SOCRATES: Yes, my boy, for no one can suppose that in each of us, as
in a sort of Trojan horse, there are perched a number of unconnected
senses, which do not all meet in some one nature, the mind, or whatever
we please to call it, of which they are the instruments, and with which
through them we perceive objects of sense.
THEAETETUS: I agree with you in that opinion.
SOCRATES: The reason why I am thus precise is, because I want to know
whether, when we perceive black and white through the eyes, and again,
other qualities through other organs, we do not perceive them with one
and the same part of ourselves, and, if you were asked, you might refer
all such perceptions to the body. Perhaps, however, I had better allow
you to answer for yourself and not interfere. Tell me, then, are not
the organs through which you perceive warm and hard and light and sweet,
organs of the body?
THEAETETUS: Of the body, certainly.
SOCRATES: And you would admit that what you perceive through one
faculty you cannot perceive through another; the objects of hearing,
for example, cannot be perceived through sight, or the objects of sight
through hearing?
THEAETETUS: Of course not.
SOCRATES: If you have any thought about both of them, this common
perception cannot come to you, either through the one or the other
organ?
THEAETETUS: It cannot.
SOCRATES: How about sounds and colours: in the first place you would
admit that they both exist?
THEAETETUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And that either of them is different from the other, and the
same with itself?
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And that both are two and each of them one?
THEAETETUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: You can further observe whether they are like or unlike one
another?
THEAETETUS: I dare say.
SOCRATES: But through what do you perceive all this about them? for
neither through hearing nor yet through seeing can you apprehend that
which they have in common. Let me give you an illustration of the
point at issue:--If there were any meaning in asking whether sounds and
colours are saline or not, you would be able to tell me what faculty
would consider the question. It would not be sight or hearing, but some
other.
THEAETETUS: Certainly; the faculty of taste.
SOCRATES: Very good; and now tell me what is the power which discerns,
not only in sensible objects, but in all things, universal notions, such
as those which are called being and not-being, and those others
about which we were just asking--what organs will you assign for the
perception of these notions?
THEAETETUS: You are thinking of being and not being, likeness and
unlikeness, sameness and difference, and also of unity and other numbers
which are applied to objects of sense; and you mean to ask, through
what bodily organ the soul perceives odd and even numbers and other
arithmetical conceptions.
SOCRATES: You follow me excellently, Theaetetus; that is precisely what
I am asking.
THEAETETUS: Indeed, Socrates, I cannot answer; my only notion is, that
these, unlike objects of sense, have no separate organ, but that the
mind, by a power of her own, contemplates the universals in all things.
SOCRATES: You are a beauty, Theaetetus, and not ugly, as Theodorus was
saying; for he who utters the beautiful is himself beautiful and good.
And besides being beautiful, you have done me a kindness in releasing me
from a very long discussion, if you are clear that the soul views some
things by herself and others through the bodily organs. For that was my
own opinion, and I wanted you to agree with me.
THEAETETUS: I am quite clear.
SOCRATES: And to which class would you refer being or essence; for this,
of all our notions, is the most universal?
THEAETETUS: I should say, to that class which the soul aspires to know
of herself.
SOCRATES: And would you say this also of like and unlike, same and
other?
THEAETETUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And would you say the same of the noble and base, and of good
and evil?
THEAETETUS: These I conceive to be notions which are essentially
relative, and which the soul also perceives by comparing in herself
things past and present with the future.
SOCRATES: And does she not perceive the hardness of that which is hard
by the touch, and the softness of that which is soft equally by the
touch?
THEAETETUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: But their essence and what they are, and their opposition
to one another, and the essential nature of this opposition, the soul
herself endeavours to decide for us by the review and comparison of
them?
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: The simple sensations which reach the soul through the body
are given at birth to men and animals by nature, but their reflections
on the being and use of them are slowly and hardly gained, if they are
ever gained, by education and long experience.
THEAETETUS: Assuredly.
SOCRATES: And can a man attain truth who fails of attaining being?
THEAETETUS: Impossible.
SOCRATES: And can he who misses the truth of anything, have a knowledge
of that thing?
THEAETETUS: He cannot.
SOCRATES: Then knowledge does not consist in impressions of sense, but
in reasoning about them; in that only, and not in the mere impression,
truth and being can be attained?
THEAETETUS: Clearly.
SOCRATES: And would you call the two processes by the same name, when
there is so great a difference between them?
THEAETETUS: That would certainly not be right.
SOCRATES: And what name would you give to seeing, hearing, smelling,
being cold and being hot?
