Not very long ago, Plato's Sophist was often presented as a dialogue devoted to the problem of being and not-being, entangled with limited success in an inquiry into the nature of the sophist. Thanks to the renewal of interest in the dramatic form of Plato's dialogues, recent works have shown that this entanglement is far from ill-conceived or anecdotal.Footnote ¹ However, the inquiry into the sophist is itself introduced by another question, concerning the nature of the Stranger from Elea himself. I would like to show that this question and the way in which it is raised in the prologue may themselves shed light on the relations between the many threads which run across this very complex dialogue.

The Sophist begins the day after the Theaetetus took place. Theodorus introduces a Stranger (ξένος) who comes from Elea and whom he characterizes as ‘very much a philosopher’ (μάλα δὲ ἄνδρα ϕιλόσοϕον, 216a4). Socrates immediately reacts in saying that, if that is so (ἆρ᾽ οὖν), this Stranger might be a god come to observe and refute us because of our weakness in arguments, a θεὸς ἐλεγκτικός (216b6). He invokes Homer, who speaks about the gods accompanying just men and about the god of Strangers keeping an eye on ὕβρις and εὐνομία in human deeds.

This reference to Homer deserves more attention than it has received. Plato alludes in particular to a passage of Book 17 of the Odyssey in which one of Penelope's suitors shouts at Antinoos, who has been rude and violent towards the still unrecognized Odysseus:Footnote ²

The suspicion of the Stranger's being a god is certainly justified, since, in the Odyssey, the first ξένος (or rather ξεῖνος) we meet is Athena, properly welcomed by Telemachus (see 1.123). Nevertheless, in most of the Odyssey, the ξεῖνος par excellence is, of course, Odysseus himself. Most of the time, Odysseus is addressed as such, almost no-one – with the exception of Alcinoos (see 8.548–54) – bothering to ask his name.Footnote ³ This is especially true in the Ithaca part, where he appears as a beggar reluctantly tolerated by the suitors in Penelope's palace. The way in which he will reveal his identity is very definite: in accordance with Athena's wish (see 13.190–3), it is only by killing the suitors that it will become apparent to everybody who he really is. Odysseus' identity is revealed by his deeds, not by his words. This might already suggest that the same will be true for the Stranger from Elea; but more on this later.Footnote ⁴

Theodorus' reply to Socrates' comparison is striking. Obviously he thinks that the comparison of the Stranger with a god is ironic and intended to assimilate him to a sophist, in accordance with the usual Socratic description of the sophists' wisdom as more than human (cf. Apology 20d9–e1). He says that the Stranger is, on the contrary, more moderate than the enthusiasts for dispute (μετριώτερος τῶν περὶ τὰς ἔριδας ἐσπουδακότων), and does not seem to be a god, though he certainly is divine, as all philosophers are (216b7–c1). From this very moment, the problem of the possible confusion between the philosopher and the sophist is brought forward. Perhaps it is worth noticing that Theodorus' insistence is all the more understandable as the sophists were of course generally ξένοι themselves, and are notably referred to as such before being given a name in two Platonic dialogues which clearly lie in the background of the Sophist, namely the Protagoras (309c6) and the Euthydemus (271a4).

Socrates' answer is even more bizarre. On the one hand, he seems to accept Theodorus' distinction between θεός (‘god’) and θεῖος (‘divine’) (cf. 216c2); on the other hand, he continues to apply the suitor's words about the gods to those whom he calls ‘the genuine philosophers’, saying that they visit the cities and take on all sorts of appearances because of the ignorance of others, looking down from above at the life of those below them (c2–7). More precisely, he goes on, sometimes they appear as statesmen, sometimes as sophists, while at other times they give the impression of being completely mad (c8–d2). Hence he would like to ask the Stranger whether ‘the people where he comes from’ (οἱ περὶ τὸν ἐκεῖ τόπον) considered the sophist, the statesman, and the philosopher as three different kinds or not – a question whose answer implies, as the Stranger readily understands, that we clearly discern what each of these kinds is (τί ποτ᾽ ἔστιν) (216d3–217b4).

