The Sophistical Art is an art of getting, by capture, living things, namely men. It is thus a Ktetic, Chirotic, Thereutic art, and so far agrees with that of the Angler. But here the two arts diverge, since that of the Sophist is Pezotheric, that of the Angler Enygrotheric. To determine the Sophist still more exactly, observe that the chase of land animals is either of tame animals (including man) or of wild animals: (Hemerotheric and Agriotheric.) The chase of tame animals is either by violence, (as kidnapping, tyranny, and war in general,) or by persuasion, (as by the arts of speech;) that is, it is Biaiotheric or Pithanurgic. The art of persuasion is a private or a public proceeding: (Idiothereutic or Demosiothereutic.) The art of private persuasion is accompanied with the giving of presents, (as lovers do,) or with the receiving of pay: (thus it is Dorophoric or Mistharneutic.) To receive pay as the result of persuasion, is the course, either of those who merely earn their bread by supplying pleasure, namely flatterers, whose art is Hedyntic; or of those who profess for pay to teach virtue. And who are they? Plainly the Sophists. And thus Sophistic is that kind of Ktetic, Chirotic, Thereutic, Zootheric, Pezotheric, Hemerotheric, Pithanurgic, Idiothereutic, Mistharneutic art, which professes to teach virtue, and takes money on that account.
The same process is pursued along several other lines of inquiry: and at the end of each of them the Sophist is detected, involved in a number of somewhat obnoxious characteristics. This process of division it will be observed, is at every step bifurcate, or as it is called, dichotomous. Applied as it is in these examples, it is rather the vehicle of satire than of philosophy. Yet, I have no doubt that this bifurcate method was admired by some of the philosophers of Plato's time, as a clever and effective philosophical invention. We may the more readily believe this, inasmuch as one of the most acute persons of our own time, who has come nearer than any other to the ancient heads of sects in the submission with which his followers have accepted his doctrines, has taken up this Dichotomous Method, and praised it as the only philosophical mode of dividing a subject. I refer to Mr. Jeremy Bentham's Chrestomathia (published originally in 1816), in which this exhaustive bifurcate method, as he calls it, was applied to classify sciences and arts, with a view to a scheme of education. How exactly the method, as recommended by him, agrees with the method illustrated in the Sophist, an examination of any of his examples will show. Thus to take Mineralogy as an example: according to Bentham, Ontology is Cœnoscopic or Idioscopic: the Idioscopic is Somatoscopic or Pneumatoscopic; the Somatoscopic is Pososcopic or Poioscopic: Poioscopic is Physiurgoscopic or Anthropurgoscopic: Physiurgoscopic is Uranoscopic or Epigeoscopic: Epigeoscopic is Abioscopic or Embioscopic. And thus Mineralogy is the Science Idioscopic, Somatoscopic, Poioscopic, Physiurgoscopic, Epigeoscopic, Abioscopic: inasmuch as it is the science which regards bodies, with reference to their qualities,—bodies, namely, the works of nature, terrestrial, lifeless.
I conceive that this bifurcate method is not really philosophical or valuable: but that is not our business here. What we have to consider is whether this is what Plato meant by the term Dialectic.
The general description of Dialectic in the Sophistes agrees very closely with that quoted from the Phædrus, that it is the separation of a subject according to its natural divisions.
Thus, see in the Sophist the passage § 83: "To divide a subject according to the kinds of things, so as neither to make the same kind different nor different kinds identical, is the office of the Dialectical Science." And this is illustrated by observing that it is the office of the science of Grammar to determine what letters may be combined and what may not; it is the office of the science of Music to determine what sounds differing as acute and grave, may be combined, and what may not: and in like manner it is the office of the science of Dialectic to determine what kinds may be combined in one subject and what may not. And the proof is still further explained.
In many of the Platonic Dialogues, the Dialectic which Socrates is thus represented as approving, appears to include the form of Dialogue, as well as the subdivision of the subject into its various branches. Socrates is presented as attaching so much importance to this form, that in the Protagoras (§ 65) he rises to depart, because his opponent will not conform to this practice. And generally in Plato, Dialectic is opposed to Rhetoric, as a string of short questions and answers to a continuous dissertation.
Xenophon also seems to imply (Mem. IV. 5, 11) that Socrates included in his notion of Dialectic the form of Dialogue as well as the division of the subject.
But that the method of close Dialogue was not called Dialectic by the author of the Sophist, we have good evidence in the work itself. Among other notions which are analysed by the bifurcate division here exhibited, is that of getting by contest (Agonistic, previously given as a division of Ktetic). Now getting by contest may be by peaceful trial of superiority, or by fight: (Hamilletic or Machelic). The fight may be of body against body, or of words against words: these may be called Biastic and Amphisbetic. The fight of words about right and wrong, may be by long discourses opposed to each other, as in judicial cases; or by short questions and answers: the former may be called Dicanic, the latter Antilogic. Of these colloquies, about right and wrong, some are natural and spontaneous, others artificial and studied: the former need no special name; the latter are commonly called Eristic. Of Eristic colloquies, some are a source of expense to those who hold them, some of gain: that is, they are Chrematophthoric or Chrematistic: the former, the occupation of those who talk for pleasure's and for company's sake, is Adoleschic, wasteful garrulity; the latter, that of those who talk for the sake of gain, is Sophistic. And thus Sophistic is an art Eristic, which is part of Antilogic, which is part of Amphisbetic, which is part of Agonistic, which is part of Chirotic, which is a part of Ktetic. (§ 23.)
We may notice here an indication that satire rather than exact reason directs these analyses; in that Sophistic, which was before a part of the thereutic branch of chirotic and ktetic, is here a part of the other branch, agonistic.
But the remark which I especially wish to make here is, that the art of discussing points of right and wrong by short questions and answers, being here brought into view, is not called Dialectic, which we might have expected; but Antilogic. It would seem therefore that the Author of the Sophist did not understand by Dialectic such a process as Socrates describes in Xenophon; (Mem. IV. 5, 11, 12;) where he says it was called Dialectic, because it was followed by persons dividing things into their kinds in conversation: (κοινῇ βουλεύεσθαι διαλέγοντας:)or such as the Socrates of Plato insisted upon in the Protagoras and the Gorgias. Of the two elements which the Dialectical Process of Socrates implied, Division of the subject and Dialogue, the author of the Sophistes does not claim the name of Dialectic for either, and seems to reject it for the second.