Dialogue in Sophist and Statesman

Because the Young Socrates in Statesman plays a largely passive role, as did Theatetus in Sophist, some interpreters and translators have been inclined to dismiss the dialogic element, in these late books especially, as unimportant. It is true that these dialogues are not as dynamic and literary as some of the earlier ones, where the interlocutors play a larger role in the discussion, contributing challenges, counter-arguments, and specific personal interests. It would be a mistake, however, to dismiss Plato’s seriousness of purpose in choosing to write these books dialogically, notwithstanding the rather different way he uses the form here.

In these two dialogues, Theatetus and the Young Socrates are bright and alert but largely unformed youths, in contrast to the Eleatic Stranger (or “Visitor,” one of only two unnamed major characters in Plato’s corpus), who is evidently a mature and accomplished philosopher (in the sense of someone in possession of “the knowledge that free people have” and “a pure and just love of wisdom” – Sophist 253c-e). Both dialogues illustrate, heuristically and substantively, the method of “collection and division” introduced in Phaedrus, and both take on rather complex and technical issues. These considerations alone might be enough to explain Plato’s choice to simplify the dialogue form, and place almost all the substance in the mouth of one speaker.

Plato does not seem to me, however, to have merely trivial reasons for declining to abandon dialogue altogether in this context. He seems robustly committed, even here, to the Socratic principle of friendly agreement and its pedagogical power, as when the young Socrates attempts to defer to the visitor at 258c:

Visitor: So in what direction will one discover the path that leads to the statesman? For we must discover it, and after having separated it from the rest we must impress one character on it; and having stamped a single different form on the other turnings we must make our minds think all sort of knowledge there are as falling into two classes.

Young Socrates: That, I think, is actually for you to do, visitor, not for me.

Visitor: But, Socrates, it must also be a matter for you, when it becomes clear what it is.

And likewise at 260b:

Visitor: So if we divided off two parts of theoretical knowledge as a whole, referring to one as directive and the other as making judgments, would we say that it had been divided suitably?

Young Socrates: Yes, at least according to my view.

Visitor: But if people are doing something together, it is enough if they agree with one another.

Young Socrates: Quite.

Visitor: So for as long as we are sharing in the present task, we should say good-bye to what everybody else may think.