At least three points deserve careful notice in this passage. First, the cause of the multiform appearance of the philosopher is not to be found in him but in the ignorance of those to whom he appears – that is, in the fact that they do not know what a philosopher is, by contrast with a sophist, a statesman, or a madman. This is different not only from the gods according to Homer, but also from Odysseus, who benefits not only from the ignorance of the suitors but also from the magical assistance of Athena, in order to appear as a beggar (see especially 13.393–403, 429–38). Later in the dialogue, we will learn that even the sophist, who is a great magician, can only appear different from what he is to ignorant people (see 234b5–e7), because false appearances can only deceive when they are viewed from a certain standpoint (236b4–7). In the case of the philosopher, this last condition is sufficient to make him appear other than he is: the reason why he appears so – that is to say, in his case, necessarily worse than he is – is certainly not that he takes trouble to hide his true nature, but merely the fact that other people are unable to distinguish a philosopher from a sophist, a statesman, or a madman. Here it is certainly relevant to remember that the Homeric passage quoted above was criticized in Republic 2.381c6–d3 on the ground that it attributes change to the gods: in the Platonic version, this is no longer the case, in relation either to the gods or to the philosophers.

Second, the initial question was whether the Stranger is a philosopher or a sophist, while now Socrates asks the Stranger himself whether there is a difference between the philosopher and the sophist (and the statesman), and, subsequently, what they are. Does this mean that the initial question has been abandoned, or is this new question intended to provide us with the general criterion according to which we shall be able to answer it? If so, does it not make the Stranger a judge in his own case? And if the Stranger is a genuine philosopher, does it not mean that the philosopher will have to establish his difference from the sophist and the statesman all by himself? Here he is not so remote from Odysseus, who establishes himself as the only suitor worthy of Penelope by killing all the others. I shall come back to this point later.

Third, who are ‘the people where (the Stranger) comes from’? Several replies to this question might be proposed. The most obvious one consists in understanding this expression as referring to the people from Elea in general.Footnote ⁵ At face value, however, this interpretation seems most unlikely: why would Socrates be interested in the opinion of people who are not necessarily, by and large, philosophers? If, as he has just said, ignorance is the source of false appearances, what could he hope to learn from these people? Another option is to take this expression as referring to the Eleatic philosophers. This interpretation might be grounded in the widespread representation according to which the Stranger would be an associate of Parmenides and Zeno. Now this is far from certain;Footnote ⁶ and, in any case, it seems clear that the answer to Socrates' question which will be offered in the dialogue is not the Eleatics' but Plato's own.Footnote ⁷ But perhaps we might say that Elea stands, not specifically for Eleatic philosophy, but for philosophy in general.Footnote ⁸ In so far as it implies that the Stranger's true home is philosophy, this interpretation is ultimately very close to the one which I wish to propose. But I think we can substantiate it by a closer look at what comes next in the dialogue.

The way in which the Stranger will reply to Socrates' query is strange indeed. True, Theodorus says that the Stranger admits that he has heard a lot about this issue and has not forgotten it (217b8–9). Nevertheless, I think it is safe to say that his answer will not take the form of a recitation but of a dialectical investigation. Admittedly, he says that he could as well deliver a long speech (μακρὸς λόγος) all by himself (καθ᾽ αὑτόν), and that it is simply ‘easier’ to talk with someone else (πρὸς ἄλλον), provided that the interlocutor is tractable and gives no trouble (217c3–d3). I do not think that this alternative is between an expository speech and a dialectical research, however, because, in his next reply, the Stranger expresses fear that the way in which he will proceed might be compared to an ἐπίδειξις, and he makes it clear that the latter can take the form of a speech given either by oneself or to someone else (217d8–e3). These are indeed the two forms of speeches in which Protagoras boasted that he excelled,Footnote ⁹ and at the end of the dialogue (268b1–5) both kinds will reappear under the heading ‘ironic imitation’ in order to distinguish the demagogue from the sophist.Footnote ¹⁰ It is therefore clear that the distinction between delivering a long speech and talking with someone else does not coincide with the distinction between dialectic and expository speech, but can be made in each of these two genres.

