Dialectic in Plato's Sophist: Division and the Communion of Kinds

This paper explores the Eleatic Stranger's use of the method of division in the Sophist and attempts to reveal it to be a dialectical method of discovery, not of demonstration, that proceeds tentatively while it ultimately aims to ground its discoveries in the communion of the very great kinds. To illuminate this view, I argue for three main theses: first, that the method of division is a method of discovery, not of demonstration; secondly, that the much discussed passage at Sophist 253d-e is about both the method of division and the communion of kinds; and thirdly, that the method cannot succeed to discover natural articulations of reality as long as it ignores considerations of value.