Abstract

In order to confirm that the sophist is a manufacturer of illusions, Plato argues that it is necessary to refute Parmenides’s thesis which states that there is only – as Plato interprets it – the absolute being. Most likely an echo of this thesis is found in Antisthenes, whom Plato seems to allude to in the _Sophist, _for whom “what is, is true”. This conception of truth is known as “ante-predicative” or ontological, and, according to Heidegger, would be original. It is not the case. From Homer to Parmenides, truth was always attributed to a speech or thought, never to a “being”. The “ante-predicative” conception of truth was a creation of philosophy, which probably began with Parmenides and continued with Antisthenes. When Plato refutes it, in the second part of the _Sophist, _only returns to the past, because he makes speech the “place” of truth.