This being so, there is no reason to suppose that if the Stranger had chosen to deliver a long speech all by himself, this one would not have been every bit as dialectical as the conversation which he will in fact entertain with Theaetetus. Rather than a dull expository speech, one should probably think of the strange dialogue which takes place between Socrates and himself near the end of the Gorgias, after Callicles has given up (506c6 ff.). This is the way in which dialectic proceeds when there is no tractable interlocutor at disposal, but only a Callicles. It is still a dialogue, but a dialogue with oneself. After all, this corresponds to the definition of thinking (διάνοια) which one can find at the end of the Sophist: a silent dialogue of the soul with itself, which can, but does not have to, be spoken aloud (263e3–9). This very definition makes it clear that the presence of two interlocutors is incidental to dialectic, as it is to dialogue in general.

How are we then to understand the reference to the people where the Stranger comes from, if he is not merely going to repeat a lesson of any kind? My suggestion is that ὁ ἐκεῖ τόπος does not refer primarily to EleaFootnote ¹¹ – or, at least, that the Stranger does not understand it thus – but to being (τὸ ὄν). Later in the dialogue, the Stranger will say that being is the place (τόπος) or the space (χώρα) where the philosopher lives and on which he dwells (253e7–254b2); so if the Stranger is a genuine philosopher, this should be his real home, in a much deeper sense than Elea. Now this passage is the conclusion of a very important description of dialectic as the science (ἐπιστήμη) which studies the relations between the Forms (ἰδέαι, εἴδη) or the kinds (γένη) and the causes of these relations, a science which is mastered by the true philosopher alone (253b9–e6). Here, the connection between the philosopher's home – namely being – and dialectic is explicit. But how are we to understand this connection? How is it that to say that the philosopher's business is to explore the relations between the Forms amounts to saying that he is to be found in the brightness of being? Understanding that will require going deeper into the very heart of the dialogue and examining the conception of being which it brings forward. I hope that this investigation will show that the identification of the Stranger's home with being, which might appear far-fetched at first, sheds light on the construction and purpose of the whole dialogue.

As is well known, the question of being (τὸ ὄν, ἡ οὐσία) is introduced in the dialogue as giving rise to a γιγαντομαχία between the Earthborn (οἱ γηγενεῖς, 248c1–2), who identify being with body in so far as it offers tangible contact, and the Friends of the Forms (οἱ τῶν εἰδῶν ϕίλοι, 248a4–5), who identify it with some intelligible and incorporeal Forms (246a4–c5). The reference here is not, as is often suggested,Footnote ¹² to the Hesiodic titanomachy, but to the battle between the Giants and the Olympian Gods, a very popular episode of Greek mythology that was narrated in Archaic epics but is best known to us from the account given by Pseudo-Apollodorus (1.34–8).Footnote ¹³

Two elements of this episode need to be taken into account. First, it is not an undecided battle: there are undisputed winners, namely the Olympian Gods. Now since the gods are clearly represented in Plato's version by the Friends of the Forms, there is already a suggestion that these will be the winners of the current battle over being. This is important, for this passage has often been taken as evidence that Plato would criticize his earlier views in the Sophist. I think it means exactly the opposite: I have no doubt that the Friends of the Forms share Plato's own conception of Forms as it is expressed in earlier dialogues,Footnote ¹⁴ but this passage suggests that it will not be dropped at all, but will triumph over the Giants' view.Footnote ¹⁵ The second important element in the myth is that the Olympian Gods are only able to win the battle thanks to the help of an exceptional mortal, namely Heracles. Although this detail is not mentioned by Plato, I think that we can make sense of it in the context of the battle over being, for here, too, we will need an earthy weapon to win over the Giants. This weapon is a definition of being as δύναμις (‘power’) , more precisely as a δύναμις to act (ποιεῖν, δρᾶν) or to be acted upon (παθεῖν) (247d8–e4; compare 248c4–5).Footnote ¹⁶ Why do I call this definition ‘earthy’? Because it is precisely the Giants' own, as can be seen from a comparison with a passage from the Theaetetus where exactly the same view is attributed to the more sophisticated thinkers (κομψότεροι) for whom the whole is motion (156a2–7), who clearly share a great deal in common with the Sophist's Giants.Footnote ¹⁷ It should therefore come as no surprise that Theaetetus so readily accepts this definition on their behalf, on the pretext that ‘they don't have any better suggestion to offer for the moment’ (247e5–6): they do not, indeed.Footnote ¹⁸

