ΘΕΑΙΤΗΤΟΣ
Thomas Taylor (1804)
Plato · Thomas Taylor (1804)
The Theaetetus is Plato's great examination of the question 'what is knowledge?'. Three answers are proposed and refuted in turn: that knowledge is perception, that it is true belief, and that it is true belief with an account. Each fails, and the dialogue ends in honest aporia — but the inquiry itself, midwifed by Socrates, clears away false conceptions of knowing.
Along the way it gives the famous remark that philosophy begins in wonder, and a memorable digression contrasting the worldly cleverness of the courtroom with the unworldly freedom of the philosopher.
From the Plato Scroll Encyclopedia · open this entry in the reader
Are you just now come, O Terpsio, or is it some time since you came from the country?
Terpsio: I have left the country for a considerable time, and have been seeking for you about the forum, and wondered that I could not find you.
Euclid: I was not in the city.
Terpsio: Where then was you?
Euclid: As I was going down to the port, I met with Theætetus, who was carried along from the camp at Corinth to Athens.
Terpsio: Was he alive or dead?
Euclid: He was living, but could hardly be said to be so: for he was in a very dangerous condition, through certain wounds: and, what is worse, he was afflicted with a disease while in the camp.
Terpsio: Was it a dysentery?
Euclid: It was.
Terpsio: What a man do you speak of as in a dangerous condition!
Euclid: A worthy and good man, O Terpsio: for I just now heard certain persons paying him very great encomiums for his military conduct.
Terpsio: Nor is this wonderful: but it would be much more wonderful if this had not been the case. But why was he not carried to Megara?
Euclid: He hastened home; for I both entreated and advised him to do so: but it was against his will. And besides this, attending him in his journey, when I again left him, I recollected, and was filled with admiration of Socrates, who often spoke in a prophetic manner about other things, and likewise about this. For a little before his death, if I am not mistaken, meeting with Theætetus, who was then a young man, and discoursing with him, he very much admired his disposition. Besides this, when I came to Athens, he related to me his discourses with Theætetus, which very much deserve to be heard; and observed, that he would necessarily be renowned, if he lived to be a man. And it appears indeed that he spoke the truth.
Terpsio: But can you relate what those discourses were?
Euclid: Not verbally, by Jupiter: but as soon as I returned home, I committed the substance of them to writing, and afterwards at my leisure wrote nearly the whole of them, through the assistance of memory. As often too as I came to Athens, I asked Socrates about such particulars as I could not remember, and, on my return hither, made such emendations as were necessary; so that I have nearly written the whole discourse.
Terpsio: True. For I have heard you assert the same thing before: and in consequence of always desiring to urge you to relate this discourse I am come hither. But what should hinder this from taking place at present? For I am perfectly in need of rest, as coming from the country.
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The Athenian who turned Socratic conversation into a written philosophy and founded the Academy.
Plato was born around 428 BCE into a wealthy and politically prominent Athenian family; through his mother Perictione the family traced kinship to the lawgiver Solon, and his relatives Critias and Charmides were among the oligarchs of the Thirty. A late tradition says his given name was Aristocles and that 'Plato' — from the word for 'broad' — was a nickname. He grew up during the long agony of the Peloponnesian War and came of age amid the violence and disillusion that followed Athens' defeat.
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