Mind Association

'Knowledge by Acquaintance' in Plato's Theaetetus Author(s): R. S. Bluck Source: Mind, New Series, Vol. 72, No. 286 (Apr., 1963), pp. 259-263 Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the Mind Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2251697 . Accessed: 11/05/2013 09:29
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'KNOWLEDGE BY ACQUAINTANCE' IN PLATO'S THEAETETUS SOME scholarshave maintainedthat the purpose of the Theaetetus is not, as Cornfordheld, simply to show that knowledge (&7rca-r'p-) cannot be explainedif we leave the Forms out of account, but-rather to show that knowledgecannot be a matter of ' acquaintance' of any kind, being necessarilypropositional. My purpose is to rebut this contention. ProfessorRyle pointed to the argumentthat knowledgeinvolves judgement. 'This means', he says (MIND, xlviii (1939), 317), ' to bring together threads from earlier and later parts of the dialogue, that knowledge requires for its expression not just a name but a sentence or statement '. The inquiry into the nature of false belief shows that a 'simple' could never be the object of a mistake: 'I could mistakenly think that 7+5=11. . . . But 7 could not be the total object of a mistake, and so, by implication, not the total object of a piece of true belief or knowledgeeitber' (p. 318). 'What I know or truly believe or falsely believe is some sort of a complex of elements, and one the verbal statement of which requires . . . a complex expression of which the special form of unity is that of a sentence. What constitutes a complex, like a syllable, a unity is some feature of it other than any one or the mere lot of its elements, such as letters. That is, Plato is now consideringthe places and roles of " terms " in truths and falsehoods,with his eye on the underlying question of what are the principles of organisation which govern the combinationof such " terms "' (p. 320). Now the Greekwordco'ea is not necessarilyto be associatedwith propositions. It may refersimplyto what a thing 'seems like'. In the Meno 8o0'aabout a thing may be convertedinto E7r?tjqJof it, and in the Republic one may be led on (or upwards) from ao'a to E7rt0nT and in the Republic, at least, Ec7rLa-r is certainly a matter of ' knowledge by acquaintance' with Forms. Thereis no reason to suppose that at the time of the Republic Plato associated&o'ea any morethan with propositions;and the indicationsare that even in the E7TLcaYTJp-q Theaets,tus he is not introducing80'a as something essentially propositional. At 202b Socratesuses the expression'to get hold of the true 8o0'a of something without a logos', and at 190d and 209b he uses 8oea4Etvto mean 'to think of ' or 'to have in mind '. When Socrates shows that mere sense-perceptioncannot apprehendexistence and non-existence,likenessand unlikeness,and so on, he seems to be interested not so much in the fact that judgements such as ' X is F ' are propositionalas in the questionwith what sort of faculty we apprehendthe element. of F-ness. Theaetetus' conclusion, of which Socratesapproves,is that existence and so on are things that
must be surveyed
(E'7naKOTEtv)

by the soul (185e).

The point seems

to be that some things are objects not of any sense-organbut of 8o'ea; and it looks as though Uoeamay be introducednot in orderto indicate 259

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260

R. S. BLUCK:

that an object of knowledgemust be somethingcomplex, but simply to show that knowledgeinvolves not, or not only, sense-data, but mental apprehension. So far thereis no reasonto supposethat Plato had evergoneinto the questionwhethera 3o'ea would be propositionalor not. Sometimes he treats a 8'ea as though it were propositional,at others he seems to be thinking of it as a sort of mental image-a conceptionwhich, howeverdifficult(especiallyin the case of things like existence),is at least no more difficultthan that of knowledgeby acquaintancewith the Good. Had Plato intended, in introducing8o0'a,to showthat what can be knownis what can be truly opinedand thereforestated, he would surely have been bound,in view of his treatment of o'ea in earlier dialogues (whereit is not clearly propositional),to make his point moreclearlyhere. Instead, he seems deliberatelyto remindus of his earlierviews, and to give no hint that a special aspect of 8o0'a is being for the first time noticed, and a new conception of E'Muir does not by itself constitute implied. Whenit is foundthat true 8o0'a knowledge, this finding is accompanied by the juryman-and-eyewitness analogy. Knowledgeis to true belief as is the state of mind of an eye-witnessto the state of mind of a jurymanwho is won over by persuasion. We are inevitably reminded of the road-to-Larisa illustrationin the Meno, where the man with personalexperienceof the road is said to have knowledge,while the man who has merely been given correctinstructionshas only true opinion. Both analogies suggest that some sort of personalacquaintanceis the mark of knowledge; and as applied to a priori knowledge,the Meno illustration or ra EKEl. It is certainly meant that knowledgeinvolved yvcJocns natural to suppose that the Theaetetus analogy, as applied to such things as existence and likeness,ought to mean the same. Furthermore, the Timacus tells us that if knowledge and true belief are different, then there are Forms, whereas if they are not different, sensible objects must constitute reality (51d). Even if the Timaeus it wouldseem natural,in the absenceof clear precededthe Theaetetus, evidence to the contrary,to take the present distinction as implying that knowledgeis of Forms. Socratestreats false 8o0'aas Again, it is true that in the Theaetetus though it must be some kind of aoA8Aoea-taking one thing for another,thinking ' ugly ' instead of ' beautiful ' or 11 instead of 12. But that there is no sort of deliberatemistake here designedto imply is suggested that judgementsandlikewiseknowledgearepropositional by the fact that the same thing is done in the Sophist. Theretoo the essence of falsity consistsin getting hold of a wrongpredicate-thing'stating what is differentas thoughit werethe same ' (263d). There the context shows, as I have arguedelsewhere(JHS, lxxvii (1957), 183 ff.), that ' different' and ' same ' refer to things denoted by the predicate only. In the Sophist, of course, Plato is at the same time treating judgements as propositionalin character; but 263d shows that the meretreatmnent is not a deliberate of false 80'a as dAWAo8oa

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'KNOWLEDGE

BY ACQUAINTANCE'

261

absurdity, from which we must be meant to infer the propositional characterof 8o0'a. Indeed it seems that in the TheaetetusPlato is looking for the psychologicalrather than the logical explanation of false 8o0'a,and this is a question that is not resolved even in the Sophist. Whenin the SophistSocratesconsiders because propositions he wants to show that false statements, whether expressedor silent, are logically possible, there is no hint that there is any special connec-tion betweenthe natureof a statementandthe natureof knowledge. It may be added that when in the Theaetetus (186e) Socratesrefutes the suggestion that knowledge is perception by remarking that perception has no part in apprehendingd'A40Eta because it has no
part in apprehending being (oviota),this need not mean that
E7Tur

is knowledge of true propositions: for &A4EUta, besides meaning 'truth ', can also mean ' genuineness' or ' what is genuine or real'. Lastly, a proposof the idea that in the Theaetetus Plato is considering the complex make-up of a sentence, it may be noted that the outcome of the discussion of complexes no more suggests that knowledgeis in fact of complexesthan that it is of simples; and it certainly leaves open the questionwhether or not a complex should be regardedas something differentfrom the sum of its parts. The but the two dialogues Sophistis indeed the sequel to the Theaetetus, arenot both concerned with the logic of propositions. The Theaetetus, I suggest, shows that whatever the psychological explanation of error may be, knowledge cannot be explained if the Forms are left out of account; and the Sophistsupportsthis conclusion(as against the view attributedto Protagorasin the Theaetetus) by showingthat it is logically possible to think or speak what is false. It looks, then, as though 6rtur4r may be knowledgeby acquaintance with Forms, and that a thing like the number 7 can be an But Mr. Hamlyn finds evidence that the terms object of E-c7jtz. E7r4TW,nu and yvckrtsg are no longer equivalent and interchangeable, as they werein the Republic(cf. 477a, 510a, 517b), but are contrasted. For Hamlyn, the centralproblemof the Theaetetus, as of the Sophist, is how knowledge which is expressible in ordinary statements is possible: Plato is trying to ' vindicate ordinaryknowledge' (Phil. Q. v (1955), 300-302). While holding that Plato still believed in Forms of some kind, he sees a sharp contrast in the Theaetetus between yvckrtgor recognitionof a Form, and Er4c7zu that is expressible in statements made about it. He appeals to the two passages where the enumerationof the parts of a thing is discussed(203a ff., 207a ff.), and arguesthat as the formeruses yvckrtg and its derivatives
without reference to
Eu-rc7az

, while the latter does the reverse, W could come simply from direct But he does not;

Plato must be making a distinctionbetweentwo kinds of knowledge.

If Plato still believed that
E`Mon-

acquaintance with Forms, Hamlyn argues, ' one would expect Socrates to conclude his refutation of the dream-theoryby saying
that elements are more E7r-rros-

' (MIND, lxvi (1957), 547). he says that they are more yvcocr-o's

than complexes.

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262

R. S. BLUCK:

that he rememberssomeonesaying that those things whereofone has true 80'a which is dAoyos arc OVKE)rLaT7-Tap - ova5-rt Kat ovoa'C&vThe are Euiripr-r4a. Ao'yov but those whereofone has true 8o0'a LLE-ra
words
ov6cOrL Kat ovoua'Cwv

Now at 201c-d, after Socrates has distinguished 'rruxn from with the aid of the eye-witnessanalogy, Theaetetussays &0xaa'ArqXr6

might conceivably mean that special raa-r-rprca by the person from whom the theory was heard. But whatever the explanation of these words may be, if Socrates himself had been meant to point such a distinction as Hamlyn wishes to find he would hardly have been made to say, in the account of his dream (202c), that if you have a correct impression of a complex object without a Ao'yos as of it you do not ytyVQc'TKElV the thing, but if you have the Ao'yoT well you have got -'7rtjr-q,v of it ('of it' is clearly implied: with E7 U1-O7pav EXELV compare the preceding avEtr-qi-uova TEAELCOS TpoS The point here can hardly be that the Ao'yos. Etvat7 rEpt i-ov'rov). V JL? because it provides a proposition, for tiTa-r gives you EcTta-r7 seems clearly to be used simply as the opposite of ovi yCyvLOUKEtV. EXEtv It is true that Socrates is here expounding the dream-theory, which is not his own, but if he meant immediately afterwards to indicate an important distinction that was his own between yv6krts- of simples and u74TWqJpof propositions, it would be odd that he should here confuse the issue in this way. The matter becomes clearer still at 209e. If, argues Socrates, acquiring a Ao'yoS means getting to know (yvc6vat) a distinguishing mark, then it is absurd to define EaTIq14L7 Why is it absurd? Precisely, surely, as true 8o0'a plus this yvkot.. is simply another name for the definiendum, E irt0X-,. because yvCoors v Aa/3EZv EaUtv. 7r7 As Socrates himself says, ro yap yvCZvat E7TL9UT7FLV However one might try to explain away this passage, if one of Plato's objects in the dialogue was to indicate an important new distinction of his own, it is surely incredible that he should allow Socrates here to identify the terms concerned. In neither of the two passages to which Hamlyn points, 203a ff. and 207a if., does either of the terms occur very frequently, and no pointed distinction may be intended at all. Hamlyn (loc. cit.) is no doubt right when he takes 207a if. to mean that ' E 7rto4p, does not consist of true belief with the possibility of enumerating the parts of a thing at all (whether we have yvduat. of the parts or not)', and that as applied to Forms it means that 'if Forms of are simples, and if despite the dream theory we can have yvCoarsT

significancewas attached to th'e use of the word

them, we do not haveJMUT 'rr,qmerely

by truly believing something

about some object and by being able to list the Forms in which that particular object participates' ; or perhaps we should say, we do not have E7r49jnqt of a Form such as Wagon by truly believing something about it and being able to list the parts of one of its instances. But there is not still a kind of yvcnO9t. is nothing here to show that u7CTWjU17 In Hamlyn's view (loc. cit.), 'the implication . . . is that we do not have E7rtg-r4 about a thing unless we also know the principles in

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'KNOWLEDGE

BY ACQUAINTANCE'

263

virtue of which syllables (i.e. combinationsof simples) are formed'. But what we are told is that the reasonwhy the ability to enumerate the parts of a thing does not convert cpOp') 80o'a into knowledgeis that you may be able to make a correctenumerationin one instance, but not in every instance of the same thing (207d-208a);aindwhat is needed to enable you to do that every time is not, surely, a general understanding of the principles in virtue of which complexes are formed, but an inner certainty resulting from personal familiarity with the particular'syllable' (or Form whose instances have parts) concerned. Such an interpretationagreeswith what the eye-witness analogy suggests about the relationship between true 8o0'a and and the syllables-analogymay be taken to have precisely E7&Tlrju; the same meaning, 'a propos of ' complex' Forms, as the lettersanalogy has, 'apropos of' simple' Forms, at Rep. 402a-b. It may be, as Cornfordsuggests (PTK, pp. 142, 146, n.1), that would involve the acquisition of a different sort of Ao'yo& E7tur4STq from any of those discussed in the Theaetetus-an explanation of a thing's raison d'etre. But this might follow upon the personal acquaintancethat is clearly regardedas necessary-and that means, surely, yvckrtgs of the particularForm concerned. Universityof Manchester R. S. BLUCK

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