ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with the question of difference in the Sophist. It begins with the difference that sets this dialogue apart from its dramatic predecessor, the Theaetetus, and with the task posed at the outset of determining the difference between the sophist, the statesman, and the philosopher. The scene is much the same as that of the Theaetetus. This continuity is explicit in Socrates final remark in the Theaetetus, taken together with the statement by Theodorus with which the Sophist begins. The stage is thus set for the Stranger's discourse on the other, on otherness, in which the ontological core of the dialogue will culminate. In any case, whatever the kinds may be, it is a matter of discerning how they differ from the philosopher, how each is other than the philosopher. Thus, again, but now in direct reference to the philosopher, there is anticipation of the ontological discourse on the other.