THEAETETUS: I should call all of them perceiving--what other name could
be given to them?
SOCRATES: Perception would be the collective name of them?
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Which, as we say, has no part in the attainment of truth any
more than of being?
THEAETETUS: Certainly not.
SOCRATES: And therefore not in science or knowledge?
THEAETETUS: No.
SOCRATES: Then perception, Theaetetus, can never be the same as
knowledge or science?
THEAETETUS: Clearly not, Socrates; and knowledge has now been most
distinctly proved to be different from perception.
SOCRATES: But the original aim of our discussion was to find out rather
what knowledge is than what it is not; at the same time we have made
some progress, for we no longer seek for knowledge in perception at all,
but in that other process, however called, in which the mind is alone
and engaged with being.
THEAETETUS: You mean, Socrates, if I am not mistaken, what is called
thinking or opining.
SOCRATES: You conceive truly. And now, my friend, please to begin
again at this point; and having wiped out of your memory all that has
preceded, see if you have arrived at any clearer view, and once more say
what is knowledge.
THEAETETUS: I cannot say, Socrates, that all opinion is knowledge,
because there may be a false opinion; but I will venture to assert, that
knowledge is true opinion: let this then be my reply; and if this is
hereafter disproved, I must try to find another.
SOCRATES: That is the way in which you ought to answer, Theaetetus, and
not in your former hesitating strain, for if we are bold we shall gain
one of two advantages; either we shall find what we seek, or we shall be
less likely to think that we know what we do not know--in either case we
shall be richly rewarded. And now, what are you saying?--Are there
two sorts of opinion, one true and the other false; and do you define
knowledge to be the true?
THEAETETUS: Yes, according to my present view.
SOCRATES: Is it still worth our while to resume the discussion touching
opinion?
THEAETETUS: To what are you alluding?
SOCRATES: There is a point which often troubles me, and is a great
perplexity to me, both in regard to myself and others. I cannot make out
the nature or origin of the mental experience to which I refer.
THEAETETUS: Pray what is it?
SOCRATES: How there can be false opinion--that difficulty still troubles
the eye of my mind; and I am uncertain whether I shall leave the
question, or begin over again in a new way.
THEAETETUS: Begin again, Socrates,--at least if you think that there is
the slightest necessity for doing so. Were not you and Theodorus just
now remarking very truly, that in discussions of this kind we may take
our own time?
SOCRATES: You are quite right, and perhaps there will be no harm in
retracing our steps and beginning again. Better a little which is well
done, than a great deal imperfectly.
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Well, and what is the difficulty? Do we not speak of false
opinion, and say that one man holds a false and another a true opinion,
as though there were some natural distinction between them?
THEAETETUS: We certainly say so.
SOCRATES: All things and everything are either known or not known.
I leave out of view the intermediate conceptions of learning and
forgetting, because they have nothing to do with our present question.
THEAETETUS: There can be no doubt, Socrates, if you exclude these, that
there is no other alternative but knowing or not knowing a thing.
SOCRATES: That point being now determined, must we not say that he who
has an opinion, must have an opinion about something which he knows or
does not know?
THEAETETUS: He must.
SOCRATES: He who knows, cannot but know; and he who does not know,
cannot know?
THEAETETUS: Of course.
SOCRATES: What shall we say then? When a man has a false opinion does
he think that which he knows to be some other thing which he knows, and
knowing both, is he at the same time ignorant of both?
THEAETETUS: That, Socrates, is impossible.
SOCRATES: But perhaps he thinks of something which he does not know as
some other thing which he does not know; for example, he knows neither
Theaetetus nor Socrates, and yet he fancies that Theaetetus is Socrates,
or Socrates Theaetetus?
THEAETETUS: How can he?
SOCRATES: But surely he cannot suppose what he knows to be what he does
not know, or what he does not know to be what he knows?
THEAETETUS: That would be monstrous.
SOCRATES: Where, then, is false opinion? For if all things are either
known or unknown, there can be no opinion which is not comprehended
under this alternative, and so false opinion is excluded.
THEAETETUS: Most true.
SOCRATES: Suppose that we remove the question out of the sphere of
knowing or not knowing, into that of being and not-being.
THEAETETUS: What do you mean?
SOCRATES: May we not suspect the simple truth to be that he who thinks
about anything, that which is not, will necessarily think what is false,
whatever in other respects may be the state of his mind?
