Why Is the "Sophist" a Sequel to the "Theaetetus"?

Author(s): Charles H. Kahn

Source: Phronesis, Vol. 52, No. 1, Anniversary Papers: The Southern Association for
Ancient Philosophy at 50 (2007), pp. 33-57
Published by: Brill
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 PliRONESIS

B RI L L Phronesis 52 (2007) 33-57 www.brill.nl/phro

Why Is the Sophist a Sequel to the Theaetetus?

Charles H. Kahn
Department ofPhilosophy, School ofArts and Sciences, University ofPennsylvania,
Philadelphia, Pa., USA
chkahn@sas.upenn.edu

Abstract
The Theaetetus and the Sophist both stand in the shadow of the Parmenides, to which they
refer. I propose to interpret these two dialogues as Plato's first move in the project of
reshaping his metaphysics with the double aim of avoiding problems raised in the Par-
menides and applying his general theory to the philosophy of nature. The classical doc-
trine of Forms is subject to revision, but Plato's fundamental metaphysics is preserved in
the Philebus as well as in the Timaeus. The most important change is the explicit enlarge-
ment of the notion of Being to include the nature of things that change.
This reshaping of the metaphysics is prepared in the Theaetetus and Sophist by an anal-
ysis of sensory phenomena in the former and, in the latter, a new account of Forms as a
network of mutual connections and exclusions. The division of labor between the two
dialogues is symbolized by the role of Heraclitus in the former and that of Parmenides in
the latter. Iheaetetus asks for a discussion of Parmenides as well, but Socrates will not
undertake it. For that we need the visitor from Elea. Hence the Theaetetus deals with
becoming and flux but not with being; that topic is reserved for Eleatic treatment in the
Sophist. But the problems of falsity and Not-Being, formulated in the first dialogue,
cannot be resolved without the considerations of truth and Being, reserved for the later
dialogue. That is why there must be a sequel to the Iheaetetus.

Keywords
metaphysics, Being, Not-Being, truth and falsity

I take my cue from the Philebus, where Socrates claims that the combina-
tion of the one and the many is "an unaging and immortal attribute of
discourse." Unity and plurality, he says, belong together in all logoi, in
everything that is ever said (1 5d). I think these two themes - unity and
plurality - offer our best guidance for the interpretation of Plato. If as
(C Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2007 DOI: 10.1163/156852807X177959

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34 C. H. Kahn /Phronesis 52 (2007) 33-57

readers of Plato we try to do justice to the specific i

dialogue, as historians of philosophy we also try to
thought underlying the diversity of the texts.
In an earlier study on Plato and the Socratic dialogue,
kind of philosophical unity connecting a number of
with the Republic, and thus I tried to present a conside
corpus as a unified literary project on Plato's part.' In s
of unity I was clearly swimming against the current. T
simply that, in the age ofGuthrie and Vlastos, the deve
was so firmly established in the halls of Platonic sch
also the pluralistic, even atomistic nature of the text
the Crito and the Ion to the Phaedrus and Parmenides,
logue presents itself as an isolated whole, a complete lit
of these dialogues refers to the conversation in any o
when the topics are the same.2 Of course the situation i
the later works. Not only does the Statesman contin
refer to this dialogue twice by name),3 but both dialogu
selves as sequel to the Theaetetus, and they promise t
cussion with an unwritten dialogue on the Philosoph
literary series is projected in the Timaeus, which be
summary of the Republic and is directly followed b
Critias. So in his later career as an author, Plato played
notion of an extended literary project, comparable t
I found implicit in the earlier work. Nevertheless, even i
the literary form does not reflect what I take to be the
thought. As an author, Plato remains as devious in th
was from the beginning. We are still faced with the do
justice to the surface diversity of the dialogues but also
unity of philosophical thought. The new challenge is to
the later writings. I explore here the continuity bet

1) Plato and the Socratic Dialogue (Cambridge: Cambridge Univers

2) Thus Phaedo 72e echoes the discussion of recollection in the M
to Socrates' conversation with Meno in that dialogue.
') This explicit reference to the earlier dialogue has been doubted
but I cannot see that ev t4< ao(ptaTf at Statesman 284b 7 can me
the dialogue Sophist." Similarly for TOV 0topsatoi at 286b 10.

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 C. H. Kahn /Phronesis 52 (2007) 33-57 35

and the Sophist as pointing to a larger project of reshaping P

physics in the later dialogues.

Both the Sophist and the Statesman present themselves as lit

to the 7heaetetus. Theodorus begins the conversation in the Sophist by
claiming that their meeting was agreed upon yesterday, and the Statesman
also refers to the Theaetetus conversation as taking place "yesterday" (St.
258a 4). It is not quite so obvious that the Theaetetus was composed with
the Sophist-Statesman in view. There is no definite forward reference in
the earlier dialogue. Socrates' last words are: "Let us meet again here at
dawn," but nothing is said about the future topic. The plan for the series is
developed in the Sophist-Statesman, not in the Theaetetus.
This asymmetry between backward and forward references probably
reflects the fact that a considerable lapse of time ensued between the com-
position of the Theaetetus and that of the Sophist. That is suggested above
all by the stylistic discrepancies between the two dialogues, discrepancies
that connect the Theaetetus to the "middle" group of dialogues stylistically
akin to the Republic (together with the Phaedrus and Parmenides), whereas
the Sophist-Statesman belongs stylistically to the late group, including the
Philebus, Timaeus and Laws.4 The most natural explanation of the stylistic
discrepancy between these two groups is the passage of some time. Between
the Theaetetus and the Sophist Plato was apparently busy with other things,
possibly with a voyage to Syracuse. But when he returned to writing dia-
logues, Plato insisted on the continuity of this particular literary project.
In this case the stylistic-chronological gap turns out to be of importance
only as evidence for the persistence of this project.
There is another, less obvious literary signal connecting the Sophist
with the Theaetetus. Both dialogues stand, as it were, in the shadow of
the Parmenides. For in both dialogues Socrates refers to his meeting with
Parmenides, "when he was very young:" as if it were a historical fact.
(in. 183e, Soph. 217c). Now the dramatic date of the Parmenides conver-
sation is roughly 450 BC, when Socrates would have been about twenty.
Since Parmenides must have been dead by then, the meeting is certainly

4) For the documentary evidence supporting the division into three groups, see my
chapter "On Platonic Chronology" in J. Annas and C. Rowe (eds.), New Perpectives on
Plato, Ancient and Modern (Cambridge, Mass./London, 2002).

