Mere Appearance or More? A Crux at Phaedo 74b–c Revisited

The non-identity argument at Phaedo 74b–c is among the most studied and disputed arguments in Plato’s dialogues. In the passage, equality is distinguished from perceptible equals insofar as the latter sometimes appear ( phainetai ) unequal. A long-standing crux is whether the distinction concerns perceptible equals’ merely appearing unequal or actually being so. A fresh approach to the construal of the verb phainomai is taken here and shown to favor the latter view, thereby securing a stronger argument for non-identity.