The true challenge will therefore be to make the Friends of the Forms accept this definition too, without thereby giving up the core of their conception. Just as Heracles can cross the Chthonic–Olympian boundary,Footnote ¹⁹ we will have to show that this definition can be appropriated by the Friends of the Forms too. This will require several steps, which I can only summarize very briefly here.Footnote ²⁰

First, the Stranger introduces the concept of κοινωνεῖν (‘enter into relations’, ‘have intercourse’) to describe both sense-perception – as a κοινωνία (‘intercourse’) between the body and coming-to-be – and reasoning – as a κοινωνία between the soul and real being – and he asks the Friends of the Forms whether they interpret these κοινωνίαι in terms of acting and being acted upon (248a10–b6). But they refuse this interpretation, because they think that the definition proposed earlier can only apply to coming-to-be, not to being (248b6–c9).

Now either knowing and being known are both cases of acting, or both cases of being acted upon, or both cases of both; or one of them is acting and the other being acted upon; or neither is a case of either (248d3–7). The Friends of the Forms reply that the last is the case, because they think that any other reply would have the object of knowledge being acted upon, and therefore in motion (248d8–e6). As Lesley Brown has pointed out, however, they are wrong about that, because there remains another possibility, namely that the object of knowledge acts while remaining at rest and the knowing soul is acted upon and therefore in motion.Footnote ²¹ This possibility is perfectly consistent with the immutability of the Platonic Forms insisted upon in earlier dialogues and reaffirmed here by the Stranger as a condition of knowledge (249b8–c9), and much more coherent with Plato's characterization of knowledge as a πάθημα (‘affection’) in some crucial texts (see especially Phaedo 79d7 and Republic 7.511d7). It allows the Friends of the Forms to accept the definition of being as δύναμις without having to retract anything of importance from their initial position.

But this is not the end of the story. Later on, the concept of κοινωνία reappears to designate the combination of the Forms. Does this use of κοινωνεῖν really have ‘no connection’ with its aforementioned use, as Cornford boldly asserts?Footnote ²² I find it hard to believe, especially in view of the fact that in this whole passage, κοινωνία, κοινωνεῖν, and related terms are both frequently used in connection with words from the family of δύναμις (see 251d9, e9, 252d2–3, 253c2, e1, 254c5–6; cf. 253a8) and also interpreted in terms of acting and being acted upon (see 252b9, e9, 259d2; cf. 253a1 and a9). There is therefore every reason to believe that the definition of being as δύναμις to act and to be acted upon is still valid at this point of the dialogue, but has been reinterpreted in such a way as to lose its earthy scent and not to imply motion in any physical sense any more:Footnote ²³ for a Form, to be acted upon by another Form does certainly not mean to be altered by it but rather to be determined by it in an eternal way.Footnote ²⁴ The operator of this interweaving is being, which plays an analogous role to that of vowels among the letters of the alphabet (see 253a4–6, and compare c1–2) and may now be defined as a δύναμις κοινωνίας (‘power to combine’).

From this all too brief survey, the connection between dialectic as the philosopher's science and being as his home may already be apparent: indeed, to study being is to study the relations between the Forms, and this is the task of dialectic. If this is so, to ask a philosopher to report what the people where he comes from think is to ask him to reply from the standpoint of dialectic; and this is exactly what the Stranger does.Footnote ²⁵ In this context, the fact that Socrates asks him what these people thought (in the past) (ἡγοῦντο καὶ ὠνόμαζον, 217a1–2) and the fact that the Stranger is supposed not to have forgotten what he has heard earlier (217b8–9) should probably be understood as referring to the last moment when he practised dialectic, either by himself or with the help of someone else. It was at this time that he was living where he really belonged, and where he will return during the whole course of the dialogue.Footnote ²⁶

Does it mean that Socrates meant his question this way? At the very least, the way in which the Stranger replies shows that he understands it thus; and we should therefore have no doubt that Plato, the author, meant Socrates' question to allow this interpretation – although it cannot, of course, occur to the reader the first time he or she comes across it. Moreover, the fact that Socrates himself will express his admiration for the Stranger in the first lines of the Statesman (257a1–2), which is supposed to take place immediately after the end of the Sophist, suggests that the Stranger's reply perfectly fulfils Socrates' expectations.