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36 C. H. Kahn /Phronesis 52 (2007) 33-57

fictitious. The only occasion on which Socrates can have personally

encountered Parmenides is in the pages of Plato's dialogue. So these two
references to a meeting between the two philosophers are in fact a refer-
ence to Plato's Parmenides.
I am not the first to notice these references to the dialogue Parmenides
in the 7heaetetus and Sophist.5 But I think their significance for the inter-
pretation of our two dialogues has not been fully appreciated. For even if
the composition of the Parmenides did not reflect some sort of intellectual
crisis for Plato, as some modern interpreters have believed, Plato's detailed
criticism of his own theory is surely a major event. And since the objec-
tions of the Parmenides are never explicitly answered, we are left in doubt
how far Plato thought the theory needed to be revised. We can be sure
that it was not entirely abandoned, since Parmenides himself observes
that giving up altogether on invariant forms would be equivalent to giv-
ing up on philosophy (1 35bc). It is natural, then, to look to the 7heaetetus
and Sophist, apparently the first writings after the Parmenides, for clues as
to how Plato proposed to take account of the criticism presented in that
dialogue. It is surely significant that the 7heaetetus contains no explicit
reference to the theory of Forms, while the Sophist treats that theory crit-
ically, from an external point of view, as the doctrine of the "friends of
Forms." It is as if Plato, after the Parmenides, had wiped the slate clean and
was prepared to make a fresh start in metaphysics and epistemology.
I propose to see the T7heaetetus and the Sophist as Plato's first moves in
a long-term project of reshaping his metaphysical doctrine in the light of
the problems raised in the Parmenides, a project continued in the Philebus
and Timaeus. But in order to see what the challenge is, and how Plato
responds to it, it will be helpful first to distinguish the fundamental con-
ception of Platonic metaphysics from the particular formulation given to
the theory in the Phaedo and Republic. I will refer to this Phaedo-Republic
formulation as the classical theory of Forms. By Platonic metaphysics, on
the other hand, I mean a less specific doctrine, whose essential feature is
the commitment to a Being of Parmenidean type, that is, to a reality that
is eternally unchanging and self-identical, accessible to rational cognition

') Cornford was already crediting Dies with this observation. See Platos Theory ofKnowledge
(London, 1935), 1.

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 C. H. Kahn /Phronesis 52 (2007) 33-57 37

but not to sense-perception, and contrasted with a phenomenal realm of

sensible change and Becoming. This is a dualism not of two worlds but of
two levels of reality. This metaphysical dualism entails a sharp contrast
between reason or intellect (nous) and sense perception, with doxa
belonging on the side of sense perception. This double dualism, implied
in the Symposium and Phaedo, is fully formulated in the central books of
the Republic and reasserted in the Philebus and Timaeus. There are signs
of it in the Sophist (253e-254a) and Statesman (285e-286a), though per-
haps none in the Theaetetus. The evidence from the Statesman and
Philebus, as well as from the Timaeus, shows that, for Plato, this double
dualism has survived the Parmenidean criticism. Whatever changes he
may have made in the classical theory of Forms, it is clear that Plato did
not abandon his metaphysical vision after the Parmenides. There has been
a tendency for some scholars to suppose that, if the Timaeus could some-
how be redated, one might succeed in maintaining the Rylean picture of
Plato as a philosopher who, in his latest period, has left transcendental
metaphysics behind.6 I submit that the textual evidence to be cited below
from the Statesman and Philebus, as well as from the Timaeus, is incom-
patible with this view.
One clue, then, to understanding the connection between the Sophist
and Theaetetus is to see both dialogues as follow-up to the Parmenides and
to Plato's all-out assault on the classical theory of Forms. I suggest that, as
a consequence of the Parmenides criticism, at least two features of the
classical theory must be abandoned: namely, the language of participa-
tion, which can be taken literally as the "sharing" of Forms by sensibles,
and the recognition of something like immanent forms - "forms that we
have" or "forms in us" separate from the Forms themselves.7 The latter
notion, taken at face value, leads to the conception of two separate worlds,

6) The classical statement of this tendency is the influential paper of G.E.L. Owen, "The
Place of the Timaeus in Plato's Dialogues," reprinted in Logic, Science and Dialectic
(Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1986), 65-84. Despite the dazzling brilliance of
his arguments, Owen's attempt to remove the Timaeus from its place among the late
dialogues is, in my view, a complete failure.
') The Phaedo makes frequent use of the terminology of participation for the sensible-
Form relation, but of course it is not committed to a literal notion of sharing. On the
contrary, this relation is there left undefined (I 00d). After the criticism of the Parmenides,

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38 C H. Kahn /Phronesis 52 (2007) 33-57

a conception that makes the theory pointless, as Parmenides' last objec-

tion demonstrates. (I note that the theme of "separation" for the Forms is
a formula adopted by critics of the theory, such as Parmenides and Aristo-
tle, not by Plato in the positive exposition of the Phaedo and Republic, nor
in the Sophist report of the doctrine of the Friends of Forms.)8
Most of the Parmenides criticism concerns the problematic relation-
ship between Forms and the sensible many. It is precisely this problem
that is reformulated in the Philebus, where the question is asked how such
unities, "admitting neither generation nor corruption, can remain one
and the same while coming to be in many and unlimited cases of becom-
ing, either one unity being scattered and becoming many, or (most impos-
sible of all) being separate from itself as a whole" (Philebus 15a-b,
essentially a summary of Parmenides 131 a-c). The Philebus fails to answer
this question; and that failure may be one of the reasons why the Philebus
ends with the interlocutor saying to Socrates, in the very last words of the
dialogue, "I will remind you of what has been left out!" (67b 12).
On my view, then, one of Plato's projects in the later dialogues is to find
a way of reformulating his metaphysics that avoids the objections raised
in the Parmenides. Such a project must confront three problems: 1) the
nature of the Forms, 2) the nature of sensible phenomena, and 3) the con-
nection between the two. This third problem, which we may call the
problem of participation, is the most intractable. If there is any Platonic
solution, I think it must be found in the Timaeus. As we have seen, the
Philebus raises this question without offering a solution. The Sophist deals
explicitly only with the theme of Being; it concerns itself both negatively
and positively with the question of Forms, but not at all with the relation
of Forms to sensibles. By contrast, the Theaetetus never mentions Forms

however, the metaphor of participation is abandoned as misleading for the sensible-Form

relation, and it is transferred instead to the Form-Form relation in the Sophist as one of
several expressions for connections between Forms.
x) Notice the cunning way in which Parmenides induces the immature Socrates to accept
the separation of Forms from their participants at Parmenides 130b. Socrates had used
the term Xwpi4 once, harmlessly, for logical distinction at 129d 7. Parmenides then uses
it three times in immediate succession (130b 2-4) and twice again in the near context
(130c 1, d 1), thus emphasizing the problem of separation that leads to the "greatest
difficulty" of two independent worlds (1 33b 4).

