Theaetetus

SOCRATES: What about this then? Would you not rather accept the opposite if someone said it, from what you yourself are conscious of in your learning of letters? THEAETETUS: What sort of thing do you mean? SOCRATES: That in learning you did nothing else than try to distinguish each element by itself, both in sight and in hearing, so that their position might not disturb you when they are spoken and written. THEAETETUS: You speak most truly. SOCRATES: And under the lyre-player, was perfect learning anything other than being able to follow each sound, to know which string it belonged to; which indeed everyone would agree are called the elements of music? THEAETETUS: Nothing else. SOCRATES: If, then, we are to judge from these elements and syllables of which we ourselves have experience to other things as well, we shall say that the class of elements has a knowledge much clearer and more decisive than that of the syllable for the purpose of perfectly grasping each subject of study; and if anyone says that the syllable is naturally knowable, but the element is unknowable, we shall think he is joking, whether willingly or unwillingly. THEAETETUS: Absolutely so. SOCRATES: But indeed, other proofs of this might still appear, as it seems to me; but let us not forget to look, because of these very things, at our proposed subject: what indeed is meant by the saying that when an account is added to true opinion, it becomes the most perfect knowledge. THEAETETUS: Then we must look into it. SOCRATES: Come then, what does ‘account’ mean to signify to us? For it seems to me to say one of three things. THEAETETUS: What are they indeed? SOCRATES: The first would be to make one’s own thought manifest through speech with verbs and nouns, stamping the opinion into the stream flowing through the mouth, just as into a mirror or water. Or does not such a thing seem to you to be an account? THEAETETUS: To me indeed. At any rate, we say that the person who does this speaks. SOCRATES: Now, on the other hand, anyone is capable of doing this, more quickly or more slowly—showing what he thinks about each thing, provided he is not mute or deaf from birth; and so all who hold a correct opinion will appear to have it with an account, and correct opinion will nowhere exist apart from knowledge. THEAETETUS: True.

​SOCRATES: Therefore, let us not easily find guilty of having said nothing the one who declared knowledge to be what we are now examining. For perhaps the speaker did not mean this, but rather being able, when asked what each thing is, to give the answer to the questioner through the elements. THEAETETUS: As what, for instance, do you mean, Socrates? SOCRATES: As, for example, Hesiod says of a wagon, ‘and a hundred timbers of a wagon.’ Which I indeed should not be able to name, and I think neither would you; but we should be content if, when asked what a wagon is, we were able to say: wheels, axle, body, rails, yoke. THEAETETUS: Very much so. SOCRATES: But he, perhaps, would think that we, just as if we were asked your name and answered syllable by syllable, are ridiculous, holding correct opinions and saying what we say indeed, but thinking we are grammarians and that we have and speak grammatically the account of the name of Theaetetus; but that it is not speaking with knowledge at all, until one goes through each thing through the elements along with true opinion, which was also said somewhere in the earlier discussion. THEAETETUS: Yes, indeed, it was said. SOCRATES: So then, also in the case of a wagon, we indeed have correct opinion, but he who is able to go through its essence through those hundred parts, by adding this, has added an account to his true opinion, and instead of merely opining, has become a craftsman and a knower about the essence of a wagon, having gone through the whole through its elements. THEAETETUS: Does it not then seem well said to you, Socrates? SOCRATES: If, my friend, it seems so to you, and you accept that the going through each thing through the element is an account, whereas that by syllables or even by larger units is lack of account, tell me this, so that we may examine it. THEAETETUS: But I absolutely accept it. SOCRATES: Do you think that anyone is a knower of anything, when the same thing seems to him at one time to belong to the same thing, and at another time to another, or when he opines at one time one thing and at another time another about the same thing? THEAETETUS: By Zeus, not I. SOCRATES: Then do you not remember that in your learning of letters you and the others did exactly this at the beginning? THEAETETUS: Do you mean when people think that there is at one time one letter and at another time another in the same syllable, and when they place the same letter at one time in the proper syllable and at another time in another? SOCRATES: I mean that. THEAETETUS: By Zeus, I certainly do not forget, nor indeed do I yet think that those who are in this condition have knowledge.