In this new disguise the Sophists make their last
appearance on the scene: in the Laws Plato appears to have forgotten them,
or at any rate makes only a slight allusion to them in a single passage
(Laws).
VI. The Statesman is naturally connected with the Sophist. At first sight
we are surprised to find that the Eleatic Stranger discourses to us, not
only concerning the nature of Being and Not-being, but concerning the king
and statesman. We perceive, however, that there is no inappropriateness in
his maintaining the character of chief speaker, when we remember the close
connexion which is assumed by Plato to exist between politics and
dialectic. In both dialogues the Proteus Sophist is exhibited, first, in
the disguise of an Eristic, secondly, of a false statesman. There are
several lesser features which the two dialogues have in common. The styles
and the situations of the speakers are very similar; there is the same love
of division, and in both of them the mind of the writer is greatly occupied
about method, to which he had probably intended to return in the projected
'Philosopher.'
The Statesman stands midway between the Republic and the Laws, and is also
related to the Timaeus. The mythical or cosmical element reminds us of the
Timaeus, the ideal of the Republic.
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