Accounting for Images in the Sophist

Abraham Jacob Greenstine

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Chapter 1 Accounting for Images in the Sophist

In: Plato and the Moving Image

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Abraham Jacob Greenstine

Abraham Jacob Greenstine
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Type:: Chapter

Pages:: 19–36

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004398290_003

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Abstract

Plato’s Sophist is a critical dialogue for the question of images, for here the interlocutors divide images into two kinds – likenesses and apparitions – in their hunt for an account of sophistry. Yet much of the recent scholarship on the Sophist does not make much of this division. This chapter defends the continuing significance of the distinction between likeness and apparition. It argues for its importance in Plato’s analysis of images, in his theory of accounts, and in his endeavor to differentiate philosophy from sophistry. It further contends that one can only distinguish likenesses from apparitions by establishing a correct perspective on both the image and the original. Thus, the Sophist exhorts us differentiate likenesses from apparitions, even as we struggle to consistently find the right perspective for this task. Living in the cinematic age only intensifies the need to distinguish likeness from apparition. Over the course of this chapter, we consider two films that advance our questions about perspectives, images, and falsity: Carol Reed’s The Third Man (1949) and Orson Welles’ F for Fake (1974). Like the Sophist, both films reveal a world of apparitions, where names are confused, lies are constant, and the truth is elusive.

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Plato and the Moving Image

Series: Value Inquiry Book Series, Volume: 332, Value Inquiry Book Series Online, Volume: 332, and Philosophy of Film, Volume: 332

E-Book ISBN:: 9789004398290

Publisher:: Brill

Print Publication Date:: 17 May 2019

Subjects
- Art History
  - General
- Philosophy
  - Aesthetics & Cultural Theory
  - Ancient Philosophy

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Chapter 1 Accounting for Images in the Sophist

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Plato and the Moving Image

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