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 C. H. Kahn /Phronesis 52 (2007) 33-57 39

as such and it is concerned primarily with Becoming, that

sensible phenomena. Neither the Sophist nor the Theaetetu
problem of participation.
As David Sedley has recently reminded us, the Theaetetus
nal form of an aporetic dialogue in the Socratic manner - a
attempt to define knowledge, with a series of definitions proposed and
rejected.9 With regard to content, we can say that the argument of the
7heaetetus has the structure of a double reductio. Part One takes as
starting-point an account of knowledge in terms of sense perception, and
shows that this account is unacceptable. Part Two begins with an account
of knowledge in terms of doxa, and this assumption leads to equally
unsatisfactory results. In both cases, the negative conclusion is prepared
by important constructive argument. But despite many positive achieve-
ments, no clear progress is made towards a satisfactory account of knowl-
edge. (I do not believe, as some commentators both ancient and modern
have suggested, that the Theaetetus aims to lead us to an improved version
of the Meno suggestion that knowledge should be conceived as a kind of
doxa that has been "tied down" by a logos. 'That would be incompatible
with the place of doxa in the cognitive dualism of the Philebus and
Timaeus; see specifically the contrast between the objects of doxa and
"truest epistHme" at Philebus 59a-b.)

Why is the Theaetetus so negative? And why this regression to a Socrates

ignorant of Platonic metaphysics? I suggest that, as a consequence of Par-
menides' attack, Plato's theory has been put on hold. At the same time, if
we bear in mind the account of knowledge given in the Republic, and reas-
serted in the Philebus and Timaeus, the reasons for failure in the Theaete-
tus will be clear. In this standard Platonic account, the concept of
knowledge is, on the one hand, grounded in the metaphysics of Being
and, on the other hand, sharply distinguished from sense perception and
doxa. If (as the Philebus and Timaeus will show) the author of the The-
aetetus is still committed to this cognitive dualism, he knows in advance
that an account of knowledge based on aisthesis and doxa, and excluding

9) D. Sedley, The Midwife of Platonism. Text and Subtext in Plato's 7heaetetus

(Oxford, 2004).

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40 C. H. Kahn /Phronesis 52 (2007) 33-57

the metaphysics of Being, is doomed to fail. (The pro

doxa as a basis for defining knowledge tends to be maske
tradition of translating doxa in the Theaetetus as "judgm
"opinion." ) But if Plato has not changed his mind on
matters, why did he undertake such an elaborate double
It may be helpful here to look back to the Parmenides,
sophical method recommended and practiced in that
menides urges the young Socrates to see not only wha
own hypothesis but also what follows from its denial
Parmenides' advice, in the Theaetetus Socrates and Th
account of knowledge from the opposing, non-Plato
Assume that knowledge can be defined on the basis eit
of doxa, without the metaphysics of Being, and see w
neither alternative gives a satisfactory outcome, we are j
ing to the original, Platonic point of view. After attac
theory, Parmenides had warned that, nevertheless, w
forms there can be no rational discourse (dialegesthai
hence no knowledge. The strong version of this thesis
Parmenidean postulate, that knowledge in the full sen
pantel6s) takes as its object Being in the full sense (to
precisely in this respect that Plato can be rightly seen as
lower of Parmenides. This postulate is explicitly formu
in the argument introducing the Forms at the end of Re
It is often taken for granted. For example, an equiva
(referring to nous and Forms rather than to knowledge a
as an implicit premise in the argument for the existence
Timaeus (5 lb 7-52a 4). The postulate itself is never arg
supported indirectly in the Theaetetus, by the failure
give an account of knowledge while avoiding this assumpt
of the alternatives justifies, or at least supports, Plato's r
dard position in the Philebus and Timaeus. (Such is my
version of a traditional view of the Theaetetus as offerin
for Platonic metaphysics.)'?

1) The standard modern version of this view of the 7heaetetus is

Theory of Knowledge (London, 1935). For an ancient precedent

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 C. H. Kahn /Phronesis 52 (2007) 33-57 41

I turn now to the continuities between Theaetetus and Sophist. The

most obvious connection is the theme of falsehood and error, which is
developed at length as a problem in the first dialogue but restated and
more fully resolved in the second. This division of labor between the two
works is best understood in terms of the global contrast between them,
symbolized by the role of Heraclitus in the first dialogue and Parmenides
in the second. In thematic terms, the contrast is between flux and stasis,
between Becoming and Being. he 7heaetetus is primarily concerned with
flux and the realm of change; a parallel discussion of stasis is acknowl-
edged as necessary (181 a), but deliberately excluded from this dialogue
(183e-184a). Thus an examination of the Parmenidean position, which
Theaetetus had requested, is postponed for the sequel. (That is why there
must be a sequel to the Theaetetus.) This division between the two
dialogues has important consequences for the discussion of error and
falsehood. The problem of perceptual error is carefully treated in the The-
aetetus, with the famous model of the wax tablet (191c-195b). But the
more general problem of falsehood includes the problem of Not-Being,
as the Theaetetus demonstrates (1 88d- 189b). Now the Sophist insists that
Being and Not-Being must be understood together (250e 7). Since
Socrates is unwilling to engage Parmenides directly, the notion of Being
as such is excluded from the Theaetetus, full discussion and solution of the
problem of falsehood is necessarily reserved for the later dialogue.
It might be objected to my account of the division of labor between
the two dialogues that what is excluded from the 7heaetetus is only the
strong metaphysical or Parmenidean notion of Being, whereas what is
needed for the account of Not-Being is something much weaker, more
like the copula or identity use of the verb to be. But this, it turns out, is
not a distinction that Plato will allow. There is no such thing as a non-
metaphysical sense of being, no philosophical difference between what we
call existential and copula uses of is."

Platonist Interpretations of the Theaetetus," in C. Gill and M.M. McCabe (eds.), Form
andArgument in Late Plato (Oxford, 1996), 89-93.
") I take it that this point is well established, in particular by the work of Lesley Brown.
See "Being in the Sophist: A Syntactical Enquiry," Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy IV
(1986), 49-70.

