Dialogue

  1 Intro|           the Hegelian identity of Being and Not-being. Nor will
  2 Intro|           comprehend the nature of Being. The friends of ideas (Soph.)
  3 Intro|          kinds, and not merely one Being or Good having different
  4 Intro|     Not-being’ to be the other of ‘Being.’ Transferring this to language
  5 Intro|            But he is speaking of a being as imaginary as the wise
  6 Intro|            and were not capable of being comprehended in a single
  7 Intro|          while the absoluteness of Being was asserted in every form
  8 Intro|            in the contemplation of Being, asked no more questions,
  9 Intro|         applying the categories of Being or Not-being to mind or
 10 Intro|            would have replied that Being is alone true. But mankind
 11 Intro|        once admit the existence of Being and Not-being, as two spheres
 12 Intro|       which exclude each other, no Being or reality can be ascribed
 13 Intro|          Not-being is the other of Being, and has as many kinds as
 14 Intro|           there are differences in Being. This doctrine is the simple
 15 Intro|        unfolding or determining of Being, and is a necessary element
 16 Intro|            Plato does not identify Being with Not-being; he has no
 17 Intro|      Not-being, as the negative of Being; although he again and again
 18 Intro|          Not-being as one class of Being, and yet as coextensive
 19 Intro|            yet as coextensive with Being in general. Before analyzing
 20 Intro|           of this, having ideas of Being, Sameness, and the like.
 21 Intro|          passionate:—What! has not Being mind? and is not Being capable
 22 Intro|         not Being mind? and is not Being capable of being known?
 23 Intro|            is not Being capable of being known? and, if this is admitted,
 24 Intro|          admitted, then capable of being affected or acted upon?—
 25 Intro|         opposite determinations to Being. And the answer to the difficulty
 26 Intro|            to the difficulty about Being may be equally the answer
 27 Intro|       Not-being and seemed to lose Being, and now in the hunt after
 28 Intro|          and now in the hunt after Being we recover both. Not-being
 29 Intro|             Not-being is a kind of Being, and in a sense co-extensive
 30 Intro|            sense co-extensive with Being. And there are as many divisions
 31 Intro|       divisions of Not-being as of Being. To every positive idea—‘
 32 Intro|           the Hegelian identity of Being and Not-being, at all touch
 33 Intro|         For what is asserted about Being and Not-Being only relates
 34 Intro|          identified with Other, or Being with Not-being, this does
 35 Intro|            from the positive, and ‘Being’ and ‘Not-being’ are inextricably
 36 Intro|           is one of the classes of Being. They are aspects rather
 37 Intro|     aspects rather than classes of Being. Not-being can only be included
 38 Intro|            can only be included in Being, as the denial of some particular
 39 Intro|           some particular class of Being. If we attempt to pursue
 40 Intro|           the Hegelian identity of Being and Not-being is a more
 41 Intro|          distinguished between the Being which is prior to Not-being,
 42 Intro|        prior to Not-being, and the Being which is the negation of
 43 Intro|          of this when he says that Being comprehends Not-being. Again,
 44 Intro|            there is an opposite of Being. He is inclined to leave
 45 Intro|       which were ever marrying and being given in marriage: in speaking
 46 Intro|          many names to be the true Being of Zeno and the Eleatics,
 47 Intro|       attribute motion or power to Being; 6. they are the enemies
 48 Intro|             which is described as ‘being very skilful in physics,
 49 Intro|           simple ideas of Unity or Being. In the Sophist the same
 50 Intro|        cannot be attributed to any being; for how can any being be
 51 Intro|         any being; for how can any being be wholly abstracted from
 52 Intro|          be wholly abstracted from being? Again, in every predication
 53 Intro|     not-being which does not imply being and number. ‘But I cannot.’
 54 Intro|           a pretty complication of being and not-being, in which
 55 Intro|            ourselves, by affirming being of not-being. I think that
 56 Intro|     inconsistency in asserting the being of not-being. But if I am
 57 Intro|            difficulties even about being.~Let us proceed first to
 58 Intro|        first to the examination of being. Turning to the dualist
 59 Intro|   philosophers, we say to them: Is being a third element besides
 60 Intro|           of the two elements with being? At any rate, you can hardly
 61 Intro|           one. To them we say: Are being and one two different names
 62 Intro|         name. Again, the notion of being is conceived of as a whole—
 63 Intro|         for unity has no parts. Is being, then, one, because the
 64 Intro|          one, because the parts of being are one, or shall we say
 65 Intro|          one, or shall we say that being is not a whole? In the former
 66 Intro|           is still plurality, viz. being, and a whole which is apart
 67 Intro|          whole which is apart from being. And being, if not all things,
