they are regarded as
one or two; or do they, as the names are three, distinguish also three
kinds, and assign one to each name?
Theod. I dare say that the Stranger will not object to discuss the
question. What do you say, Stranger?
Stranger. I am far from objecting, Theodorus, nor have I any
difficulty in replying that by us they are regarded as three. But to
define precisely the nature of each of them is by no means a slight or
easy task.
Theod. You have happened to light, Socrates, almost on the very
question which we were asking our friend before we came hither, and he
excused himself to us, as he does now you; although he admitted that
the matter had been fully discussed, and that he remembered the
answer.
Soc. Then do not, Stranger, deny us the first favour which we ask of
you: I am sure that you will not, and therefore I shall only beg of
you to say whether you like and are accustomed to make a long
oration on a subject which you want to explain to another, or to
proceed by the method of question and answer. I remember hearing a
very noble discussion in which Parmenides employed the latter of the
two methods, when I was a young man, and he was far advanced in years.
Str. I prefer to talk with another when he responds pleasantly,
and is light in hand; if not, I would rather have my own say.
Soc. Any one of the present company will respond kindly to you,
and you can choose whom you like of them; I should recommend you to
take a young person-Theaetetus, for example-unless you have a
preference for some one else.
Str. I feel ashamed, Socrates, being a new comer into your
society, instead of talking a little and hearing others talk, to be
spinning out a long soliloquy or address, as if I wanted to show
off. For the true answer will certainly be a very long one, a great
deal longer than might be expected from such a short and simple
question. At the same time, I fear that I may seem rude and ungracious
if I refuse your courteous request, especially after what you have
said. For I certainly cannot object to your proposal, that
Theaetetus should respond, having already conversed with him myself,
and being recommended by you to take him.
Theaetetus. But are you sure, Stranger, that this will be quite so
acceptable to the rest of the company as Socrates imagines?
Str. You hear them applauding, Theaetetus; after that, there is
nothing more to be said. Well then, I am to argue with you, and if you
tire of the argument, you may complain of your friends and not of me.
Theaet. I do not think that I shall tire, and if I do, I shall get
my friend here, young Socrates, the namesake of the elder Socrates, to
help; he is about my own age, and my partner at the gymnasium, and
is constantly accustomed to work with me.
Str. Very good; you can decide about that for yourself as we
proceed. Meanwhile you and I will begin together and enquire into
the nature of the Sophist, first of the three: I should like you to
make out what he is and bring him to light in a discussion; for at
present we are only agreed about the name, but of the thing to which
we both apply the name possibly you have one notion and I another;
whereas we ought always to come to an understanding about the thing
itself in terms of a definition, and not merely about the name minus
the definition. Now the tribe of Sophists which we are investigating
is not easily caught or defined; and the world has long ago agreed,
that if great subjects are to be adequately treated, they must be
studied in the lesser and easier instances of them before we proceed
to the greatest of all. And as I know that the tribe of Sophists is
troublesome and hard to be caught, I should recommend that we practise
beforehand the method which is to be applied to him on some simple and
smaller thing, unless you can suggest a better way.
Theaet. Indeed I cannot.
Str. Then suppose that we work out some lesser example which will be
a pattern of the greater?
Theaet. Good.
Str. What is there which is well known and not great, and is yet
as susceptible of definition as any larger thing? Shall I say an
angler? He is familiar to all of us, and not a very interesting or
important person.
Theaet. He is not.
Str. Yet I suspect that he will furnish us with the sort of
definition and line of enquiry which we want.
Theaet. Very good.
Str. Let us begin by asking whether he is a man having art or not
having art, but some other power.
Theaet. He is clearly a man of art.
Str. And of arts there are two kinds?
Theaet. What are they?
Str. There is agriculture, and the tending of mortal creatures,
and the art of constructing or moulding vessels, and there is the
art of imitation-all these may be appropriately called by a single
name.
Theaet. What do you mean? And what is the name?
Str. He who brings into existence something that did not exist
before is said to be a producer, and that which is brought into
existence is said to be produced.
Theaet. True.
Str. And all the arts which were just now mentioned are
characterized by this power of producing?
