Note 135 — Chapter XXIX · SOPHISTES — POLITIKUS. (continued 2)

Socher (Ueber Platon’s Schriften, pp. 264-265) is upon this point more satisfactory than the other Platonic commentators. He points out — not only without disguise, but even with emphasis — the discrepancies and contradictions between the doctrines ascribed to the Eleate in the Sophistês, and those ascribed to Sokrates in the Republic, Phædon, and other Platonic dialogues. These are the main premisses upon which Socher rests his inference, that the Sophistês is not the composition of Plato. I do not admit his inference: but the premisses, as matters of fact, appear to me undeniable. Stallbaum, in his Proleg. to the Sophistês, p. 40 seq., attempts to explain away these discrepancies — in my opinion his remarks are obscure and unsatisfactory. Various other commentators, also holding the Sophistês to be a genuine work of Plato, overlook or extenuate these premisses, which they consider unfavourable to that conclusion. Thus Alkinous, in his Εἰσαγωγή, sets down the explanation of τὸ μὴ ὂν which is given in the Sophistês, as if it were the true and Platonic explanation, not adverting to what is said in the Republic and elsewhere (Alkin. c. 35, p. 189 in the Appendix Platonica annexed to the edition of Plato by K. F. Hermann). The like appears in the Προλεγόμενα τῆς Πλάτωνος φιλοσοφίας: c. 21, p. 215 of the same edition. Proklus, in his Commentary on the Parmenidês, speaks in much the same manner about τὸ μὴ ὂν — considering the doctrine advanced and defended by the Eleate in the Sophistês, to represent the opinion of Plato (p. 785 ed. Stallbaum; see also the Commentary of Proklus on the Timæus, b. iii. p. 188 E, 448 ed. Schneid.). So likewise Simplikius and the commentators on Aristotle, appear to consider it — see Schol. ad Aristotel. Physica, p. 332, a. 8, p. 333, b., 334, a., 343, a. 5. It is plain from these Scholia that the commentators were much embarrassed in explaining τὸ μὴ ὄν. They take the Sophistês as if it delivered Plato’s decisive opinion upon that point (Porphyry compares what Plato says in the Timæus, but not what he says in the Republic or in Theætêtus, p. 333, b. 25); and I think that they accommodate Plato to Aristotle, in such manner as to obscure the real antithesis which Plato insists upon in the Sophistês — I mean the antithesis according to which Plato excludes what is ἐναντίον τοῦ ὄντος and admits only what is ἕτερον τοῦ ὄντος.

Ritter gives an account (Gesch. der Philos. part ii. pp. 288-289) of Plato’s doctrine in the Sophistês respecting Non-Ens; but by no means an adequate account. K. F. Hermann also omits (Geschichte und System der Platonischen Philos. pp. 504-505-507) to notice the discrepancy between the doctrine of the Sophistês, and the doctrine of the Republic, and Theætêtus, respecting τὸ μὴ ὄν — though he pronounces elsewhere that the Republic is among the most indisputably positive of all Plato’s compositions (p. 536).