Table Of ContentCAMBRIDGE TEXTS IN THE
HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY
PLATO
Theaetetus and Sophist
CAMBRIDGE TEXTS IN THE
HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY
SeriesEditors
KARLAMERIKS
ProfessorofPhilosophy,UniversityofNotreDame
DESMONDM.CLARKE
EmeritusProfessorofPhilosophy,UniversityCollegeCork
ThemainobjectiveofCambridgeTextsintheHistoryofPhilosophyistoexpandthe
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Foralistoftitlespublishedintheseries,pleaseseeendofbook.
PLATO
Theaetetus and Sophist
edited by
CHRISTOPHER ROWE
UniversityofDurham
UniversityPrintingHouse,Cambridgecb28bs,UnitedKingdom
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©ChristopherRowe2015
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permissionofCambridgeUniversityPress.
Firstpublished2015
PrintedintheUnitedKingdombyClays,StIvesplc
AcataloguerecordforthispublicationisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Plato.
[Dialogues.Selections.English]
TheaetetusandSophist/Plato;editedandtranslatedbyChristopherRowe.
pagescm.–(Cambridgetextsinthehistoryofphilosophy)
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
isbn978-1-107-01483-1(Hardback)–isbn978-1-107-69702-7(Paperback)
1. Plato.Theaetetus. 2. Plato.Sophist. I. Rowe,C.J. II. Plato.Theaetetus.English.
III. Plato.Sophist.English. IV. Title.
B358.R692015
184–dc23 2015020180
isbn978-1-107-01483-1Hardback
isbn978-1-107-69702-7Paperback
CambridgeUniversityPresshasnoresponsibilityforthepersistenceoraccuracy
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Contents
Acknowledgements page vii
Introduction ix
Chronology xxxiii
Short summaries of Theaetetus and Sophist xxxv
Further reading xli
Note on the text and translation xliii
Theaetetus 1
Sophist 99
Further notes on the text 179
Index 183
v
Acknowledgements
My thanks, first, to Hilary Gaskin, for her willingness to wait another
whole year for a volume that was originally promised for delivery in
December 2013, and for keeping me as firmly as she could within the
limits imposed by the general design and intentions of the series. The
serieseditor,DesmondClarke,providedusefulcommentsonthestyleof
twoearlydrafts.DebraNails,FrisbeeSheffield,VerityHarte,andinthe
later stages Matt Duncombe gave help of various kinds. But Terry
Penner andHeatherRowe werethe truemidwives foraproject thefirst
origins of which, in retrospect, can be traced back to Cambridge in the
1960s, and the lectures of J. R. Bambrough and A. L. Peck.
vii
Introduction
The Theaetetus and the Sophist are two of the Platonic dialogues most
widely read by philosophers, and they have been read in a variety of
differentways,inantiquityasmuchasinthemodernperiod,andduring
the centuries in between. Modern discussions of the two dialogues
tend to concentrate on specific passages and problems, not always with
sufficient attention to the contexts within which those passages and
problems occur. The present introduction is constructed on the basis
of the evident fact that the two dialogues are written as wholes, and
alsoasasinglewhole,orpartofone(seeSection1),andthereforedeserve
tobereadassuch.Thepurposeofthefollowingpagesistohelpreaders
find their way through the arguments of the two dialogues from end to
1
end, offering a preliminary way past at least some of the many obs-
tacles – whether problems isolated, or indeed constructed, by modern
critics, or other problems of a more mundane sort – that may serve to
obstruct an attempt at a continuous reading of two admittedly complex
works.
1 A trilogy (or a quartet?)
TheTheaetetusandSophistformpartofasinglePlatonicproject.Thisis
formallysignalledbythefactthattheendoftheTheaetetuslooksforward
1 There exists a vast body of secondary literature on the Theaetetus and the Sophist, and the
interpretation of both dialogues is controversial. What follows tends to favour one particular
interpretation(namelythetranslator’s),forwhichintheshortspaceavailableonlytheoutlinesofa
justificationcanbegiven.
ix
