Theaetetus

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This etext was prepared by Sue Asscher

THEAETETUS

by Plato

Translated by Benjamin Jowett

INTRODUCTION AND ANALYSIS.

Some dialogues of Plato are of so various a character that their relation
to the other dialogues cannot be determined with any degree of certainty.
The Theaetetus, like the Parmenides, has points of similarity both with his
earlier and his later writings. The perfection of style, the humour, the
dramatic interest, the complexity of structure, the fertility of
illustration, the shifting of the points of view, are characteristic of his
best period of authorship. The vain search, the negative conclusion, the
figure of the midwives, the constant profession of ignorance on the part of
Socrates, also bear the stamp of the early dialogues, in which the original
Socrates is not yet Platonized. Had we no other indications, we should be
disposed to range the Theaetetus with the Apology and the Phaedrus, and
perhaps even with the Protagoras and the Laches.

But when we pass from the style to an examination of the subject, we trace
a connection with the later rather than with the earlier dialogues. In the
first place there is the connexion, indicated by Plato himself at the end
of the dialogue, with the Sophist, to which in many respects the Theaetetus
is so little akin. (1) The same persons reappear, including the younger
Socrates, whose name is just mentioned in the Theaetetus; (2) the theory of
rest, which Socrates has declined to consider, is resumed by the Eleatic
Stranger; (3) there is a similar allusion in both dialogues to the meeting
of Parmenides and Socrates (Theaet., Soph.); and (4) the inquiry into not-
being in the Sophist supplements the question of false opinion which is
raised in the Theaetetus. (Compare also Theaet. and Soph. for parallel
turns of thought.) Secondly, the later date of the dialogue is confirmed
by the absence of the doctrine of recollection and of any doctrine of ideas
except that which derives them from generalization and from reflection of
the mind upon itself. The general character of the Theaetetus is
dialectical, and there are traces of the same Megarian influences which
appear in the Parmenides, and which later writers, in their matter of fact
way, have explained by the residence of Plato at Megara. Socrates
disclaims the character of a professional eristic, and also, with a sort of
ironical admiration, expresses his inability to attain the Megarian
precision in the use of terms. Yet he too employs a similar sophistical
skill in overturning every conceivable theory of knowledge.

The direct indications of a date amount to no more than this: the
conversation is said to have taken place when Theaetetus was a youth, and
shortly before the death of Socrates. At the time of his own death he is
supposed to be a full-grown man. Allowing nine or ten years for the
interval between youth and manhood, the dialogue could not have been
written earlier than 390, when Plato was about thirty-nine years of age.
No more definite date is indicated by the engagement in which Theaetetus is
said to have fallen or to have been wounded, and which may have taken place
any time during the Corinthian war, between the years 390-387. The later
date which has been suggested, 369, when the Athenians and Lacedaemonians
disputed the Isthmus with Epaminondas, would make the age of Theaetetus at
his death forty-five or forty-six. This a little impairs the beauty of
Socrates' remark, that 'he would be a great man if he lived.'

In this uncertainty about the place of the Theaetetus, it seemed better, as
in the case of the Republic, Timaeus, Critias, to retain the order in which
Plato himself has arranged this and the two companion dialogues. We cannot
exclude the possibility which has been already noticed in reference to
other works of Plato, that the Theaetetus may not have been all written
continuously; or the probability that the Sophist and Politicus, which
differ greatly in style, were only appended after a long interval of time.
The allusion to Parmenides compared with the Sophist, would probably imply
that the dialogue which is called by his name was already in existence;
unless, indeed, we suppose the passage in which the allusion occurs to have
been inserted afterwards. Again, the Theaetetus may be connected with the
Gorgias, either dialogue from different points of view containing an
analysis of the real and apparent (Schleiermacher); and both may be brought
into relation with the Apology as illustrating the personal life of
Socrates. The Philebus, too, may with equal reason be placed either after
or before what, in the language of Thrasyllus, may be called the Second
Platonic Trilogy. Both the Parmenides and the Sophist, and still more the
Theaetetus, have points of affinity with the Cratylus, in which the
principles of rest and motion are again contrasted, and the Sophistical or
Protagorean theory of language is opposed to that which is attributed to
the disciple of Heracleitus, not to speak of lesser resemblances in thought
and language. The Parmenides, again, has been thought by some to hold an
intermediate position between the Theaetetus and the Sophist; upon this
view, the Sophist may be regarded as the answer to the problems about One
and Being which have been raised in the Parmenides. Any of these
arrangements may suggest new views to the student of Plato; none of them
can lay claim to an exclusive probability in its favour.

