I think it was only Parmenides.

@MasonicPrince His Sophist and the Statesman were his attempt to methodologically move past his theory of Forms

@cava Nope. He was attempting to describe the philosopher, but ended up describing the sophist and the statemen only.

@MasonicPrince No. The Sophist (which I have studied and the Statesman which I have read but not studied), is about names, kinds, and collections, i.e., new methodological approaches to being.

@cava Remind me of the collections part.

@MasonicPrince It is a major part of his attempt to define what kind if a being the Sophist is...he looks at Anglers, Hunters, Merchants...
"By means of collection an inquirer brings together a number of disparate things or kinds of things, often called by different names, into one kind" [plato.stanford.edu]

@cava "a definition that applies to all and only members of the kind," now I see what you were saying. He is apparenly searching for a necessary-sufficient condition.

@MasonicPrince The Sophist is a difficult dialogue. He is trying to define what a Sophist is, and since Plato thinks they represent semblances of reality not reality itself, he has a difficult time of it. My notes suggest that he is (in a way similar to an Angler) is trying to set a net of arguments to catch a Sophist. Heidegger thought that the key part of the dialogue is Plato's attempt to separate true images from simulacrum, as unveiling of the truth (alethia).

@cava My understanding is that he talked about the angler to talk about how he gets his students to talk in terms of "is" and "is not." This, I believe, is the origin of the phrase "fisher of men."

@MasonicPrince The whole concept of difference runs through this dialogue, it asks what it is to be real and what is to be a simulacrum.

"...talk in terms of "is" and "is not"

I think it is more in terms of 'is' and 'appears', one of the points of the dialogue is that non-being is not. The Stranger concludes that 'non-being' is difference (I think Deleuze would agree with this)

@cava You have to read the next dialog in the complete works to hear him admit it. But if you are a sincere learner, and you read all of Plato, you will end up saying things like, "What is justice, and what is it not?"

Actually, Plato is pretty simple. He just asks us, "What is justice?" or "What is the essence of justice?" and answers, "Improvement."