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[225a]

Theaetetus
Of what nature?

Stranger
We agreed that fighting was a division of acquisitive art.

Theaetetus
Yes, we did.

Stranger
Then it is quite fitting to divide it into two parts.

Theaetetus
Tell what the parts are.

Stranger
Let us call one part of it the competitive and the other the pugnacious.

Theaetetus
Agreed.

Stranger
Then it is reasonable and fitting to give to that part of the pugnacious which consists of bodily contests some such name as violent.

Theaetetus
Yes.

Stranger
And what other name than controversy [225b] shall we give to the contests of words?

Theaetetus
No other.

Stranger
But controversy must be divided into two kinds.

Theaetetus
How?

Stranger
Whenever long speeches are opposed by long speeches on questions of justice and injustice in public, that is forensic controversy.

Theaetetus
Yes.

Stranger
But that which is carried on among private persons and is cut up into little bits by means of questions and their answers, we are accustomed to call argumentation, are we not?

Theaetetus
We are.

Stranger
And that part of argumentation which deals [225c] with business contracts, in which there is controversy, to be sure, but it is carried on informally and without rules of art—all that must be considered a distinct class, now that our argument has recognized it as different from the rest, but it received no name from our predecessors, nor does it now deserve to receive one from us.

Theaetetus
True; for the divisions into which it falls are too small and too miscellaneous.

Stranger
But that which possesses rules of art and carries on controversy about abstract justice and injustice and the rest in general terms, we are accustomed to call disputation, are we not?

Theaetetus
Certainly. [225d]

Stranger
Well, of disputation, one sort wastes money, the other makes money.

Theaetetus
Certainly.

Stranger
Then let us try to tell the name by which we must call each of these.

Theaetetus
Yes, we must do so.

Stranger
Presumably the kind which causes a man to neglect his own affairs for the pleasure of engaging in it, but the style of which causes no pleasure to most of his hearers, is, in my opinion, called by no other name than garrulity.

Theaetetus
Yes, that is about what it is called. [225e]

Stranger
Then the opposite of this, the kind which makes money from private disputes—try now, for it is your turn, to give its name.

Theaetetus
What other answer could one give without making a mistake, than that now again for the fourth time that wonderful being whom we have so long been pursuing has turned up—the sophist!


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