Plato's solution of the problem of falsehood in the sophist

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Tezin Türü: Yüksek Lisans

Tezin Yürütüldüğü Kurum: Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi, Fen Edebiyat Fakültesi, Felsefe Bölümü, Türkiye

Tezin Onay Tarihi: 2005

Öğrenci: ÖZGÜR UÇAK

Danışman: DAVİD GRÜNBERG

Özet:

The main concern of this thesis is to show Plato̕s solution of the problem of falsehood in his dialogue of the Sophist. In the Sophist, it is argued that false statements are the expressions of something which are not real by Plato. On the other hand, what is not real has been considered as what does not exist, namely, as non-being in the ontological tradition until Plato. Furthermore, non-being can neither be thought nor be stated; since thought must be thought of something which exists. Therefore, to speak of the possibility of false statements is a contradiction because it means to attempt to state nothingness. However, Plato overcomes this difficulty by asserting a different definition of non-being. Plato asserts that non-being is not necessarily opposite of being. According to this, non-being is only ءdifferent̕ from being and exists as much as being and this is possible by the combination of ءKind of Being̕ and ءKind of ءDifference̕. In this context, this thesis purposes to show firstly how Plato renders an ontological possibility to non-being and secondly how he applies this inference to statements in order to solve the problem in the Sophist. In addition, the results of Plato̕s assumption that there is a correspondence between language and reality are discussed with respect to the problem of falsehood.