Theaetetus
THEAETETUS: I am afraid to say, Socrates, that I have nothing to answer,
because you rebuked me just now for making this excuse; but I certainly
cannot undertake to argue that madmen or dreamers think truly, when they
imagine, some of them that they are gods, and others that they can fly,
and are flying in their sleep.
SOCRATES: Do you see another question which can be raised about these
phenomena, notably about dreaming and waking?
THEAETETUS: What question?
SOCRATES: A question which I think that you must often have heard
persons ask:--How can you determine whether at this moment we are
sleeping, and all our thoughts are a dream; or whether we are awake, and
talking to one another in the waking state?
THEAETETUS: Indeed, Socrates, I do not know how to prove the one
any more than the other, for in both cases the facts precisely
correspond;--and there is no difficulty in supposing that during all
this discussion we have been talking to one another in a dream; and when
in a dream we seem to be narrating dreams, the resemblance of the two
states is quite astonishing.
SOCRATES: You see, then, that a doubt about the reality of sense is
easily raised, since there may even be a doubt whether we are awake
or in a dream. And as our time is equally divided between sleeping
and waking, in either sphere of existence the soul contends that the
thoughts which are present to our minds at the time are true; and during
one half of our lives we affirm the truth of the one, and, during the
other half, of the other; and are equally confident of both.
THEAETETUS: Most true.
SOCRATES: And may not the same be said of madness and other disorders?
the difference is only that the times are not equal.
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And is truth or falsehood to be determined by duration of
time?
THEAETETUS: That would be in many ways ridiculous.
SOCRATES: But can you certainly determine by any other means which of
these opinions is true?
THEAETETUS: I do not think that I can.
SOCRATES: Listen, then, to a statement of the other side of the
argument, which is made by the champions of appearance. They would say,
as I imagine--Can that which is wholly other than something, have the
same quality as that from which it differs? and observe, Theaetetus,
that the word 'other' means not 'partially,' but 'wholly other.'
THEAETETUS: Certainly, putting the question as you do, that which is
wholly other cannot either potentially or in any other way be the same.
SOCRATES: And must therefore be admitted to be unlike?
THEAETETUS: True.
SOCRATES: If, then, anything happens to become like or unlike itself or
another, when it becomes like we call it the same--when unlike, other?
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Were we not saying that there are agents many and infinite,
and patients many and infinite?
THEAETETUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And also that different combinations will produce results
which are not the same, but different?
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Let us take you and me, or anything as an example:--There is
Socrates in health, and Socrates sick--Are they like or unlike?
THEAETETUS: You mean to compare Socrates in health as a whole, and
Socrates in sickness as a whole?
SOCRATES: Exactly; that is my meaning.
THEAETETUS: I answer, they are unlike.
SOCRATES: And if unlike, they are other?
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And would you not say the same of Socrates sleeping and
waking, or in any of the states which we were mentioning?
THEAETETUS: I should.
SOCRATES: All agents have a different patient in Socrates, accordingly
as he is well or ill.
THEAETETUS: Of course.
SOCRATES: And I who am the patient, and that which is the agent, will
produce something different in each of the two cases?
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: The wine which I drink when I am in health, appears sweet and
pleasant to me?
THEAETETUS: True.
SOCRATES: For, as has been already acknowledged, the patient and agent
meet together and produce sweetness and a perception of sweetness, which
are in simultaneous motion, and the perception which comes from the
patient makes the tongue percipient, and the quality of sweetness which
arises out of and is moving about the wine, makes the wine both to be
and to appear sweet to the healthy tongue.
THEAETETUS: Certainly; that has been already acknowledged.
SOCRATES: But when I am sick, the wine really acts upon another and a
different person?
THEAETETUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: The combination of the draught of wine, and the Socrates
who is sick, produces quite another result; which is the sensation of
bitterness in the tongue, and the motion and creation of bitterness in
and about the wine, which becomes not bitterness but something bitter;
as I myself become not perception but percipient?
THEAETETUS: True.
SOCRATES: There is no other object of which I shall ever have the same
perception, for another object would give another perception, and would
make the percipient other and different; nor can that object which
affects me, meeting another subject, produce the same, or become
similar, for that too would produce another result from another subject,
and become different.
THEAETETUS: True.
SOCRATES: Neither can I by myself, have this sensation, nor the object
by itself, this quality.
THEAETETUS: Certainly not.
SOCRATES: When I perceive I must become percipient of something--there
can be no such thing as perceiving and perceiving nothing; the object,
whether it become sweet, bitter, or of any other quality, must have
relation to a percipient; nothing can become sweet which is sweet to no
one.
THEAETETUS: Certainly not.
SOCRATES: Then the inference is, that we (the agent and patient) are or
become in relation to one another; there is a law which binds us one to
the other, but not to any other existence, nor each of us to himself;
and therefore we can only be bound to one another; so that whether
a person says that a thing is or becomes, he must say that it is or
becomes to or of or in relation to something else; but he must not
say or allow any one else to say that anything is or becomes
absolutely:--such is our conclusion.
