virtue if he have a sentiment or opinion about them. Not being well
provided with names, the former I will venture to call the imitation of
science, and the latter the imitation of opinion.

The latter is our present concern, for the Sophist has no claims to science
or knowledge. Now the imitator, who has only opinion, may be either the
simple imitator, who thinks that he knows, or the dissembler, who is
conscious that he does not know, but disguises his ignorance. And the last
may be either a maker of long speeches, or of shorter speeches which compel
the person conversing to contradict himself. The maker of longer speeches
is the popular orator; the maker of the shorter is the Sophist, whose art
may be traced as being the
/
contradictious
/
dissembling
/
without knowledge
/
human and not divine
/
juggling with words
/
phantastic or unreal
/
art of image-making.

...

In commenting on the dialogue in which Plato most nearly approaches the