sophist   

definition.
Theaet. Yes, this was implied in recent admission.
Str. And, in the second place, it related to a subject?
Theaet. Yes.
Str. Who must be you, and can be nobody else?
Theaet. Unquestionably.
Str. And it would be no sentence at all if there were no subject,
for, as we proved, a sentence which has no subject is impossible.
Theaet. Quite true.
Str. When other, then, is asserted of you as the same, and
not-being
as being, such a combination of nouns and verbs is really and truly
false discourse.
Theaet. Most true.
Str. And therefore thought, opinion, and imagination are now
proved to exist in our minds both as true and false.
Theaet. How so?
Str. You will know better if you first gain a knowledge of
what they
are, and in what they severally differ from one another.
Theaet. Give me the knowledge which you would wish me to gain.
Str. Are not thought and speech the same, with this exception,
that what is called thought is the unuttered conversation of the
soul with herself?
Theaet. Quite true.
Str. But the stream of thought which flows through the lips and is
audible is called speech?
Theaet. True.
Str. And we know that there exists in speech...
Theaet. What exists?
Str. Affirmation.
Theaet. Yes, we know it.
Str. When the affirmation or denial takes Place in silence and in
the mind only, have you any other name by which to call it but
opinion?
Theaet. There can be no other name.
Str. And when opinion is presented, not simply, but in some form
of sense, would you not call it imagination?
Theaet. Certainly.
Str. And seeing that language is true and false, and that
thought is
the conversation of the soul with herself, and opinion is the end of
thinking, and imagination or phantasy is the union of sense and
opinion, the inference is that some of them, since they are akin to
language, should have an element of falsehood as well as of truth?
Theaet. Certainly.
Str. Do you perceive, then, that false opinion and speech have
been discovered sooner than we expected?-For just now we seemed to
be undertaking a task which would never be accomplished.
Theaet. I perceive.
Str. Then let us not be discouraged about the future; but
now having
made this discovery, let us go back to our previous classification.
Theaet. What classification?
Str. We divided image-making into two sorts; the one
likeness-making, the other imaginative or phantastic.
Theaet. True.
Str. And we said that we were uncertain in which we should
place the
Sophist.
Theaet. We did say so.
Str. And our heads began to go round more and more when it was
asserted that there is no such thing as an image or idol or
appearance, because in no manner or time or place can there ever be