Theaetetus (dialogue)

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The Theætetus (Greek: Θεαίτητος) is one of Plato's dialogues concerning the nature of knowledge. The framing of the dialogue begins when Euclides tells his friend
Terpsion that he had written a book many years ago based on what Socrates had told him of a conversation he'd had with Theaetetus when Theaetetus was quite a
young man. (Euclides also notes that he'd had to go back to Socrates to ask some more questions about the speeches due to his spotty recollection of the account.)

Euclides is prompted to share his book when Terpsion wonders where he'd been: Euclides, who apparently can usually be found in the marketplace of Megara, was
walking outside of the city and had happened upon Theaetetus being carried from Corinth to Athens with a case of dysentery and a minor war wound; Euclides
remarks that Socrates had made some uncanny predictions about Theaetetus needing to rise to fame. Euclides' book is read aloud to the two men by a slave boy in
the employ of Euclides. Part of the series on:
The Dialogues of Plato
In this dialogue, Socrates and Theaetetus discuss three definitions of knowledge: knowledge as nothing but perception, knowledge as true judgment, and, finally, Early dialogues:
knowledge as a true judgment with an account. Each of these definitions are shown to be unsatisfactory. The conversation ends with Socrates' announcement that he Apology – Charmides – Crito
has to go to court to answer to the charges that he has been corrupting the young and failing to worship Athenian Gods. Euthyphro – First Alcibiades
Hippias Major – Hippias Minor
Ion – Laches – Lysis
Contents Transitional & middle dialogues:
Cratylus – Euthydemus – Gorgias
1 Midwife to knowledge Menexenus – Meno – Phaedo
2 Philosophical labor Protagoras – Symposium
3 Examining the offspring Later middle dialogues:
4 Abusing the "orphan" of Protagoras Republic – Phaedrus
5 The absent-minded philosopher
Parmenides – Theaetetus
6 The men of flux
7 The mind as a bird cage Late dialogues:
8 Significant references in the dialogue Clitophon – Timaeus – Critias
9 Footnotes Sophist – Statesman
10 References Philebus – Laws
11 Selected secondary literature Of doubtful authenticity:
12 External links Axiochus – Demodocus
Epinomis – Epistles – Eryxias
Halcyon – Hipparchus – Minos
Midwife to knowledge On Justice – On Virtue
Rival Lovers – Second Alcibiades
Socrates asks Theodorus if he knows of any geometry students who show particular promise. Theodorus assures him that he does, but that he does not want to Sisyphus – Theages
over-praise the boy, lest anyone suspect he is in love with him. He says that the boy, Theaetetus, is a young Socrates look-alike, rather homely, with a snub-nose and
protruding eyes. The two older men spot Theaetetus rubbing himself down with oil, and Theodorus reviews the facts about him, that he is intelligent, virile, and
an orphan whose inheritance has been squandered by trustees.

