Dialogue On The Sophist, Session 1: Continuous Division

While the word “sophist” is no longer in general use, there are many examples today of sophistry which is the selling of expertise. How does the buyer know the expertise claimed is real, or whether the seller is an expert in name only? On March 6, 2022 members of the Toronto Philosophy and Calgary Philosophy Meetup groups began discussion of the first part of The Sophist (to 235(d)) with some modern examples of sophistry. This led to consideration of Plato’s method of continuous division of expertise into successions of two opposites, to “chase a thing through both the particular and the general”. One participant compared the method to the exploration of a labyrinth while another described the divisions as options, but questions remained whether the choices of opposites were arbitrary or otherwise leading. These questions demonstrate Plato’s point about the importance of reaching verbal agreement on the nature of a thing such as expertise beyond its name, amplified in The Sophist by the visitor from Elea who warns against the worst type of ignorance which is “Not knowing but thinking that you know. That’s what probably causes all of the mistakes we make when we think.” Our discussion ended in considering the discord and disproportion in the soul that results from ignorance, where we will pick up in our next episode when we explore the nature of being and “that which is”.