Erōs-Hunter in the Sophist: who chases whom, how and where?

This paper aims at a global study of the main metaphor of the Sophist, namely hunting, in order to solve the problem of the identity of the Stranger from Elea, by defining what kind of hunter he is. To do so, we distinguish successively three kinds of hunters emerging from the text: the dialectician, the sophist, and the lover, with their respective prey, means, and hunting grounds. First, the Stranger and Theaetetus appear to be dialectically hunting the sophist as a beast incessantly fleeing into the dark and indefinite realm of non-being. This is because the sophist himself primarily appears to be rhetorically hunting young men, just as a lover hunting his beloved, governed as he is by the epithumetic, monstrous, and irrational part of his soul. A comparison with the Phaedrus shows finally that in trying to define and catch the sophist, by means of the best divisions and collections they can, the two protagonists reveal themselves as being a divine dialectician leading the young mathematician towards philosophy and contemplation of the beauty of the intelligible realm. By displaying such a complex hunt, led by a mysterious Stranger trying to catch the most elusive sophist, Plato the writer was at pains to make the reader himself participate in the hunt, believing that only through this agonistic and erotic process he will both overcome the sophist and become the philosopher.