Plato's Sophist [Hardcover]

William S. Cobb (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0847676528 | ISBN-13: 978-0847676521 | Publication Date: November 28, 1990

Plato's Sophist provides a careful translation of the Sophist, one of Plato's most complex and difficult dialogues, and includes materials designed to facilitate its usefulness as a text in college courses. The translation employs a minimum of interpretative paraphrasing while being presented in clear, readable English. Special attention has been given to consistency in translating key Greek terms. The book presents a special list of these terms and discusses them in the endnotes. The result is a translation that enables the reader who lacks a knowledge of Greek to get much closer than usual to the original text. Cobb's introduction contains a detailed summary of the entire dialogue, clarifying the main themes and the general structure. He offers a fresh interpretation of the dialogue that shows how each theme contributes to the exploration of the nature of, and the relation between, philosophy and sophistry. The introduction is particularly useful to first readers of the Sophist.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Professor Cobb manages remarkably well to sustain a conversational tone to the dialogue while maintaining precision and accuracy. The large issues stand out clearly and the small details are carefully rendered to enhance it..... (Harrison J. Pemberton )

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: Greek

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 144 pages
• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers (November 28, 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0847676528
• ISBN-13: 978-0847676521
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.9 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,852,677 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I disagree, June 27, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Plato's Sophist: Part II of The Being of the Beautiful (Being of the Beautiful, Part II) (Paperback)

I think the previous reviewer owes me a 'treat'-I have read this a few times, having spent the past few months working on the Sophist, as well as the Theaetetus. I quite agree that it is not the most accessible of Plato's dialogues, but I disagree with the view that it is not worth our trouble. Plato's work on logos in the closing sections of the dialogue, as well as his work on the probems of not-being are amongst the greatest pieces of analysis in the history of philosophy, in my opinion. Perhaps, though, if we are to gain a full appreciation of what Plato is doing here, a look at the problems as raised by Parmenides is necessary first.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sophists broken down without the sophistry, February 12, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Plato's Sophist: Part II of The Being of the Beautiful (Being of the Beautiful, Part II) (Paperback)

This translation is excellent. Bernadette's insightful commentary is a real help to those just starting the plunge into Platonic thought, as well as providing a new and fresh analysis for those veterans of the dialogue. The word choice of the translator really complements an in-depth reading of arguably the most solidifying distinction between Platonic thought and the supposed errors of the Sophists.

4.0 out of 5 stars Great commentary, too complex translation., March 25, 2011

By 

stephen liem (antioch, ca United States) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Plato's Sophist: Part II of The Being of the Beautiful (Being of the Beautiful, Part II) (Paperback)

First, the commentary of this work is superb, but, second, the translator made the translation unnecessarily complex and it makes this book hard to understand. I will comment on both.
First, I was disappointed that the translation of this work is - I would say -- unncessarily complex and it makes Sophist very convulated. The translator chose to use the term "what it is" and what it is not" to mean "being" and non-being". Perhaps the earlier is closer to the original Greek term, but you can imagine that when you use "what it is" and "what it is not" in long sentences, they tend to get mixed up with the regular word "is", and it renders the whole sentence unreadable. Here are 3 examples: I am comparing Benardete's translation (this book), with Harold N. Fowler's translation from 1921.

Benardete:
[257c]"So we'll not concede the point, whenever it is said that a negative indicates a contrary, but only so much, that the prepositioning of "not", general and particular, something of everything else than the names that come after it, or rather than the things, whatever they are, for which the names uttered after the negative are laid down."

Fowler:
[257c]"Then when we are told that the negative signifies the opposite, we shall not admit it; we shall admit only that the particle "not" indicates something different from the words to which it is prefixed, or rather from the things denoted by the words that follow the negative."
--
Benardete:
[257b]"Whenever we say "that which is not", we are not saying, it seems, something contrary to "that which is" but only other."

Fowler:
[257b]"When we say not-being, we speak, I think, not of something that is the opposite of being, but only of something different."
--

Benardete:
[244b]"And what of this? Do you call "that which is" something?"

Fowler:
[244b]"Well then, do you give the name of being to anything?"

---
As you can see, Fowler's translation is more straight forward, less ambiguous, and shorter. I have to read Benardete's translation a few times to understand the meaning. Based on this, I will not recommend this translation to a beginner student of Plato.

Now, on the commentary: the commentary is very extensive and full of insights. For example, his comment on the opening scene of the book is worth purchasing this book it self. Benardete went through a detail interpretation of why Socrates asks Theodorus if the Stranger might not very well have been God himself. Worth reading just for that.