The Theaetetus is one of the narrated dialogues of Plato, and is the only
one which is supposed to have been written down. In a short introductory
scene, Euclides and Terpsion are described as meeting before the door of
Euclides' house in Megara. This may have been a spot familiar to Plato
(for Megara was within a walk of Athens), but no importance can be attached
to the accidental introduction of the founder of the Megarian philosophy.
The real intention of the preface is to create an interest about the person
of Theaetetus, who has just been carried up from the army at Corinth in a
dying state. The expectation of his death recalls the promise of his
youth, and especially the famous conversation which Socrates had with him
when he was quite young, a few days before his own trial and death, as we
are once more reminded at the end of the dialogue. Yet we may observe that
Plato has himself forgotten this, when he represents Euclides as from time
to time coming to Athens and correcting the copy from Socrates' own mouth.
The narrative, having introduced Theaetetus, and having guaranteed the
authenticity of the dialogue (compare Symposium, Phaedo, Parmenides), is
then dropped. No further use is made of the device. As Plato himself
remarks, who in this as in some other minute points is imitated by Cicero
(De Amicitia), the interlocutory words are omitted.

Theaetetus, the hero of the battle of Corinth and of the dialogue, is a
disciple of Theodorus, the great geometrician, whose science is thus
indicated to be the propaedeutic to philosophy. An interest has been
already excited about him by his approaching death, and now he is
introduced to us anew by the praises of his master Theodorus. He is a
youthful Socrates, and exhibits the same contrast of the fair soul and the
ungainly face and frame, the Silenus mask and the god within, which are
described in the Symposium. The picture which Theodorus gives of his
courage and patience and intelligence and modesty is verified in the course
of the dialogue. His courage is shown by his behaviour in the battle, and
his other qualities shine forth as the argument proceeds. Socrates takes
an evident delight in 'the wise Theaetetus,' who has more in him than 'many
bearded men'; he is quite inspired by his answers. At first the youth is
lost in wonder, and is almost too modest to speak, but, encouraged by
Socrates, he rises to the occasion, and grows full of interest and
enthusiasm about the great question. Like a youth, he has not finally made
up his mind, and is very ready to follow the lead of Socrates, and to enter
into each successive phase of the discussion which turns up. His great
dialectical talent is shown in his power of drawing distinctions, and of
foreseeing the consequences of his own answers. The enquiry about the
nature of knowledge is not new to him; long ago he has felt the 'pang of
philosophy,' and has experienced the youthful intoxication which is
depicted in the Philebus. But he has hitherto been unable to make the
transition from mathematics to metaphysics. He can form a general
conception of square and oblong numbers, but he is unable to attain a
similar expression of knowledge in the abstract. Yet at length he begins
to recognize that there are universal conceptions of being, likeness,
sameness, number, which the mind contemplates in herself, and with the help
of Socrates is conducted from a theory of sense to a theory of ideas.

There is no reason to doubt that Theaetetus was a real person, whose name
survived in the next generation. But neither can any importance be
attached to the notices of him in Suidas and Proclus, which are probably
based on the mention of him in Plato. According to a confused statement in
Suidas, who mentions him twice over, first, as a pupil of Socrates, and
then of Plato, he is said to have written the first work on the Five
Solids. But no early authority cites the work, the invention of which may
have been easily suggested by the division of roots, which Plato attributes
to him, and the allusion to the backward state of solid geometry in the
Republic. At any rate, there is no occasion to recall him to life again
after the battle of Corinth, in order that we may allow time for the
completion of such a work (Muller). We may also remark that such a
supposition entirely destroys the pathetic interest of the introduction.