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42 C. H. Kahn /Phronesis 52 (2007) 33-57

The Sophist does argue, in criticizing the standard formulation of

Platonic dualism, that the conception of Being must be generous enough
to include changing as well as unchanging entities (249d). This is a new
move in Plato's revisionist version of Parmenidean metaphysics. Its impli-
cations are considerable, and most specifically for the theory of flux, as we
shall see. We can also recognize signs of this broader ontology in some
curious phrases of the Philebus: genesis eis ousian "becoming into being"
at 26d 8, gegenemene ousia "being that has come to be" at 27b 8. These
paradoxical expressions reflect the fact that the concept of Being has been
explicitly extended to include things that move and change, such as soul.
The Timaeus will even allow that phenomenal images "cling somehow
or other to being, on pain of being nothing at all" (ricova ... oIJCia;
(gOx-yCTCir; T f gir18v 'r tpix ~ivcv, 5 2c 4).
a@a7eX@i Vl?%F?XRFV1V, E V? TO napanav aviTTw ?tvalsSc

Hence not all beings are eternal essences, even if essences or Forms remain
the ontos onta, the "true beings." But Being comes in degrees. That is why
Being is the most universal of the koina (186a 2), or, in the terminology
of the Sophist, a vowel Form, required for every connection, every
symploke. But there is still no purely formal sense of the copula is, no
predication without ontology. That is clear for the most conspicuous
instance of Being in the Theaetetus, the fundamental predicative or
veridical is, that provides the nerve of the argument in the final refutation
of knowledge as sense perception at 186b-e. This is the propositional
being needed for truth and falsity, the ousia that aisthesis cannot provide,
and hence cannot be knowledge.
It is, I suggest, because the hypothesis of the 7heaetetus is deliberately
designed to exclude Being as far as possible, that the account of logos at
the end of this dialogue will still be unsatisfactory. The final section begins
with a promising connection between knowledge and the capacity to give
and receive a logos (202c 2). However, in a standard Platonic context the
logos in question would be a koyo; Til; oilzaq, a statement of the essence
or what a thing is. Hence no adequate account of logos can be given with-
out reference to Being and ultimately to Forms. In the context of the
Theaetetus, logos can be analyzed only as a symploke onomaton, a weaving-
together of words (202b). But the Sophist, with its broader metaphysical
horizon, can point out that logos is given to us by a symploke eidon, a
weaving-together of Forms. A similar insight lies behind the claim cited
above from the Parmenides, that without invariant Forms there can be no
dialegesthai, no philosophical discourse (Parm. 135b-c). Essentially the

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 C. H. Kahn /Phronesis 52 (2007) 33-57 43

same claim, of a necessary connection between logo

or essences, is made indirectly by the refutation of
both the Cratylus and Theaetetus, as we shall see. First
to take account of Plato's monumental achievement
semantic analysis of propositional structure in the Soph
described as an elementary symploke", the weaving-tog
verb as subject and predicate.
It is a common feature for both Plato and Aristot
predicate analysis of simple sentences is given in te
classes Noun (onoma) and Verb (rhema).'2 The morp
tion between noun and verb is easy to make in Gre
know, no one before Plato had ever made it. In fact th
262b is the first time in extant texts that rhema is
"verb." In all earlier occurrences, including occurren
rhema means simply "phrase:" "expression" or "saying.
in the Sophist, at 265c 5.) Plato has invented the noun-
order to display the subject-predicate structure of e
such as 7heaeteus sits and Theaetetusflies. Furthermore
account of truth and falsehood, Plato has analyzed
as a syntactic or sentential structure but also as a sema
tic relation between what is said and what it is said
recognizes that these two sample sentences are "abo
all this is summed up in the formula for veridical b
says the things that are, as they are (ta onta hos estin)
logos says thing other than the things that are (hetera
Exactly how the weaving-together of Forms is implica
tary weaving-together of noun and verb is an obs
deserves more attention than I can give it here. Presum
question are Sitting, Flying, Human Being or anth
ousia. Being is needed for each of the Forms separately
symploke. This symploke of Forms is somehow reflect
supposed by, the subject-predicate fitting-together
This fitting-together is represented in Plato's formula

12) For the corresponding analysis in Aristotle, see De Interpret

'I) A&et & cauT{v (sc. T&v k6yov) O p?v rakOif t& ovta 6
,tA6iq tEVpt 't&V OVYOVw ... Ta 1i1 OVUpa OCp5 6; Ovtca Xy

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44 C. H. Kahn / Phronesis 52 (2007) 33-57

what I call the veridical use of the verb in ta onta hos estin. T
of the verb in this formula (onta, estin) makes clear that the s
be taken twice: once for the conjunction of subject and predicate in the
assertion or judgment expressed in the logos, and again for the conjunc-
tion in fact or reality that makes the logos true. This is, I think, the same
duality captured by the so-called disquotational view of truth: the sen-
tence "snow is white" is true if and only if snow is white. In an earlier
study of Plato's use of einai, I pointed out that there is a similar judgment-
fact ambiguity or parallelism in the key notion of ousia in the Theaetetus,
the notion of propositional being that is decisive in the final refutation
of aisthesis.'4 Since aisthesis alone cannot judge that X is anything (or that
X is), aisthe'sis cannot be true or false, and hence cannot be knowledge.
The repetition of the verb to be in Plato's formula for truth (saying ta onta
hos estin) makes explicit this duality of being as thought and as fact, or as
claim and truth value. Thus the Sophist, in its ontic formula for truth,
offers a more fine-grained analysis of the same notion of propositional
Being that functioned in the Theaetetus. This advance in the analysis of
einai in the Sophist is parallel to the way in which the subject-predicate
analysis of logos and its connection with the symploke of Forms carries the
account of logos beyond what can be reached in the 7heaetetus. These two
advances - in the analysis of einai and in the account of logos - represent
the most technical sense in which the Sophist is a sequel to the earlier
dialogue. The Sophist provides the ontological and semantic resources for
the analysis of not-being and falsehood, and hence it makes possible Pla-
to's definitive solution to the old problem of false judgment, the problem
that the Theaetetus develops but does not solve.
We should notice that the veridical or propositional notion of ta onta,
"the things that are," is needed in the 7heaetetus not only for the final
argument against aisthesis but throughout the dialogue for the discussion
of what is true, as in the formula of Protagoras: man is the measure "of
what is, that it is, and what is not, that it is not." We note further that in
this fundamental formula for truth, introduced by Protagoras but retained
by Plato and Aristotle, the occurrence of einai is not only doubled in the
way I have suggested (for both judgment and fact); it also neutralizes our
distinction between the existential and copula uses of the verb: man is the

14) "Some Philosophical Uses of'to be' in Plato," Phronesis 26 (1981), 105-34.