Socrates tells Theaetetus that he cannot make out what knowledge is, and is looking for a simple formula for it. Theaetetus says he really has no idea how to
answer the question, and Socrates tells him that he is there to help. Socrates says he has modelled his career after his midwife mother. She delivered babies and
for his part, Socrates can tell when a young man is in the throes of trying to give birth to a thought. Socrates says his work is especially difficult because he
himself is barren, and, as it turns out, all the bastard notions he has helped deliver had to be killed (152b,c). Theaetetus ventures that "knowledge is nothing but Part of a series on
sense perception".
Plato
Early life · Works · Platonism
Philosophical labor
Epistemology · Idealism / Realism
Theory of Forms
Socrates thinks that this idea must be identical in meaning, if not in actual words, to Protagoras' famous maxim "Man is the measure of all things." Socrates
Form of the Good
wrestles to conflate the two ideas, and stirs in for good measure a claim about Homer being the captain of a team of Heraclitan flux theorists. Socrates dictates a
Third man argument
complete textbook of logical fallacies to the bewildered Theaetetus. When Socrates tells the child that he (Socrates) will later be smaller without losing an inch
Euthyphro dilemma · Five regimes
because Theaetetus will have grown relative to him, the child complains of dizziness (155c). In an often quoted line, Socrates says with delight that "wonder
Philosopher king
(thaumazein) belongs to the philosopher". He admonishes the boy to be patient and bear with his questions, so that his hidden beliefs may be yanked out into the
bright light of day. Allegories and metaphors
Ring of Gyges · The cave
Examining the offspring The divided line · The sun
Ship of state · Myth of Er
When Socrates sums up what they have agreed on so far, it becomes problematic that knowledge is sense perception, for Socrates raises the question that "When The chariot
the same wind blows, one of us feels cold and the other not?" As a result he introduces the idea of Heraclitean flux to act as a defense to the wind objection.
Heracliteanism shows that "Nothing is in itself just one thing...Everything is in a process of coming to be". Thus as there is no fixed meaning in things, but they Related articles
draw their meaning in a referential difference to other things, the wind objection can be incorporated into Theaetetus's claim that "Knowledge is sense The Academy in Athens
perception". As a result they can then continue their inquiry as to the truth of this claim. It is important to note that the Heraclitean doctrine of Flux is not the Socratic problem
same as the Protagorean doctrine. The Protagorean is radical truth relativism whereas the Heraclitean is radical reality relativism. It serves as a supporting theory Commentaries on Plato
to the Protagorean interpretation of Theaetetus's claim, in order that they might fully inquire as to the validity of this premise. Socrates admits that it is Middle Platonism · Neoplatonism
unfortunate that Protagoras is dead and cannot defend his idea against people such as himself. He says that the two of them are "trampling on his orphan" (164e) Neoplatonism and Christianity
but the charge remains.

Abusing the "orphan" of Protagoras

Since Protagoras is dead, Socrates puts himself in the sophist's shoes and tries to do him the favor of defending his idea (166a-168c). Socrates continues to find more ways to misinterpret and
misrepresent him - "mistreat his orphan." Putting words in the dead sophist's mouth, Socrates declares that Protagoras asserts with his maxim that all things are in motion and whatever seems to be the
case, is the case for the perceiver, whether the individual or the state.

At the end of his speech, Socrates admits to Theodorus that if Protagoras were alive to defend his idea, he would have done a far better job than Socrates has just done. Theodorus tells Socrates that he
must be kidding, that he has come to the task with boyish vigor. Theodorus does not claim to be a disciple of Protagoras, but never contradicts Socrates repeated assertions that he is a friend of
Protagoras. Socrates admits he has used the child's timidity to aid him in his argument against the doctrine of Protagoras (168d).

Socrates, not at all certain that he has not misrepresented Protagoras in making each man the measure of his own wisdom, presses Theodorus on the question of whether any follower of Protagoras
(himself included) would contend that nobody thinks anyone else is wrong (170c). Theodorus proves to be helpless against Socrates' confusions. He agrees that Protagoras concedes that those who
disagree with him are correct (171a). In making Protagoras a complete epistemological relativist, where every person's individual perceptions are his reality and his truth, both Socrates and Theodorus
paint Protagoras as maintaining an absurd position. Socrates says that if Protagoras could pop his head up through the ground as far as his neck, he would expose Socrates as a speaker of nonsense, sink
out of sight, and take to his heels (171d).

The absent-minded philosopher

Socrates then proceeds to explain why philosophers seem clumsy and stupid to the common lot of humanity. Socrates explains that philosophers are open to mockery because they are not concerned
about what interests most people: they could not care less about the scandals in their neighbor's house, the tracing of one's ancestry to Heracles, and so on. Instead their thinking wanders around
contemptuously, measuring the depths of the earth and contemplating the stars above the sky. It is here that Socrates draws the classic portrait of the absent-minded intellectual who cannot make his bed
or cook a meal (175e). Socrates adds a big bifurcation to this speech, saying that there are only two kinds of lives to be lived: a divinely happy one, lived by righteous philosophers or a godless, miserable
one, such as most people live (176-177). Socrates admits this was a digression that threatens to drown his original project, which was to define knowledge. Theodorus, the old geometer, tells Socrates
that he finds this sort of thing easier to follow than his earlier arguments.
The men of flux
Socrates says that the men of flux, like Homer and Heraclitus, are really hard to talk to because you can't pin them down. When you ask them a question, he says, they pluck from their quiver a little
aphorism to let fly at you, and as you try to figure that one out, they wing another one at you. They leave nothing settled either in discourse, or in their own minds. Socrates adds that the opposite school
of thought, that teaches of the "immovable whole" is just as hard to talk to (181a,b). Socrates says he met the father of the idea, Parmenides, when he was quite young, but does not want to get into
another digression over it.