Theodorus, the geometrician, had once been the friend and disciple of
Protagoras, but he is very reluctant to leave his retirement and defend his
old master. He is too old to learn Socrates' game of question and answer,
and prefers the digressions to the main argument, because he finds them
easier to follow. The mathematician, as Socrates says in the Republic, is
not capable of giving a reason in the same manner as the dialectician, and
Theodorus could not therefore have been appropriately introduced as the
chief respondent. But he may be fairly appealed to, when the honour of his
master is at stake. He is the 'guardian of his orphans,' although this is
a responsibility which he wishes to throw upon Callias, the friend and
patron of all Sophists, declaring that he himself had early 'run away' from
philosophy, and was absorbed in mathematics. His extreme dislike to the
Heraclitean fanatics, which may be compared with the dislike of Theaetetus
to the materialists, and his ready acceptance of the noble words of
Socrates, are noticeable traits of character.

The Socrates of the Theaetetus is the same as the Socrates of the earlier
dialogues. He is the invincible disputant, now advanced in years, of the
Protagoras and Symposium; he is still pursuing his divine mission, his
'Herculean labours,' of which he has described the origin in the Apology;
and he still hears the voice of his oracle, bidding him receive or not
receive the truant souls. There he is supposed to have a mission to
convict men of self-conceit; in the Theaetetus he has assigned to him by
God the functions of a man-midwife, who delivers men of their thoughts, and
under this character he is present throughout the dialogue. He is the true
prophet who has an insight into the natures of men, and can divine their
future; and he knows that sympathy is the secret power which unlocks their
thoughts. The hit at Aristides, the son of Lysimachus, who was specially
committed to his charge in the Laches, may be remarked by the way. The
attempt to discover the definition of knowledge is in accordance with the
character of Socrates as he is described in the Memorabilia, asking What is
justice? what is temperance? and the like. But there is no reason to
suppose that he would have analyzed the nature of perception, or traced the
connexion of Protagoras and Heracleitus, or have raised the difficulty
respecting false opinion. The humorous illustrations, as well as the
serious thoughts, run through the dialogue. The snubnosedness of
Theaetetus, a characteristic which he shares with Socrates, and the man-
midwifery of Socrates, are not forgotten in the closing words. At the end
of the dialogue, as in the Euthyphro, he is expecting to meet Meletus at
the porch of the king Archon; but with the same indifference to the result
which is everywhere displayed by him, he proposes that they shall
reassemble on the following day at the same spot. The day comes, and in
the Sophist the three friends again meet, but no further allusion is made
to the trial, and the principal share in the argument is assigned, not to
Socrates, but to an Eleatic stranger; the youthful Theaetetus also plays a
different and less independent part. And there is no allusion in the
Introduction to the second and third dialogues, which are afterwards
appended. There seems, therefore, reason to think that there is a real
change, both in the characters and in the design.

The dialogue is an enquiry into the nature of knowledge, which is
interrupted by two digressions. The first is the digression about the
midwives, which is also a leading thought or continuous image, like the
wave in the Republic, appearing and reappearing at intervals. Again and
again we are reminded that the successive conceptions of knowledge are
extracted from Theaetetus, who in his turn truly declares that Socrates has
got a great deal more out of him than ever was in him. Socrates is never
weary of working out the image in humorous details,--discerning the
symptoms of labour, carrying the child round the hearth, fearing that
Theaetetus will bite him, comparing his conceptions to wind-eggs, asserting
an hereditary right to the occupation. There is also a serious side to the
image, which is an apt similitude of the Socratic theory of education
(compare Republic, Sophist), and accords with the ironical spirit in which
the wisest of men delights to speak of himself.

The other digression is the famous contrast of the lawyer and philosopher.
This is a sort of landing-place or break in the middle of the dialogue. At
the commencement of a great discussion, the reflection naturally arises,
How happy are they who, like the philosopher, have time for such
discussions (compare Republic)! There is no reason for the introduction of
such a digression; nor is a reason always needed, any more than for the
introduction of an episode in a poem, or of a topic in conversation. That
which is given by Socrates is quite sufficient, viz. that the philosopher
may talk and write as he pleases. But though not very closely connected,
neither is the digression out of keeping with the rest of the dialogue.
The philosopher naturally desires to pour forth the thoughts which are
always present to him, and to discourse of the higher life. The idea of
knowledge, although hard to be defined, is realised in the life of
philosophy. And the contrast is the favourite antithesis between the
world, in the various characters of sophist, lawyer, statesman, speaker,
and the philosopher,--between opinion and knowledge,--between the
conventional and the true.