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 C. H. Kahn /Phronesis 52 (2007) 33-57 45

measure of what exists, but also of what is the case - meas

but also of what is X and not Y. This systematic ambigu
of ta onta is fundamental in Greek thought. The notion of
there is, ta onta, applies to things like the moon but also t
moon being eclipsed. (Even the ordinary words for "th
or ta chremata, are ambiguous in the same way.) Of co
can make this distinction when they choose to do so, as
analysis of logos. But they automatically ignore the dis
things and "states of affairs" when referring to ta onta.
Returning to the Theaetetus, we note that, although the
versal flux aims to avoid expressions of einai or "wha
replace them bygignesthai or "what becomes" (1 52e 1),
so consistently. An account of knowledge cannot do wit
of what is the case, what is really so; and for Plato (and fo
this implies the static aspect of einai, rather than the
gignesthai. This idiomatic advantage of Being over Beco
expressions for truth mirrors the philosophical claim that
truth require some fixity in the object. That is the thoug
insistence in the Sophist that there can be no nous or und
out stability (249b-c). In effect, the 7heaetetus argues
sion for logos: there can be no description of a world with
world of unrestricted flux. That, I take it, is the conclusi
there is no coherent statement of the thesis of total flux
The noun-verb or subject-predicate analysis of logos in t
sheds a retrospective light on the treatment of false
earlier dialogue. It has often been remarked that the e
given in the Theaetetus typically involve perceptual m
(mistaking Socrates for Theodorus) or conceptual con
and 5 for 13). These examples give the impression that an
ment is always a mistake of identification, as if every jud
involved the is of identity.'5 Socrates' choice of examples
because clearly the problem of error is intended to b

5) This is true even for the impossible examples of confusing two

taking the beautiful to be ugly or a cow to be a horse. See Burnyeat's
of Plato, translation of MJ. Levett revised by Myles Burnyeat (Ind
1990), 323, n. 43.

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46 C. H. Kahn /Phronesis 52 (2007) 33-57

However, this limitation in the examples recalls a simil

the use of is implied in the view of the late-learners in
refuse to say a man is good, but only that a man is a man o
good is good (25 1b-c). In the case of predication for the la
identification is a semantic relation: the identity betwe
a nominatum, between a description and the thing desc
perceptual case of Theaetetus Part Two, the identity is b
perceived and the proper name or memory-trace of a p
these differences, the semantic parallel is precise: most
examples of error in the Theaetetus are compatible with th
limitation of the notion of predication to statements of
sense of matching a name with a nominatum. In effect, th
construe predication as naming. I suggest that Plato in the
largely restricted his examples of error to judgments of th
he is not yet ready to give the richer account of propos
predication that he will offer in the Sophist. Since Plat
formal notion of being as copula, he may well hold that th
symploke of an elementary logos cannot be adequately pres
the context of symploket eidon, the weaving-together of Fo
the Sophist argues for the necessity of mixing between
ment is expressly designed to tell against the late-learn
on predication, as well as against a denial of other kind
(physical combination or conceptual links, 251e-252c). I
rational account requires a symploke eidon. And this is
excluded by hypothesis from the Theaetetus but must
perspective introduced by the Stranger from Elea.
I am assuming that Plato, when he composed the The
mind most of the ideas that he would develop later in the
why, when the dialogue ends, the interlocutors plan to
dawn. But nothing depends on this biographical assumpt
not yet recognized the complexity of noun-verb predic
any case a sure instinct for avoiding such complexity
examples of error in the Theaetetus.
There are, of course, allusions to the Forms in the Th
famous ethical digression, the many echoes of moral do
Gorgias and Republic culminate in the depiction of two
lished in reality" (iopa6riy1PaxCT Ev TO OVtI ?ttCtOa 176e

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 C. H. Kahn / Phronesis 52 (2007) 33-57 47

model of happiness, the other a godless model of misery. A

human life to copy, these twoparadeigmata are function
Forms ofJustice and Injustice. But they are not described
terms that would be distinctive of the theory of Forms.
Even more suggestive of Forms is the introduction of
185a-186b. The examples given of these "common elements of thought"
are extensionally equivalent to a list of Forms. The list given includes the
following: Being, Not-Being, Same, Different, Similar, Dissimilar, One,
Two and number generally with its subdivisions Odd and Even, as well
as Admirable and Shameful (kalon, aischron), Good and Bad (agathon,
kakon) (185a-186b). The positive members of the last two pairs repre-
sent typical examples of Forms in the classical theory; the other koina
represent the Kinds that function in dialectical argument in Parmenides
and Sophist. In the present context these koina serve to distinguish
thought or judgment from sense perception, from aisthesis narrowly
defined by dependence on the sense modalities of the body. In distin-
guishing these common concepts from the objects of the special senses,
the Theaetetus comes exceedingly close to recognizing Forms as the
objects of rational thought. Three of the koina mentioned in this pas-
sage (Being, Same and Different) will in fact reappear among the five
Greatest Kinds discussed in the central section of the Sophist. This is one
of the more obvious continuities between our two dialogues. But the
Theaetetus says nothing whatsoever about the ontological status of the
koina; they are simply items that the psyche considers "by itself," with-
out the aid of the body. However, without some metaphysical distinc-
tion between invariant Being and variant Becoming it is not clear how
the corresponding epistemic distinction can be drawn. There are cer-
tainly allusions here to the notion of rational cognition (analogizesthai
at 186a 10, analogismata 186c 2; syllogismos at 186d 3). Ihe psyche in
question is clearly the rational soul. But there is no attempt to distin-
guish conceptual thought as such from the more general notion of doxa
or dianoia that includes perceptual judgment and imagination. Since it
excludes any basis in Platonic metaphysics, the Theaetetus is unwilling to
draw Plato's distinction between nous and episteme, on the one hand,
and doxa on the other. Of course the nominal distinction can be drawn:
unlike knowledge and nous, doxa can be false. But what is it about nous
and epistme that guarantees their contact with truth? At this point, I

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48 C. H. Kahn /Phronesis 52 (2007) 33-57

suspect, Plato's epistemology cannot be fully articul

from his metaphysics.
The Sophist does deal at length with the metaphysical
but it does not focus on the familiar contrast betwee
the changing, between Being and Becoming. On the
that Being must include both the unchanging and wh
The inclusion of change is new; less new is the insis
some unchanging, self-identical reality, there can be no
no philosophy (249b-d). The formula here for invaria
KQci Gcx)iFvTo; KaXt nFrpt c ocTO, sameness of respect
reference to the same thing" (transl. L. Brown) is familia
where similar formulae occur repeatedly (o6 t&; &1
79a 9 ro a?i ov cal a'O6vaxov ICit d anITW; EXov d 2;
mary at 80b). This formula for invariance is twice cited
the characteristic doctrine of the Friends of Forms (
it is also affirmed by the Eleatic Stranger himself, as a
for knowledge, intelligence and reason (epist6me, phron
12-c 7). And it is just such stable reality that is avoi
tions of the Theaetetus.
Even in the Sophist, however, Plato remains striki
specify the ontological status of the Kinds under dis
implied that these Kinds satisfy the requirement of inv
The network of connections and exclusions between
all, the object of dialectic, the highest form of know
Kind has its definite nature, which determines its n
relations to other Kinds. One of the Kinds is Being itsel
contain all the rest as its parts. But in this dialogue
trasted with Becoming, and there is no explicit refe
metaphysical or the cognitive dualism that we recognize
tonic. There is only one passage in the Sophist that can
sion to such dualism.