Let us turn back to Odysseus. Odysseus reveals his identity by killing Penelope's suitors who occupy his home. Can we extend the metaphor to the philosopher's situation? I think we can. For the philosopher's home, too, is occupied by the sophist. The sophist's home is, in fact, not being but not-being (254a4–6; see also 239c6–7 and 260c11). But the sophist refuses this distinction: pretending to follow Parmenides' recommendations, he denies that it is possible to speak of not-being, so that everything one can say must be, and be true (237a3–241c3). Hence the controversy about what the sophist is is at the same time a controversy about the borders between his home and the philosopher's, as the Stranger suggests by playing on the word ὅρος, which means both ‘boundary’ and ‘definition’ (see 231a9–b1: οὐ γὰρ περὶ σμικρῶν ὅρων τὴν ἀμϕισβήτησιν οἴομαι γενήσεσθαι).

Now if the interpretation which I have proposed is correct, claiming being as one's home means pretending to be a philosopher. This is, of course, exactly what the sophist does. The sophist is an imitator of a very peculiar kind: what he imitates is not a thing but knowledge (see especially 232e2–233d2). The knowledge which he imitates is not any kind of knowledge but the philosopher's – that is, dialectic. This transpires from the five or six first definitionsFootnote ²⁷ which encapsulate its many appearances in the first part of the dialogue. The sophist appears as a hunter (221c6–223b7) and as a seller of the knowledge of virtue, which he either produces by himself or not (223c1–224e5); he is involved in eristic disputation (224e6–226a8) and mimics the Socratic conception of education (παιδεία) as ἔλεγχος (‘cross-examining’) and maieutic art (226b1–231c8). When he sees an advantage in doing so, he does not hesitate to proceed in a very Socratic way by asking a ‘what is it?’ question (namely, ‘what is an image?’) and refuting all the answers which would consist in giving examples (239c9–240a6).Footnote ²⁸ The sophist is the philosopher's dark twin, going as far as to subvert Socratic irony by pretending to know what he realizes he does not know (see 267e11–268a9).

Throughout the dialogue, however, the Stranger will prove to be the true hunter, hemming the sophist in with his dialectical nets (see especially 235a10–b3, but the hunting metaphor is used throughout the division process).Footnote ²⁹ He does not sell knowledge, but displays the true knowledge – that is, dialectic – by his very deeds; and this knowledge, although it is seldom noticed, clearly has something to do with virtue, since the Stranger identifies it with ‘the knowledge of free men’ (τὴν τῶν ἐλευθέρων … ἐπιστήμην, 253c7–8) and says that it can only be assigned to someone who philosophizes purely and justly (τῷ καθαρῶς τε καὶ δικαίως ϕιλοσοϕοῦντι, 253e5).Footnote ³⁰ Moreover, he explicitly presents not only his refutation of Parmenides' logos (241e1, 242a8, b1, 2, 4) but also his whole argument about being and not-being (256c2, 259c9, d5–7) as true ἔλεγχοι, not to be confused with fake (that is sophistic) ones (compare 238d6–7, 239b3). After all, he may well be that θεὸς ἐλεγκτικός whom Socrates suspected him to be right from the beginning. Finally, he admits that his purpose is to help Theaetetus to escape the influence of the appearances produced by the sophist and get closer to real being (234b5–e7), in a passage which cannot but remind one of the myth of the cave and the conception of education which it illustrates.Footnote ³¹ The Stranger indeed pursues Theaetetus' philosophical παιδεία, initiated by Socrates in the Theaetetus along the lines described in the Sophist itself (226b1–231c8).Footnote ³²

The Stranger is mainly known as a patricide, but he is also a sophist-killer. Just like Odysseus, he is the very judge of his own counterfeits, and he reveals his identity by eliminating his rivals with a weapon which he alone can use properly: dialectic. After having forced the sophist out of his home, he can fully enjoy the company of his Penelope: philosophy.Footnote ³³