The greater part of the dialogue is devoted to setting up and throwing down
definitions of science and knowledge. Proceeding from the lower to the
higher by three stages, in which perception, opinion, reasoning are
successively examined, we first get rid of the confusion of the idea of
knowledge and specific kinds of knowledge,--a confusion which has been
already noticed in the Lysis, Laches, Meno, and other dialogues. In the
infancy of logic, a form of thought has to be invented before the content
can be filled up. We cannot define knowledge until the nature of
definition has been ascertained. Having succeeded in making his meaning
plain, Socrates proceeds to analyze (1) the first definition which
Theaetetus proposes: 'Knowledge is sensible perception.' This is speedily
identified with the Protagorean saying, 'Man is the measure of all things;'
and of this again the foundation is discovered in the perpetual flux of
Heracleitus. The relativeness of sensation is then developed at length,
and for a moment the definition appears to be accepted. But soon the
Protagorean thesis is pronounced to be suicidal; for the adversaries of
Protagoras are as good a measure as he is, and they deny his doctrine. He
is then supposed to reply that the perception may be true at any given
instant. But the reply is in the end shown to be inconsistent with the
Heraclitean foundation, on which the doctrine has been affirmed to rest.
For if the Heraclitean flux is extended to every sort of change in every
instant of time, how can any thought or word be detained even for an
instant? Sensible perception, like everything else, is tumbling to pieces.
Nor can Protagoras himself maintain that one man is as good as another in
his knowledge of the future; and 'the expedient,' if not 'the just and
true,' belongs to the sphere of the future.

And so we must ask again, What is knowledge? The comparison of sensations
with one another implies a principle which is above sensation, and which
resides in the mind itself. We are thus led to look for knowledge in a
higher sphere, and accordingly Theaetetus, when again interrogated, replies
(2) that 'knowledge is true opinion.' But how is false opinion possible?
The Megarian or Eristic spirit within us revives the question, which has
been already asked and indirectly answered in the Meno: 'How can a man be
ignorant of that which he knows?' No answer is given to this not
unanswerable question. The comparison of the mind to a block of wax, or to
a decoy of birds, is found wanting.

But are we not inverting the natural order in looking for opinion before we
have found knowledge? And knowledge is not true opinion; for the Athenian
dicasts have true opinion but not knowledge. What then is knowledge? We
answer (3), 'True opinion, with definition or explanation.' But all the
different ways in which this statement may be understood are set aside,
like the definitions of courage in the Laches, or of friendship in the
Lysis, or of temperance in the Charmides. At length we arrive at the
conclusion, in which nothing is concluded.

There are two special difficulties which beset the student of the
Theaetetus: (1) he is uncertain how far he can trust Plato's account of
the theory of Protagoras; and he is also uncertain (2) how far, and in what
parts of the dialogue, Plato is expressing his own opinion. The dramatic
character of the work renders the answer to both these questions difficult.

1. In reply to the first, we have only probabilities to offer. Three main
points have to be decided: (a) Would Protagoras have identified his own
thesis, 'Man is the measure of all things,' with the other, 'All knowledge
is sensible perception'? (b) Would he have based the relativity of
knowledge on the Heraclitean flux? (c) Would he have asserted the
absoluteness of sensation at each instant? Of the work of Protagoras on
'Truth' we know nothing, with the exception of the two famous fragments,
which are cited in this dialogue, 'Man is the measure of all things,' and,
'Whether there are gods or not, I cannot tell.' Nor have we any other
trustworthy evidence of the tenets of Protagoras, or of the sense in which
his words are used. For later writers, including Aristotle in his
Metaphysics, have mixed up the Protagoras of Plato, as they have the
Socrates of Plato, with the real person.

