Talk:Sophist (dialogue)

Why not Socrates?
From the article: "Plato probably replaces Socrates with the Visitor from Elea, because he plans to criticize Parmenides’ notion that ‘we cannot speak or think of what is not’, in order to distinguish the negation of the being from the not-being, and define the right and the false opinion."

A quick mention as to why Socrates wouldn't criticize Pamenides notion would be useful here, such as a reference to an earlier dialogue where Socrates agrees with Parmenides' notion. - Ravenous 02:41, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

I noticed that the article continually refers to Plato putting forward ideas in the dialogue, but Plato does not immediately participate in any of the dialogues. Distilling meaning comes from looking at all aspects of the dialogue, and it is not quite right to look at the Stranger from Elea as a mouthpiece for Plato, especially since his 'supposed' mouthpiece par excellence, Socrates is actually present in the dialogue. It seems like the writer of this article was uncomfortable talking about the Stranger of Elea, and reverted back to saying that Plato is practically the one speaking. Any thoughts? --Phaenarete (talk) 18:19, 11 November 2012 (UTC)


 * This is a good observation. Many of the Wikipedia articles on Plato's dialogues attribute the ideas awkwardly and hastily to the author, and this article is no exception.  I for one think that the article would benefit from a rewrite along these lines and encourage you to be bold and go for it.  Best, CCS81 (talk) 19:29, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Reference to the Parmenides
Thanks a lot, I have already put a refence to the earlier dialogue Parmenides - Nikolaos Bakalis 09:11, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

what i know about sophist is ... !
Sophist derivative from a Greek word which is sophistes and sometimes you can find it in a different form which is sophos and both words means “the wise man" or "the teacher of knowledge". With a passage of time new type of teachers started to appear in Athena and the people of Athena started to call them "sophistes/sophos" some of them were from Athena and some of them were from other cities. They started to teach people in exchange of money which is never happened in Athena. Teachers in Athena before that time and even after was teaching for free. Those new teachers were teaching the youths how to be a moral person and they started also to teach them how to be better!!! And how to be a politician and how to improve their skills for how to run a country. The most famous things about those teachers "sophistes/sophos” are they were teaching how to play on words and how to have the power of convince and the clever use of reasons to make the strong excuses weak and the weak excuses strong. Teaching how to have oratory skills that will make them well-informed of the art of making public speeches plus to have rhetoric skills. Socrates, Plato and Aristotle were against them because they think that sophistes are deceiving people and they don't teach them useful things plus they are spoiling youth’s brains.

if i'm wrong please correct me !


 * Very good, unidentified person. Your English is intelligible, if not correct. One thing more: Sophists taught not only rhetoric (monologue), but also dialectic (dialogue).Lestrade (talk) 15:01, 3 March 2013 (UTC)Lestrade

Difference and non-being
In the "Puzzles of being and not-being, great kinds (236d–264b)" section, it is said at the end of the second paragraph that "non-being is identified with difference." This statement is not contextually accurate. To be very brief, this is because being is also (at first glance paradoxically) identified with Difference in the same section of the dialogue, so that Difference both is and is not. The important point to note is that the Eleatic stranger finally identifies "that which is not" with "that which is", because Difference is said to "be" just as much as Sameness, Rest and Change, which are the other 3 kinds apart from Being itself, which is what allows him to "refute" their characterization by Parmenides (namely, "that which is not cannot be"), and thereby establish the possibility of falsehood through the being of appearance. If you will allow an anonymous user to make a suggestion, the conclusion that is clear from the text is similar but importantly different: non-being is Difference, but when we assert that what is is not (ie, is different), we are really asserting that a thing can be without being Being (ie it is not Being because it partakes of Difference, yet it still "is", it is also not Difference because it is a thing which partakes of Difference, yet it is still "different"), so that Difference is what accounts for the contradictions raised originally by Parmenides, yet it is still not correct to say that Difference exclusively is not, because if that were the case then everything would evidently be the same.

The relevant sections of the dialogue for my claims run from 258a - 259a. ShawKeogh (talk) 06:42, 15 October 2022 (UTC)