Logos in Plato's Theaetetus and Sophist

Abstract

This thesis will explore the epistemological and ontological content of logos as it appears in Plato's Theaetetus and Sophist. As a tether between the realms being and becoming, logos occupies the dianoetic space in which meaningful, objective communication of ideas takes place. Complex in nature, logos exists as the combination of simple units; namely the forms, which provide themselves as the elements of this combination, of human knowledge, and the communication thereof. At issue is thus how, in response to the objections to the theory of forms raised in the Parmenides, the forms can exist as relational entities, and therefore as well how Plato understands the process by which logos is constructed.