JILL GORDONof the spoken (276a8– 9) and the assumption that the image is to be understood
relative to its original” (219).
- As an example of many such propositional treatments of these passages,
see David Wiggins, “Sentence, Meaning, Negation, and Plato’s Problem of Non-
Being,” in Plato I: A Collection of Critical Essays, ed. G. Vlastos (Notre Dame: Uni-
versity of Notre Dame Press, 1978); G. E. L. Owen, “Plato and Not-Being ,” in
Plato I: A Collection of Critical Essays; and even, in some measure, Stanley Rosen,
Plato’s Sophist: The Drama of Original and Image (New Haven: Ya le Univer sit y Pres s,
1983). The dialogue contains clear statements that the falsehood under consid-
eration is not only linguistic. See, for example, Sophist 235d ff., 260c. - In addition to the passage cited above, see Sophist 235d– f and
264c– 267b. - The Stranger, unfortunately, never fully addresses the metaphysical sta-
tus of the true images, as Rosen says in Plato’s Sophist, 147, 152– 53. - See also Cratylus 423 and 430ff., in which words and language are dis-
cussed as imitations of reality. - At least fi ve various forms of these terms occur in the brief passage at
Timaeus 29b– d. See also H. S. Thayer, “Plato on the Morality of Imagination,”
Review of Metaphysics 30 (June 1997): 594– 618, esp. 615 – 16; and Gadamer, Dia-
logue and Dialectic, 120. - Hyland, in Finitude and Transcendence, reads the Republic in its entirety
as a treatment of human limitation and philosophy as the means to transcend
that limitation; he intends for his reading of the Republic to create a perspective
for reading the entire Platonic corpus as well. - Paul Shorey translates oJmoiovtato~ ejkeivnw/ as “most nearly made in its
likeness.” - The objection that vision and artistic craft are mere metaphors for, re-
spectively, the kind of knowing that the philosopher has of the realities and of
the work he must do to fashion the souls of good citizens, helps to underscore
my point about the need for images. Socrates’ chosen way for expressing the
understanding of the philosopher and the political task before him is through
these images. Philosophy needs the use of images to do its work. - See the discussion on the semantic and philosophical signifi cance of
“making” and “doing” in chapter 3 of my Turning Toward Philosophy, 76ff. This is
one more way in which we are made into philosophers. - Plato, The Republic of Plato, trans. Allan Bloom (New York: Basic Books,
1968). - See also Republic 598c and 598e regarding Socrates’ concern with de-
ception rather than imitation itself. See also Phaedrus 261e– 262d: “Then he who
is to deceive another, and is not to be deceived himself, must know accurately
the similarity and dissimilarity of things” (262a). - See Martha Nussbaum, The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek
Tragedy and Philosophy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 185ff. She
addresses the issue directly of Alcibiades’ claim to tell the truth but, contrary
to my position here, she sees the telling of truth through images as disallowed
by philosophy. Jean-François Mattéi, “The Theater of Myth in Plato,” in Platonic