Participation and Predication in the Sophist 251-260

Abstract

While a great deal of progress has been made in recent years in bringing to light philosophical sense of Sophist one problem, or cluster of problems, has resisted analysis.' problem is that Plato seems to use a particular form of sentence ambiguously; fact that he does so seems to reveal a fundamental confusion on Plato's part. It will be easier for me to describe problem as well as my strategy in attempting to solve it, if I first introduce some terminology. In Sophist, particularly 251-260, Plato frequently appeals to fact that one Form participates in another Form to explain or justify other claims.2 For example, Change is, because it partakes of Being (256A 1) and Motion is different because it partakes of Different (256B2-3). I will call those sentences which are either explicitly or implicitly justified by an appeal to participation Further, we find throughout dialogues sentences of form the (is) . where the F is (1) an abstract noun with or without definite article or (2) definite article followed by a common noun, mass term, adjective or participle.3 Some such sentences can be paraphrased without loss of sense as the Form, (is) .... , while vast majority of them cannot. Beauty is eternal can be so paraphrased. The sophist is a wage earner cannot. I will call those sentences which can be so paraphrased Form-predications. Now it is argued that Plato uses sentences of form the (is) .. sometimes to express a Form-predication and sometimes to say something about nature of or perhaps about nature of particular F's. fact Plato vacillates between these two types of predication not only obscures whatever philosophical point he may be making but also shows that Plato was confused about nature of Forms. I think, however, that there is a plausible reading of Sophist which shows Plato to be in no way confused as to meaning of such sentences. None of first-order sentences of Sophist, I will argue, are Formpredications. After arguing that text forces this conclusion on us (Part I), I will try to make conclusion plausible (Part II) by describing a type of predication, different from Form-predication, in terms of which all of first-order sentences of Sophist can be consistently understood. A consequence of my interpretation is rather surprising thesis that no-