The Sophist is structured as the long and winding hunt for the true definition of the title character. After some preliminary discussion of the method of division that we've already looked at, we come to the heart of the problem -- the Sophist is someone who gives the appearance of possessing true wisdom, but who really has none. In other words, the Sophist is an imitation of the philosopher. This already gives the hunt for his true definition a strange character; we are looking for the true definition of someone who is a fake. Which pretty quickly bring us to the question of what do we mean when we say that something is fake. Or is real, for that matter. Or, stated most generally, how do we know what IS and what IS NOT?
STRANGER: ... And now I should like you to tell me, whether the Sophist is not visibly a magician and imitator of true being; or are we still disposed to think that he may have a true knowledge of the various matters about which he disputes?
THEAETETUS: But how can he, Stranger? Is there any doubt, after what has been said, that he is to be located in one of the divisions of children's play?
STRANGER: Then we must place him in the class of magicians and mimics.
THEAETETUS: Certainly we must.
STRANGER: And now our business is not to let the animal out, for we have got him in a sort of dialectical net, and there is one thing which he decidedly will not escape.
THEAETETUS: What is that?
STRANGER: The inference that he is a juggler.
THEAETETUS: Precisely my own opinion of him.
STRANGER: Then, clearly, we ought as soon as possible to divide the image-making art, and go down into the net, and, if the Sophist does not run away from us, to seize him according to orders and deliver him over to reason, who is the lord of the hunt, and proclaim the capture of him; and if he creeps into the recesses of the imitative art, and secretes himself in one of them, to divide again and follow him up until in some sub-section of imitation he is caught. For our method of tackling each and all is one which neither he nor any other creature will ever escape in triumph.
THEAETETUS: Well said; and let us do as you propose.
STRANGER: Well, then, pursuing the same analytic method as before, I think that I can discern two divisions of the imitative art, but I am not as yet able to see in which of them the desired form is to be found.
THEAETETUS: Will you tell me first what are the two divisions of which you are speaking?
STRANGER: One is the art of likeness-making;—generally a likeness of anything is made by producing a copy which is executed according to the proportions of the original, similar in length and breadth and depth, each thing receiving also its appropriate colour.
THEAETETUS: Is not this always the aim of imitation?
STRANGER: Not always; in works either of sculpture or of painting, which are of any magnitude, there is a certain degree of deception; for artists were to give the true proportions of their fair works, the upper part, which is farther off, would appear to be out of proportion in comparison with the lower, which is nearer; and so they give up the truth in their images and make only the proportions which appear to be beautiful, disregarding the real ones.
THEAETETUS: Quite true.
STRANGER: And that which being other is also like, may we not fairly call a likeness or image?
THEAETETUS: Yes.
STRANGER: And may we not, as I did just now, call that part of the imitative art which is concerned with making such images the art of likeness-making?
THEAETETUS: Let that be the name.
STRANGER: And what shall we call those resemblances of the beautiful, which appear such owing to the unfavourable position of the spectator, whereas if a person had the power of getting a correct view of works of such magnitude, they would appear not even like that to which they profess to be like? May we not call these 'appearances,' since they appear only and are not really like?
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
STRANGER: There is a great deal of this kind of thing in painting, and in all imitation.
THEAETETUS: Of course.
STRANGER: And may we not fairly call the sort of art, which produces an appearance and not an image, phantastic art?
THEAETETUS: Most fairly.
STRANGER: These then are the two kinds of image-making—the art of making likenesses, and phantastic or the art of making appearances?
THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: I was doubtful before in which of them I should place the Sophist, nor am I even now able to see clearly; verily he is a wonderful and inscrutable creature. And now in the cleverest manner he has got into an impossible place.
THEAETETUS: Yes, he has.
STRANGER: Do you speak advisedly, or are you carried away at the moment by the habit of assenting into giving a hasty answer?
THEAETETUS: May I ask to what you are referring?
STRANGER: My dear friend, we are engaged in a very difficult speculation—there can be no doubt of that; for how a thing can appear and seem, and not be, or how a man can say a thing which is not true, has always been and still remains a very perplexing question. Can any one say or think that falsehood really exists, and avoid being caught in a contradiction? Indeed, Theaetetus, the task is a difficult one.
THEAETETUS: Why?
STRANGER: He who says that falsehood exists has the audacity to assert the being of not-being; for this is implied in the possibility of falsehood.
What follows is a long discussion of whether we can even conceive or talk about something that is unreal in a metaphysical sense. How would we refer to the non-existent? Is it a thing? Many things? Is it a whole? Does it have parts? It seems like we can't find a consistent way to even deny its existence without thereby treating it as real in some sense. And if we can't get clear about what we mean by the not-real, that is, by mere icon or phantasm (these are the Greek words for "likeness" and "semblance" in the passage above) we are going to have trouble accusing the Sophist of manufacturing them.
