sophist   

Str. For certainly, my friend, the attempt to separate all
existences from one another is a barbarism and utterly unworthy of
an educated or philosophical mind.
Theaet. Why so?
Str. The attempt at universal separation is the final annihilation
of all reasoning; for only by the union of conceptions with one
another do we attain to discourse of reason.
Theaet. True.
Str. And, observe that we were only just in time in making a
resistance to such separatists, and compelling them to admit that
one thing mingles with another.
Theaet. Why so?
Str. Why, that we might be able to assert discourse to be a kind
of being; for if we could not, the worst of all consequences would
follow; we should have no philosophy. Moreover, the necessity for
determining the nature of discourse presses upon us at this
moment; if
utterly deprived of it, we could no more hold discourse; and
deprived of it we should be if we admitted that there was no
admixture
of natures at all.
Theaet. Very true. But I do not understand why at this moment we
must determine the nature of discourse.
Str. Perhaps you will see more clearly by the help of the
following explanation.
Theaet. What explanation?
Str. Not-being has been acknowledged by us to be one among many
classes diffused over all being.
Theaet. True.
Str. And thence arises the question, whether not-being mingles
with opinion and language.
Theaet. How so?
Str. If not-being has no part in the proposition, then all things
must be true; but if not-being has a part, then false opinion and
false speech are possible, for. think or to say what is not-is
falsehood, which thus arises in the region of thought and in speech.
Theaet. That is quite true.
Str. And where there is falsehood surely there must be deceit.
Theaet. Yes.
Str. And if there is deceit, then all things must be full of idols
and images and fancies.
Theaet. To be sure.
Str. Into that region the Sophist, as we said, made his
escape, and,
when he had got there, denied the very possibility of falsehood; no
one, he argued, either conceived or uttered falsehood, inasmuch as
not-being did not in any way partake of being.
Theaet. True.
Str. And now, not-being has been shown to partake of being, and
therefore he will not continue fighting in this direction,
but he will
probably say that some ideas partake of not-being, and some not, and
that language and opinion are of the non-partaking class; and he
will still fight to the death against the existence of the
image-making and phantastic art, in which we have placed
him, because,
as he will say, opinion and language do not partake of not-being,
and unless this participation exists, there can be no such thing as
falsehood. And, with the view of meeting this evasion, we must begin
by enquiring into the nature of language, opinion, and
imagination, in
order that when we find them we may find also that they have
communion
with not-being, and, having made out the connection of them, may