Difference in Kind: Observations on the Distinction of the Megista Gene

It is argued that the analysis by which the gene are differentiated in the dialogue is an exercise in studied ambiguities informed by an Eleatic logic of strict dichotomy that was the underpinning of the Sophist's method of division. By this dialectical drill, Plato shows that the metaphysics underlying the Visitor's method fails to adequately distinguish what it means to have a character from what it means to be a character, and therefore remains inadequate to track down the sophist or to distinguish him from the philosopher: Eleaticism, as critically examined by Plato, proves to be means to disguise, not to discover the sophist.