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ΔΙΑΚΡΙΤΙΚΗ AS A ΠΟΙΗΤΙΚΗ ΤΕΧΝΗ IN THE SOPHIST
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 April 2020
Extract
The διακριτικὴ τέχνη (the art of separating or discriminating), from which the sixth definition of the Sophist starts (226b1–231b9), is puzzling. Prima facie the art of separating does not fit the initial division of art between ποιητικὴ τέχνη (production) and κτητικὴ τέχνη (acquisition) at 219a8–c9. Therefore, scholars generally agree that, although mutually exclusive, ποιητική and κτητική are not exhaustive and leave room for a third species of art, διακριτικὴ τέχνη, on a par with ποιητική and κτητική. However, I argue that textual evidence suggests otherwise.
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- Copyright © The Classical Association 2020
Footnotes
I thank Sylvain Delcomminette, Pieter d'Hoine, Laura Brown and the anonymous referee for CQ for discussions and comments on earlier drafts of this paper. Finally, as a Postdoctoral Fellow of the Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO), I would like to thank my funding body for supporting financially the undertaking and completion of this research.
References
2 I am quoting the Greek text from the new Oxford edition of Platonis Opera, vol. 1. See Duke, E.A., Hicken, W.F., Nicoll, W.S.M., Robinson, D.B., Strachan, J.C.G. (edd.), Platonis Opera, Tomus I, Tetralogias I–II continens (Oxford, 1995)Google Scholar.
3 See, for instance, Cornford, F.M., Plato's Theory of Knowledge (London and New York, 1935), 171 and 177–8Google Scholar; Brown, L., ‘Definition and division in the Sophist’, in Charles, D. (ed.), Definition in Greek Philosophy (Oxford, 2010), 151–71, at 159 n. 18CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gill, M.L., ‘Division and definition in Plato's Sophist and Statesman’, in Charles, D. (ed.), Definition in Greek Philosophy (Oxford, 2010), 171–99, at 180–1 and 192 n. 38Google Scholar; Gill, M.L., Philosophos: Plato's Missing Dialogue (Oxford, 2012), 145–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
4 For the dialogues that do not belong to the first two tetralogies, I am using Burnet, J., Platonis Opera (Oxford, 1901–7)Google Scholar.
5 Because of this connection between διακριτική and ποιητική, it is wrong to argue, as Cornford does, that the starting point of the sixth definition has no contact with the starting points of the other definitions and that therefore the sixth definition is not a definition of the sophist (Cornford [n. 3], 181–2; also Dorion, L.-A., ‘Aristotle's definition of elenchus in the light of Plato's Sophist’, in Fink, J.L. [ed.], The Development of Dialectic from Plato to Aristotle [Cambridge, 2012], 251–70, at 252–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar). Although I agree with Cornford and Dorion that the sixth definition portrays the Socratic elenchus (see my ‘Socratic elenchus in the Sophist’, Apeiron 51 [2018], 371–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar), I do not think that the place of the διακριτικὴ τέχνη in the definitional tree of the Sophist can be used as an argument to show that.
6 Cf. Sayre, K.M., Metaphysics and Method in Plato's Statesman (Cambridge, 2006), 66CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
7 Benardete, S., ‘Plato Sophist 223b1–7’, Phronesis 5 (1960), 129–39, at 135CrossRefGoogle Scholar toys with this idea.
8 See Delcomminette, S., L'inventivité dans le Politique de Platon (Brussels, 2000), 255Google Scholar, who stresses that the couple διακριτική/συγκριτική is said to be all-pervasive (κατὰ πάντα) at Plt. 282b7.
9 In addition, the Stranger introduces διακριτική with the help of three actions (filtering [διηθέω], sifting [διαττάω] and winnowing [βράσσω], 226b5–6), which play an important part in the farming process; see Solana, J., ‘Socrates and “noble sophistry” (Sophist 226b–231c)’, in Bossi, B. and Robinson, T. (edd.), Plato's ‘Sophist’ Revisited (Berlin and Boston, 2013), 71–85, at 71 n. 2Google Scholar.
10 By ‘telling in an indirect way’, I mean the same as Gill (n. 3), 13, when she writes: ‘Plato expects his students to read the arguments on the page carefully and critically, but he also expects them to observe signposts in the text that press them to make connections the speakers do not explicitly make and to construct arguments that go beyond the surface text.’
11 This is uncontroversial. Division one (cf. 221c6–223b7) starts from hunting (θηρευτική); divisions two to four (cf. 223c1–224e5) from exchanging (μεταβλητική, ἀλλακτική); and division five (cf. 224e6–226a5) from combat (ἀγωνιστική). All these arts are acquisitive; cf. 219d5–e3.
12 While there are other scholars who think that διακριτική is productive, they do not systematically argue for that claim; see Dixsaut, M., Le naturel philosophe: Essai sur les dialogues de Platon (Paris, 2001 3), 339–40Google Scholar and Solana (n. 9), 71 n. 2. Otto Apelt was hesitant on this question. Compare ‘Quodsi quaerimus utram ad partem principalis illius divisionis, qua omnes artes in ποιητικαί et κτητικαί dividebantur, pertineat haec διακριτική, sine dubio subiungenda videtur τῇ ποιητικῇ cf. p. 219b’ (Platonis Sophista [Leipzig, 1897], 83) and ‘Ob man diese διακριτικὴ τέχνη zur schaffenden oder zur erwerbenden Kunst rechnen soll oder zu keiner von beiden, darüber hat sich Plato nicht ausgesprochen’ (Platons Dialog Sophistes [Leipzig, 1914], 134 n. 19Google Scholar).