The Semantics and Dynamics of Statement in Plato’s Sophist

In the Sophist, the Stranger maintains that just as forms and kinds weave, statement involves ‘weaving’ words and signifying something. This view uniquely treats statement as an activity and casts forms as the ultimate ground for meaning. Statement is analogous to, say, seeing which emerges within the realization of the visual capacity in relation to objects. I argue that any statement as such is an activity of stating rather than something separate from the stating. What is central to this view is Plato’s appeal to an externalist conception of meaning, located with kinds and forms. To this extent, his view is more parsimonious than some contemporary views since it requires no appeal to tertiary entities like propositions to explain how statements express something meaningful. A statement is a unique sort of activity dependent as much on the world as on the speaker. Plato’s view is refreshingly innovative and sophisticated, broadly suggesting a way of reimagining the nature of meaning in terms of activity in the world.