Dr. Notomi presents a new interpretation of one of Plato's most important dialogues, the Sophist, addressing both historical context and philosophical content. He shows how important the issues concerning the sophist (professional teacher and rhetorician in ancient Greece) are to the possibility of philosophy. His new approach to the whole dialogue reveals that Plato struggles with difficult philosophical issues in a single line of inquiry; and that Plato shows, in defining the sophist, his conception of the authentic philosopher.

Plato's later dialogue, the Sophist, is deemed one of the greatest works in the history of philosophy, but scholars have been shy of confronting the central problem of the dialogue. For Plato, defining the sophist is the basic philosophical problem: any inquirer must face the 'sophist within us' in order to secure the very possibility of dialogue, and of philosophy, against sophistic counterattack. Examining the connection between the large and difficult philosophical issues discussed in the Sophist (appearance, image, falsehood, and 'what is not') in relation to the basic problem of defining the sophist, Dr Notomi shows how Plato struggles with and solves all these problems in a single line of inquiry. His interpretation of the whole dialogue finally reveals how the philosopher should differ from the sophist.