THEAETETUS: That, again, is not unlikely, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Then suppose some one to say to us, Theaetetus:--Is
it possible for any man to think that which is not, either as a
self-existent substance or as a predicate of something else? And suppose
that we answer, 'Yes, he can, when he thinks what is not true.'--That
will be our answer?
THEAETETUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: But is there any parallel to this?
THEAETETUS: What do you mean?
SOCRATES: Can a man see something and yet see nothing?
THEAETETUS: Impossible.
SOCRATES: But if he sees any one thing, he sees something that exists.
Do you suppose that what is one is ever to be found among non-existing
things?
THEAETETUS: I do not.
SOCRATES: He then who sees some one thing, sees something which is?
THEAETETUS: Clearly.
SOCRATES: And he who hears anything, hears some one thing, and hears
that which is?
THEAETETUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And he who touches anything, touches something which is one
and therefore is?
THEAETETUS: That again is true.
SOCRATES: And does not he who thinks, think some one thing?
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And does not he who thinks some one thing, think something
which is?
THEAETETUS: I agree.
SOCRATES: Then he who thinks of that which is not, thinks of nothing?
THEAETETUS: Clearly.
SOCRATES: And he who thinks of nothing, does not think at all?
THEAETETUS: Obviously.
SOCRATES: Then no one can think that which is not, either as a
self-existent substance or as a predicate of something else?
THEAETETUS: Clearly not.
SOCRATES: Then to think falsely is different from thinking that which is
not?
THEAETETUS: It would seem so.
SOCRATES: Then false opinion has no existence in us, either in the
sphere of being or of knowledge?
THEAETETUS: Certainly not.
SOCRATES: But may not the following be the description of what we
express by this name?
THEAETETUS: What?
SOCRATES: May we not suppose that false opinion or thought is a sort of
heterodoxy; a person may make an exchange in his mind, and say that one
real object is another real object. For thus he always thinks that which
is, but he puts one thing in place of another; and missing the aim of
his thoughts, he may be truly said to have false opinion.
THEAETETUS: Now you appear to me to have spoken the exact truth: when a
man puts the base in the place of the noble, or the noble in the place
of the base, then he has truly false opinion.
SOCRATES: I see, Theaetetus, that your fear has disappeared, and that
you are beginning to despise me.
THEAETETUS: What makes you say so?
SOCRATES: You think, if I am not mistaken, that your 'truly false' is
safe from censure, and that I shall never ask whether there can be
a swift which is slow, or a heavy which is light, or any other
self-contradictory thing, which works, not according to its own nature,
but according to that of its opposite. But I will not insist upon this,
for I do not wish needlessly to discourage you. And so you are satisfied
that false opinion is heterodoxy, or the thought of something else?
THEAETETUS: I am.
SOCRATES: It is possible then upon your view for the mind to conceive of
one thing as another?
THEAETETUS: True.
SOCRATES: But must not the mind, or thinking power, which misplaces
them, have a conception either of both objects or of one of them?
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Either together or in succession?
THEAETETUS: Very good.
SOCRATES: And do you mean by conceiving, the same which I mean?
THEAETETUS: What is that?
SOCRATES: I mean the conversation which the soul holds with herself in
considering of anything. I speak of what I scarcely understand; but the
soul when thinking appears to me to be just talking--asking questions
of herself and answering them, affirming and denying. And when she has
arrived at a decision, either gradually or by a sudden impulse, and has
at last agreed, and does not doubt, this is called her opinion. I
say, then, that to form an opinion is to speak, and opinion is a word
spoken,--I mean, to oneself and in silence, not aloud or to another:
What think you?
THEAETETUS: I agree.
SOCRATES: Then when any one thinks of one thing as another, he is saying
to himself that one thing is another?
THEAETETUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: But do you ever remember saying to yourself that the noble
is certainly base, or the unjust just; or, best of all--have you ever
attempted to convince yourself that one thing is another? Nay, not even
in sleep, did you ever venture to say to yourself that odd is even, or
anything of the kind?
THEAETETUS: Never.
SOCRATES: And do you suppose that any other man, either in his senses
or out of them, ever seriously tried to persuade himself that an ox is a
horse, or that two are one?
THEAETETUS: Certainly not.
SOCRATES: But if thinking is talking to oneself, no one speaking and
thinking of two objects, and apprehending them both in his soul, will
say and think that the one is the other of them, and I must add, that
even you, lover of dispute as you are, had better let the word 'other'
alone (i.e. not insist that 'one' and 'other' are the same (Both words
in Greek are called eteron: compare Parmen.; Euthyd.)). I mean to say,
that no one thinks the noble to be base, or anything of the kind.
