INTRODUCTION AND ANALYSIS.
The dramatic power of the dialogues of Plato appears to diminish as the
metaphysical interest of them increases (compare Introd. to the Philebus).
There are no descriptions of time, place or persons, in the Sophist and
Statesman, but we are plunged at once into philosophical discussions; the
poetical charm has disappeared, and those who have no taste for abstruse
metaphysics will greatly prefer the earlier dialogues to the later ones.
Plato is conscious of the change, and in the Statesman expressly accuses
himself of a tediousness in the two dialogues, which he ascribes to his
desire of developing the dialectical method.
On the other hand, the
kindred spirit of Hegel seemed to find in the Sophist the crown and summit
of the Platonic philosophy--here is the place at which Plato most nearly
approaches to the Hegelian identity of Being and Not-being. Nor will the
great importance of the two dialogues be doubted by any one who forms a
conception of the state of mind and opinion which they are intended to
meet. The sophisms of the day were undermining philosophy; the denial of
the existence of Not-being, and of the connexion of ideas, was making truth
and falsehood equally impossible. It has been said that Plato would have
written differently, if he had been acquainted with the Organon of
Aristotle. But could the Organon of Aristotle ever have been written
unless the Sophist and Statesman had preceded? The swarm of fallacies
which arose in the infancy of mental science, and which was born and bred
in the decay of the pre-Socratic philosophies, was not dispelled by
Aristotle, but by Socrates and Plato. The summa genera of thought, the
nature of the proposition, of definition, of generalization, of synthesis
and analysis, of division and cross-division, are clearly described, and
the processes of induction and deduction are constantly employed in the
dialogues of Plato. The 'slippery' nature of comparison, the danger of
putting words in the place of things, the fallacy of arguing 'a dicto
secundum,' and in a circle, are frequently indicated by him. To all these
processes of truth and error, Aristotle, in the next generation, gave
distinctness; he brought them together in a separate science. But he is
not to be regarded as the original inventor of any of the great logical
forms, with the exception of the syllogism.
There is little worthy of remark in the characters of the Sophist. The
most noticeable point is the final retirement of Socrates from the field of
argument, and the substitution for him of an Eleatic stranger, who is
described as a pupil of Parmenides and Zeno, and is supposed to have
descended from a higher world in order to convict the Socratic circle of
error. As in the Timaeus, Plato seems to intimate by the withdrawal of
Socrates that he is passing beyond the limits of his teaching; and in the
Sophist and Statesman, as well as in the Parmenides, he probably means to
imply that he is making a closer approach to the schools of Elea and
Megara. He had much in common with them, but he must first submit their
ideas to criticism and revision. He had once thought as he says, speaking
by the mouth of the Eleatic, that he understood their doctrine of Not-
being; but now he does not even comprehend the nature of Being. The
friends of ideas (Soph.) are alluded to by him as distant acquaintances,
whom he criticizes ab extra; we do not recognize at first sight that he is
criticizing himself. The character of the Eleatic stranger is colourless;
he is to a certain extent the reflection of his father and master,
Parmenides, who is the protagonist in the dialogue which is called by his
name. Theaetetus himself is not distinguished by the remarkable traits
which are attributed to him in the preceding dialogue. He is no longer
under the spell of Socrates, or subject to the operation of his midwifery,
though the fiction of question and answer is still maintained, and the
necessity of taking Theaetetus along with him is several times insisted
upon by his partner in the discussion. There is a reminiscence of the old
Theaetetus in his remark that he will not tire of the argument, and in his
conviction, which the Eleatic thinks likely to be permanent, that the
course of events is governed by the will of God. Throughout the two
dialogues Socrates continues a silent auditor, in the Statesman just
reminding us of his presence, at the commencement, by a characteristic jest
about the statesman and the philosopher, and by an allusion to his
namesake, with whom on that ground he claims relationship, as he had
already claimed an affinity with Theaetetus, grounded on the likeness of
his ugly face. But in neither dialogue, any more than in the Timaeus, does
he offer any criticism on the views which are propounded by another.