STRANGER: And if we say to him that he professes an art of making appearances, he will grapple with us and retort our argument upon ourselves; and when we call him an image-maker he will say, 'Pray what do you mean at all by an image?'—and I should like to know, Theaetetus, how we can possibly answer the younker's question?
THEAETETUS: We shall doubtless tell him of the images which are reflected in water or in mirrors; also of sculptures, pictures, and other duplicates.
STRANGER: I see, Theaetetus, that you have never made the acquaintance of the Sophist.
THEAETETUS: Why do you think so?
STRANGER: He will make believe to have his eyes shut, or to have none.
THEAETETUS: What do you mean?
STRANGER: When you tell him of something existing in a mirror, or in sculpture, and address him as though he had eyes, he will laugh you to scorn, and will pretend that he knows nothing of mirrors and streams, or of sight at all; he will say that he is asking about an idea.
THEAETETUS: What can he mean?
STRANGER: The common notion pervading all these objects, which you speak of as many, and yet call by the single name of image, as though it were the unity under which they were all included. How will you maintain your ground against him?
THEAETETUS: How, Stranger, can I describe an image except as something fashioned in the likeness of the true?
STRANGER: And do you mean this something to be some other true thing, or what do you mean?
THEAETETUS: Certainly not another true thing, but only a resemblance.
STRANGER: And you mean by true that which really is?
THEAETETUS: Yes.
STRANGER: And the not true is that which is the opposite of the true?
THEAETETUS: Exactly.
STRANGER: A resemblance, then, is not really real, if, as you say, not true?
THEAETETUS: Nay, but it is in a certain sense.
STRANGER: You mean to say, not in a true sense?
THEAETETUS: Yes; it is in reality only an image.
STRANGER: Then what we call an image is in reality really unreal.
THEAETETUS: In what a strange complication of being and not-being we are involved!
STRANGER: Strange! I should think so. See how, by his reciprocation of opposites, the many-headed Sophist has compelled us, quite against our will, to admit the existence of not-being.
THEAETETUS: Yes, indeed, I see.
STRANGER: The difficulty is how to define his art without falling into a contradiction.
(
Parenthetically, part of my thought in quoting this dialogue at such length is to hear the way Plato's hunt for this dangerous and wily Sophist lends more weight to Deleuze's seemingly whimsical characterizations of difference as "monstrous" and "cruel" and of the Greeks as trying to "tame" and "harmonize" it.
It is true that Platonism already represents the subordination of difference to the powers of the One, the Analogous, the Similar and even the Negative. It is like an animal in the process of being tamed, whose final resistant movements bear witness better than they would in a state of freedom to a nature soon to be lost: the Heraclitan world still growls in Platonism.
)
But back to the main story. We're having trouble defining the not-real, the mere likeness or semblance. Coming out of the mouth of Plato, this difficulty should sound pretty weird. I mean, isn't this the guy who famously thinks we should focus on the unchanging abstract Forms as distinct from mere unreal appearances? Isn't it obvious that if the truly real consists of these stable principles, then everything else, everything we see kaleidoscopically swirling and changing around us, is un-real? Sure enough, the Stranger spends some time refuting the notion that all real things are just physical objects. At the end of this, he even produces a definition of the real.
STRANGER: My notion would be, that anything which possesses any sort of power to affect another, or to be affected by another, if only for a single moment, however trifling the cause and however slight the effect, has real existence; and I hold that the definition of being is simply power.
But then, using this expansive definition of the real -- which I emphasize here because I think the formula being = power is key to understanding both Deleuze and his whole philosophical lineage (Spinoza, Nietzsche, Bergson, Whitehead) -- the Stranger goes on to also prove that while reality can't be just physical stuff, it can't be just the Forms either. The conclusion almost reads like Plato demolishing his own philosophy (or perhaps a misconception of his own philosophy?).
STRANGER: On these grounds, then, it seems that only one course is open to the philosopher who values knowledge and the rest above all else. He must refuse to accept from the champions of either of the one or of the many forms the doctrine that all reality is changeless, and he must turn a deaf ear to the other party who represent reality as everywhere changing. Like a child begging for 'both,' he must declare that reality or the sum of things is both at once -- all that is unchangeable and all that is in change.
Just at this point where we are well and truly confused, Plato cuts to the heart of the matter, and upends the very principle of identity and non-contradiction that makes us feel childish for saying 'both'. He launches into a discussion of the Forms -- in this example some of the most abstract: existence, motion, rest, sameness, and difference -- which we always imagine as completely stable, independent, self-identical objects, and promptly proves that they can't work that way. They have to be able to blend with one another in specific combination, the way some letters blend to make words, in order to construct reality.