 68 Intro|           is apart from being. And being, if not all things, lacks
 69 Intro|         something of the nature of being, and becomes not-being.
 70 Intro|         becomes not-being. Nor can being ever have come into existence,
 71 Intro|         except as a whole; nor can being have number, for that which
 72 Intro|            in the consideration of being.~We may proceed now to the
 73 Intro|    attributed to them by the term “being” or “existence”?’ And, as
 74 Intro|          well reply for them, that being is the power of doing or
 75 Intro|          distinguish becoming from being?’ ‘Yes,’ they will reply. ‘
 76 Intro|          the bodily senses, and in being, by thought and the mind?’ ‘
 77 Intro|            better than you do—that being can neither do nor suffer,
 78 Intro|         the soul know? And is not ‘being’ known? And are not ‘knowing’
 79 Intro|         And are not ‘knowing’ and ‘being known’ active and passive?
 80 Intro|            we imagine that perfect being is a mere everlasting form,
 81 Intro|          immoveable in his idea of being. And yet, alas! he and we
 82 Intro|            second difficulty about being, quite as great as that
 83 Intro|           Shall we assume (1) that being and rest and motion, and
 84 Intro|            may be affirmed to have being. Now the highest kinds are
 85 Intro|          Now the highest kinds are being, rest, motion; and of these,
 86 Intro|            of them are included in being; and again, they are the
 87 Intro|           rest and motion; nor yet being; because if being were attributed
 88 Intro|          nor yet being; because if being were attributed to both
 89 Intro|           other be identified with being; for then other, which is
 90 Intro|           have the absoluteness of being. Therefore we must assume
 91 Intro|           are five principles: (1) being, (2) motion, which is not (
 92 Intro|           other. And motion is not being, but partakes of being,
 93 Intro|         not being, but partakes of being, and therefore is and is
 94 Intro|           runs through all things, being not excepted. And ‘being’
 95 Intro|           being not excepted. And ‘being’ is one thing, and ‘not-being’
 96 Intro|   not-being is not the opposite of being, but only the other. Knowledge
 97 Intro|         search, and is one kind of being. Thus, in spite of Parmenides,
 98 Intro|      communion of different kinds, being and other mutually interpenetrate;
 99 Intro|        other is, but is other than being, and other than each and
100 Intro|        answered about the kinds of being and the letters of the alphabet:
101 Intro|            opinion about them. Not being well provided with names,
102 Intro|         whose art may be traced as being the / contradictious / dissembling /
103 Intro|        abstractions of one, other, being, not-being, rest, motion,
104 Intro|           the relative or other of Being, the defining and distinguishing
105 Intro|         the one and Not-being from Being, and yet shows that the
106 Intro|          that Not-being returns to Being.~In several of the later
107 Intro|            the analysis of one and Being.~It is difficult within
108 Intro|            effect, are perpetually being severed from one another
109 Intro|     theology and politics, without being disturbed by them. Whatever
110 Intro|          with all, in the chain of Being. The struggle for existence
111 Intro|           revelation of the Divine Being. He would have been said
112 Intro|         conception, such as one or Being, which was absolutely at
113 Intro|        negative, the conception of Being involved Not-being, the
114 Intro|     Heracleitus. The opposition of Being and Not-being projected
115 Intro|           of knowledge and also of Being, in which all the stages
116 Intro|           are gathered up and from being hypotheses become realities.~
117 Intro|     proceed upwards to the highest being or thought. Metaphysic is
118 Intro|        association with the Divine Being. Yet they are the poorest
119 Intro|           Hegel, the division into being, essence, and notion, are
120 Intro|          own system, and the terms Being, Not-being, existence, essence,
121 Intro|      nature. We are conscious of a Being who is without us as well
122 Intro|          but this is very far from being the fulfilment of their
123 Intro|           succession? The ideas of Being, change, number, seem to
124 Intro|          can see that the union of Being and Not-being gave birth
125 Intro|         might be another aspect of Being. Again, the Eleatics may
126 Intro|          as for example the words ‘Being,’ ‘essence,’ ‘matter,’ ‘
127 Intro|          Wallace’s Hegel), or the ‘Being and Not-being’ of Heracleitus
128 Intro|            of philosophy, such as ‘Being,’ ‘matter,’ ‘cause,’ and
129 Intro|          as if thought, instead of being identical with language,
130 Intro|           all the endless forms of Being and knowledge. Are we not ‘
131 Intro|           the mere accident of our being the heirs of the Greek philosophers
132 Intro|         single thought of a Divine Being, can be supposed to have
133 Intro|          room,’ yet he is far from being ignorant of the world. No
