Logic and Metaphysics in Plato's "Sophist"

Abstract

In part one of this essay i defend the thesis that the "greatest genera" of the "sophist" are not the metaphysical ideas of the earlier dialogues, and that the "participation" of these genera in each other is to be understood from a linguistic or logical, rather than metaphysical, perspective. the genera are like concepts, not essences. in part two i argue that the stranger's doctrine of the genera means that they cannot be unified, self-predicative, separable, and stable; the doctrine deteriorates for reasons internal to itself. i suggest throughout that the stranger's philosophical orientation is more "subjectivistic" than that of (plato's) socrates; unlike the ideas, the genera are subject to the soul's intellectual motion and productive capacity. finally, i suggest that there is no convincing reason for holding that the stranger's views are superior to those of socrates.