Stranger: Now does everybody know which letters can join with which others? Or does he who is to join them properly have need of art?
Theaetetus: He has need of art.
Stranger: What art?
Theaetetus: The art of grammar.
Stranger: And is not the same true in connection with high and low sounds? Is not he who has the art to know the sounds which mingle and those which do not, musical, and he who does not know unmusical?
Theaetetus: Yes.
Stranger: And we shall find similar conditions, then, in all the other arts and processes which are devoid of art?
Theaetetus: Of course.
Stranger: Now since we have agreed that the classes or genera also commingle with one another, or do not commingle, in the same way, must not he possess some science and proceed by the processes of reason who is to show correctly which of the classes harmonize with which, and which reject one another, and also if he is to show whether there are some elements extending through all and holding them together so that they can mingle, and again, when they separate, whether there are other universal causes of separation?
Theaetetus: Certainly he needs science, and perhaps even the greatest of sciences.
Stranger: Then, Theaetetus, what name shall we give to this science? Or, by Zeus, have we unwittingly stumbled upon the science that belongs to free men and perhaps found the philosopher while we were looking for the sophist?
Theaetetus: What do you mean?
Stranger: Shall we not say that the division of things by classes and the avoidance of the belief that the same class is another, or another the same, belongs to the science of dialectic?
Theaetetus: Yes, we shall.
Stranger: Then he who is able to do this has a clear perception of one form or idea extending entirely through many individuals each of which lies apart, and of many forms differing from one another but included in one greater form, and again of one form evolved by the union of many wholes, and of many forms entirely apart and separate. This is the knowledge and ability to distinguish by classes how individual things can or cannot be associated with one another.
Theaetetus: Certainly it is.
Stranger: But you surely, I suppose, will not grant the art of dialectic to any but the man who pursues philosophy in purity and righteousness.
Theaetetus: How could it be granted to anyone else?
Stranger: Then it is in some region like this that we shall always, both now and hereafter, discover the philosopher, if we look for him; he also is hard to see clearly, but the difficulty is not the same in his case and that of the sophist.
Theaetetus: How do they differ?
Stranger: The sophist runs away into the darkness of not-being, feeling his way in it by practice, and is hard to discern on account of the darkness of the place. Don't you think so?
Theaetetus: It seems likely.
Stranger: But the philosopher, always devoting himself through reason to the idea of being, is also very difficult to see on account of the brilliant light of the place; for the eyes of the soul of the multitude are not strong enough to endure the sight of the divine.
At first, this seems to clear things up. We get a definite image of the philosopher, who, as the hero of the story, must be the one contemplating true reality. The philosopher as described here isn't in the businesses of identifying what unique Form is the true and correct one to associate with a given bit of the world. Instead, he's tasked with reverse engineering the art by which nature combines Forms. If we think of the forms as blending and interbreeding like organisms, we might think of the philosopher as performing a sort of genetic analysis of the world. He establishes the complicated evolutionary history of something by exposing its DNA. But this image of the philosopher means we have to give up the idea that only the Forms are real, as well as the idea that everything can be identified as either one Form or another. We expect that many things can share one Form in the way that many copies share one model. Only the model is understood as real. But we didn't imagine that one thing could participate in many Forms, because this makes something other than the individual Forms real as well (namely, their particular combination in a given thing). Understood this way, the theory of Ideas gives up the very principle of one-to-one correspondence and non-contradiction that is fundamental to something like Aristotle's taxonomic scheme.
As we consider things more deeply though, we discover something really strange is going on. Surprisingly, the search for the unreal Sophist has led us instead to the real philosopher. This is no coincidence, and indicates how fine a line divides the two. In addition, along the way, we've had to give up the very idea that the real and the unreal are opposites, and even forgo something as basic as the principle of non-contradiction. Which means that our confusion is deeper than ever, because we are clearly no longer going to be able to describe the sophist as the opposite of the philosopher. We've removed the very category that would let us oppose hero to villain. This turns out to be only the beginning of our problems though, because the Stranger will go on to prove, in a way that sounds suspiciously like a bit of sophistry, that real existence actually must include "that which is not". Not-being, the not-Forms, have a real existence in themselves. Except that this "not" is no longer tied to opposition or contradiction (which has lost its binding force) but is now understood as pure difference.
Stranger: In relation to motion, then, not-being is. That is inevitable. And this extends to all the classes; for in all of them the nature of other so operates as to make each one other than being, and therefore not-being. So we may, from this point of view, rightly say of all of them alike that they are not; and again, since they partake of being, that they are and have being.
Theaetetus: Yes, I suppose so.
