Abstract

The dissertation is an examination of Plato's Sophist with a specific view to Plato's confrontation with Parmenidean thought. In light of both Anglo-American and phenomenological interpretations, I argue in the dissertation that Plato's treatment of the question concerning non-being and falsity marks a significant transformation in the history of philosophy whereby non-being understood as 'nothing' quietly leaves the scene and is no longer considered a moment worthy of philosophical attention. Plato's attempt in the Sophist to save non-being from Eleatic oblivion and reveal it as a viable philosophical concept is generally hailed as a success. My task in the dissertation, however, is to call attention to the loss for thinking inconspicuously accompanying this success. By studying the Eleatic stranger's redefinition of non-being as "otherness," the refutation of Parmenides, 'one,' and the discussion of the five "greatest kinds"---the "solution" to the Parmenidean problem---I document the philosophical presuppositions, the practical exigencies, and the linguistic mechanisms operating in the Sophist that compel the polemic between Plato and Parmenides and lead to this transformation or Umschlag. The German word Umschlag, which can mean a turn-around but also an envelope, alludes to remarks in Heidegger's 1924 Sophist Lectures that Plato's Sophist marks a noteworthy revolution in the conception of non-being. My use of this word, playing on its double sense, is an attempt to capture the loss---what gets tucked away from thought---entailed in this revolution. Yet, while I rely on Heidegger's discussion of the Sophist in his early 1924 lecture course as well as his later discussions of the "history of being," I also draw on the Anglo-American interpretations of GEL Owen, Charlotte Stough, Edward Lee, Charles Kahn, Gregory Vlastos, as well as the Straussian readings of Stanley Rosen and Seth Benardete. By drawing together these different schools of interpretation, I hope to offer a critical examination of each and begin what I hope will prove to be a productive exchange between them