The Subject of the Sophist: Sophist or Philosopher? Assaying Heidegger's taking in Plato's Sophist

In the openings of Sophist and Statesman, Plato does reportedly promise the reader that he intends to write a trilogy respectively entitled Sophist, Statesman and Philosopher. The two former dialogues have been authored and are available today, but this is not the case with the third dialogue; that is, Plato never writes the third dialogue, or as said differently, he does not pen it like the other two ones. There are different views concerning this third dialogue. This essay is a critical appraisal of Heidegger’s taking on this issue. Heidegger does not accept the common view among the interpreters that Plato has had the intention to write the triple dialogues and accordingly he seeks to retrieve the depiction of philosopher through Plato’s corpus. He believes that Plato has written the Philosopher but not in the form of other dialogues or rather in a Socratic fashion. This essay seeks to demonstrate that firstly, Plato does not meet his promise as regarding to the composition of Philosopher; secondly, the reason for not keeping his promise is that Plato believed basic philosophical themes could not be presented in written form, and that there is no benefit for the public in having them inscribed; thirdly, his depiction of philosopher can well be retrieved from his works.