False Statement in the Sophist

Abstract

Various attempts have been made to find a satisfactory alternative to Cornford's explanation of what the Sophist has to say about false statement, and in particular to his interpretation of the passage in which the statements ‘Theaetetus is sitting’ and ‘Theaetetus is flying’ are discussed. The difficulty with Cornford's view is that he wants to find the explanation of truth and falsity entirely in the ‘blending’ or incompatibility of Forms, but that in the examples Socrates chooses, while Sitting and Flying may be Forms, Theaetetus cannot be. Hence Cornford has to say, ‘It is not meant that Forms are the only elements in all discourse. We can also make statements about individual things. But it is true that every such statement must contain at least one Form’. Unfortunately, when talking about the ϵἴδων συμπλοκή at 259e, the Stranger seems clearly to envisage a blendin g of ϵἴδη with each other:. How can this be reconciled with an ‘example’ in which only one term stands for a Form?I do not propose to discuss in detail the various solutions that have been offered, but to set forth my own interpretation of the whole passage. This may be regarded as to some extent a ‘blending’ of what has been said by Professor Hackforth and Mr. Hamlyn, but a number of points arise which deserve further discussion, and it may perhaps be hoped that such a σύνθϵσις as this may prove to be .