The Eleatic Stranger in Sophist dialogue

Abstract

Within the framework of the discussion about the existence of a spokesman in the Platonic dialogues, we look, in the first part, into the possible transfer of this spokesman’s function from Socrates to the Eleatic Stranger, identifying the contact and divergence points between both characters. In the second part, we try to show that this transfer has a dramatic staging at the beginning of the Sophist dialogue, where Socrates makes a demand that enables the Stranger to demonstrate his genuine philosophical condition.