"This dialectical skill (To 1azXFKttKov) - I imagine you would

those who philosophize in a pure and righteous manner?.... T
clings through his reasoning to the form of what-is (or "the fo
(? nX06ao0po;tfjit Tv 6v`v &ov i tat koytopasv npoacripiev
it's rather the brightness of the place that makes it no easy ma
him. For most of us cannot bear to keep the gaze of the soul's ey
divine." (Sophist 253c-254b 1, translation after Lesley Brown)

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 C. H. Kahn /Phronesis 52 (2007) 33-57 49

The light-darkness contrast here is strongly reminiscent of

gory, and the picture of the philosopher clinging by reason
of beings that are forever" (254a 8) cannot fail to recall the philosopher
of the Republic. But the crucial phrase tj xoi Ovto; &E' 7tpoOKEitLvO;
i can also be read more innocently as "clinging always to the form of
being," without any mention of eternal reality. (This ambiguity in the
syntax of ati seems to me deliberate.) By way of contrast, the only refer-
ence in the Sophist to the familiar oppositions Being-Becoming and
episteme-doxa is in the doctrine ascribed to the Friends of Forms.
Why is Plato so coy in this dialogue, on the one hand alluding to his
familiar metaphysics in the picture of the true philosopher, and on the
other hand distancing himself from that metaphysics by attributing it to
the Friends of Forms? The answer must hang together with an explana-
tion for his introducing the Eleatic Stranger as a replacement for Socrates.
The Stranger is a kind of stand-in for his master Parmenides, who, in the
earlier dialogue, was responsible for criticizing the theory of Forms. By
assigning this role to Parmenides, the source of his own metaphysics,
Plato had guaranteed that the criticism would be sympathetic rather than
hostile. Similarly, by introducing now an Eleatic philosopher as critic of
both his own theory and that of Parmenides, Plato has created a new phil-
osophical perspective from which both theories can be surveyed and
revised. So in the Sophist Parmenides' rejection of Not-Being will be cor-
rected, just as Plato's extreme Parmenidean conception of Being will be
modified to include change. By putting responsibility for all this in the
hands of a follower of Parmenides, Plato arranges for the whole discus-
sion to take place in a spirit of friendship and mutual respect. Further-
more, this new theoretical viewpoint coincides with a new conception of
dialectic as Division and Collection, a version of dialectic less metaphysi-
cally oriented than the original version presented in the Divided Line. In
this new dialectic, sketched in the Phaedrus and systematically practiced
in the Sophist and Statesman, the terms genos and eidos tend to acquire
their logical meaning of "genus" and "species." Hence the corresponding
notion of Form or Kind appears less loaded with metaphysical commit-
ment. It is as if Plato had replaced his metaphysics of Being by a kind
of transcendental logic, the study of logical connections and divisions
between abstract or "topic-neutral" concepts.
The ontological background, which was hinted at in the Sophist in the
description of the true philosopher clinging to the bright idea of Being,

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 50 C. H. Kahn /Phronesis 52 (2007) 33-57

begins to emerge more clearly (but still discreetly) in the S

the Stranger connects skill in dialectic with the study of "
most precious of beings."

"I think most people don't realize that some beings (`vxo) have b
perceptible likenesses (xda&r9tai t`ve; tosP60TsTe;) that are easy t
greatest and most precious of beings have no image (eT&oXov) tha
the senses ... Therefore one should practice being able to give and
each thing. For the incorporeals, the finest and greatest being
XtWtao vro Koicai p?ytarcx), are clearly indicated by logos and
(Statesman 285e-286a)

This seems to be the only passage in either the Statesman o

connects the dialectical Kinds with metaphysical dualism
passage that dualism is not represented in the standard
reference to Being and Becoming or to the contrast betwee
doxa. Of course the oppositions of incorporeal-corpore
aisthesis point in the same direction. But the absence of th
mulation is still quite striking.'6
If for contrast we glance briefly at the account of di
Philebus, we can see that this terminological restraint is a
ture of the Sophist- Statesman and their Eleatic protag
permanent choice by the author. For Socrates in the Philebus (like
Timaeus in his own dialogue) will not hesitate to describe the object of
dialectic in the old way as true Being or the "really real" (to ont6s on) in
contrast to what comes to be (gignetai); only the former is fully stable and
invariant (59a-c).

"I suppose every reasonable person would think that dialectic is by far the truest
cognition (yv7nn;), namely, the cognition concerning being and what is truly and
by nature forever in the same state in every respect (itEpOt OV ICOl TO 6VEW; Kact Tc0
Kcczt& tatx>orv aE tee icTio; lirvtoS;) ... Most of the arts (technai) and those who
work at them make use of doxai and are eagerly investigating matters of doxa, inves-
tigating the nature of things (itepi pvaoa);).. and matters concerning this kosmos,

16) For a more deflationary reading of this passage, see G.E.L. Owen, "Plato on the Unde-
pictable," in Logic, Science and Dialectic (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1986),
138-47.

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 C. H. Kahn /Phronesis 52 (2007) 33-57 51

how it came to be (otn y7Eyovev) and how it acts and how it is a

person has chosen to work not on eternal beings (t& ovta &tei) b
to be (ta ytyvo6guvo) and will come to be and has come to be ...
the most exact truth that any of these things occur precisely, since
was or ever will be or presently is in any self-identical state (Kax
So neither reason (voijc;) nor the truest form of knowledge is con
things that lack all stability (3ea5ot6tn)." (Philebus 58a-59b)

In this text we have not only the metaphysical opposition b

and Becoming but also the epistemic contrast between nous or episteme
and doxa.'7 So when we encounter these standard Platonic dualisms again
in the Timaeus, they are not to be regarded as a peculiarity of that dia-
logue."8 On the contrary, it is the relative silence of the Sophist-Statesman
that calls out for an explanation.
Interpreters in the tradition of Ryle and Owen have preferred to see
the Sophist- Statesman, together with the Theaetetus, as reflecting a period
in Plato's life in which he adopted a less metaphysical conception of dia-
lectic and a less dualistic metaphysics. But given the passage just cited
from the Philebus, this assumption seems gratuitous. I suggest we see the
shifts in doctrinal formulation in these dialogues as a deliberate literary-
rhetorical device, comparable to the choice of a new protagonist. These
dialogues, and specifically the Theaetetus and Sophist, stand as we have

l7) Alexander Nehamas notes that, even in the Philebus, Plato can speak of episteme for
coming-to-be as well as for eternal being. See his "Episteme and Logos in Plato's Later
Thought" in Virtues of Authenticity (Princeton, 1999), 238. However, only unchanging
being is the object of "knowledge which has the most truth" (59b 7, 61d 10-c). With a
shift in terminology, this cognitive contrast is preserved in the final ranking, where episte-
mai are listed in the level below nous, together with technai and orthai doxai (66b).
18) Timaeus 27d 5: E?CTTI OOV 6i K8xT ELllV 6o0xv npi.[rov 6ictspvTEOV Tx6r Ti T6 iOV
a?te, yEVcGtV 60? 0oC tXOV, xAl ti To ytyvo6jsvov jsEv &Ei, iov &e OI'tOt0C; T6 geV 6i
V08E1 >Ita X6yo icpXlIn5TOV, MI KMT& Tc OV, 1T &t (X o 60' T (xI TlOEO);
&kXoyou 80oaTo6v, yIyvO6gsvov KcXi iAroMA?,igEvov, 6Ov; 8 6? oiD&80TE Ov. The initial
statement here of ontological dualism seems to ignore the extension of Being to include
change that is introduced in the Sophist. But this intermediate possibility is allowed for
by the implied contrast in the concluding words ovx'tw; E oA8EnoTc Ov. What comes-to-
be is not "truly being"; it has the lower degree of being (o'iak') assigned to images at 52b
4-cS, cited in part above. And the mixed status of soul in the Timaeus may also represent
a distinct ontological level.

