Another Plato PHL Question...

[Terinox]

In the Sophist, the Eleatic Visitor says that falsity is impossible because that which is not (or not-being) cannot be applied to any of those which are (Sophist 237a4-5), and because it is "unthinkable, unsayable, unutterable, and unformulable in speech" (Sophist 237c7-8). Explain why the Eleatic Visitor thinks that there is a problem with falsity in the Sophist. What is his solution to this problem? Do you think his solution is the right one? Why/Why not?

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Not really asking for the question to be explained, just wondering if anyone has views on this? It's (Sophist) really hard and confusing to read and understand this dialogue.

It deserves a and just maybe a cuz Plato sure was

[monster.]

dude... dude... <<scratching head>> dude... thats impressive, tell me you memorized that... that is like chinese to me... phlosophy was interesting, interesting to pass it and never look back at it...

[caturpilar]

Umm.......I think I'll go back to my coloring book now.

[redrock]

Great philosopher said theoretically, you can't get from point A to point B if...you take half the distance of point A to point B. then take half the distance of that and so on.
So theoretically you would never make it do your destination. But it doesn't pan out in the real world. RR

[chicamahomico]

Great philosopher said theoretically, you can't get from point A to point B if...you take half the distance of point A to point B. then take half the distance of that and so on.
So theoretically you would never make it do your destination. But it doesn't pan out in the real world. RR

Correct. I believe calculus disproved Zenos paradox.

[redrock]

Correct. I believe calculus disproved Zenos paradox.

Thank you! I couldn't remember the friggin name of it. I knew it was something with a Z. And it was a paradox. RR

[BigGreen]

My old school philosophy is *weak* (the "oldest" philosopher that I'm at all into is Roussea, out of the sheer obligation of having to love a guy who writes thousands of pages on how he hates books...with Bertrand Russel being my favorite and more emblematic of the "era" of philosophy i'm more familiar with). Anyway, I seem to recall the central tenent of the passage(s) you're describing as being a starting point for many philosophers to make the claim that there is an absolute and universal truth to everything, ie, *nothing* IS false but can only be PERCEIVED as false because, as is obvious, a falsity can not exist because everything that exists is, (again) obviously "there" and thus true. From here it was a philosophical hop, skip and a jump to "the only untruth is a human's attempt to conceive truth", which spawned many a great rant for my boy Rousseau and later every critic and philosopher who took up arms against the Enlightenment in his image. That, as I recall, was the philosophical significance of that stepping stone.