Theaet. They are.
Str. Then let us sum them up under the name of productive or
creative art.
Theaet. Very good.
Str. Next follows the whole class of learning and cognition; then
comes trade, fighting, hunting. And since none of these produces
anything, but is only engaged in conquering by word or deed, or in
preventing others from conquering, things which exist and have been
already produced-in each and all of these branches there appears to be
an art which may be called acquisitive.
Theaet. Yes, that is the proper name.
Str. Seeing, then, that all arts are either acquisitive or creative,
in which class shall we place the art of the angler?
Theaet. Clearly in the acquisitive class.
Str. And the acquisitive may be subdivided into two parts: there
is exchange, which is voluntary and is effected by gifts, hire,
purchase; and the other part of acquisitive, which takes by force of
word or deed, may be termed conquest?
Theaet. That is implied in what has been said.
Str. And may not conquest be again subdivided?
Theaet. How?
Str. Open force may; be called fighting, and secret force may have
the general name of hunting?
Theaet. Yes.
Str. And there is no reason why the art of hunting should not be
further divided.
Theaet. How would you make the division?
Str. Into the hunting of living and of lifeless prey.
Theaet. Yes, if both kinds exist.
Str. Of course they exist; but the hunting after lifeless things
having no special name, except some sorts of diving, and other small
matters, may be omitted; the hunting after living things may be called
animal hunting.
Theaet. Yes.
Str. And animal hunting may be truly said to have two divisions,
land-animal hunting, which has many kinds and names, and water-animals
hunting, or the hunting after animals who swim?
Theaet. True.
Str. And of swimming animals, one class lives on the wing and the
other in the water?
Theaet. Certainly.
Str. Fowling is the general term under which the hunting of all
birds is included.
Theaet. True.
Str. The hunting of animals who live in the water has the general
name of fishing.
Theaet. Yes.
Str. And this sort of hunting may be further divided also into two
principal kinds?
Theaet. What are they?
Str. There is one kind which takes them in nets, another which takes
them by a blow.
Theaet. What do you mean, and how do you distinguish them?
Str. As to the first kind-all that surrounds and encloses anything
to prevent egress, may be rightly called an enclosure.
Theaet. Very true.
Str. For which reason twig baskets, casting nets, nooses, creels,
and the like may all be termed "enclosures"?
Theaet. True.
Str. And therefore this first kind of capture may be called by us
capture with enclosures, or something of that sort?
Theaet. Yes.
Str. The other kind, which is practised by a blow with hooks and
three pronged spears, when summed up under one name, may be called
striking, unless you, Theaetetus, can find some better name?
Theaet. Never mind the name-what you suggest will do very well.
Str. There is one mode of striking, which is done at night, and by
the light of a fire, and is by the hunters themselves called firing,
or spearing by firelight.
Theaet. True.
Str. And the fishing by day is called by the general name of barbing
because the spears, too, are barbed at the point.
Theaet. Yes, that is the term.
Str. Of this barb-fishing, that which strikes the fish Who is
below from above is called spearing, because this is the way in
which the three-pronged spears are mostly used.
Theaet. Yes, it is often called so.
Str. Then now there is only one kind remaining.
Theaet. What is that?
Str. When a hook is used, and the fish is not struck in any chance
part of his body-he as be is with the spear, but only about the head
and mouth, and is then drawn out from below upwards with reeds and
rods:-What is the right name of that mode of fish, Theaetetus?
Theaet. I suspect that we have now discovered the object of our
search.
Str. Then now you and I have come to an understanding not only about
the name of the angler's art, but about the definition of the thing
itself. One half of all art was acquisitive-half of all the art
acquisitive art was conquest or taking by force, half of this was
hunting, and half of hunting was hunting animals, half of this was
hunting water animals-of this again, the under half was fishing,
half of fishing was striking; a part of striking was fishing with a
barb, and one half of this again, being the kind which strikes with
a hook and draws the fish from below upwards, is the art which we have
been seeking, and which from the nature of the operation is denoted
angling or drawing up (aspalienutike, anaspasthai).
Theaet. The result has been quite satisfactorily brought out.
Str. And now, following this pattern, let us endeavour to find out
what a Sophist is.
