Theaetetus

​SOCRATES: And those of people who have hard hearts are also indistinct; for there is no depth in them. And those of people who have wet hearts are also indistinct; for because of being jumbled together they quickly become faint. And if, in addition to all these things, they are fallen upon one another through lack of room, if someone’s little soul is small, they are even more indistinct than those. All these people, then, become such as to opine false things. For when they see or hear or think of something, being unable to assign quickly each to each, they are slow and, mismatching, they missee, mishear, and misthink in most cases, and these in turn are indeed called deceived about beings and ignorant. THEAETETUS: You speak most correctly of all men, Socrates. SOCRATES: Shall we say, then, that false opinions exist in us? THEAETETUS: Most certainly. SOCRATES: And true ones, too? THEAETETUS: And true ones. SOCRATES: Do we believe, then, that it has now been sufficiently agreed that both of these two opinions most certainly exist? THEAETETUS: Most extraordinarily so. SOCRATES: It is a terrible thing, Theaetetus, and truly seems to be unpleasant, a babbling man. THEAETETUS: Why so? In regard to what did you say this? SOCRATES: Disliking my own slowness of learning and, in truth, my babbling. For what other name could one put on it, when someone drags the arguments up and down out of sluggishness, unable to be persuaded, and is hard to clear away from each argument? THEAETETUS: But why indeed are you vexed? SOCRATES: I am not only vexed but also afraid of what I shall answer if someone asks me: “Socrates, have you indeed found false opinion, that it is neither in the perceptions in relation to one another nor in the thoughts, but in the juncture of perception with thought?” And I shall say, I suppose, putting on airs, as if we had found something beautiful. THEAETETUS: To me at least, Socrates, what has now been demonstrated does not seem to be ugly. SOCRATES: “Is it not, then,” he will say, “that you say we would never in turn think that the man whom we only think of, but do not see, is a horse, which in turn we neither see nor touch, but only think of and perceive nothing else about?” I suppose I shall say that we say these things. THEAETETUS: And correctly indeed. SOCRATES: “What then,” he will say, “could anyone ever think, according to this argument, that eleven, which one does nothing other than think of, is twelve, which in turn one only thinks of?” Come then indeed, you answer. THEAETETUS: Well, I shall answer that anyone seeing or touching them might think eleven is twelve, but as for the things he holds in his thought, he would never opine these things about them in this way.