suppose, not of
something opposed to being, but only different.

THEAETETUS: What do you mean?

STRANGER: When we speak of something as not great, does the expression
seem to you to imply what is little any more than what is equal?

THEAETETUS: Certainly not.

STRANGER: The negative particles, ou and me, when prefixed to words,
do not imply opposition, but only difference from the words, or more
correctly from the things represented by the words, which follow them.

THEAETETUS: Quite true.

STRANGER: There is another point to be considered, if you do not object.

THEAETETUS: What is it?

STRANGER: The nature of the other appears to me to be divided into
fractions like knowledge.

THEAETETUS: How so?

STRANGER: Knowledge, like the other, is one; and yet the various parts
of knowledge have each of them their own particular name, and hence
there are many arts and kinds of knowledge.

THEAETETUS: Quite true.

STRANGER: And is not the case the same with the parts of the other,
which is also one?

THEAETETUS: Very likely; but will you tell me how?

STRANGER: There is some part of the other which is opposed to the
beautiful?

THEAETETUS: There is.

STRANGER: Shall we say that this has or has not a name?

THEAETETUS: It has; for whatever we call not-beautiful is other than the
beautiful, not than something else.

STRANGER: And now tell me another thing.

THEAETETUS: What?

STRANGER: Is the not-beautiful anything but this--an existence parted
off from a certain kind of existence, and again from another point of
view opposed to an existing something?

THEAETETUS: True.

STRANGER: Then the not-beautiful turns out to be the opposition of being
to being?

THEAETETUS: Very true.

STRANGER: But upon this view, is the beautiful a more real and the
not-beautiful a less real existence?

THEAETETUS: Not at all.

STRANGER: And the not-great may be said to exist, equally with the
great?

THEAETETUS: Yes.

STRANGER: And, in the same way, the just must be placed in the same
category with the not-just--the one cannot be said to have any more
existence than the other.

THEAETETUS: True.

STRANGER: The same may be said of other things; seeing that the nature
of the other has a real existence, the parts of this nature must equally
be supposed to exist.

THEAETETUS: Of course.

STRANGER: Then, as would appear, the opposition of a part of the other,
and of a part of being, to one another, is, if I may