THEAETETUS: I will give up the word 'other,' Socrates; and I agree to
what you say.
SOCRATES: If a man has both of them in his thoughts, he cannot think
that the one of them is the other?
THEAETETUS: True.
SOCRATES: Neither, if he has one of them only in his mind and not the
other, can he think that one is the other?
THEAETETUS: True; for we should have to suppose that he apprehends that
which is not in his thoughts at all.
SOCRATES: Then no one who has either both or only one of the two objects
in his mind can think that the one is the other. And therefore, he who
maintains that false opinion is heterodoxy is talking nonsense; for
neither in this, any more than in the previous way, can false opinion
exist in us.
THEAETETUS: No.
SOCRATES: But if, Theaetetus, this is not admitted, we shall be driven
into many absurdities.
THEAETETUS: What are they?
SOCRATES: I will not tell you until I have endeavoured to consider the
matter from every point of view. For I should be ashamed of us if we
were driven in our perplexity to admit the absurd consequences of which
I speak. But if we find the solution, and get away from them, we may
regard them only as the difficulties of others, and the ridicule will
not attach to us. On the other hand, if we utterly fail, I suppose that
we must be humble, and allow the argument to trample us under foot,
as the sea-sick passenger is trampled upon by the sailor, and to do
anything to us. Listen, then, while I tell you how I hope to find a way
out of our difficulty.
THEAETETUS: Let me hear.
SOCRATES: I think that we were wrong in denying that a man could think
what he knew to be what he did not know; and that there is a way in
which such a deception is possible.
THEAETETUS: You mean to say, as I suspected at the time, that I may know
Socrates, and at a distance see some one who is unknown to me, and whom
I mistake for him--then the deception will occur?
SOCRATES: But has not that position been relinquished by us, because
involving the absurdity that we should know and not know the things
which we know?
THEAETETUS: True.
SOCRATES: Let us make the assertion in another form, which may or may
not have a favourable issue; but as we are in a great strait, every
argument should be turned over and tested. Tell me, then, whether I am
right in saying that you may learn a thing which at one time you did not
know?
THEAETETUS: Certainly you may.
SOCRATES: And another and another?
THEAETETUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: I would have you imagine, then, that there exists in the mind
of man a block of wax, which is of different sizes in different men;
harder, moister, and having more or less of purity in one than another,
and in some of an intermediate quality.
THEAETETUS: I see.
SOCRATES: Let us say that this tablet is a gift of Memory, the mother
of the Muses; and that when we wish to remember anything which we have
seen, or heard, or thought in our own minds, we hold the wax to the
perceptions and thoughts, and in that material receive the impression of
them as from the seal of a ring; and that we remember and know what is
imprinted as long as the image lasts; but when the image is effaced, or
cannot be taken, then we forget and do not know.
THEAETETUS: Very good.
SOCRATES: Now, when a person has this knowledge, and is considering
something which he sees or hears, may not false opinion arise in the
following manner?
THEAETETUS: In what manner?
SOCRATES: When he thinks what he knows, sometimes to be what he knows,
and sometimes to be what he does not know. We were wrong before in
denying the possibility of this.
THEAETETUS: And how would you amend the former statement?
SOCRATES: I should begin by making a list of the impossible cases which
must be excluded. (1) No one can think one thing to be another when he
does not perceive either of them, but has the memorial or seal of both
of them in his mind; nor can any mistaking of one thing for another
occur, when he only knows one, and does not know, and has no impression
of the other; nor can he think that one thing which he does not know is
another thing which he does not know, or that what he does not know
is what he knows; nor (2) that one thing which he perceives is another
thing which he perceives, or that something which he perceives is
something which he does not perceive; or that something which he does
not perceive is something else which he does not perceive; or that
something which he does not perceive is something which he perceives;
nor again (3) can he think that something which he knows and perceives,
and of which he has the impression coinciding with sense, is something
else which he knows and perceives, and of which he has the impression
coinciding with sense;--this last case, if possible, is still more
inconceivable than the others; nor (4) can he think that something which
he knows and perceives, and of which he has the memorial coinciding with
sense, is something else which he knows; nor so long as these agree,
can he think that a thing which he knows and perceives is another thing
which he perceives; or that a thing which he does not know and does not
perceive, is the same as another thing which he does not know and does
not perceive;--nor again, can he suppose that a thing which he does not
know and does not perceive is the same as another thing which he does
not know; or that a thing which he does not know and does not perceive
is another thing which he does not perceive:--All these utterly and
absolutely exclude the possibility of false opinion. The only cases, if
any, which remain, are the following.
