Plato''s Account of Falsehood - A Study of the Sophist

"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 sayor 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 bymodern 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"--

List of contents

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.

About the author

Paolo Crivelli is Associate Professor of Ancient Philosophy at the University of Geneva, Switzerland. He is the author of Aristotle on Truth (Cambridge University Press, 2004).

Product details

• Authors: Paolo Crivelli, Paolo (Universite De Geneve) Crivelli, Paolo Dr Crivelli, Crivelli Paolo
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press ELT
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 05.12.2013
• EAN: 9781107699731
• ISBN: 978-1-107-69973-1
• No. of pages: 322
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Philosophy > General, dictionaries; Non-fiction book > Philosophy, religion > Philosophy: general, reference works; Ancient Greece, PHILOSOPHY / History & Surveys / Ancient & Classical, Ancient History, Ancient history: to c 500 CE, Ancient Greek and Roman philosophy, Western philosophy: Ancient, to c 500, BCE period – Protohistory