Today: more application of the newly developed metaphysics to the questions of what falsity (especially false speech and belief) could be and what the sophist is.
In an exciting development, it appears that Plato holds that perception can be true and false. One reason this is interesting is in relation to the _Theaetetus_, where we learned that perception couldn't be knowledge because it grasps the wrong kinds of properties (e.g., redness and hardness, not being and unity). That would still leave it open whether, for Plato, when we see a red cube, we see the redness of the cube or that the cube is red. Here in the _Sophist_ it's looking much more like the latter.
Happy reading!
Thanks again to Nate for keeping momentum up in the past few days! The truth and falsity of perception is indeed an interesting topic here.
ReplyDeleteI have just one very small point to add. I think this is the third dialogue we've encountered with the following partial definition of truth: "the true [speech] says those that are, as they are" (263b). The account of false speech as saying "things different from those that are" doesn't exactly track what we've found elsewhere; but the account of truth is remarkably consistent.
Happy reading, everyone!
Agreed, Colfert--it's striking that the notion of truth stays the same. It's also of course interesting that we get a different definition of falsity exactly when we get all this new metaphysical apparatus...
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