False Statement in Plato's Sophist

Abstract

Plato's examination of False Statement (Sophist 259 D–263 D) is, like many of his discussions in the later dialogues, a mixture of complete lucidity with extreme obscurity. Any English student who seeks to understand it will of course turn first to Professor Cornford's translation and commentary; and if he next reads what M. Diès has to say in the Introduction to his Budé edition of the Sophist he will, I think, have sufficient acquaintance with the views of modern Platonic scholars on the subject. For myself, at least, I have not gained any further understanding from other writers than these two.