Theaetetus
and are not liable to confusion, but have true thoughts, for they have
plenty of room, and having clear impressions of things, as we term them,
quickly distribute them into their proper places on the block. And such
men are called wise. Do you agree?
THEAETETUS: Entirely.
SOCRATES: But when the heart of any one is shaggy--a quality which the
all-wise poet commends, or muddy and of impure wax, or very soft, or
very hard, then there is a corresponding defect in the mind--the soft
are good at learning, but apt to forget; and the hard are the reverse;
the shaggy and rugged and gritty, or those who have an admixture of
earth or dung in their composition, have the impressions indistinct,
as also the hard, for there is no depth in them; and the soft too are
indistinct, for their impressions are easily confused and effaced. Yet
greater is the indistinctness when they are all jostled together in a
little soul, which has no room. These are the natures which have false
opinion; for when they see or hear or think of anything, they are
slow in assigning the right objects to the right impressions--in their
stupidity they confuse them, and are apt to see and hear and think
amiss--and such men are said to be deceived in their knowledge of
objects, and ignorant.
THEAETETUS: No man, Socrates, can say anything truer than that.
SOCRATES: Then now we may admit the existence of false opinion in us?
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And of true opinion also?
THEAETETUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: We have at length satisfactorily proven beyond a doubt there
are these two sorts of opinion?
THEAETETUS: Undoubtedly.
SOCRATES: Alas, Theaetetus, what a tiresome creature is a man who is
fond of talking!
THEAETETUS: What makes you say so?
SOCRATES: Because I am disheartened at my own stupidity and tiresome
garrulity; for what other term will describe the habit of a man who
is always arguing on all sides of a question; whose dulness cannot be
convinced, and who will never leave off?
THEAETETUS: But what puts you out of heart?
SOCRATES: I am not only out of heart, but in positive despair; for I do
not know what to answer if any one were to ask me:--O Socrates, have you
indeed discovered that false opinion arises neither in the comparison of
perceptions with one another nor yet in thought, but in union of thought
and perception? Yes, I shall say, with the complacence of one who thinks
that he has made a noble discovery.
THEAETETUS: I see no reason why we should be ashamed of our
demonstration, Socrates.
SOCRATES: He will say: You mean to argue that the man whom we only think
of and do not see, cannot be confused with the horse which we do not see
or touch, but only think of and do not perceive? That I believe to be my
meaning, I shall reply.
THEAETETUS: Quite right.
SOCRATES: Well, then, he will say, according to that argument, the
number eleven, which is only thought, can never be mistaken for twelve,
which is only thought: How would you answer him?
THEAETETUS: I should say that a mistake may very likely arise between
the eleven or twelve which are seen or handled, but that no similar
mistake can arise between the eleven and twelve which are in the mind.
SOCRATES: Well, but do you think that no one ever put before his own
mind five and seven,--I do not mean five or seven men or horses, but
five or seven in the abstract, which, as we say, are recorded on the
waxen block, and in which false opinion is held to be impossible; did
no man ever ask himself how many these numbers make when added together,
and answer that they are eleven, while another thinks that they are
twelve, or would all agree in thinking and saying that they are twelve?
THEAETETUS: Certainly not; many would think that they are eleven, and
in the higher numbers the chance of error is greater still; for I assume
you to be speaking of numbers in general.
SOCRATES: Exactly; and I want you to consider whether this does not
imply that the twelve in the waxen block are supposed to be eleven?
THEAETETUS: Yes, that seems to be the case.
SOCRATES: Then do we not come back to the old difficulty? For he who
makes such a mistake does think one thing which he knows to be another
thing which he knows; but this, as we said, was impossible, and afforded
an irresistible proof of the non-existence of false opinion, because
otherwise the same person would inevitably know and not know the same
thing at the same time.
THEAETETUS: Most true.
SOCRATES: Then false opinion cannot be explained as a confusion of
thought and sense, for in that case we could not have been mistaken
about pure conceptions of thought; and thus we are obliged to say,
either that false opinion does not exist, or that a man may not know
that which he knows;--which alternative do you prefer?
THEAETETUS: It is hard to determine, Socrates.
SOCRATES: And yet the argument will scarcely admit of both. But, as we
are at our wits' end, suppose that we do a shameless thing?
THEAETETUS: What is it?
SOCRATES: Let us attempt to explain the verb 'to know.'
THEAETETUS: And why should that be shameless?
SOCRATES: You seem not to be aware that the whole of our discussion from
the very beginning has been a search after knowledge, of which we are
assumed not to know the nature.
THEAETETUS: Nay, but I am well aware.
SOCRATES: And is it not shameless when we do not know what knowledge is,
to be explaining the verb 'to know'? The truth is, Theaetetus, that we
have long been infected with logical impurity. Thousands of times have
we repeated the words 'we know,' and 'do not know,' and 'we have or have
not science or knowledge,' as if we could understand what we are saying
to one another, so long as we remain ignorant about knowledge; and at
this moment we are using the words 'we understand,' 'we are ignorant,'
as though we could still employ them when deprived of knowledge or
science.
