Plato's Account of Falsehood
A Study of the Sophist

Plato's Account of Falsehood discusses recent secondary literature on the falsehood paradox, providing original solutions to several unsolved problems.

Paolo Crivelli (Author)

9781107699731, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 5 December 2013

322 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.7 cm, 0.43 kg

'My overview obviously cannot do justice to the subtlety and richness of Crivelli's analysis … He soberly chooses among the interpretative possibilities, never yielding to speculative interpretations. The virtues of his account are comprehensiveness, detailed and clear presentation, and the philosophical coherence of the interpretation embraced.' László Bene, Bryn Mawr Classical Review

Some philosophers argue that false speech and false belief are impossible. In the Sophist, Plato addresses this 'falsehood paradox', which purports to prove that one can neither say nor believe falsehoods (because to say or believe a falsehood is to say or believe something that is not, and is therefore not there to be said or believed). In this book Paolo Crivelli closely examines the whole dialogue and shows how Plato's brilliant solution to the paradox is radically different from those put forward by modern philosophers. He surveys and critically discusses the vast range of literature which has developed around the Sophist over the past fifty years, and provides original solutions to several problems that are so far unsolved. His book will be important for all who are interested in the Sophist and in ancient ontology and philosophy of language more generally.

Introduction
1. The sophist defined
2. Puzzles about not-being
3. Puzzles about being
4. The communion of kinds
5. Negation and not-being
6. Sentences, false sentences, and false beliefs
Appendix: the Sophist on true and false sentences: formal presentation.

Subject Areas: Western philosophy: Ancient, to c 500 [HPCA], Ancient history: to c 500 CE [HBLA]