Der Dialog als sechste wichtigste Gattung in Platons Sophistes

AbstractIn his late dialogue The Sophist, Plato intends to show that the universal contents mo-tion, rest, being, identity and difference differ from and yet intermingle with each other. Plato develops this theory using the universal content motion as an example, whereas the present essay concentrates on dialogue as a further universal content linked with all the other contents. It thereby aims to deepen the understanding of Plato's late theory of ideas, arriving at the conclusion that for Plato the possibility of philosophy is due to the possibility of the relational community of the universal contents. Plato, however, does not investigate the possibility of possibility itself - an issue which can indeed be seen as the principle of the very possibility of universal contents and their relation.