Abstract

EVERY Platonic dialogue is a tangled web. The Sophist and the Statesman, in which the paradigm of weaving plays a central role, are especially complex in structure. In this paper, I shall look at the Statesman from a variety of perspectives, following distinct but connected threads in the web, and always heading toward, or with an eye upon, the myth of the reversed cosmos. It will be necessary for me to make a considerable number of small points and observations on the text. However, such a procedure may be excused, given the nature of the enterprise. And without this accumulation of detail, such general remarks as I have to offer would be deprived of substance.