ABSTRACT
It is argued that once the negative criterion for distinguishing eikones from phantasmata in lógos about the originals in the intelligible realm appears in the Sophist, the Stranger’s claim in the final divisions that “we now indisputably count off the kind of image-making as two” (266e), i.e., likeness making and semblance making, becomes problematical. Specifically, what becomes a problem is whether the distinction in question is a mathesis (learning matter) and therefore something capable of becoming epistême. Consequent this, it is also argued that the eidetic-arithmoí that appear in the dialectical investigation of the greatest kinds rule out precisely the power of lógos to make the kind of clean cut the Stranger proposes regarding the sophist and philosopher belonging to different gene, given the incomparable nature of the gené and eidê being divided. Keywords: image; eidetic numbers; mimesis; Non-being; sophist; greatest kinds.
