Theaetetus

​SOCRATES: The one who guides us across the river, Theaetetus, said indeed that the way itself will show it; and if we go on and search, perhaps the thing itself, crossing our path, will reveal what we are seeking, whereas to those who stay still, nothing is clear. THEAETETUS: You speak rightly; let us indeed go and examine it. SOCRATES: Well, this at least requires brief consideration; for a whole profession indicates to you that it is not knowledge. THEAETETUS: How so? And what is this profession? SOCRATES: That of those greatest in wisdom, whom they indeed call orators and advocates. For these men surely persuade by their own art, not teaching but making people opine whatever they wish. Or do you think there are any teachers so clever as to be able to teach sufficiently, within a short flow of water, the truth of what happened to those who were not present when people were being robbed of money or suffered some other violence? THEAETETUS: Not at all do I think so, but rather they persuade. SOCRATES: And by persuading, do you not mean making them opine? THEAETETUS: Of course. SOCRATES: Therefore, when judges are justly persuaded about things which it is possible to know only by seeing and not otherwise, judging these things at that time from hearsay, having acquired a true opinion, they judge without knowledge, though having been rightly persuaded, if indeed they judged well? THEAETETUS: Absolutely. SOCRATES: My friend, if true opinion and knowledge were the same thing, an excellent judge would never have opined rightly without knowledge; but as it is, each seems to be something different. THEAETETUS: It is something, Socrates, which I had forgotten, having heard someone say it, but now I recollect: he said that true opinion with an account is knowledge, but the one without an account is outside of knowledge; and those things of which there is no account are not knowable—calling them so—whereas those that have one are knowable. SOCRATES: You speak well. But tell me, how did he distinguish these knowable and unknowable things? Let us see if you and I have heard the same account. THEAETETUS: But I do not know if I can find it out; though if another were speaking, I think I could follow. SOCRATES: Listen then to a dream in return for a dream. For I in my turn seemed to hear from certain people that the primary elements, as it were, out of which both we and all other things are composed, have no account.

​SOCRATES: For each of them by itself can only be named, and it is not possible to express anything else besides, neither that it “is” nor that it “is not”; for that indeed would be to add “being” or “not being” to it, whereas one ought to apply nothing to it, if indeed one is to speak of that thing alone. Since neither “the same” nor “that” nor “each” nor “alone” nor “this” must be applied, nor many other such words; for these, running around, are applied to all things, being different from the things to which they are added, whereas, if indeed it were possible for the element itself to be spoken of and it had an account of its own, it ought to be spoken of without all the others. But as it is, it is impossible for any of the primary elements to be expressed in an account; for it has nothing else but to be named only—for it has only a name—but the things composed of these, just as they themselves are woven together, so also their names, being woven together, have become an account; for the weaving together of names is the essence of an account. Thus, indeed, the elements are without account and unknowable, but perceptible; whereas the syllables are knowable and expressible and opinable with true opinion. When, therefore, someone grasps the true opinion of something without an account, his soul indeed holds the truth about it, but does not know it; for he who is unable to give and receive an account is without knowledge about this thing; but having acquired an account in addition, he is capable of all these things and is perfectly disposed towards knowledge. Did you hear the dream in this way, or otherwise? THEAETETUS: Absolutely in that way. SOCRATES: Are you pleased then, and do you posit it this way, that true opinion with an account is knowledge? THEAETETUS: Quite so. SOCRATES: Have we then, Theaetetus, now on this very day grasped in this way what many of the wise have long been seeking and grew old before finding? THEAETETUS: To me at least, Socrates, what has now been said seems to be well said. SOCRATES: And indeed it is likely that this very thing is so; for what knowledge could there still be apart from an account and right opinion? However, one thing among the statements displeases me. THEAETETUS: What is that, indeed? SOCRATES: That which seems to be said most elegantly: that the elements are unknowable, but the class of syllables is knowable. THEAETETUS: Is that not right, then? SOCRATES: We must see indeed; for we have as hostages of the argument the examples which the one who said all this used in speaking. THEAETETUS: What kind of examples, indeed? SOCRATES: The elements and syllables of letters. Or do you think the one who said what we are saying was looking at anything else? THEAETETUS: No, but at these.