Plato, Sophist, section 238c

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[238c] plurality to them?

Theaetetus
Certainly.

Stranger
And in saying “a thing which is not,” do we not equally attribute the singular number?

Theaetetus
Obviously.

Stranger
And yet we assert that it is neither right nor fair to undertake to attribute being to not-being.

Theaetetus
Very true.

Stranger
Do you see, then, that it is impossible rightly to utter or to say or to think of not-being without any attribute, but it is a thing inconceivable, inexpressible, unspeakable, irrational?

Theaetetus
Absolutely.

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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