Abstract

Possibility of falsehood arises in the early parts of plato's "sophist". I argue that the participants in the dialogue operate with two related analogies, one which considers spoken images to be fundamentally like seen images, and another analogy which considers the objects of stating or believing to be like the objects of perceiving. (the second analogy has parallels in "theaetetus" 188c-189b). These analogies lead to confusions which plato attempts to dispel in the later portions of the "sophist"