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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Theaetetus by Plato: first place there is the connexion, indicated by Plato himself at the end
of the dialogue, with the Sophist, to which in many respects the Theaetetus
is so little akin. (1) The same persons reappear, including the younger
Socrates, whose name is just mentioned in the Theaetetus; (2) the theory of
rest, which Socrates has declined to consider, is resumed by the Eleatic
Stranger; (3) there is a similar allusion in both dialogues to the meeting
of Parmenides and Socrates (Theaet., Soph.); and (4) the inquiry into not-
being in the Sophist supplements the question of false opinion which is
raised in the Theaetetus. (Compare also Theaet. and Soph. for parallel
turns of thought.) Secondly, the later date of the dialogue is confirmed
by the absence of the doctrine of recollection and of any doctrine of ideas
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