THEAETETUS: But if you avoid these expressions, Socrates, how will you
ever argue at all?
SOCRATES: I could not, being the man I am. The case would be different
if I were a true hero of dialectic: and O that such an one were present!
for he would have told us to avoid the use of these terms; at the same
time he would not have spared in you and me the faults which I have
noted. But, seeing that we are no great wits, shall I venture to say
what knowing is? for I think that the attempt may be worth making.
THEAETETUS: Then by all means venture, and no one shall find fault with
you for using the forbidden terms.
SOCRATES: You have heard the common explanation of the verb 'to know'?
THEAETETUS: I think so, but I do not remember it at the moment.
SOCRATES: They explain the word 'to know' as meaning 'to have
knowledge.'
THEAETETUS: True.
SOCRATES: I should like to make a slight change, and say 'to possess'
knowledge.
THEAETETUS: How do the two expressions differ?
SOCRATES: Perhaps there may be no difference; but still I should like
you to hear my view, that you may help me to test it.
THEAETETUS: I will, if I can.
SOCRATES: I should distinguish 'having' from 'possessing': for example,
a man may buy and keep under his control a garment which he does not
wear; and then we should say, not that he has, but that he possesses the
garment.
THEAETETUS: It would be the correct expression.
SOCRATES: Well, may not a man 'possess' and yet not 'have' knowledge
in the sense of which I am speaking? As you may suppose a man to have
caught wild birds--doves or any other birds--and to be keeping them in
an aviary which he has constructed at home; we might say of him in one
sense, that he always has them because he possesses them, might we not?
THEAETETUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And yet, in another sense, he has none of them; but they are
in his power, and he has got them under his hand in an enclosure of his
own, and can take and have them whenever he likes;--he can catch any
which he likes, and let the bird go again, and he may do so as often as
he pleases.
THEAETETUS: True.
SOCRATES: Once more, then, as in what preceded we made a sort of waxen
figment in the mind, so let us now suppose that in the mind of each man
there is an aviary of all sorts of birds--some flocking together apart
from the rest, others in small groups, others solitary, flying anywhere
and everywhere.
THEAETETUS: Let us imagine such an aviary--and what is to follow?
SOCRATES: We may suppose that the birds are kinds of knowledge, and that
when we were children, this receptacle was empty; whenever a man has
gotten and detained in the enclosure a kind of knowledge, he may be
said to have learned or discovered the thing which is the subject of the
knowledge: and this is to know.
THEAETETUS: Granted.
SOCRATES: And further, when any one wishes to catch any of these
knowledges or sciences, and having taken, to hold it, and again to let
them go, how will he express himself?--will he describe the 'catching'
of them and the original 'possession' in the same words? I will make
my meaning clearer by an example:--You admit that there is an art of
arithmetic?
THEAETETUS: To be sure.
SOCRATES: Conceive this under the form of a hunt after the science of
odd and even in general.
THEAETETUS: I follow.
SOCRATES: Having the use of the art, the arithmetician, if I am not
mistaken, has the conceptions of number under his hand, and can transmit
them to another.
THEAETETUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And when transmitting them he may be said to teach them, and
when receiving to learn them, and when receiving to learn them, and when
having them in possession in the aforesaid aviary he may be said to know
them.
THEAETETUS: Exactly.
SOCRATES: Attend to what follows: must not the perfect arithmetician
know all numbers, for he has the science of all numbers in his mind?
THEAETETUS: True.
SOCRATES: And he can reckon abstract numbers in his head, or things
about him which are numerable?
THEAETETUS: Of course he can.
SOCRATES: And to reckon is simply to consider how much such and such a
number amounts to?
THEAETETUS: Very true.
SOCRATES: And so he appears to be searching into something which he
knows, as if he did not know it, for we have already admitted that he
knows all numbers;--you have heard these perplexing questions raised?
THEAETETUS: I have.
SOCRATES: May we not pursue the image of the doves, and say that the
chase after knowledge is of two kinds? one kind is prior to possession
and for the sake of possession, and the other for the sake of taking and
holding in the hands that which is possessed already. And thus, when a
man has learned and known something long ago, he may resume and get hold
of the knowledge which he has long possessed, but has not at hand in his
mind.
THEAETETUS: True.
SOCRATES: That was my reason for asking how we ought to speak when an
arithmetician sets about numbering, or a grammarian about reading? Shall
we say, that although he knows, he comes back to himself to learn what
he already knows?
THEAETETUS: It would be too absurd, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Shall we say then that he is going to read or number what he
does not know, although we have admitted that he knows all letters and
all numbers?
THEAETETUS: That, again, would be an absurdity.
SOCRATES: Then shall we say that about names we care nothing?--any one
may twist and turn the words 'knowing' and 'learning' in any way which
he likes, but since we have determined that the possession of knowledge
is not the having or using it, we do assert that a man cannot not
possess that which he possesses; and, therefore, in no case can a man
not know that which he knows, but he may get a false opinion about it;
for he may have the knowledge, not of this particular thing, but of some