Plato, Sophist, section 246a

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[246a] to define the nature of being than that of not-being.

Theaetetus
Very well, then, we must proceed towards those others also.

Stranger
And indeed there seems to be a battle like that of the gods and the giants going on among them, because of their disagreement about existence.

Theaetetus
How so?

Stranger
Some of them¹ drag down everything from heaven and the invisible to earth, actually grasping rocks and trees with their hands; for they lay their hands on all such things and maintain stoutly that that alone exists which can be touched and handled;

1 The atomists (Leucippus, Democritus, and their followers), who taught that nothing exists except atoms and the void. Possibly there is a covert reference to Aristippus who was, like Plato, a pupil of Socrates.

Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 12 translated by Harold N. Fowler. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921.

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