Plato, Sophist, section 267b

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[267b] and leave it for someone else to unify and name appropriately.

Theaetetus
Very well, let us adopt that classification and let the other part go.

Stranger
But it is surely worth while to consider, Theaetetus, that the mimetic art also has two parts; and I will tell you why.

Theaetetus
Please do.

Stranger
Some who imitate do so with knowledge of that which they imitate, and others without such knowledge. And yet what division can we imagine more complete than that which separates knowledge and ignorance?

Theaetetus
None.

Stranger
The example I just gave was of imitation by those who know, was it not? For a man who imitates you would know you and your figure.

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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