Returning then to the Theaetetus, as the only possible source from which an
answer to these questions can be obtained, we may remark, that Plato had
'The Truth' of Protagoras before him, and frequently refers to the book.
He seems to say expressly, that in this work the doctrine of the
Heraclitean flux was not to be found; 'he told the real truth' (not in the
book, which is so entitled, but) 'privately to his disciples,'--words which
imply that the connexion between the doctrines of Protagoras and
Heracleitus was not generally recognized in Greece, but was really
discovered or invented by Plato. On the other hand, the doctrine that 'Man
is the measure of all things,' is expressly identified by Socrates with the
other statement, that 'What appears to each man is to him;' and a reference
is made to the books in which the statement occurs;--this Theaetetus, who
has 'often read the books,' is supposed to acknowledge (so Cratylus). And
Protagoras, in the speech attributed to him, never says that he has been
misunderstood: he rather seems to imply that the absoluteness of sensation
at each instant was to be found in his words. He is only indignant at the
'reductio ad absurdum' devised by Socrates for his 'homo mensura,' which
Theodorus also considers to be 'really too bad.'

The question may be raised, how far Plato in the Theaetetus could have
misrepresented Protagoras without violating the laws of dramatic
probability. Could he have pretended to cite from a well-known writing
what was not to be found there? But such a shadowy enquiry is not worth
pursuing further. We need only remember that in the criticism which
follows of the thesis of Protagoras, we are criticizing the Protagoras of
Plato, and not attempting to draw a precise line between his real
sentiments and those which Plato has attributed to him.

2. The other difficulty is a more subtle, and also a more important one,
because bearing on the general character of the Platonic dialogues. On a
first reading of them, we are apt to imagine that the truth is only spoken
by Socrates, who is never guilty of a fallacy himself, and is the great
detector of the errors and fallacies of others. But this natural
presumption is disturbed by the discovery that the Sophists are sometimes
in the right and Socrates in the wrong. Like the hero of a novel, he is
not to be supposed always to represent the sentiments of the author. There
are few modern readers who do not side with Protagoras, rather than with
Socrates, in the dialogue which is called by his name. The Cratylus
presents a similar difficulty: in his etymologies, as in the number of the
State, we cannot tell how far Socrates is serious; for the Socratic irony
will not allow him to distinguish between his real and his assumed wisdom.
No one is the superior of the invincible Socrates in argument (except in
the first part of the Parmenides, where he is introduced as a youth); but
he is by no means supposed to be in possession of the whole truth.
Arguments are often put into his mouth (compare Introduction to the
Gorgias) which must have seemed quite as untenable to Plato as to a modern
writer. In this dialogue a great part of the answer of Protagoras is just
and sound; remarks are made by him on verbal criticism, and on the
importance of understanding an opponent's meaning, which are conceived in
the true spirit of philosophy. And the distinction which he is supposed to
draw between Eristic and Dialectic, is really a criticism of Plato on
himself and his own criticism of Protagoras.

The difficulty seems to arise from not attending to the dramatic character
of the writings of Plato. There are two, or more, sides to questions; and
these are parted among the different speakers. Sometimes one view or
aspect of a question is made to predominate over the rest, as in the
Gorgias or Sophist; but in other dialogues truth is divided, as in the
Laches and Protagoras, and the interest of the piece consists in the
contrast of opinions. The confusion caused by the irony of Socrates, who,
if he is true to his character, cannot say anything of his own knowledge,
is increased by the circumstance that in the Theaetetus and some other
dialogues he is occasionally playing both parts himself, and even charging
his own arguments with unfairness. In the Theaetetus he is designedly held
back from arriving at a conclusion. For we cannot suppose that Plato
conceived a definition of knowledge to be impossible. But this is his
manner of approaching and surrounding a question. The lights which he
throws on his subject are indirect, but they are not the less real for
that. He has no intention of proving a thesis by a cut-and-dried argument;
nor does he imagine that a great philosophical problem can be tied up
within the limits of a definition. If he has analyzed a proposition or
notion, even with the severity of an impossible logic, if half-truths have
been compared by him with other half-truths, if he has cleared up or
advanced popular ideas, or illustrated a new method, his aim has been
sufficiently accomplished.

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