“Parmenides” by Plato

The Being Or the Not-Being of One A discourse on the relations among being, not-being, whole, part, one, many, same, other, rest and motion. Of all twenty-four Plato’s dialogues included in the Western Canon, this is the most abstract and mind-boggling to me, partly due to my lack of training in abstract reasoning, and partly due to a lack of clear definition of each abstract term, the root cause of which […]

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“Sophist” by Plato

A sophist states, to the effect that, falsehood is that which is not, and because that which is not does not exist, falsehood doesn’t exist. Socrates refutes that argument in this fascinating exercise in ontology, a discourse on the definition of being, not being, same, other, rest, motion, truth and falsehood. What it highlights for me is the circularity or futility, for lack of a better word, of using language […]

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