II. The dialectical interest of the Statesman seems to contend in Plato's
mind with the political; the dialogue might have been designated by two
equally descriptive titles--either the 'Statesman,' or 'Concerning Method.'
Dialectic, which in the earlier writings of Plato is a revival of the
Socratic question and answer applied to definition, is now occupied with
classification; there is nothing in which he takes greater delight than in
processes of division (compare Phaedr.); he pursues them to a length out of
proportion to his main subject, and appears to value them as a dialectical
exercise, and for their own sake. A poetical vision of some order or
hierarchy of ideas or sciences has already been floating before us in the
Symposium and the Republic. And in the Phaedrus this aspect of dialectic
is further sketched out, and the art of rhetoric is based on the division
of the characters of mankind into their several classes. The same love of
divisions is apparent in the Gorgias. But in a well-known passage of the
Philebus occurs the first criticism on the nature of classification. There
we are exhorted not to fall into the common error of passing from unity to
infinity, but to find the intermediate classes; and we are reminded that in
any process of generalization, there may be more than one class to which
individuals may be referred, and that we must carry on the process of
division until we have arrived at the infima species.
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