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52 C. H. Kahn /Phronesis 52 (2007) 33-57

seen in the shadow of the Parmenides, under the impact

Plato's own theory. That situation defines a moment in Pl
author in which he is distancing his written work and
ence from the doctrines of earlier dialogues like the Phae
This doctrinal "liberation" (provoked by the critique o
and symbolized by the introduction of a new protagon
pursue some arguments and clarify some issues more free
possible - or at least convenient - within the framewor
dualisms. In particular, he undertakes a solution to the
Being that is designed to be accessible to any competen
not only to a convinced Platonist. Thus Plato has good
sons for choosing an intellectual standpoint located out
of Parmenides and outside the doctrines of his own ea
sympathetic to both. He has, as it were, put Parmenid
and his own revised version of it, inside brackets for the
arguments in the 7heaetetus and Sophist.
This exercise in doctrinal restraint or "bracketing" h
parallel in the Statesman, where Plato will deliberately ign
lier account of the philosopher-king. Thus in describin
man and King, the Eleatic Stranger neither endorses nor denies the
training in mathematics and metaphysics that is required of the ruler in
the Republic. The true politikos is now defined by his expertise in ruling,
but the content of this expertise is simply left blank. No reader of the
Statesman can fail to be reminded of the philosopher-king. But the Eleatic
Stranger has not read the Republic. And nothing in the Statesman argu-
ment depends upon doctrine from that dialogue.
We saw that Plato's project of reformulating his metaphysics had to
deal with three problems: 1) the nature of Forms, 2) the nature of sensible
phenomena, and 3) the relation between them. The Sophist presents the
Forms (or Kinds) as logical parts of Being, that is, as deriving their own
being by participating in Being itself. Since, if the Kinds are to be objects
of nous they must be invariant and self-identical, they will in effect have
the eternal nature defined for the Forms in the Phaedo and Republic. The
Sophist gives us a completely new picture of the relations between Forms,
and also of the internal structure of each Form. But the basic distinction
between the timeless, unchanging being of Forms and the variable status
of sensible becoming seems unaltered from the classical theory - even

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 C. H. Kahn /Phronesis 52 (2007) 33-57 53

though this dualism is never explicitly mentioned in th

vaguely described in the Statesman. The Eleatic Stran
this point matches his general lack of interest in matte
change. For sense perception and Becoming we return
Part One of the Theaetetus expounds a complex the
based upon a metaphysics of flux. I leave aside the co
whether this theory of perception can be regarded a
simply as a hypothetical account. In regard to flux P
clearer, because we can trace his treatment of flux thro
from the Cratylus to the Theaetetus, and beyond to
the diversity of viewpoint between these three dialogue
common features to reveal a consistent philosophical
the topic of flux ultimately connects up with the new r
in the Sophist, that the theory of Being must be extend
that change. In the end, this enlargement of Being t
on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the require
Plato's critique of the theory of flux, turn out to be tw
coin: namely, the application of Plato's metaphysics
the physical world. Hence the attitude towards flux shi
criticism to reappropriation.
In the Phaedo the formula for invariance, which we h
is regularly contrasted with the description of a cha
that is "never in the same state" (g'17otE KccTO& T'I)T(X
80b 5). Both the Phaedo and the Cratylus wax ironic
thinkers who become so dizzy from the twists and turns of their own
researches that they project their confusion onto the world and conclude
that there is no stability in things (Crat. 41 lb-c), or who, because they
have fallen into a whirlpool and got all mixed up, want to drag us in too
(439c 5); or like someone with a cold, they imagine that everything is
runny and dripping (440c 8).'9 Despite such satirical comments, the Cra-
tylus anticipates the 7heaetetus in sketching a systematic theory of the

") Similarly in Phaedo 90c 2, where the misologists conclude that "there is nothing
sound or stable either in things or in logoi, but that all things (panta ta onta) are reversing
back and forth just like the current of the Euripus, and they do not stay in place for any
time at all."

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54 C. H. Kahn /Phronesis 52 (2007) 33-57

world as characterized by movement, flux and change. Ho

Cratylus and Theaetetus reject the thesis of unrestricted fl
lar reasons. The Cratylus argues that there can be no desc
fact no existence, for anything completely devoid of stability (439d-e).
The positive conclusion, which the 7heaetetus does not draw, is that for
reasons of both ontology and epistemology - in order to be and to be
known - a changing world must contain elements of stability. This is the
implicit conclusion of the Cratylus, where Socrates points out that the
doctrine of flux does not apply to the Forms. Things like a beautiful face
may be in flux, but "the Beautiful itself is always such as it is" (439d). Thus
the Cratylus (like the Phaedo) presents the Forms as models of stability,
both ontological and epistemic. But the Cratylus does not tell us how
these Forms can provide a principle of fixity for sensible, changing things,
so that they too might qualify for some kind of cognition and some kind
of reality. The 7heaetetus, on the other hand, makes no explicit reference
to Forms, and hence it makes no attempt to explain how perceptual flux
might be structured by elements of stability. Only the Timaeus (antici-
pated in part by the Philebus) undertakes to provide a positive theory of
the physical world, in which the flux of phenomena is ultimately struc-
tured by a relationship to Forms.
In the Phaedo Plato had sketched, as a desideratum for physics, an
account of the world where everything is set in order by Nous, and hence
ordered for the best (97c-98b). Plato was late in paying this large promis-
sory note, but in the Timaeus he has done what he could to provide a
cosmology that takes account of both Reason and Necessity, both formal
structure and the flux of becoming.
So far I have presented the 7heaetetus and the Sophist as Plato's first
moves in the project of reshaping or reformulating his metaphysics aftier
the Parmenides. As far as we can see, that project was completed in the
Timaeus. The Theaetetus takes a fresh view of sensory phenomena and the
Sophist presents a revised doctrine of Forms, but only the Timaeus
attempts to bring the Forms and phenomena together, and thus to deal
with the notorious problem of participation. The lynch-pin of Plato's
solution is his new concept of the Receptacle, introduced by a new and,
for the first time, constructive treatment of flux. The Receptacle is the
only entity recognized in the Timaeus as independent of the Forms. Sen-
sible images of the Forms are now construed as modifications of the