THEAETETUS: What are they? If you tell me, I may perhaps understand you
better; but at present I am unable to follow you.
SOCRATES: A person may think that some things which he knows, or which
he perceives and does not know, are some other things which he knows and
perceives; or that some things which he knows and perceives, are other
things which he knows and perceives.
THEAETETUS: I understand you less than ever now.
SOCRATES: Hear me once more, then:--I, knowing Theodorus, and
remembering in my own mind what sort of person he is, and also what sort
of person Theaetetus is, at one time see them, and at another time do
not see them, and sometimes I touch them, and at another time not, or
at one time I may hear them or perceive them in some other way, and at
another time not perceive them, but still I remember them, and know them
in my own mind.
THEAETETUS: Very true.
SOCRATES: Then, first of all, I want you to understand that a man may or
may not perceive sensibly that which he knows.
THEAETETUS: True.
SOCRATES: And that which he does not know will sometimes not be
perceived by him and sometimes will be perceived and only perceived?
THEAETETUS: That is also true.
SOCRATES: See whether you can follow me better now: Socrates can
recognize Theodorus and Theaetetus, but he sees neither of them,
nor does he perceive them in any other way; he cannot then by any
possibility imagine in his own mind that Theaetetus is Theodorus. Am I
not right?
THEAETETUS: You are quite right.
SOCRATES: Then that was the first case of which I spoke.
THEAETETUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: The second case was, that I, knowing one of you and not
knowing the other, and perceiving neither, can never think him whom I
know to be him whom I do not know.
THEAETETUS: True.
SOCRATES: In the third case, not knowing and not perceiving either of
you, I cannot think that one of you whom I do not know is the other whom
I do not know. I need not again go over the catalogue of excluded cases,
in which I cannot form a false opinion about you and Theodorus, either
when I know both or when I am in ignorance of both, or when I know one
and not the other. And the same of perceiving: do you understand me?
THEAETETUS: I do.
SOCRATES: The only possibility of erroneous opinion is, when knowing you
and Theodorus, and having on the waxen block the impression of both of
you given as by a seal, but seeing you imperfectly and at a distance,
I try to assign the right impression of memory to the right visual
impression, and to fit this into its own print: if I succeed,
recognition will take place; but if I fail and transpose them, putting
the foot into the wrong shoe--that is to say, putting the vision of
either of you on to the wrong impression, or if my mind, like the sight
in a mirror, which is transferred from right to left, err by reason of
some similar affection, then 'heterodoxy' and false opinion ensues.
THEAETETUS: Yes, Socrates, you have described the nature of opinion with
wonderful exactness.
SOCRATES: Or again, when I know both of you, and perceive as well as
know one of you, but not the other, and my knowledge of him does not
accord with perception--that was the case put by me just now which you
did not understand.
THEAETETUS: No, I did not.
SOCRATES: I meant to say, that when a person knows and perceives one of
you, his knowledge coincides with his perception, he will never think
him to be some other person, whom he knows and perceives, and the
knowledge of whom coincides with his perception--for that also was a
case supposed.
THEAETETUS: True.
SOCRATES: But there was an omission of the further case, in which, as
we now say, false opinion may arise, when knowing both, and seeing, or
having some other sensible perception of both, I fail in holding the
seal over against the corresponding sensation; like a bad archer, I miss
and fall wide of the mark--and this is called falsehood.
THEAETETUS: Yes; it is rightly so called.
SOCRATES: When, therefore, perception is present to one of the seals
or impressions but not to the other, and the mind fits the seal of the
absent perception on the one which is present, in any case of this sort
the mind is deceived; in a word, if our view is sound, there can be no
error or deception about things which a man does not know and has never
perceived, but only in things which are known and perceived; in these
alone opinion turns and twists about, and becomes alternately true and
false;--true when the seals and impressions of sense meet straight and
opposite--false when they go awry and crooked.
THEAETETUS: And is not that, Socrates, nobly said?
SOCRATES: Nobly! yes; but wait a little and hear the explanation, and
then you will say so with more reason; for to think truly is noble and
to be deceived is base.
THEAETETUS: Undoubtedly.
