Theaetetus

​SOCRATES: Or shall we say that he will read and count what he does not know, having granted to him that he knows all letters and all number? THEAETETUS: But that too is unreasonable. SOCRATES: Do you want us, then, to say that we do not care at all about names, in whatever way anyone delights in twisting the words ‘knowing’ and ‘learning’; but since we have defined possessing knowledge as one thing, and having it as another, we say that it is impossible for someone not to possess what he has acquired, so that it never happens that what one knows, one does not know, but nevertheless it is possible to get a false opinion about it? SOCRATES: For it is possible not to have the knowledge of this thing, but another instead of it, when hunting some piece of knowledge among those flying about, he mistakenly takes one instead of another; at that time, then, he thought eleven was twelve, taking the knowledge of eleven instead of that of twelve, which is in him like taking a ringdove instead of a dove. THEAETETUS: Yes, that makes sense. SOCRATES: But when he takes the very one he attempts to take, he is free from error and then opines things that are; and in this way indeed both true and false opinion exist, and none of the things we were having difficulty with before becomes an obstacle? Perhaps, then, you will agree with me; or what will you do? THEAETETUS: Just so. SOCRATES: Yes, for we have been rid of the difficulty of not knowing what we know; for it no longer happens anywhere that we do not possess what we have acquired, whether we are mistaken about something or not. However, another more terrible difficulty seems to me to appear. THEAETETUS: What kind of difficulty? SOCRATES: If the exchange of pieces of knowledge will ever become false opinion. THEAETETUS: How so? SOCRATES: First, that one having the knowledge of something should be ignorant of this very thing, not through ignorance, but by his own knowledge; next, to opine this to be another thing, and that other to be this, how is this not a great absurdity—that when knowledge is present, the soul should recognize nothing, but be ignorant of everything? For by this argument, nothing prevents ignorance, when present, from making someone recognize something, and blindness from making one see, if indeed knowledge too is ever to make someone be ignorant. THEAETETUS: For perhaps, Socrates, we were not right in setting up the birds as pieces of knowledge only; we ought to have set up also pieces of ignorance flying about together with them in the soul, and the hunter, taking sometimes a piece of knowledge and sometimes a piece of ignorance concerning the same thing, opines falsely with the piece of ignorance, but truly with the piece of knowledge.

​SOCRATES: It is not easy, Theaetetus, not to praise you; however, examine again what you have said. For let it be as you say; but the one who takes the piece of ignorance will opine falsely, you say. Is that not so? THEAETETUS: Yes. SOCRATES: Surely he will not also think that he opines falsely. THEAETETUS: How indeed could he? SOCRATES: But rather truly, and he will be disposed as one who knows about the things in which he has been mistaken. THEAETETUS: Of course. SOCRATES: Therefore, he will think that he has hunted and holds a piece of knowledge, but not a piece of ignorance. THEAETETUS: Clearly. SOCRATES: Therefore, after coming round a long way, we are back again at our first difficulty. For that refutative man will laugh and say: ”Is it the case, my excellent friends, that someone who knows both, both knowledge and ignorance, thinks that one of them which he knows is another which he knows? Or knowing neither, does he opine that one which he does not know is another of those which he does not know? Or knowing one but not the other, does he think the one he knows is the one he does not know, or the one he does not know is the one he knows? Or will you tell me again that of these pieces of knowledge and ignorance there are in turn other pieces of knowledge, which the possessor, having shut them up in some other ridiculous aviaries or waxen molds, knows as long as he possesses them, even if he does not have them ready in his soul? And will you thus be forced to run round to the same place ten thousand times, achieving nothing more?” What shall we reply to this, Theaetetus? THEAETETUS: But by Zeus, Socrates, I at least do not know what one must say. SOCRATES: Does not, then, my boy, the argument rightly rebuke us and show that we are not correct in seeking false opinion before knowledge, letting the latter go? For it is impossible to understand that before one has sufficiently grasped what knowledge actually is. THEAETETUS: It is necessary, Socrates, in the present situation to think as you say. SOCRATES: What, then, will one say again from the beginning that knowledge is? For surely we shall not yet give up, shall we? THEAETETUS: Not at all, unless you at least give up. SOCRATES: Tell then, by saying what about it would we least contradict ourselves? THEAETETUS: That true opinion is knowledge. For surely opining truly is free from error, and all the things that come about under it become fine and good.