<b>Sophist by Plato</b>&nbsp;The&nbsp;<i><b>Sophist</b></i>&nbsp;(Greek:&nbsp;&Sigma;&omicron;&phi;&iota;&sigma;&tau;?&sigmaf;;&nbsp;Latin:&nbsp;<i>Sophista</i>) is a&nbsp;Platonic dialogue&nbsp;from the philosopher&#39;s late period, most likely written in 360 BC. In it the interlocutors, led by&nbsp;Eleatic Stranger&nbsp;employ the&nbsp;method of division&nbsp;in order to classify and define the&nbsp;sophist&nbsp;and describe his essential attributes and differentia vis a vis the&nbsp;philosopher&nbsp;and&nbsp;statesman. Like its sequel, the&nbsp;<i>Statesman</i>, the dialogue is unusual in that&nbsp;Socrates&nbsp;is present but plays only a minor role.<br /><br />Instead, the&nbsp;Eleatic&nbsp;Stranger takes the lead in the discussion. Because Socrates is silent, it is difficult to attribute the views put forward by the&nbsp;Eleatic Stranger&nbsp;to Plato, beyond the difficulty inherent in taking any character to be an author&#39;s &quot;mouthpiece&quot;.<br /><br />The main objective of the dialogue is to identify what a&nbsp;sophist&nbsp;is and how a sophist differs from a philosopher and statesman. Because each seems distinguished by a particular form of knowledge, the dialogue continues some of the lines of inquiry pursued in the&nbsp;epistemological&nbsp;dialogue,&nbsp;<i>Theaetetus</i>, which is said to have taken place the day before.<br /><br />Because the&nbsp;<i>Sophist</i>&nbsp;treats these matters, it is often taken to shed light on&nbsp;Plato&#39;s&nbsp;Theory of Forms&nbsp;and is compared with the&nbsp;<i>Parmenides</i>, which criticized what is often taken to be the theory of forms.