The Eleatic Visitor speaks forcefully when he insists, ‘Necessarily, whenever there is speech, it is speech of something; it is impossible for it not to be of something’. For ‘if it were not of anything, it would not be speech at all; for we showed that it is impossible for there to be speech that is speech of nothing’. Presumably, at 263c10, when he claims to have ‘shown’ that it is impossible for speech to be of nothing, the Visitor is (...) referring back to the Parmenidean puzzles at Sophist 237ff. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis article aims at understanding the functions of the forms of Being and the Other in Plato's Sophist. In contrast with a linguistic interpretation purporting to draw a distinction between uses of the verb “to be,” I shed light on the ontological role ascribed to “the great genus” in the interweaving of forms. Focusing on the vowel analogy, I argue that the roles of Being and the Other respectively are that of a connector and a separator actualizing the participations and (...) the differences between the forms. The outcome of this analysis is to offer an explanation of the dialectical methods described in that dialogue in a rather obscure, abstract way; the much-debated question of self-predication can be settled without recourse to selfparticipation. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis article aims at understanding the functions of the forms of Being and the Other in Plato's Sophist. In contrast with a linguistic interpretation purporting to draw a distinction between uses of the verb “to be,” I shed light on the ontological role ascribed to “the great genus” in the interweaving of forms. Focusing on the vowel analogy, I argue that the roles of Being and the Other respectively are that of a connector and a separator actualizing the participations and (...) the differences between the forms. The outcome of this analysis is to offer an explanation of the dialectical methods described in that dialogue in a rather obscure, abstract way; the much-debated question of self-predication can be settled without recourse to selfparticipation. (shrink)

In F. Nietzsche’s philosophical thought, there is a profound link between European Nihilism and the task of modern philosophy to produce new Platos. The current article demonstrates how G. Deleuze uses the Nietzschean term Unzeitgemäβ – (Untimely – Unfashionable) in his attempt to overturn nihilistic Platonism. Deleuze enriches the Stoic paradox of [non-] when seeking an image of thought without image for the sake of what he calls the “untimely creative intensity,” an affirmative power in immanence. I argue that Deleuze (...) reads the Stoic [non-] using the lens of the Nietzschean untimely to construct the technique of reversibility in his philosophical plane. Following the cartography of Deleuze’s philosophical route, I first examine two problems caused by Platonic nihilism: the destruction of the form in anonymity and the noiseless transmutation of copies into simulacra. Second, I discuss Deleuze’s two types of nihilism: (i) the cruciform structure of the Platonic and (ii) the use of the paradox of the [non-] upon the surface by Stoics. Finally, I comment on Deleuzian nihilism as the birthplace of creation. (shrink)

Since the publication of The verb “be” in Ancient Greek by Charles Kahn, people have put a lot of emphasis and invested too much labor in all kinds of historico-philological analyses in order to resolve philosophical questions regarding the concept of existence in Greek thought. Useful as these analyses might be, they cannot provide us with conclusive answers to the specific philosophical questions under scrutiny, and, perhaps, it is time for us to abandon the overwhelming optimist motivating the pioneers behind (...) these attempts. I use the Sophist as a case study. I conclude that whether the Form of Being represents existence or predication cannot be settled on speculation regarding the syntax of the verb εἶναι; absolute εἶναι need not be existential in meaning, and complemented εἶναι may be existential in meaning. (shrink)

It is often thought that Plato sets himself an important task in the Sophist – that of disentangling different uses, or senses, of the verb einai. Plato is thought to have confused different senses or uses of the verb in his philosophical youth; here he is supposed to correct his mistake, and to mark out a danger area for his successors.1 Plato is also often supposed, by commentators, to have set himself the task of disentangling a second confusion – a (...) confusion between the mē on and the mēdamōs on : on this view, the mē on is revealed as the negation of the on, whereas the mēdamōs on is the opposite of the on. (shrink)

My aim is to investigate the link between Plato’s Sophist and Gorgias’s treatise On What Is Not. This relationship is worth examining because Gorgias’s treatise constitutes an essential, but insufficiently studied stage in the intellectual journey leading from Parmenides to the Sophist. My claims are that 1) Plato’s agenda in the Sophist perfectly meets the challenges Gorgias raises in the first thesis of his treatise, that 2) this becomes clear once we focus on Gorgias’s and Plato’s respective use of the (...) verb ‘to be’ and, finally, that 3) Plato is able to overcome Parmenides’s impasse precisely because he deals with Gorgias’s treatise. (shrink)