134  Soph|            feel ashamed, Socrates, being a new-comer into your society,
135  Soph|     conversed with him myself, and being recommended by you to take
136  Soph|            one half of this again, being the kind which strikes with
137  Soph|           takes place in the city, being about half of the whole,
138  Soph|           not less ridiculous, but being a trade in learning must
139  Soph|        which the style is far from being agreeable to the majority
140  Soph|     thought to dispute rightly, or being thought to do so were deemed
141  Soph|      magician and imitator of true being; or are we still disposed
142  Soph|           STRANGER: And that which being other is also like, may
143  Soph|           really exists, and avoid being caught in a contradiction?
144  Soph|         the audacity to assert the being of not-being; for this is
145  Soph|           is not applicable to any being.~THEAETETUS: None, certainly.~
146  Soph|            STRANGER: And if not to being, then not to something.~
147  Soph|           of something we speak of being, for to speak of an abstract
148  Soph|        naked and isolated from all being is impossible.~THEAETETUS:
149  Soph|         and ought not to attribute being to not-being?~THEAETETUS:
150  Soph|            strange complication of being and not-being we are involved!~
151  Soph|           and over again to assert being of not-being, which we admitted
152  Soph|       sense not-being is, and that being, on the other hand, is not.~
153  Soph|          is safer, and to say that being is one and many, and that
154  Soph|         the same perplexity about ‘being,’ and yet may fancy that
155  Soph|           people mean by the word ‘being.’~STRANGER: You follow close
156  Soph|           of the two principles is being, and yet attribute being
157  Soph|           being, and yet attribute being equally to both of them;
158  Soph|         the two is identified with being, will comprehend the other;
159  Soph|          mean to give the name of ‘being’ to both of them together?~
160  Soph|            mean, when you speak of being; for there can be no doubt
161  Soph|            them what they mean by ‘being’?~THEAETETUS: By all means.~
162  Soph|          something which you call ‘being’?~THEAETETUS: ‘Yes.’~STRANGER:
163  Soph|             Yes.’~STRANGER: And is being the same as one, and do
164  Soph|           who asserts the unity of being will find a difficulty in
165  Soph|            be only one of one, and being absolute unity, will represent
166  Soph|      actually say so.~STRANGER: If being is a whole, as Parmenides
167  Soph|            side nor on that—’~then being has a centre and extremes,
168  Soph|         the parts, and in this way being all and a whole, may be
169  Soph|        STRANGER: Shall we say that being is one and a whole, because
170  Soph|        unity? Or shall we say that being is not a whole at all?~THEAETETUS:
171  Soph|           STRANGER: Most true; for being, having in a certain sense
172  Soph|          Yes.~STRANGER: And yet if being be not a whole, through
173  Soph|        thing as an absolute whole, being lacks something of its own
174  Soph|             Upon this view, again, being, having a defect of being,
175  Soph|          being, having a defect of being, will become not-being?~
176  Soph|         becomes more than one, for being and the whole will each
177  Soph|             that besides having no being, being can never have come
178  Soph|           besides having no being, being can never have come into
179  Soph|           can never have come into being.~THEAETETUS: Why so?~STRANGER:
180  Soph|      Because that which comes into being always comes into being
181  Soph|            being always comes into being as a whole, so that he who
182  Soph|       trouble to him who says that being is either one or two.~THEAETETUS:
183  Soph|        exact thinkers who treat of being and not-being. But let us
184  Soph|            all, that the nature of being is quite as difficult to
185  Soph|            touched or handled have being or essence, because they
186  Soph|       essence, because they define being and body as one, and if
187  Soph|      STRANGER: With those who make being to consist in ideas, there
188  Soph|           the smallest particle of being, is incorporeal, it is enough;
189  Soph|           respecting the nature of being, having nothing of their
190  Soph|        hold that the definition of being is simply power.~THEAETETUS:
191  Soph|             STRANGER: We said that being was an active or passive
192  Soph|           sufficient definition of being?~THEAETETUS: True.~STRANGER:
193  Soph|     neither power is applicable to being.~THEAETETUS: And is there
194  Soph|           the soul knows, and that being or essence is known.~THEAETETUS:
195  Soph|       STRANGER: And is knowing and being known doing or suffering,
196  Soph|          passive. And on this view being, in so far as it is known,
197  Soph|           not present with perfect being? Can we imagine that being
198  Soph|         being? Can we imagine that being is devoid of life and mind,
199  Soph|        that both inhere in perfect being, but that it has no soul
200  Soph|            them?~STRANGER: Or that being has mind and life and soul,
