Wasting Away in Megista Genê-Ville: The Blending of Change and Rest Marshall Gillis, St. Francis Xavier University Change and Rest in the Sophist In Plato’s Sophist, the Eleatic Stranger claims that the philosopher “must be like a child begging for ‘both,’ and say that that which is – everything – is both the unchanging and that which changes” (Sophist 249d). He makes this claim to find some common ground between a materialist and idealist ontology, as a part of a desire to find an ontology that can account for knowledge. The stranger then seeks to clarify the nature of the forms that make up this ontology: Being, Change, and Rest. The Stranger and Theaetetus must figure out if any, none, or only some of the forms will blend with each other. They quickly agree that only some may blend with each other. I take this blending relation to mean any association or experience with any other thing. A puzzle arises to whether Change and Rest, as seemingly contrary beings, can interact, or blend with each other. While the Stranger and Theaetetus agree at many points that Change and Rest do not blend, I will argue that Change and Rest, as they are forms, both truly and meaningfully blend. I will also argue that they do so in such a way that preserves their essential nature. The Battle of the Gods and Giants The Stranger and Theaetetus realize that they must figure out what they mean when they talk about Being before they can come to an understanding of nonBeing. To do this, the Stranger hypothesizes a number of different ontologies and offers refutations for all of them. The Stranger quickly rejects dualist and monist ontologies, then proceeds to argue against materialists and idealists in the Battle of the Gods and Giants. The giants are said to “insist that only what offers tangible contact is, since they define Being as the same as body” (246b). However, these people are so hostile to any opposing views the Stranger concludes that it is simply not worth it to reason with them, and instead turns to an imagined, more moderate account of materialists provided by Theaetetus (246d-e). The moderate materialists are able to admit that a soul is a Being, but that a soul is not a body. This means they must
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