Theaetetus

​SOCRATES: What then? When in such a situation someone, writing “Theaetetus”, thinks that he ought to write theta and epsilon and actually writes them, and again, when attempting to write “Theodorus”, thinks he ought to write tau and epsilon and actually writes them, shall we say that he knows the first syllable of your names? THEAETETUS: No, we have just agreed that one in this condition does not yet know. SOCRATES: Is there anything, then, to prevent the same person from being in this state regarding the second, third, and fourth syllables? THEAETETUS: Not at all. SOCRATES: Will he then, possessing the way through the element, write “Theaetetus” with correct opinion, when he writes them in order? THEAETETUS: Clearly so. SOCRATES: Is he not, then, still without knowledge, yet holding correct opinions, as we say? THEAETETUS: Yes. SOCRATES: And indeed possessing an account along with correct opinion. For he wrote having the way through the element, which we agreed is “account”. THEAETETUS: True. SOCRATES: There is, then, my friend, correct opinion with an account, which we must not yet call knowledge. THEAETETUS: It seems so. SOCRATES: It seems we have become rich in a dream, thinking we have the truest account of knowledge. Or should we not yet condemn it? SOCRATES: For perhaps one will not define it this way, but as the remaining form of the three, one of which we said anyone defining knowledge as correct opinion with an account would posit as “account”. THEAETETUS: You have rightly reminded me; for there is still one remaining. The first was a sort of image of thought in voice, and the one just mentioned was the way through the element to the whole; but what do you say the third is? SOCRATES: What the many would say: to be able to state some sign by which the thing asked about differs from all others. THEAETETUS: For example, what account of what thing can you tell me? SOCRATES: For example, if you like, about the sun, I think it is sufficient for you to accept that it is the brightest of the things that go across the heaven around the earth. THEAETETUS: Absolutely so. SOCRATES: Grasp then why this is said. It is what we were just saying: that if you grasp the difference of each thing by which it differs from others, you will grasp the “account”, as some say; but as long as you touch upon something common, your account will be about those things to which the commonness belongs. THEAETETUS: I understand; and it seems well to me to call such a thing an account. SOCRATES: And whoever, along with correct opinion about any of the things that are, adds the difference from other things, will have become a knower of that of which he was previously a mere opiner. THEAETETUS: We certainly say so. SOCRATES: Now indeed, Theaetetus, since I have got close to what has been said, as if to a shadow-painting, I understand not even a little; but while I stood far off, it seemed to me to make some sense. THEAETETUS: How so? What do you mean by this?