Theaetetus

​SOCRATES: What then? Do you think anyone has ever in himself, 5 and 7—I mean, not setting before himself seven and five men to examine, nor any other such thing, but five and seven themselves, which we said are memories there in the waxen block and that it is impossible to opine falsely among them—if any human being has ever yet examined these themselves, saying to himself and asking how many they could possibly be, and one person said, thinking them to be eleven, and another twelve, or do all say and think that they are twelve? THEAETETUS: No, by Zeus, but many indeed say eleven; and if anyone examines a larger number, he errs even more. For I think you are speaking about every number. SOCRATES: For you think correctly; and consider whether anything else happens then than that the twelve itself in the waxen block is thought to be eleven. THEAETETUS: It seems so. SOCRATES: Does it not, then, return to our first arguments? For the one who suffers this thinks that what he knows is another thing of those which he in turn knows, which we said was impossible, and by this very argument we were forced to say that false opinion does not exist, so that the same person would not be forced to know and not know the same things at the same time. THEAETETUS: Most true. SOCRATES: Must we not, then, show that to opine false things is something else than the mismatch of thought with perception? For if it were this, we would never have erred in thoughts themselves. But now, either there is no false opinion, or it is possible not to know what one knows. And which of these do you choose? THEAETETUS: You propose a difficult choice, Socrates. SOCRATES: But yet the argument is likely not to permit both. Nevertheless—for we must dare everything—what if we should attempt to be shameless? THEAETETUS: How so? SOCRATES: By willing to say what sort of thing indeed to know is. THEAETETUS: And how is this shameless? SOCRATES: You seem not to notice that all our argument from the beginning has been a search for knowledge on the ground that we do not know what it is. THEAETETUS: I do notice, indeed. SOCRATES: Then does it not seem shameless to declare what knowing is when we do not know knowledge? But indeed, Theaetetus, for a long time we have been infected with arguing in an impure way. For ten thousand times we have said “we recognize” and “we do not recognize,” and “we know” and “we do not know,” as if we understood one another while we are still ignorant of knowledge. And if you wish, even now in the present we use in turn “being ignorant” and “understanding,” as if it were fitting for us to use them if indeed we are deprived of knowledge. THEAETETUS: But in what way will you argue, Socrates, if you keep away from these?