THEAETETUS: Very true, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Then, if that which acts upon me has relation to me and to no
other, I and no other am the percipient of it?
THEAETETUS: Of course.
SOCRATES: Then my perception is true to me, being inseparable from my
own being; and, as Protagoras says, to myself I am judge of what is and
what is not to me.
THEAETETUS: I suppose so.
SOCRATES: How then, if I never err, and if my mind never trips in the
conception of being or becoming, can I fail of knowing that which I
perceive?
THEAETETUS: You cannot.
SOCRATES: Then you were quite right in affirming that knowledge is only
perception; and the meaning turns out to be the same, whether with Homer
and Heracleitus, and all that company, you say that all is motion and
flux, or with the great sage Protagoras, that man is the measure of all
things; or with Theaetetus, that, given these premises, perception is
knowledge. Am I not right, Theaetetus, and is not this your new-born
child, of which I have delivered you? What say you?
THEAETETUS: I cannot but agree, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Then this is the child, however he may turn out, which you and
I have with difficulty brought into the world. And now that he is born,
we must run round the hearth with him, and see whether he is worth
rearing, or is only a wind-egg and a sham. Is he to be reared in any
case, and not exposed? or will you bear to see him rejected, and not get
into a passion if I take away your first-born?
THEODORUS: Theaetetus will not be angry, for he is very good-natured.
But tell me, Socrates, in heaven's name, is this, after all, not the
truth?
SOCRATES: You, Theodorus, are a lover of theories, and now you
innocently fancy that I am a bag full of them, and can easily pull one
out which will overthrow its predecessor. But you do not see that in
reality none of these theories come from me; they all come from him who
talks with me. I only know just enough to extract them from the wisdom
of another, and to receive them in a spirit of fairness. And now I shall
say nothing myself, but shall endeavour to elicit something from our
young friend.
THEODORUS: Do as you say, Socrates; you are quite right.
SOCRATES: Shall I tell you, Theodorus, what amazes me in your
acquaintance Protagoras?
THEODORUS: What is it?
SOCRATES: I am charmed with his doctrine, that what appears is to
each one, but I wonder that he did not begin his book on Truth with a
declaration that a pig or a dog-faced baboon, or some other yet stranger
monster which has sensation, is the measure of all things; then he might
have shown a magnificent contempt for our opinion of him by informing
us at the outset that while we were reverencing him like a God for
his wisdom he was no better than a tadpole, not to speak of his
fellow-men--would not this have produced an overpowering effect? For
if truth is only sensation, and no man can discern another's feelings
better than he, or has any superior right to determine whether his
opinion is true or false, but each, as we have several times repeated,
is to himself the sole judge, and everything that he judges is true and
right, why, my friend, should Protagoras be preferred to the place
of wisdom and instruction, and deserve to be well paid, and we poor
ignoramuses have to go to him, if each one is the measure of his own
wisdom? Must he not be talking 'ad captandum' in all this? I say nothing
of the ridiculous predicament in which my own midwifery and the whole
art of dialectic is placed; for the attempt to supervise or refute the
notions or opinions of others would be a tedious and enormous piece of
folly, if to each man his own are right; and this must be the case if
Protagoras' Truth is the real truth, and the philosopher is not merely
amusing himself by giving oracles out of the shrine of his book.
THEODORUS: He was a friend of mine, Socrates, as you were saying, and
therefore I cannot have him refuted by my lips, nor can I oppose you
when I agree with you; please, then, to take Theaetetus again; he seemed
to answer very nicely.
SOCRATES: If you were to go into a Lacedaemonian palestra, Theodorus,
would you have a right to look on at the naked wrestlers, some of them
making a poor figure, if you did not strip and give them an opportunity
of judging of your own person?
THEODORUS: Why not, Socrates, if they would allow me, as I think you
will, in consideration of my age and stiffness; let some more supple
youth try a fall with you, and do not drag me into the gymnasium.
SOCRATES: Your will is my will, Theodorus, as the proverbial
philosophers say, and therefore I will return to the sage Theaetetus:
Tell me, Theaetetus, in reference to what I was saying, are you not
lost in wonder, like myself, when you find that all of a sudden you are
raised to the level of the wisest of men, or indeed of the gods?--for
you would assume the measure of Protagoras to apply to the gods as well
as men?
THEAETETUS: Certainly I should, and I confess to you that I am lost in
wonder. At first hearing, I was quite satisfied with the doctrine, that
whatever appears is to each one, but now the face of things has changed.
SOCRATES: Why, my dear boy, you are young, and therefore your ear
is quickly caught and your mind influenced by popular arguments.
Protagoras, or some one speaking on his behalf, will doubtless say in
reply,--Good people, young and old, you meet and harangue, and bring
in the gods, whose existence or non-existence I banish from writing and
speech, or you talk about the reason of man being degraded to the level