Plato, Sophist, section 238b

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[238b]

Theaetetus
Yes, if anything can be assumed to be.

Stranger
Then let us not even undertake to attribute either the singular or the plural of number to not-being.

Theaetetus
We should, apparently, not be right in undertaking that, as our argument shows.

Stranger
How then could a man either utter in speech or even so much as conceive in his mind things which are not, or not-being, apart from number?

Theaetetus
Tell me how number is involved in such conceptions.

Stranger
When we say “things which are not,” do we not attribute

Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 12 translated by Harold N. Fowler. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921.

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