智者

智者（古希腊语：Σοφιστής）是一篇柏拉图对话录，其副标题是“论‘是’，逻辑的”（古希腊语：H Περί του όντος Λογικός）。它是柏拉图晚期著作中重要的篇章之一。其讨论的对象是“是者”与“非是者”的关系，引子则是对“智者”这一人群的定义。在该篇中，柏拉图批判或修改了自己早期思想中的“理念论”（又称相论），将一成不变的“绝对是者”改为可以互相结合的“诸理念”（τᾰ̀ γένη），是为“通种论”（κοινωνία τῶν γενῶν），而对诸理念、种属的正确结合就是辩证法。辩证法的运用揭示通种论中错误的环节，即揭示理念的错误结合。所谓的“智者”就藏身在这种诸理念的错误结合之中。在该篇中，“智者”一词是带有贬义的，但该词本身并无贬义，仅仅是从柏拉图开始才有。

The Sophist (Greek: Σοφιστής; Latin: Sophista) is a Platonic dialogue from the philosopher's late period, most likely written in 360 BC. Its interlocutors, led by Eleatic Stranger employ the method of division in order to classify and define the sophist and describe his essential attributes and differences in relation to the philosopher and statesman.

Like its sequel, the Statesman, the dialogue is unusual in that Socrates is present but plays only a minor role. Instead, the Eleatic Stranger takes the lead in the discussion. Because Socrates is silent, it is difficult to attribute the views put forward by the Eleatic Stranger to Plato, beyond the difficulty inherent in taking any character to be an author's "mouthpiece".

Background

The main objective of the dialogue is to identify what a sophist is and how a sophist differs from a philosopher and statesman. Because each seems distinguished by a particular form of knowledge, the dialogue continues some of the lines of inquiry pursued in the epistemological dialogue, Theaetetus, which is said to have taken place the day before. Because the Sophist treats these matters, it is often taken to shed light on Plato's Theory of Forms and is compared with the Parmenides, which criticized what is often taken to be the theory of forms.

In Cratylus, contemporary or slightly preceding the Republic, Plato poses the problem, decisive for the use of dialectics for cognitive purposes, of the relationship between name and thing, between word and reality. Thus the ‘Sophist’ has its major background in the Cratylus. This dialogue is resolved in a contrast between the thesis of Hermogenes, who considers the name a simple sequence of sounds conventionally chosen to refer to an object, and the thesis of Cratylus, a pupil of the old Heraclitus, who supported the full expression of the essence of the “nominatum” in the name, and who considered the names as expressions forged by an Onomaturge, capable of expressing the essence of the thing named. Following this research, all the ‘Sophist’ is dedicated to find the right definition of the name “sophist”.

Some contemporary scholars, based on their orientations, have argued that in the Cratylus Plato gave his assent now to the thesis of Hermogenes, now to the thesis of Cratylus. Gérard Genette, in the work ‘Mimologique. Voyage en Cratilie’ (1976), starts from Plato's speech to argue the idea of arbitrariness of the sign: according to this thesis, already supported by the great linguist Ferdinand de Saussure, the connection between language and objects is not natural, but culturally determined. The ideas developed in the Cratylus, although dated, have historically been an important point of reference in the development of Linguistics. On the basis of the Cratylus, Gaetano Licata has reconstructed, in the essay ‘Plato’s theory of language. Perspectives on the concept of truth’ (2007, Il Melangolo), the relationship between the Cratylus and the ‘Sophist’ and the Platonic conception of semantics, according to which names have a natural link, (an essential foundation) with their "nominatum". This author argues that Plato accepts Cratylus' thesis. Finally, the concept of language and of “true discourse” of Cratylus will be very important for the study of diairetic dialectic in the ‘Sophist’.