Why is it time to revisit Plato’s Sophist, his most intense study in metaphysics?

Why is defining the sophist a relevant philosophical problem at all? One possible practical answer could be: because the expert in deception is still operating and trying to hide himself in the House of Relativism, which has set up branches in almost every human field. What is the difference between the pretender to wisdom and the genuine lover of truth? Plato suggests that the philosopher may have been found in the course of inquiring into the sophist. Why is that so? Moreover, is there anything left, apart from making appearances?

What can this pioneer moving through terra incognita (eliciting the rules governing the use of language, by studying the relations among concepts) teach us? Sophistry entails falsehood, which entails not-being, which seems self-contradictory. The Platonic solution is the doctrine of limited intercommunion of Forms: not-being is as ‘otherness’. Sameness turns out to be founded upon otherness.

Plato has appealed to the Forms as ethical ideals and metaphysical objects of intuitive insight, but here he seems to focus on the need of fixed identities to guarantee the meaningfulness of talk. However, is Plato still appealing to the Forms? Are we allowed to replace them by fixed concepts, the meaning of general words, that ensure significant speech?

And what is the purpose of warning Theaetetus not to think him a patricide, when he by no means commits that crime? We are encouraged to expect a stunning refutation of Parmenides but his absolute not-being (contrary to being) is not even questioned.

These type of questions are to be discussed in a friendly polemical meeting, from a variety of approaches represented in contributions to the interpretation of the dialogue, solicited from classicists as well as from philosophers.

A preliminary list of confirmed speakers includes:

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