201  Soph|        irrational.~STRANGER: Under being, then, we must include motion,
202  Soph|    immoveable in his definition of being and all.~THEAETETUS: Most
203  Soph|            gained a fair notion of being?~THEAETETUS: Yes truly.~
204  Soph|     STRANGER: Then you conceive of being as some third and distinct
205  Soph|           they both participate in being, you declare that they are.~
206  Soph|            have an intimation that being is some third thing, when
207  Soph|         motion are.~STRANGER: Then being is not the combination of
208  Soph|            would appear.~STRANGER: Being, then, according to its
209  Soph|           clear or fixed notion of being in his mind?~THEAETETUS:
210  Soph|        rest must be in motion; but being is placed outside of both
211  Soph|           great a difficulty about being?~THEAETETUS: I should say,
212  Soph| acknowledge the difficulty; and as being and not-being are involved
213  Soph|          at all upon the nature of being, let us put our questions
214  Soph|       Shall we refuse to attribute being to motion and rest, or anything
215  Soph|       motion cannot participate in being at all.~THEAETETUS: They
216  Soph|            if not participating in being?~THEAETETUS: No.~STRANGER:
217  Soph|            of those who distribute being into immutable and everlasting
218  Soph|           these add on a notion of being, some affirming that things ‘
219  Soph|            reason with the idea of being, is also dark from excess
220  Soph|           clearness the notions of being and not-being, we may at
221  Soph|           were just now mentioning—being and rest and motion.~THEAETETUS:
222  Soph|       incapable.~STRANGER: Whereas being surely has communion with
223  Soph|        motion, for either of them, being predicated of both, will
224  Soph|            are we to conceive that being and the same are identical?~
225  Soph|          that motion and rest have being, we should also be saying
226  Soph|          cannot be.~STRANGER: Then being and the same cannot be one.~
227  Soph|       class? Or should we consider being and other to be two names
228  Soph|       would not be the case unless being and the other entirely differed;
229  Soph|            for, if the other, like being, were absolute as well as
230  Soph|           is, because partaking of being.~THEAETETUS: True.~STRANGER:
231  Soph|          that motion is other than being?~THEAETETUS: Without the
232  Soph|       motion, since it partakes of being, really is and also is not?~
233  Soph|            each of them other than being, and so non-existent; and
234  Soph|        inasmuch as they partake of being, that they are and are existent.~
235  Soph|             then, has plurality of being and infinity of not-being.~
236  Soph|          must infer.~STRANGER: And being itself may be said to be
237  Soph|             Then we may infer that being is not, in respect of as
238  Soph|      present statement [viz., that being is not, etc.], let him first
239  Soph|            of something opposed to being, but only different.~THEAETETUS:
240  Soph|            to be the opposition of being to being?~THEAETETUS: Very
241  Soph|         the opposition of being to being?~THEAETETUS: Very true.~
242  Soph|            other, and of a part of being, to one another, is, if
243  Soph|            so, as truly essence as being itself, and implies not
244  Soph|        implies not the opposite of being, but only what is other
245  Soph|            only what is other than being.~THEAETETUS: Beyond question.~
246  Soph|          among the many classes of being. Do you, Theaetetus, still
247  Soph|            have shown what form of being not-being is; for we have
248  Soph|           other is contrasted with being, this is precisely what
249  Soph|         opposition of not-being to being, we still assert the being
250  Soph|         being, we still assert the being of not-being; for as to
251  Soph|            there is an opposite of being, to that enquiry we have
252  Soph|     communion of classes, and that being, and difference or other,
253  Soph|         that the other partakes of being, and by reason of this participation
254  Soph|           partakes, but other, and being other than being, it is
255  Soph|        other, and being other than being, it is clearly a necessity
256  Soph|    not-being should be. And again, being, through partaking of the
257  Soph|         the remaining classes, and being other than all of them,
258  Soph|        thousands of cases in which being is not, and all other things,
259  Soph|            approach the problem of being.~THEAETETUS: To be sure.~
260  Soph|          discourse to be a kind of being; for if we could not, the
261  Soph|          classes diffused over all being.~THEAETETUS: True.~STRANGER:
262  Soph|          not in any way partake of being.~THEAETETUS: True.~STRANGER:
263  Soph|           been shown to partake of being, and therefore he will not
264  Soph|         two sorts of intimation of being which are given by the voice.~
265  Soph|         the same, and not-being as being, such a combination of nouns
266  Soph|            nature brings them into being from some spontaneous and
267  Soph|       belongs to the class of real being.~THEAETETUS: Yes.~STRANGER: