FOREWORD
This is the third of the Plato series. I will continue the immense tome that is the Hackett Complete Translation for the following chapters:
Cratylus
Theaetetus
The first focuses on the origins and correctness of names, whereas the second aims to answer: what is knowledge?
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CRATYLUS
[ Cratylus teases Hermogenes that his name is not a name. ]
Hermogenes: “I believe names are correct by convention, it’s just whatever anyone decides to call something.”
Socrates: “But what about actions and things themselves? Do they have a fixed essence, or are they just whatever we believe them to be, like Protagoras claims?”
Hermogenes: “I’m not sure, but I don’t really believe Protagoras.”
Socrates: “So you agree that things have a fixed nature, and actions are correct when they align with that nature, not just with our beliefs?”
Hermogenes: “Yes.”
Socrates: “So the same should apply to names. We can’t just name things however we like; names must fit the nature of things.”
“We use names like tools to instruct and divide things according to their nature, just as a shuttle is a tool for weaving. Only those with the right skill can use these tools properly—just like only a carpenter can make a shuttle.
“So, who provides us with the names we use?”
Hermogenes: “I guess rules or conventions do.”
Socrates: “Right, but only a skilled rule-setter—someone who understands the nature of things—can create proper names.”
Hermogenes: “Tell me more.”
Socrates: “Homer says gods call things by their true names, like ‘xanthos’ for the river and ‘chalcis’ for a bird. This suggests there's a deeper, natural correctness in the names used by the gods.”
“For instance, ‘Orestes’ means ‘Mountain-man,’ fitting for his rugged nature. And ‘Agamemnon’ signifies that this man is admirable (agastos) for holding his ground (epimoné). Even Zeus's name is tied to life, as he's the cause of all living things.”
‘Let's skip common names and look at names for things that always are, like the gods. Why are they called ‘theoi’?”
Hermogenes: “Go ahead.”
Socrates: “The first Greeks called the sun, moon, and stars theoi because they always move or ‘run’ (thein). Later, they applied the name to all gods.”
“Hesiod says the first race of humans were golden, and after they died, they became daimones—wise beings. So, daemons means wise and knowing.”
“‘Heroes’ comes from eros because they were born from the love of gods and mortals. Or it could be because they were great speech-makers (rhetores).”
“Humans are anthropos because they observe and reason about what they see.”
“The soul (psuche) gives life and supports the body. The body (soma) is seen by some as a tomb (sema) or a sign. Or it might be a prison where the soul is kept until it pays its penalty.”
Hermogenes: “What about the names of wisdom, justice, and courage?”
Socrates: “These names seem to be based on the idea that everything is in constant motion and change. Wisdom (phronesis) means understanding this motion.”
“Justice (dikaiosune) is something that penetrates everything, like a governing force. Courage (andreia) relates to opposing a flow.”
“Virtue (arete) is an unimpeded flow, while vice (kakia) is a hindered one.”
Hermogenes: “What about pleasure and pain?”
Socrates: “Pleasure (hédoné) comes from the enjoyment of activity, and pain (lupe) from the weakening of the body. Desire (himeros) is a rushing flow, while longing (pothos) is for something absent.”
“Naming is like imitation, using voice, tongue, and mouth to mimic the nature of named. But not all imitations, like animal sounds, are names.”
Hermogenes: “What kind of imitation is naming then?”
Socrates: “Naming isn’t about imitating qualities like sound or color, which belong to music or painting. Instead, it’s about imitating the essence of a thing.”
“We should start by dividing them into their elements, vowels and consonants, just as we analyze rhythms.”
Hermogenes: “This seems right, but I don’t think I can do it.”
Socrates: “Nor can I, but we should try our best. We could escape by saying names are divine or foreign, but to understand derivative names, we must first understand primary names.”
“Let's analyze some primary sounds. For example, the letter ‘r’ is often used to imitate motion, as in rhein (flowing) or tromos (trembling).”
Hermogenes: “What you're saying makes sense, but Cratylus is confusing me.”
Cratylus: “Hermogenes’s name is not correct unless he is truly connected to Hermes. He does not have that nature, so it is incorrect.”
Socrates: “But what if someone calls him Hermogenes? Is that false speaking?”
Cratylus: “It’s just meaningless noise.”
Socrates: “But if names and paintings are both imitations, can’t they be applied incorrectly? Some names can be badly made, like a bad painting, and still exist.”
Cratylus: “Yes, but names differ from paintings. If a letter is changed in a name, it becomes a different name entirely.”
Socrates: “That’s true for numbers, but not sensory things. If an image had every detail of what it represents, it wouldn’t be an image; it would be a duplicate.”
Cratylus: “Agreed.”
Socrates: “Thus, names can be well-given or poorly given, and we shouldn't insist that names must perfectly resemble the things they name.”
“Even if a name doesn’t include all the right letters, it can still describe a thing if it captures the essential pattern. If you deny this, you'll contradict yourself, Cratylus.”
“Cratylus: I suppose so, but I’m still not satisfied. A name that resembles the thing it names is superior to one given by chance.”
Socrates: “If someone gives a name based on a mistaken understanding, won’t we be misled if we take that name as a guide?
Cratylus: “But the name-giver had to know the truth of the things to name them correctly. All names are consistent with one another.”
Socrates: “But how could the first name-giver know the things he named if no names had been given yet?”
Cratylus: “I think a higher power must have given the first names, making them necessarily correct.”
Socrates: “But even if a god gave those names, there’s a civil war among them—some names suggest rest, others motion. How do we judge which ones are correct?”
“And if everything is constantly changing, as Heraclitus says, how can anything be truly known or named? If knowledge and truth are to exist, then things must have some stability. Instead, we should investigate the truth directly.”
Cratylus: “Yeah, maybe you’re right.”
Socrates: “Teach me more about it another time, I’ve got to scram.”
Wisp’s Note: The origin of virtues as a sort of flow ties in so nicely with the dao, entropy, etc. I really do think the only constant is change.
I was honestly disappointed by much of this, but a window into greek words is important as I’m reading a translation.
Also, reminds me of Anne Carson’s point that words and writing are very different for those who invented it not so long ago.
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THEAETETUS
[ Euclides and Terpsion see Theaetetus suffering from dysentery after a battle and think of a dialogue from Socrates a long time ago ]
Socrates: “So, Theaetetus, you gave me many things when I only asked for one. I wanted to know what knowledge itself is, not just what we can have knowledge of.
“Imagine if someone asked what clay is, and we answered by listing the types—like potters’ clay or brickmakers’ clay. That would be silly, wouldn’t it?
“Saying ‘knowledge of shoes’ doesn’t tell us what knowledge is.”
Theaetetus: “Yeah, you’re right. But I can’t figure it out.”
Socrates: “Don’t worry, I’m the son of a good midwife, and I practice the same art.”
“I deal with the labor of the soul, and my job is to test whether the ideas a person gives birth to are truth or phantoms. I am barren of wisdom, but those who around me often find that they produce many beautiful thoughts.”
“Now, tell me, what do you think knowledge is?”
Theaetetus: “Well, I think knowledge is perception.”
Socrates: “This aligns with Protagoras, who said, “man is the measure of all things”—as things appear to each person, so they are for that person.”
“If two people experience the same wind, but one feels cold and the other doesn’t, should we say the wind itself is cold or not cold?
“Nothing in itself is just one thing. If you call something large, it could also be small. Everything is in a state of becoming, not being.”
“Being—or what passes as such—and becoming come from motion, while rest leads to not-being and decay.”
“Heat, which generates everything else, comes from movement and friction. Rest and idleness cause the body to deteriorate, while exertion and motion preserve it.”
“The same goes for the soul. Through learning and study, the soul gains knowledge and improves. But if it remains idle, it forgets and deteriorates.”
Theaetetus: “That’s true.”
Socrates: “Do you think that a color appears the same to a dog as it does to you? Or another human? Or even yourself at different times?”
Theaetetus: “No, I wouldn’t say that.”
Socrates: “If size, warmth, or color really belonged to the objects themselves, they wouldn’t change just by coming into contact with something else.”
“So maybe what we call white is not something distinct in itself. It’s the result of the interaction between the eye and the motion it perceives.
Theaetetus: “What do you mean by that?”
Socrates: “Nothing can become greater or less without changing, right? And a thing can’t change from what it was without becoming something new?”
Theaetetus: “Yes.”
Socrates: “I haven’t changed in size, yet I’m bigger than you when you were a boy and smaller now that you’ve grown, without any change in myself.”
“Now, can you see how Protagoras’ theory might explain these puzzles?”
Theaetetus: “Not quite yet.”
Socrates: “Their mysteries begin with the idea that everything is only motion.”
“Motion has two forms: one active and one passive. From their interaction, infinite offspring are born—on one side, what is perceived, and on the other, the perception itself.”
“When the eye meets something, it—at the moment it sees—becomes a seeing eye, while its partner is filled with whiteness and becomes white.”
“Nothing is ‘in itself’ or just one thing; everything becomes through interaction—all things become relatively to something.”
Theaetetus: “I’m confused. Do you believe this, or are you testing me?”
Socrates: “I am barren of theories; my business is to attend you in your labor.”
“Wise men say we should stop using words like ‘being’ or ‘something’ and, instead, speak of things as ‘becoming’ or ‘changing.’ Do you agree?”
Theaetetus: “Yeah, I guess?”
Socrates: “Then let’s not skip over anything. Think of dreams and insanity.”
“How can knowledge be perception? Does a madman or dreamer know they can fly? Moreover, are we awake or dreaming right now?
“We spend half our lives awake, asserting one reality, and the other half asleep, asserting another. So, which is true?”
“Can something entirely different from another have the same powers?”
Theaetetus: “If it’s completely different, it can’t be the same in any respect.”
Socrates: “When the same thing interacts with me it generates different experiences. If I drink wine when I’m well, it’s sweet, but if I’m ill, it’s bitter.”
“It’s not the same wine or the same me, right? And neither you nor I remain the same; we’re always becoming something new.”
Theaetetus: “Yes.”
Socrates: “So, my perception is always true for me. And if I’m always right in what I perceive, how could I fail to know what I perceive?”
Theaetetus: “There’s no way you could fail.”
Socrates: “So, Theaetetus, that was quite the idea you had, saying that knowledge is nothing but perception. It aligns with the theories of Heraclitus, Protagoras, and even Homer, all pointing to the idea that everything is in constant flux.”
“I think we’ve just birthed your first intellectual child.”
Theaetetus: “There’s no denying it, Socrates.”
[ Socrates locks in ]
Socrates: “Now that it’s been born, we need to examine it carefully.”
“Why didn’t Protagoras begin by by saying, ‘pig is the measure of all things’? After all, if perception is truth, why is he wiser than a pig or a baboon?”
“If everyone’s perception is equally valid, why did anyone need to pay and learn from him? Isn’t it all just nonsense if we accept his theory?”
Theaetetus: “Oh no, now I’m doubting myself again”
Socrates: “Do we know things just by perceiving them?”
“If we hear someone speaking in a foreign language, we don’t know the meaning just because we hear them.”
“But we say that seeing is perceiving, and perceiving is knowing. But what if I’m remembering something I’m not currently perceiving? If I close my eyes, do I still know you?
“This is absurd—perception and knowledge can’t be the same thing.”
Theaetetus: “Oh man.”
Socrates: “But let’s be fair and steelman Protagoras”
“Protagoras, do you really think someone can remember past experiences unless they’re still experiencing them? Or can he can know and not know the same thing?”
Protagoras (imagined by Socrates): “Each person is the measure of what is and isn’t. People differ because different things are true for different people.”
“I don’t deny wisdom exists; the wise person can change what appears bad into something good. Education changes a worse state into a better one. It’s not about finding true or false judgments, but changing perceptions from worse to better.”
“When someone is in a bad state, they judge things accordingly. But if you change their soul’s state, they see things differently. The wise politician makes just things seem just, and the good teacher educates students to improve their perceptions.
“In this way, we can say some are wiser, but no one judges falsely.”
Socrates: “In times of distress, everyone turns to those who are wiser for help: people believe wisdom is true judgement while ignorance is false.”
“Either way, the idea that man is the measure of all things leads us to the conclusion that humans always judge truly, which is absurd.”
“If you make a judgment, but others disagree, do we say that your judgment is true for you but false for others?”
Theodorus: “It seems that’s what we must say.”
Socrates: “And what about Protagoras himself? If he doesn’t believe his own theory, then it’s not true for him or anyone else.”
“But if he does believe it, and most people don’t, then the theory is more not-true than true. And if he admits the truth of the most, he’s admitting his theory is false.”
“So, even Protagoras would have to admit that some people are not measures of anything they haven’t learned.”
Theodorus: “We’re being hard on my friend, Socrates.”
Socrates: “But we’re not straying from the truth. And right now, it seems clear that some people are wiser than others.”
“Let’s look at the future. If a man thinks something will happen, does it happen because he thinks so? If a idiot thinks he will get a fever, but his doctor thinks otherwise, will will the future confirm one or both?”
Theodorus: “That’s absurd, the expert is a better judge than the layman.”
Socrates: “Exactly, an unskilled person like me is not a measure, no matter how much Protagoras' theory tries to make me one.”
Theodorus: “Hmmm… that’s a good point”
Socrates: “Let’s go back to basics. They claim everything is in motion. But there appears to be two types: spatial movement and alteration.”
“The first is moving from one place to another or turning in place. The second is changes in some way, like growing old or changing color.”
“If everything is in constant motion, we must ask: if perception itself is constantly changing, can we say that anything is truly perceived?”
Theodorus: “No, we can’t.”
Socrates: “But knowledge is perception, right?”
“Thus Protagoras’ argument makes every statement equally valid, which is absurd.”
“Even the language they use doesn’t fit their theory. They’ll have to invent a new language where nothing stands still.”
Theodorus: “Indeed.”
[ Socrates turns back to Theaetetus ]
Socrates: :Theaetetus, suppose you were asked, ‘How does a man see or hear?’You’d say with the eyes or through the eyes, right?”
Theaetetus: “Yes, that’s right.”
Socrates: “Now, what part of ourselves perceives color through the eyes and other things through other senses?”
Theaetetus: “I’d say the body perceives them.”
Socrates: “But you admit that you can’t perceive with one sense what another sense perceives, right?”
Theaetetus: “Yes, that’s correct.”
Socrates: “So, what is it that perceives these common features, like being and not-being, or likeness and unlikeness?”
Theaetetus: “It seems like the soul considers these things through itself, without any bodily instrument.”
Socrates: “You’re quite right, Theaetetus. You’ve saved us a lot of talk.”
“So, there are some things that all creatures can perceive naturally, but understanding their true nature comes only with effort, education, and time.”
Theaetetus: “That’s true.”
Socrates: “Now, can someone who doesn’t grasp the truth understand a thing?”
Theaetetus: “No, it’s impossible.”
Socrates: “So, knowledge isn’t found in sensory experience but in reasoning about those experiences.”
Theaetetus: “Yes, that’s how it seems.”
Socrates: “Then perception and knowledge can’t be the same thing.”
Theaetetus: “No, apparently not.”
Socrates: “So, let’s start fresh. Tell me again, what is knowledge?”
Theaetetus: “Well, knowledge might be true judgment.”
Socrates: “Now, you said there are two types of judgment—true and false.”
“But I’m troubled. How does false judgment arise?”
Theaetetus: “Uhhhhh…”
Socrates: “Let’s agree that false judgement happens and we either know things or we don’t. Thus, when we judge, we judge things we either know or don’t know.”
“Then, how can false judgment occur? Can a man confuse one thing he knows with another he knows? Or a thing he doesn’t know with another?”
Theaetetus: “I don’t see how that could happen.”
Socrates: “We can try and approach this by considering being and not-being. Maybe false judgment occurs when someone judges something that isn’t.”
“Can a man see something, yet see nothing? If he is seeing any one thing, he must be seeing something that exists.”
“Or do you think a “one” can be found among things that do not exist?”
Theaetetus: “I certainly don’t think so.”
Socrates: “So, if a man is judging something that doesn’t exist, he’s judging nothing? But a man who is judging nothing isn’t judging at all.”
Theaetetus: “That seems clear.”
Socrates: “Maybe false judgment is ‘other-judging,’ which arises when a man substitutes one existing thing in place of another in his thoughts.”
Theaetetus: “That seems right. When someone judges ‘ugly’ instead of ‘beautiful,’ then he is judging falsely.”
Socrates: “But have you ever told yourself ‘the beautiful is ugly’ or ‘the unjust is just’? Have you ever tried to persuade yourself that ‘one thing is another’?
“And do you think anyone else, in their right mind or not, has seriously thought ‘a cow is a horse’ or ‘two is one’?”
Theaetetus: “No, that would be absurd.”
Socrates: “So, ‘other-judging’ isn’t possible. If someone defines false judgment as ‘heterodoxy,’ he’ll be saying nothing.”
Theaetetus: “It seems that way.”
Socrates: “I think we were wrong to say it’s impossible for a man to be in error by judging things he knows as things he doesn’t know. It is possible.”
Theaetetus: “Is this like when I see someone at a distance and think it’s Socrates, but it’s someone else?”
Socrates: “Exactly. But we rejected that because it made it seem like we don’t know what we know.”
Theaetetus: “Huh?”
Socrates: “Suppose we have in our souls a block of wax. We make impressions on it of everything we wish to remember. These impressions are our memories.”
“A man could judge falsely in this way by thinking that the impression of what he knows is something else he knows.”
“Also, you can know both things—be perceiving both—but misalign them, like putting your shoes on the wrong feet.”
“So, when the soul aligns things correctly, the judgment is true. If not, it’s false.”
Theaetetus: “Yes, that makes sense.”
Socrates: “But we said at the start that false judgment was impossible, because it would mean knowing and not knowing the same thing at the same time.”
“So it must be something other than misaligning thought and perception. Either there’s no false judgment, or a man can know and not know the same thing.
Theaetetus: “That’s a difficult choice.”
Socrates: “Then let’s be shameless and try to say what knowing is like.”
Theaetetus: “Why would that be shameless?”
Socrates: “Because we’ve been discussing knowledge without knowing what it is.”
Theaetetus: “But how can we discuss, Socrates, if we avoid those words?”
Socrates: “It’s quite impossible for someone like me; but if I were an expert in contradictions, I might manage. But I’ll just venture ahead anyhow.”
“People say knowing is ‘the having of knowledge’ nowadays. Let’s tweak that a bit—let’s say ‘the possession of knowledge’ instead.”
Theaetetus: “And how is that different from the first?”
Socrates: “For instance, if a man buys a coat and it’s at his disposal but he isn’t wearing it, we wouldn’t say he ‘has’ it on, but we’d say he ‘possesses’ it.”
“Imagine a man who hunts wild birds, catches them, and keeps them in an aviary at his house. In a sense, we’d say he ‘has’ them because he possesses them, right?”
“But in another sense, he ‘has’ none of them; he only has the power to catch any one of them whenever he wants, and let it go again as he pleases.”
Theaetetus: “That’s true.”
Socrates: “Now, earlier we talked about the soul having a waxen block. Let’s imagine the soul as an aviary full of all kinds of birds.”
“When we’re children, this aviary is empty. The birds are pieces of knowledge. When someone takes possession of a piece of knowledge and locks it up, we say they’ve learned what that knowledge is, and that’s what we call knowing.”
“Now, when someone hunts again for a piece of knowledge, catches it, and then lets it go, what should we call this? Is it the same as when they first took possession of the knowledge, or is it different?”
“When someone masters arithmetic, they know all numbers because they have pieces of knowledge about all numbers in their soul. But when they count, it seems as if this person is considering something they know as if they didn’t know it.”
“Have you ever had such puzzles?”
Theaetetus: “Yes, I have.”
Socrates: “Using our aviary analogy, we might say there are two phases of hunting—one to get possession and another to catch what you’ve already acquired.”
“So, even with things you learned long ago, you can still learn them again by catching and ‘having’ that knowledge once more.”
“Now, what should we say when an arithmetician counts or a scholar reads? Isn’t it odd that someone who knows something might set out to learn it again from themselves?”
Theaetetus: “That would be odd.”
Socrates: “Then let’s not worry about the names—people can call it ‘knowing’ or ‘learning’ as they like. We’ve determined that ‘possessing’ knowledge and ‘having’ it are different.”
“It’s impossible for someone to not possess what they possess, so they always know what they know. But they might make a false judgment because they ‘have’ the wrong knowledge. It’s like catching the wrong bird in the aviary.”
“But when they catch the right knowledge, they judge correctly. This explains both true and false judgment, and the things that troubled us before no longer do. Do you agree?”
Theaetetus: “I do.”
Socrates: “We’ve now removed the problem of ‘not knowing what one knows.’ But something else more alarming is coming.”
Theaetetus: “What’s that?”
Socrates: “If false judgment is just an interchange of pieces of knowledge, then a man who has knowledge is ignorant of that very thing because of his knowledge.”
“He judges that one thing is another, which is absurd. This would mean that knowing something makes a man ignorant.”
Theaetetus: “What if birds are only pieces of knowledge? Maybe there are pieces of ignorance too, and sometimes the hunter catches them instead.”
Socrates: “That’s clever, Theaetetus, but think again. If he catches a piece of ignorance, he’ll judge falsely because he thinks he has knowledge, not ignorance.”
“So, we’re back to our original problem. The expert in refutation will laugh at us. He’ll ask if a man who knows both knowledge and ignorance is thinking one is the other. Or if he knows neither and judges one to be the other.”
“Or maybe there are other aviaries or wax blocks with knowledge about knowledge and ignorance, and we’re just going around in circles. What do we say to that?”
Theaetetus: “I don’t know, Socrates.”
Socrates: “Maybe it’s impossible to understand false judgment until we grasp what knowledge is. So let’s start fresh again, what are we going to say knowledge is?”
Theaetetus: “I still think knowledge is true judgment. True judgment is free from mistakes, and everything that comes from it is good.”
Socrates: “This won’t take long to consider. There’s a whole art that suggests knowledge isn’t what you say.”
Theaetetus: “What art? What do you mean?”
Socrates: “The art of orators and lawyers—they persuade people without teaching them, making them judge whatever they choose.”
“Do you think any teacher could teach a jury the truth of what happened in a robbery or assault case in the short time allowed?”
Theaetetus: “No, but they might persuade them.”
Socrates: “And by ‘persuading them,’ you mean making them judge, right?”
Theaetetus: “Of course.”
Socrates: “So, if a jury is justly persuaded of something only an eyewitness could know, and they decide correctly based on hearsay, they’ve judged correctly without knowledge.”
“But they couldn’t have done that if true judgment were the same as knowledge. So, they must be different things.”
Theaetetus: “Oh, I once heard someone say that true judgment with an account is knowledge, but true judgment without an account isn’t.
“He said that things without an account aren’t knowable, while those with are.”
Socrates: “Interesting. How did he distinguish between the knowable and the unknowable? Let’s see if we’ve heard the same thing.”
Theaetetus: “I’m not sure if I can explain it.”
Socrates: “Imagine if someone asked us your name and we just listed the syllables. We’d be correct, but not giving a real scholar's answer. A true account means going through the thing element by element, as we said before.”
“So, with the example of the wagon, we might have correct judgment, but the one who breaks it down into its hundred parts has true knowledge. That’s the person who moves from judgment to expert knowledge by going through all the elements.”
Theaetetus: “And that sounds reasonable to you, Socrates?”
Socrates: “Do you think someone truly knows something if they sometimes think one part belongs to one thing and sometimes to another?”
Theaetetus: “No, I don’t.”
Socrates: “Then you remember when you were first learning to read and write, you’d mix up letters in a word, right”
Theaetetus: “Yes, we did that a lot.”
Socrates: “So, at that stage, could you really be said to have knowledge?
Theaetetus: “No, not really.”
Socrates: “Now, if someone like that writes "Theaetetus" correctly once, then writes "Theodorus" and gets it wrong, can we say he knows the first syllable of your name?”
Socrates: “So, even when he writes your name correctly, it’s still just correct judgment, not knowledge, even though he knows the letters.”
“So we see that correct judgment with an account isn’t necessarily knowledge.”
Theaetetus: “Yes, it seems so.”
Socrates: “Maybe there's another definition left. Perhaps it’s recognizing some mark that distinguishes the thing you’re judging from everything else.”
“Take the sun—you might say it’s the brightest thing in the sky. That’s a mark that distinguishes it.”
“So, if you grasp that mark, you’d move from judgment to knowledge.”
Theaetetus: “Yes, that makes sense.”
Socrates: “But when I try to explain it, it’s like looking at a shadow painting—up close, it’s hard to make sense of. If I know you but don’t grasp what makes you different from others, can I truly say I know you?”
Theaetetus: “No, I guess not.”
Socrates: “So, what more does adding an account to judgment do? If it just means judging the difference, then we already had that judgment. It’s like adding what we already have—totally pointless.”
“And if it means getting to know the difference, it’s even more ridiculous because we’re saying knowledge is true judgment plus knowledge. That’s not helpful at all.”
Socrates: “So, Theaetetus, knowledge isn’t perception, or true judgment, or even true judgment with an account.”
Theaetetus: “Fuck.”
Socrates: “Well, it seems we’ve only given birth to wind-eggs—nothing worth raising. Also, I got to go respond to Meletus. Bye.”
Wisp’s Note: Very, very good. My best resolution is to remove good from knowledge. For example, that all knowledge is false judgement and we should rely on pure experience.
But then, the question returns, what is pure experience? And is that good? For example, I’d say I know the One now but not yet intuitively. Very shameless of me to claim knowing without knowing what it is.
Oomph. This is hard…