What is it about?
Many readers have struggled to understand why Plato's Sophist defines Being as dynamis, that is, as power. This paper argues that the dialogue is explaining the nature of the arts, that each art has its own peculiar elements (such as letters or words), and that each of these elements is a being insofar as it has the power to combine with some other elements. Someone who has knowledge of the art grasps which elements combine with which others and which elements must be separated. So understood, the dialogue shows why arts constitute a type of knowledge. the pertinent power is the capacity of one element to combine with another.
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Why is it important?
Plato usually denies that sensible things can be known because they change. Since, though, the objects of an art are often sensible, since the being of these objects lies in their power to combine and separate, and since such powers do not change, sensible objects admit of a kind of knowledge.
Perspectives
Some philosophers have thought that the Sophist is about a transcendent Being. Others have claimed it is a philosophy of language. At first glance the interpretation argued here seems more predestrian. However, it has the advantage of being consonant with the entirety of the dialogue, and it addresses an issue that ought to be recognized as really important for Plato and for philosophy.
Edward Halper
University of Georgia
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Dynamis and Agency in the Sophist, December 2024, Brill,
DOI: 10.1163/9789004722040_008.
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