the soul, how dynamis active, has a purely logical relationship and does not imply a real change. The ontological state of Ideas is rest, but not a rest that excludes this logical relationship with intelligence.
There is, therefore, being as a totality and, distinct from movement and rest, it includes both, combining the static aspect to the dynamic of the real in a superior synthesis and, in this way, saving the possibility of science and the unity of its object. It remains now to insert non-being and error in the discourse and make the object of science emerge, that is, the True that distinguishes itself from the illusionist art of the sophist.
If there is neither universal mobility nor immobility, it is necessary to establish whether the communion of Ideas is possible so that the predication allows for a different form from the tautological one. There are, therefore, three hypotheses:
- Firstly, if it is impossible for Ideas to be associated, then it has nothing with anything, no possibility of communion under any relationship and, thus, the movement and rest would not exist because they could not participate in the to be.
- Secondly, if everything is associated with everything then movement itself would become rest and vice versa.
But if there is something that lends itself to mutual association and something that does not, it means that there is a reason or order that allows or regulates such associations. For example, the lyrics. Between them there is agreement and disagreement. Vowels, which are different from consonants, are like a link between them all, preventing the consonants from combining without them. Also the tones, bass and treble, must have a law that allows the harmonious combination. In the case of letters, who has the science and can transmit it to those still far from the truth is the grammarian. For tones, the musician. In both, there is technical competence. Anyone who does not have such knowledge is a layman and incompetent.
However, the law that allows associations was drawn from the very notion of the common participation of movement and rest in the realm of being. While each of these Ideas, in itself, is identified, at the same time, it diversifies in relation to the other two. Therefore, new ideal determinations that express identity and otherness emerge. It is the appearance of the “same” and the “other” as ideas (along with “being”, as the law of mutual participation), which will reveal the structure of affirmative and negative propositions.
Even though the same and the other are predicates, of movement or of rest, they are not identified with them. They are also distinguished from being because if being were identity there would be no distinction between movement and rest; and if it were pure otherness, which is essentially relation, being would understand in itself the absolute (identity with itself) and the relative. They are, thus, distinct and subsistent Ideas. All Ideas participate in the Idea of “the same”, while being identical to themselves. On the other hand, the Idea of the “other” invades all Ideas, establishing between them the fundamental relationship of otherness, by which they are distinguished.
The “being”, the “same” and the “other” present themselves, then, as ideal, necessary and sufficient determinations, which define the ontological status of the whole Idea. Together they form the first and most fundamental articulation of intelligible reality, a first connection that any Idea implies, when affirmed as substance or while participating in the order of the to be. In movement, there is participation in the Idea of being and the movement's being unfolds into a new relationship of participation, which is the identity with oneself; but because this identity is not an identity with being as such, it implies, for movement, a distinction of being between beings. As distinct, each being (and, in this case, the movement) is “other” with respect to all beings, from which it distinguishes and it is this relation of otherness, says Plato, which is a real relation of “not being”. It establishes an infinity of non-beings in relation to being, but eliminates non-being as the opposite of being, which would be the eleatic nothingness, the unspeakable, the unthinkable and shows itself as the "other" of being, so that the total being presents itself as an ordered plurality and not as a unity indistinct. And dialectics, as a supreme science, has as its object the orderly communion of Ideas, discerning in the ideal world the superior units and their natural articulations, in order to preserve each form its identity within the relations. It consists in the art of dividing complex ideal units into simple ones, not taking one for the other, expressing this relationship in a Logos.
If the logos it is the rational transcription of Ideas, its unity is always, for Plato, a synthetic unity. O logos it is a proposition, it is the very relation of the terms of the proposition, which expresses the structure of the real of the form and the dialectic is the the only one capable of discerning the real nexus of inclusion, exclusion and dependence, which make the world of Ideas a world salary. There are two processes for performing the connection determination, an ascending and a descending process. The first refers to the meeting and comprises “an Idea extended completely through many others, each of which remains in itself isolated, and many others that, distinct from each other, are enveloped from the outside by an Idea only". The second is the division which apprehends “an Idea that, concentrated, although in its unity, extends over many totalities, and a plurality of totally isolated Ideas”.
These are the types of entanglements that dialectics must discern in the ideal world and express in discourse. The very fact of the communion of Ideas, which is opposed to the rigid unity of being Eleatic, is what makes discourse possible. It is he who expresses an intelligible link between real terms. However, the logos it also participates in non-being, in the relationship of alterity, and the mode of this participation can clearly distinguish false discourse. O logos it is nothing more than the oral expression of speech or inner dialogue of the soul with itself, that is, thought. This always proceeds by the expression of a relationship between the ideas, whether by affirmation or by denial, which constitute the proper quality of the judicative act, of the opinion. Thus, the discourse always refers to the reality of Ideas and, in this sense, it always expresses a "meaning about being" and the elements that, as signs of thought, show in the speech the communion of Ideas are the verbal signs that must be present in every proposition: the name and the verb. The first designates a subject; the second expresses an action, always qualified by the subject.
Thus, the logos, participating in being, obeys the general law that makes being participate in “not being” as “other”. Your being is the expression of real being or a being of meaning. It has, in the order of signification, the same amplitude as the real being has in the order of existence. And within the scope of being, the non-being of a given discourse will not be any other real being, but it must be necessarily a “not being of signification”, or the signification of another being ─ another discourse expressing a diverse entanglement. The problem is to discern the extent of the logos the being of signification, which is the objective of dialectics, highlighting the non-being of signification that characterizes false discourse.
Truth and falsehood are qualities of a logos in relation to an interweaving between Ideas that he expresses, which, however, have different ontological valences. O logos true is a sign of dialectics, that is, of the intellectual expression of being, that is, of the Idea, which always appears inserted in a web of real relations, according to the classification and division schemes. It is the Idea of being that, implied in every dialectical proposition, gives it “form” and thus operates the unity of science. And the philosopher is the one who continuously applies the Idea of being in his reasoning, who participates in all Ideas and this participation necessarily implies a relationship of alterity. This is how dialectics affirms, at the same time, being and non-being in its propositions. Such is the true discourse: being as it is, that is, it translates into discourse the density of being and not being, of identity and otherness, which defines the real structure of each idea. Each determined speech (each proposition) expresses a determined being in a determined connection. The position of being always implies the relations of identity and otherness, or is always governed by the principles of permanence and distinction. The judgment that expresses it can take both positive and negative form. This expresses the non-being (alterity) of the thing, and not the "non-being" of the logos because its being is properly a being of signification and what properly constitutes the essence of error is that the “non-being of signification” is affirmed as being. False speech wants to give the “other” the meaning of the identical, and by not being the meaning of being. Non-being is not in terms of the false proposition; it is in the nexus, in the arbitrary conjunction of two terms, and thus only the judgment can be false.
By João Francisco P. Cabral
Brazil School Collaborator
Graduated in Philosophy from the Federal University of Uberlândia - UFU
Master's student in Philosophy at the State University of Campinas - UNICAMP
Source: Brazil School - https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/filosofia/os-generos-supremos-entrelacamento-das-ideias-no-sofista-platao.htm