Theaet. By all means.
Str. The first question about the angler was, whether he was a
skilled artist or unskilled?
Theaet. True.
Str. And shall we call our new friend unskilled, or a thorough
master of his craft?
Theaet. Certainly not unskilled, for his name, as, indeed, you
imply, must surely express his nature.
Str. Then he must be supposed to have some art.
Theaet. What art?
Str. By heaven, they are cousins! it never occurred to us.
Theaet. Who are cousins?
Str. The angler and the Sophist.
Theaet. In what way are they related?
Str. They both appear to me to be hunters.
Theaet. How the Sophist? Of the other we have spoken.
Str. You remember our division of hunting, into hunting after
swimming animals and land animals?
Theaet. Yes.
Str. And you remember that we subdivided the swimming and left the
land animals, saying that there were many kinds of them?
Theaet. Certainly.
Str. Thus far, then, the Sophist and the angler, starting from the
art of acquiring, take the same road?
Theaet. So it would appear.
Str. Their paths diverge when they reach the art of animal
hunting; the one going to the seashore, and to the rivers and to the
lakes, and angling for the animals which are in them.
Theaet. Very true.
Str. While the other goes to land and water of another sort-rivers
of wealth and broad meadow-lands of generous youth; and he also is
intending to take the animals which are in them.
Theaet. What do you mean?
Str. Of hunting on land there are two principal divisions.
Theaet. What are they?
Str. One is the hunting of tame, and the other of wild animals.
Theaet. But are tame animals ever hunted?
Str. Yes, if you include man under tame animals. But if you like you
may say that there are no tame animals, or that, if there are, man
is not among them; or you may say that man is a tame animal but is not
hunted-you shall decide which of these alternatives you prefer.
Theaet. I should say, Stranger, that man is a tame animal, and I
admit that he is hunted.
Str. Then let us divide the hunting of tame animals into two parts.
Theaet. How shall we make the division?
Str. Let us define piracy, man-stealing, tyranny, the whole military
art, by one name, as hunting with violence.
Theaet. Very good.
Str. But the art of the lawyer, of the popular orator, and the art
of conversation may be called in one word the art of persuasion.
Theaet. True.
Str. And of persuasion, there may be said to be two kinds?
Theaet. What are they?
Str. One is private, and the other public.
Theaet. Yes; each of them forms a class.
Str. And of private hunting, one sort receives hire, and the other
brings gifts.
Theaet. I do not understand you.
Str. You seem never to have observed the manner in which lovers
hunt.
Theaet. To what do you refer?
Str. I mean that they lavish gifts on those whom they hunt in
addition to other inducements.
Theaet. Most true.
Str. Let us admit this, then, to be the amatory art.
Theaet. Certainly.
Str. But that sort of hireling whose conversation is pleasing and
who baits his hook only with pleasure and exacts nothing but his
maintenance in return, we should all, if I am not mistaken, describe
as possessing flattery or an art of making things pleasant.
Theaet. Certainly.
Str. And that sort, which professes to form acquaintances only for
the sake of virtue, and demands a reward in the shape of money, may be
fairly called by another name?
Theaet. To be sure.
Str. And what is the name? Will you tell me?
Theaet. It is obvious enough; for I believe that we have
discovered the Sophist: which is, as I conceive, the proper name for
the class described.
Str. Then now, Theaetetus, his art may be traced as a branch of
the appropriative, acquisitive family-which hunts
animals,-living-land-tame animals; which hunts man,-privately-for
hire,-taking money in exchange-having the semblance of education;
and this is termed Sophistry, and is a hunt after young men of
wealth and rank-such is the conclusion.
Theaet. Just so.
Str. Let us take another branch of his genealogy; for he is a
professor of a great and many sided art; and if we look back at what
has preceded we see that he presents another aspect, besides that of
which we are speaking.
Theaet. In what respect?
Str. There were two sorts of acquisitive art; the one concerned with
hunting, the other with exchange.
Theaet. There were.

Plik z chomika:

Inne pliki z tego folderu:

Inne foldery tego chomika:

Zgłoś jeśli naruszono regulamin