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 C H. Kahn /Phronesis 52 (2007) 33-57 55

Receptacle, not as beings in their own right. Thus Plato

lem of reifying images as separate entities or immanent for
that leads to the paradox of two independent worlds.
This is not the occasion for an exegesis of the highly con
passage in the Timaeus.20 But this positive account of f
some extent in the Statesman and Philebus. To round of
unifying vision of Plato's later work, let me briefly sum
leading to the attempted solution in the Timaeus.
The Sophist insists that the notion of Being must be ext
kine"sis and change, but it does not show how this is to
backwards from the role assigned to arithmetic and ge
Timaeus, we can see the treatment of mathematics in the
Philebus as motivated by precisely the same theoretical
to give a rational account of change. In an important d
Statesman (corresponding formally to the treatment of
Sophist), the Eleatic Stranger introduces the notion of
matics as an art of measurement (metrike) based on the concept
of "due measure" (to metrion). This metrical art is said to concern all
coming-to-be, to be the basis for all expertise and the source of all prod-
ucts that are fine and good (283d 8, 284b 2, 285a 2). The cosmic art of the
Demiurge would be a special application of this metrical expertise to the
ordering of the natural world. Such an application of metrike remains
implicit in the Statesman, where the Demiurge is mentioned only in the
myth (269d 9, 270a 5, 273d 4). But the Statesman myth can take for
granted this notion of a cosmic craftsman, since the idea of a god respon-
sible for shaping the products of nature was introduced earlier, as a species
of the art of making (poietike) in the final divisions of the Sophist (265c).
A different but parallel approach to the mathematical order of nature
is developed in the Philebus, where, according to a principle tossed down
from heaven by some Prometheus, all things that are ever said to be (ta aei
legomena einai) "are derived from one and many, and hence have Limit
and Unlimited in their nature" (16c). In the cosmological sketch that

20) For my reading of Timaeus 49c-50a see "Flux and forms in the Timaeus," in
M. Canto-Sperber and P. Pellegrin (eds.) Le Style de la Pensee. Recueil de textes en hom-
mage a Jacques Brunschwig (Paris, 2002), 113-131.

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56 C. H. Kahn / Phronesis 52 (2007) 33-57

follows in the Philebus, "all the beings that are now present in the uni-
verse" (23c) are analyzed as a blended mixture of Limit and Unlimited,
under the cosmic guidance of nous. In this sketch the Unlimited is con-
ceived as a kind of qualitative flux (24d); but the correlative principle of
Limit is represented by quantitative concepts: equality, numerical ratios,
and mathematical proportion (metron pros metron, Ph. 25a7-b 2). We can
see these two passages from the Statesman and Philebus as developing the
application of mathematical concepts, first to the analysis of artistic mak-
ing, and then to an analysis of cosmic order as a special case of artistic
making. (The Philebus also prepares for the Timaeus in construing all
causality in terms of making, 26e.) Both Statesman and Philebus share
with the Timaeus a conception of mathematics that is quite different from
that of the Republic. Whereas in the epistemology of the Republic math-
ematics is always pointed upwards, serving to raise the mind towards the
Being of the Forms, in these three dialogues the power of mathematics
is systematically directed downwards, to impose order on the mixed
products of Becoming.
We cannot discuss here in detail Plato's attempt in the Timaeus to solve
the problem of participation, but we can at least recognize the necessary
ingredients prepared for this solution. These ingredients are, first of all
the unchanging Forms, including Forms for fire and the elements of
nature; second, the Receptacle, providing both the spatial framework and
also the qualitative flux for Becoming. (The connection between flux and
the Receptacle is a subject of dispute. I take it that what is described in
the Philebus as the qualitative flux of the Unlimited is represented in the
Timaeus narrative as the chaotic state of the Receptacle before the
Demiurge goes to work, 52d-53b. Thus the qualitative dimension of phe-
nomenal experience is accounted for as an attribute of the Receptacle
itself, although each particular quality will be determined by specific
modifications (or "limits") imposed on the Receptacle. In that sense the
Receptacle has no intrinsic properties, but only the capacity for qualita-
tive determination, by limits imposed from above.) Finally, there is the
appearance of phenomenal images, which are modifications of the Recep-
tacle structured by imitation of the various Forms, "imprinted from them
in a marvelous way that is hard to describe, which we will pursue later,"
says Timaeus (tpo7cov Ttv& &6(ppaaTov Kice OOC1iccitov, iov ii; ci0li;

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 C. H. Kahn /Phronesis 52 (2007) 33-57 57

ge1r?V 50c 6). Is this promise left unfulfilled, and t

ticipation avoided once again? (Thus Zeyl, following Cornford, translates
Ci;i a jlS ?x1?v as "we will pursue [this] at another time.") Or is ri;
A; a forward reference within the dialogue to the "unfamiliar logos"
three Stephanus pages later, the logos in which Timaeus will describe
the structuring of the cosmic elements "by forms (eide) and numbers"
(53c 1)? On this second reading (which I prefer), the geometry of the
elemental triangles and, more generally, the use of mathematics to give
structure to the phenomena of nature, is the marvelous device by which
Forms are imitated in phenomena. In other words, applied mathematics
is the mechanism by which the noetic unity of unchanging Forms is trans-
mitted to the perceptual plurality of kinds of things that come to be and
perish. In this intermediate role, between the purely intelligible and the
perceptible, between the eternal and the changing, mathematics provides
the instrument by which the one becomes many, as an invariant Form is
repeatedly imitated in regular modifications of the Receptacle. Such an
interpretation of the Timaeus may well lie behind Aristotle's references to
the so-called mathematicals, which are said to account for plurality and
hence to occupy an intermediate status between the Forms and their sen-
sible homonyms.2' If this is even approximately correct, the numerical
ratios and elementary triangles of the Timaeus would constitute Plato's
last and best attempt to deal with the problem of participation.
In answer to the question, Why is the Sophist a sequel to the 7heaete-
tus? I have suggested that we see these two dialogues as Plato's first moves
in a long-term project of reshaping his metaphysics in the light of the
Parmenides critique, with the further goal of extending his theory to
include the world of change and Becoming. Thus my story begins with
the Parmenides (or even with the Cratylus) and ends with the Timaeus. In
some ways this account may seem more developmental than unitarian.
But perhaps that is the price to be paid for doing justice to the themes of
both unity and plurality in Plato's work.

") Met. A.6, 987b 14-18.

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