Abstract

Parmenides’ argument in the Way of Truth and Plato’s theory of Forms are usually seen as mighty metaphysical constructions. But what if they are motivated by the semantic complexity of the Greek verb ‘be’? This is the approach followed throughout this paper, mostly dealing with the debate on the emergence of a separate existential reading of ‘einai,’ and the problems arising from the use of the Latin verb ‘existere’ to translate it. The analysis of some sophistic puzzles provides examples of this fused reading of the verb. They suggest that Plato’s philosophical program was intended as a correction of current sophistic views on reality and discourse, both through his theory of Forms, and the analysis of being and not being, carried out in the Sophist.