SOCRATES: And the origin of truth and error is as follows:--When the wax
in the soul of any one is deep and abundant, and smooth and perfectly
tempered, then the impressions which pass through the senses and sink
into the heart of the soul, as Homer says in a parable, meaning to
indicate the likeness of the soul to wax (Kerh Kerhos); these, I say,
being pure and clear, and having a sufficient depth of wax, are also
lasting, and minds, such as these, easily learn and easily retain,
and are not liable to confusion, but have true thoughts, for they have
plenty of room, and having clear impressions of things, as we term them,
quickly distribute them into their proper places on the block. And such
men are called wise. Do you agree?
THEAETETUS: Entirely.
SOCRATES: But when the heart of any one is shaggy--a quality which the
all-wise poet commends, or muddy and of impure wax, or very soft, or
very hard, then there is a corresponding defect in the mind--the soft
are good at learning, but apt to forget; and the hard are the reverse;
the shaggy and rugged and gritty, or those who have an admixture of
earth or dung in their composition, have the impressions indistinct,
as also the hard, for there is no depth in them; and the soft too are
indistinct, for their impressions are easily confused and effaced. Yet
greater is the indistinctness when they are all jostled together in a
little soul, which has no room. These are the natures which have false
opinion; for when they see or hear or think of anything, they are
slow in assigning the right objects to the right impressions--in their
stupidity they confuse them, and are apt to see and hear and think
amiss--and such men are said to be deceived in their knowledge of
objects, and ignorant.
THEAETETUS: No man, Socrates, can say anything truer than that.
SOCRATES: Then now we may admit the existence of false opinion in us?
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And of true opinion also?
THEAETETUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: We have at length satisfactorily proven beyond a doubt there
are these two sorts of opinion?
THEAETETUS: Undoubtedly.
SOCRATES: Alas, Theaetetus, what a tiresome creature is a man who is
fond of talking!
THEAETETUS: What makes you say so?
SOCRATES: Because I am disheartened at my own stupidity and tiresome
garrulity; for what other term will describe the habit of a man who
is always arguing on all sides of a question; whose dulness cannot be
convinced, and who will never leave off?
THEAETETUS: But what puts you out of heart?
SOCRATES: I am not only out of heart, but in positive despair; for I do
not know what to answer if any one were to ask me:--O Socrates, have you
indeed discovered that false opinion arises neither in the comparison of
perceptions with one another nor yet in thought, but in union of thought
and perception? Yes, I shall say, with the complacence of one who thinks
that he has made a noble discovery.
THEAETETUS: I see no reason why we should be ashamed of our
demonstration, Socrates.
SOCRATES: He will say: You mean to argue that the man whom we only think
of and do not see, cannot be confused with the horse which we do not see
or touch, but only think of and do not perceive? That I believe to be my
meaning, I shall reply.
THEAETETUS: Quite right.
SOCRATES: Well, then, he will say, according to that argument, the
number eleven, which is only thought, can never be mistaken for twelve,
which is only thought: How would you answer him?
THEAETETUS: I should say that a mistake may very likely arise between
the eleven or twelve which are seen or handled, but that no similar
mistake can arise between the eleven and twelve which are in the mind.
SOCRATES: Well, but do you think that no one ever put before his own
mind five and seven,--I do not mean five or seven men or horses, but
five or seven in the abstract, which, as we say, are recorded on the
waxen block, and in which false opinion is held to be impossible; did
no man ever ask himself how many these numbers make when added together,
and answer that they are eleven, while another thinks that they are
twelve, or would all agree in thinking and saying that they are twelve?
THEAETETUS: Certainly not; many would think that they are eleven, and
in the higher numbers the chance of error is greater still; for I assume
you to be speaking of numbers in general.
SOCRATES: Exactly; and I want you to consider whether this does not
imply that the twelve in the waxen block are supposed to be eleven?
THEAETETUS: Yes, that seems to be the case.
SOCRATES: Then do we not come back to the old difficulty? For he who
makes such a mistake does think one thing which he knows to be another
thing which he knows; but this, as we said, was impossible, and afforded
an irresistible proof of the non-existence of false opinion, because
otherwise the same person would inevitably know and not know the same
thing at the same time.
THEAETETUS: Most true.
SOCRATES: Then false opinion cannot be explained as a confusion of
thought and sense, for in that case we could not have been mistaken
about pure conceptions of thought; and thus we are obliged to say,
either that false opinion does not exist, or that a man may not know
that which he knows;--which alternative do you prefer?
THEAETETUS: It is hard to determine, Socrates.
SOCRATES: And yet the argument will scarcely admit of both. But, as we
are at our wits' end, suppose that we do a shameless thing?
THEAETETUS: What is it?