ABSTRACT
The sophist hides in the darkness of not-being, fastening onto ideas only through groping around; he is difficult to recognize because of the darkness in which he lives. But the philosopher is always truly joined with reality through reasoning. The Sophists, Plato’s political and pedagogical rivals, must be tracked to their dark hiding places and captured. In the discussion of the Sophist, these two projects are always intertwined: the redoing of Parmenidean logic and the exposure of the falsity and deception of Sophists. Once the Parmenidean “shield” of the Sophist is penetrated, and falsity is established as a logical possibility, the Stranger can go on to finish the schema by developing the productive side, also identifying the Sophist as a producer of false images. The Sophists’ role in the transition from aristocracy to democracy, from divine law to natural law, from natural law to human law, was deplored by conservatives like Plato.
