Part 38

THEAETETUS: What is it?

STRANGER: The nature of the other appears to me to be divided into fractions like knowledge.

THEAETETUS: How so?

STRANGER: Knowledge, like the other, is one; and yet the various parts of knowledge have each of them their own particular name, and hence there are many arts and kinds of knowledge.

THEAETETUS: Quite true.

STRANGER: And is not the case the same with the parts of the other, which is also one?

THEAETETUS: Very likely; but will you tell me how?

STRANGER: There is some part of the other which is opposed to the beautiful?

THEAETETUS: There is.

STRANGER: Shall we say that this has or has not a name?

THEAETETUS: It has; for whatever we call not-beautiful is other than the beautiful, not than something else.

STRANGER: And now tell me another thing.

THEAETETUS: What?

STRANGER: Is the not-beautiful anything but this--an existence parted off from a certain kind of existence, and again from another point of view opposed to an existing something?

THEAETETUS: True.

STRANGER: Then the not-beautiful turns out to be the opposition of being to being?

THEAETETUS: Very true.

STRANGER: But upon this view, is the beautiful a more real and the not-beautiful a less real existence?

THEAETETUS: Not at all.

STRANGER: And the not-great may be said to exist, equally with the great?

THEAETETUS: Yes.

STRANGER: And, in the same way, the just must be placed in the same category with the not-just--the one cannot be said to have any more existence than the other.

THEAETETUS: True.

STRANGER: The same may be said of other things; seeing that the nature of the other has a real existence, the parts of this nature must equally be supposed to exist.

THEAETETUS: Of course.

STRANGER: Then, as would appear, the opposition of a part of the other, and of a part of being, to one another, is, if I may venture to say so, as truly essence as being itself, and implies not the opposite of being, but only what is other than being.

THEAETETUS: Beyond question.

STRANGER: What then shall we call it?