Stranger: And so, in relation to each of the classes, being is many, and not-being is infinite in number.
Theaetetus: So it seems.
Stranger: Then being itself must also be said to be different than all other things.
Theaetetus: Yes, it must.
Stranger: And we conclude that existence likewise 'is not' in as many respects as there are other things, for, not being those other, while it is its single self, it is not all that indefinite number of other things.
Theaetetus: That is not far from the truth.
Stranger: Then we must not be disturbed by this either, since by their nature the classes have participation in one another. But if anyone refuses to accept our present results, let him reckon with our previous arguments and then proceed to reckon with the next step.
Theaetetus: That is very fair.
Stranger: Then here is a point to consider.
Theaetetus: What is it?
Stranger: When we say not-being, we speak, I think, not of something that is the opposite of being, but only of something different.
Theaetetus: What do you mean?
Stranger: For instance, when we speak of a thing as not great, do we seem to you to mean by the expression what is small any more than what is of middle size?
Theaetetus: No, of course not.
Stranger: Then when we are told that the negative signifies the opposite, we shall not admit it; we shall admit only that the particle "not" indicates something different from the words to which it is prefixed, or rather from the things denoted by the words that follow the negative.
With these argument the Stranger finally shoots down what we might interpret as Parmenides statement of the principle of non-contradiction, "For never shall this prevail, that things that are not are." In fact, things that are not are different from things that are. They are not one thing, but that doesn't mean necessarily that they are something else. Difference has a type of Being that is not captured by any single form. That type of Being is Not-Being. Not-Being is everywhere, and connects us to an indefinite multiplicity of related Forms.
STRANGER: Whereas we have not merely shown that things that are not, are, but we have brought to light the real character of 'not-being'. We have shown that the nature of the different has existence and is parceled out over the whole field of existent things with reference to one another, and of every part of it that is set in contrast to 'that which is' we have dared to say that precisely that is really 'that which is not'.
As you may already be thinking after this long chain of reasoning, just following along with the Sophist leaves us in danger of remaining in the same highly abstract territory we started in. So let me venture an ancient Greek to Plain English translation. The core issue here is the being of possibility. This is actually one way to understand the main contribution of Deleuze's philosophy -- the possible is real. It is real because, as defined above, it has power, it has the capacity to affect and to be affected.
But what kind of reality can possibility have? Obviously not the same kind of reality as the actual. But is it just not-actual? In other words is there just "a" possibility, defined by exactly the same type of reality as "an" actuality, except with the caveat that it is not here or not now? This would mean that there's only one type of existence, but sometimes it would have a positive sign and sometimes a negative sign. Here, the possible, the different, is denied any true reality of its own and limited in advance to just duplicating the Titanic with some the deck chairs rearranged. This is State thinking at its finest. The power of possibility is tamed by actual power.. This type of thought turns out to be surprisingly well illustrated by the famous quote I remembered from W.V.O. Quine about the possible bald man in the doorway. Here is the part I remembered, where Quine tries to make the very idea of possibility seem absurd:
Take, for instance, the possible fat man in that doorway; and, again, the possible bald man in that doorway. Are they the same possible man, or two possible men? How do we decide? How many possible men are there in that doorway?
I had never actually read the whole essay this came from though. And still haven't. Though given that it even starts off with an obvious reference to the Sophist, I guess I need to now. But check out the whole paragraph I found when I went looking for the exact wording:
Wyman's overpopulated universe is in many ways unlovely. It offends the aesthetic sense of us who have a taste for desert landscapes, but this is not the worst of it. Wyman's slum of possibles is a breeding ground for disorderly elements. Take, for instance, the possible fat man in that doorway; and, again, the possible bald man in that doorway. Are they the same possible man, or two possible men? How do we decide? How many possible men are there in that doorway? Are there more possible thin ones than fat ones? How many of them are alike? Or would their being alike make them one? Are no two possible things alike? Is this the same as saying that it is impossible for two things to be alike? Or, finally, is the concept of identity simply inapplicable to unactualized possibles? But what sense can be found in talking of entities which cannot meaningfully be said to be identical with themselves and distinct from one another? These elements are well-nigh incorrigible. By a Fregean therapy of individual concepts, some effort might be made at rehabilitation; but I feel we'd do better simply to clear Wyman's slum and be done with it.
What a splendid illustration of the connection between politics and metaphysics! Quine is the sort of guy who wants the slum of possibility cleared before it breeds "disorderly elements". He thinks maybe we can "rehabilitate" some of these folks who are different, who don't obey the laws of self-identity and perfect individual separation. But wouldn't it be easier to just gas them all? This is who we're up against. The bureaucrats of pure reason who want to make actuality great again.
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