[syndicate] \\ +

[claudia westermann]

STRANGER: There appears to be a sort of war of Giants and Gods going on 
amongst them; they are fighting with one another about the nature of 
essence.

THEAETETUS: How is that?

STRANGER: Some of them are dragging down all things from heaven and from 
the unseen to earth, and they literally grasp in their hands rocks and 
oaks; of these they lay hold, and obstinately maintain, that the things 
only which can be touched or handled have being or essence, because they 
define being and body as one, and if any one else says that what is not 
a body exists they altogether despise him, and will hear of nothing but 
body.

THEAETETUS: I have often met with such men, and terrible fellows they are.

STRANGER: And that is the reason why their opponents cautiously defend 
themselves from above, out of an unseen world, mightily contending that 
true essence consists of certain intelligible and incorporeal ideas; the 
bodies of the materialists, which by them are maintained to be the very 
truth, they break up into little bits by their arguments, and affirm 
them to be, not essence, but generation and motion. Between the two 
armies, Theaetetus, there is always an endless conflict raging 
concerning these matters.

THEAETETUS: True.