Plato, Sophist, section 248c

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[248c]

Stranger
They do not concede to us what we said just now to the aboriginal giants about being.

Theaetetus
What was it?

Stranger
We set up as a satisfactory sort of definition of being, the presence of the power to act or be acted upon in even the slightest degree.

Theaetetus
Yes.

Stranger
It is in reply to this that they say generation participates in the power of acting and of being acted upon, but that neither power is connected with being.

Theaetetus
And is there not something in that?

Stranger
Yes, something to which we must reply that we still need

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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