The mind as a bird cage

Perhaps the most delightful talk in the dialogue comes near the end, when Socrates compares the human mind to a birdcage. He says it is one thing to possess knowledge and another to have it about one,
on hand, as it were (199a). Socrates says that as a man goes hunting about in his mind for knowledge of something, he might grab hold of the wrong thing. He says that mistaking eleven for twelve is like
going in for a pigeon and coming up with a dove (199b). Theaetetus joins in the game, and says that to complete the picture, you need to envision pieces of ignorance flying around in there with the birds.
But if this is the case, how would you be able to distinguish between the birds representing real knowledge and the ones representing false ones? Are there other birds that represent this type of
knowledge? Socrates comes to the conclusion that this is absurd and therefore he discards the birdcage analogy. Socrates concludes the dialogue by announcing that all the two have produced is mere
"wind-eggs" and that he must be getting on now to the courthouse.

Significant references in the dialogue

In this dialogue, Socrates refers to Epicharmus of Kos as "the prince of Comedy" and Homer as "the prince of Tragedy", and both as "great masters of either kind of poetry".[note 1] This is significant
because it is one of the very few extant references in greater antiquity (Fourth century BC) to Epicharmus and his work. Another reference is in Plato's Gorgias dialogue.

Footnotes
1. ^ "Summon the great masters of either kind of poetry- Epicharmus, the prince of Comedy, and Homer of Tragedy", Theaetetus, by Plato, section §152e.[1] (translation by Benjamin Jowett[2]). There is some variability in
translation of the passage. Words like "king", "chief", "leader", "master" are used in the place of "prince" in different translations. The basic Greek word in Plato is "akroi" from "akros" meaning topmost or high up. In
this context it means "of a degree highest of its kind" or "consummate" (cf. Liddell & Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon).[3]

References
1. ^ Theaetetus, by Plato, section §152e. (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Plat.+Theaet.+152e)
2. ^ Theaetetus, by Plato, section §152e. translation by Benjamin Jowett (http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/theatu.html)
3. ^ Liddell & Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon
(http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?layout.reflang=greek;layout.refembed=2;layout.refwordcount=1;layout.refdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0171;layout.reflookup=a%29%2Fkroi;layout.refcit=text%3DTheaet

Selected secondary literature

Cornford, F.M., "Plato's Theory of Knowledge: The Theaetetus and The Sophist". Dover, 2003 [first published in 1935].
Klein, Jacob, "Plato's Trilogy: Theaetetus, The Sophist and the Statesman". University of Chicago Press, 1977.
Benardete, S., Commentary to Plato's Theaetetus. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984.
Burnyeat, M.F., The Theaetetus of Plato (with a translation by Jane Levett). Hackett, 1990.
Campbell, L., The Theaetetus of Plato. Oxford University Press, 1883.
Heidegger, M., The Essence of Truth. Continuum, 2002.

External links
The full text is available from Project Gutenberg (http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/gutbook/lookup?num=1726) or the Perseus Project in both Greek
(http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0171%3Atext%3DTheaet.) and English
(http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0172:text=Theaet.:section=142a) .
Plato on Knowledge in the Theaetetus (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato-theaetetus) entry by Timothy Chappell in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Cornford, F.M., "Plato's Theory of Knowledge" at googlebooks
(http://books.google.com/books?id=1kWHlFf0bLAC&dq=cornford+theaetetus&printsec=frontcover&source=web&ots=VBwBobl_VN&sig=4qa_52Si97M_a3LSIDZEwa_yKzo)
A Discussion of Theaetetus' Contributions to Euclid's Elements (http://www.theaetetus.net/)
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Categories: Dialogues of Plato | Epistemology literature

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